3 things you didn't notice in Bāhubali: The Beginning

So, I have finally watched the most expensive film ever made in India, Bāhubali, in Telugu. Since I had the chance to watch it on the largest IMAX screen in India at Prasad's, I happened to look at the "bigger picture" and observed a lot of things which for those who watched in silly theaters could go over the top of their heads. 

Here are some of those, starting from the most shocking ones:

1. Sivudu may be hallucinating the entire plot

To those who forgot the names of characters due to the overshadowing war episode, Sivudu, whose birth-name is Mahendra Bāhubali, is the son-Prabhas who, obviously, is the son of the father-Prabhas, Amarendra Bāhubali. The father-Prabhas is again, not so obviously, the son of a grandfather-Prabhas, Dharmendra Bāhubali (The name was to appeal to Hindi audience). The confusing part here is that all the 3 roles are played by the same actor, Prabhas. However, we can distinguish them by their body weights: son-Prabhas is leaner than father-Prabhas, and grandfather-Prabhas is only seen in a painting (at least for now).

Sivudu, with both his nostrils expanded to their fullest capacity

Now that you are reminded of who Sivudu is, you should also be reminded that he is a very naughty boy: He wants to see the world beyond the waterfall bordering his village. The catch here is that, he cannot climb up the waterfall (or can he?). So, he tries to climb a slippery rock hill on one side of the waterfall, and jump across the breadth of the waterfall, to land on the rock hill on the other side, and then climb over to wonderland. 

But, we see in the introduction scene that he cannot make the jump, and falls some 40 feet into the water. The reason for this is his lousy group of friends who are douchebags enough to discourage him, thereby stopping the plot from advancing.

However, to those of you who failed to see the "bigger picture", here's what I observed: Because of his 40-feet fall, Sivudu damages his skull, goes into psychosis, and starts hallucinating the entire plot. This idea can be illustrated by the following events that seem surreal, but subsequently unfold anyway:

• Sivudu detaching a seemingly heavy Shiva linga, balancing it on his shoulders and head and planting it under the waterfall. 

Under normal circumstances, he would be killed by his tribe for hitting the idol with crowbars and insulting god. But since it's a hallucination, nothing of that sort happens.

• Just when he finishes the above task, he sees a wooden mask falling from the waterfall. 

Come on, what are the chances that you happen to find wooden masks dropping from the sky when you go visit a waterfall, after you carry a Shiva linga on your head, unless you are chewing magic mushrooms?

• He sticks this suspicious wooden mask into sand, and Tamanna's bust (head, not breasts you pervert) comes up. 

Too bad, Spiderman is an idiot trying to keep his identity a secret. If someone gets hold of his mask, they can go to beach, take a sunbath, and in the return trip get Toby Maguire arrested. Oh sorry, Toby Maguire is not Spiderman anymore, it is that guy who got screwed by Zuckerberg in the facebook movie.

• He 'actually' starts hallucinating Tamanna (what was her character name again? Oh yes, Avantika) and her dance moves. 

Now, this is where Rajamouli gives you his Nolan-esque touch: putting clues in scenes so that you can decipher the "bigger picture", just in the way I did.

• Sivudu finally manages to jump across the waterfall looking at the imaginary Avantika. 

This happens in the hallucination which Rajamouli shows you, which happens inside the actual hallucination that Rajamouli doesn't show you, but leaves clues in the hallucination he shows you, to decipher what's really going on. 

The key thing to note here is Sivudu's pose while jumping: it's a Superman-style flying pose. And, I remember another film other than Superman, where such pose is shown: The Big Lebowski where 'the Dude' dreams after being hit on the head.

That was some lovely lively dream, man!

See? That's Rajamouli again with a Nolan-esque touch: giving you another clue as to tell you what's actually happening. You didn't notice that, did you?

And lastly,

• Sivudu manages to pull off the least-cost path algorithm of seducing a woman

I think he did this with the inspiration of K Raghavendra Rao BA. This is why you should do a BA, so that you can also come up with such techniques and change the world.

Coming to seduction, another thing I observed in the film is that:


2. Female comrades wear sexy lingerie inside

I understand that Sivudu became a make-up man for Avantika, but he didn't become the costume designer, i.e., he didn't make her lingerie out of leaves and twigs. So, it follows that she was wearing it from before. Why? There may be 2 reasons:

• Her masked revolutionary group prescribes sexy lingerie as part of uniform to all its members.

Why? Probably because when you become horny and want to have sex with your comrade in a dense forest in the middle of the revolution, the least your group can provide is some sexy lingerie and a chance for role-playing.

If this were true, then this would also be one of the hidden clues Rajamouli puts in the film for us to decipher and expand our understanding of revolutionary groups. He certainly did a lot of research while writing the script.

The other reason could be

• When someone rips her sleeves and armor off, washes her, applies make up, and finally strips her down to the undies, she wants to look pretty, and not turn-off the guy. This is for the greater good: To advance the plot.

But then, why would Avantika think in such a way, unless she is either recruited as a femme fatale or is a closeted nymphomaniac? I would favor the former.

Avantika, before joining the revolutionary group

However, speaking of Avantika being mental,

3. Almost every character in the film suffers from a Psychological disorder

Now, I am not pulling off some Freudian psychoanalysis shit where every aspect of your behavior has got to do with either your genitals or your mother. My idea is that, if you pull any of the characters in this film out from the screen to the real world and take them to a psychiatrist, they have a good chance of being diagnosed with a clinical psychological disorder.

Here are some:

• Sivudu: Hallucinations

He may also be eating magic mushrooms for all we know. You can't deny their supply where he comes from.

• Devasena: Sadistic personality disorder

Boy, she really wants to see Bhallaladeva getting tortured real bad and being severed, and wishes to dump him on the funeral pyre herself. She even meticulously picks up twigs and tree branches and prepares it for 25 years.

• Sivagami: Delusional disorder

Well, she has unusual faith in her lactating capacity. Even mothers with twins find it difficult to produce enough milk for both. She is also humorless and sensitive, and shows a taste for unusual sadistic revenge when the barbarian threatens rape.

• Kattappa: Stockholm syndrome

He doesn't want to get out of slavery, and he is actually sympathetic towards his captors.

• Avantika: Borderline personality disorder

She shows all its classic symptoms: Impulsiveness, unstable behavior, idealization and devaluation of others. We may get more information in the second part.

• Bhallaladeva: Antisocial personality disorder, aka, Psychopathy

Symptoms: Cruelty towards animals, disregard and violation of others' rights, lack of remorse, false charisma

• Bijjaladeva: Sexual frustration

Now, this is open for interpretation. This fellow has a wife who is busy with ruling the kingdom and lactating for 2 kids. His right-hand always holds a wine glass, and his left-hand is useless, so he can't have one off the wrist. Also taking into consideration his appearance without a shirt and with a walrus mustache, he is the prime candidate for a sexually frustrated old guy.

Bijjaladeva, showing both his hands and the walrus mustache. He is wearing clothes to appear less creepy

And finally,

• The headless dude who walks for a mile: Cougar fetish (preferably with bondage)

Well, this cannot be classified as a psychological disorder, but I think it's worth mentioning.

• All the soldiers guarding Devasena: Selective blindness disorder

Come on, what were they doing when a prisoner is suspiciously collecting twigs and branches and pooling them together for 25 years? Are they thinking she's doing her part for Swachh Bharat Abhiyan?

Conclusion

Since Rajamouli is a genius, I think he wanted to put a sane character, Bāhubali (the 2 of them) into a world of nutcases, including his foster-mother/grandmother and wife/mother, and see how these characters take the plot forward. If he were not a genius, we can say that all he can think of are blandness and clichés from films of the 70s while writing characters and doing character development.

In conclusion, I think some of these observations can be more evident in the second part of the film, which I am expecting to contain another ample dose of character development and plot advancement in the most astonishing way, with Rajamouli dropping us more clues and Easter eggs to provide insights into revolutionary groups and psychological disorders.

PS: This piece is only about the bad writing of the film touted to be the pride of Telugu/Indian cinema. I liked the war sequence in the film, and I wish Rajamouli chops off junk like the above in his second part and in the international cuts. No one wants to go through half of the film with scenes establishing clichéd characters in the most annoying way.

Friendship day

So we have lots of "days" in an year, thanks to scumbag greeting card companies and a society that will buy even this and this with the correct type of marketing. Now what's with friendship day specifically?

Take your mother. She takes care of you, and you ask her anything you forgot where you've put, you get an answer. She remembers extreme details of all types of stuff, and you get mad at her when she couldn't  find your things. And what you do on Mother's day? You wish her, appreciate all the things she does for you, sleep tight and wake up to another day of forgetting your shit and yelling at her.

Take your father. He pays. He pays for your food, your clothes, your school, your dates, even saves something for your goddamn children. And yet you ask him for a 350cc bullet and get mad at him when he says no. And what you do on Father's day? You buy him some gift (probably with his money), appreciate all that he does for you, sleep tight and wake up to another day of shopping list.

Take your girlfriend. She.. hmm.. you know what all she does for you. And you basically think you deserve all that. And again you try to be funny saying things like why women are dumb, and why peanut butter is better than a blonde, and such sexist jokes. And what you do on Valentine's day? You stop the stupid jokes, buy her something romantic, appreciate her for sticking with an asshole like you, listen to her that day hoping for a surprise in the night.

Take your boyfriend. He basically pays for your shopping. And you bear his stupidity. And what you do on Valentine's day? You do some shopping for him instead, make him listen to what you say at least on that day, finally give him a surprise in the night by literally sleeping tight.

Now take your friends. You hang out with them, say mean things about other people, discuss sports, clothes, shoes, Katrina Kaif, Salman Khan, Anna Hazare and Sunny Leone with them. And what you do on Friendship day? You hang out with them, say mean things about other people, discuss sports, clothes, shoes, Katrina Kaif, Shahrukh Khan, Anna Hazare and Sunny Leone with them. Is there anything else you would do on this "special occasion"?

You don't appreciate someone for letting you be her/his friend, you may even not remember why you both became friends. It's neither planned, nor you both might've made much effort to become friends. May be you both like the same sport or hate Karan Johar with the same intensity. That's all sufficient for becoming friends, and peer-pressure takes care of the rest.

But still, you long to be in their company, making it one of the best times you have, and you don't need a greeting card company to remind your friends that they're friends with you. A lifetime relation itself is a reflection of the depth of friendship you share.

And you don't really have a break-up rite for friendship. That's why this is funny.

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Consciousness raisers

An excerpt from one Richard Dawkins's book. Amazingly sarcastic but factual:

In a science-fiction starship, the astronauts were homesick: 'Just to think that it's springtime back on Earth!' You may not immediately see what's wrong with this, so deeply ingrained is the unconscious northern hemisphere chauvinism in those of us who live there, and even some who don't. 'Unconscious' is exactly right. That is where consciousness-raising comes in. It is for a deeper reason than gimmicky fun that, in Australia and New Zealand, you can buy maps of the world with the South Pole on top. What splendid consciousness-raisers those maps would be, pinned to the walls of our northern hemisphere classrooms. Day after day, the children would be reminded that 'north' is an arbitrary polarity which has no monopoly on 'up'. The map would intrigue them as well as raise their consciousness. They'd go home and tell their parents - and, by the way, giving children something with which to surprise their parents is one of the greatest gifts a teacher can bestow.

It was the feminists who raised my consciousness of the power of consciousness-raising. 'Herstory' is obviously ridiculous, if only because the 'his' in 'history' has no etymological connection with the masculine pronoun. It is as etymologically silly as the sacking, in 1999, of a Washington official whose use of 'niggardly' was held to give racial offence. But even daft examples like 'niggardly' or 'herstory' succeed in raising consciousness. Once we have smoothed our philological hackles and stopped laughing, herstory shows us history from a different point of view. Gendered pronouns notoriously are the front line of such consciousness-raising. He or she must ask himself or herself whether his or her sense of style could ever allow himself or herself to write like this. But if we can just get over the clunking infelicity of the language, it raises our consciousness to the sensitivities of half the human race. Man, mankind, the Rights of Man, all men are created equal, one man one vote - English too often seems to exclude woman. When I was young, it never occurred to me that women might feel slighted by a phrase like 'the future of man'. During the intervening decades, we have all had our consciousness raised. Even those who still use 'man' instead of 'human' do so with an air of self-conscious apology - or truculence, taking a stand for traditional language, even deliberately to rile feminists.

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Value added Tradition

Note: I have hyperlinked some words for a better understanding of the content

Some months ago, I read a news article stating an addition of a zodiac sign and a shift of the existing zodiac sign periods by one month from 2011. Simply put, this change is due to a relative wobble of earth's axis in the earth-moon system. So all the sidereal astrological systems would be affected due to this wobble. Vedic astrology, which your next-door astrologer practises, is a sidereal system and so your zodiac sign would also change due to this wobble

This was a regular news item for me, but I saw it was some sort of question of existence for some (actually, many) people around me. One fellow was discussing how his zodiac sign would change and was frustrated about how one could become a Virgo all of sudden while he/she was a Gemini till the day before. I couldn't stop my enthusiasm to know how the fellow thinks and asked him what difference could a change of zodiac sign do to in his life. He replied that a change in zodiac sign would change his horoscope and so the predictions of his qualities, life and marriage would change. And his entire life was changed just because earth-moon system had a wobble. He said that it was unfair as it affects people's career, marriage and lifestyle.

So I told him that he should switch his belief system to palmistry which won't be affected due to this wobble, instead of astrology which might change anytime when some cosmological event happens. His answer was that he doesn't believe in palmistry. Then I asked him why he would believe astrology in that case. He replied saying he has absolute faith in it as it's part of Indian tradition and it's by his tradition that how he is defined and made.

Yes, he's correct. Every person is built out of his own tradition. I'm what I am due to the tradition in which I was brought up. We get many things from tradition. Our language, dressing style, food habits, social norms, customs, ethics (to some extent), way of looking at human relationships (to some extent) and many more come from tradition. It is a template in which we get raised and it is marked by a long chain of history and civilization that flourished and paved way for our existence. Some aspects of tradition are purely sociological, whereas some are religious. Throughout our life, we really cannot change the way how some aspects of tradition influenced us in our childhood.

And as he said, astrology is part of the contemporary Hindu tradition. And going back in history, Ashwamedha was part of the Hindu tradition at least during the Mauryan dynasty (185 BC). But the exact ritual is not a part of contemporary Hindu tradition. Most of us don't know the exact ritual of Ashwamedha as mentioned in the Yajurveda. So, why is it not part of contemporary Hindu tradition anymore?

Ok, let's suppose Indian government now starts performing Ashwamedha in the truly Vedic way for supremacy in the world and to make India the No.1 economy in the world and to eradicate poverty in the country. Would anyone welcome it with their share of support? Of course no one would. This is because people are enlightened enough in animal welfare and women rights to oppose this and draw a line. But again, Ashwamedha is one of the most powerful and pleasing sacrifices to the Gods as mentioned in the Vedas and every other Emperor in Hindu mythological epics performed this ritual and it worked well for them in bringing success and supremacy.

So, is it fine to discard insensible and irrational aspects of tradition as times change? Or we would be betraying the holy texts of canon composed by people in 2nd century BC if we leave some of them as nonsense and not applicable? If the ritual mentioned in Yajurveda was a divine revelation to the Aryans, then that should be the exact and only way to perform it to please the Gods. Who are the 21st century people to discard or change it just for a whim of animal welfare and women rights?

Now coming to astrology, it's the alleged "science" (people often forget it's astronomy which is science) that explains the effect of a handful of stars and planets on the the entire 7 billion world population, to the level of individual human behavior, luck, marriage, career, health, children, success, earning, expenditure.. and so on.. Physicists (who don't know anything the Aryans knew 3500 years back) have discovered some fundamental interaction forces till date in the entire universe. None of those explain the effect claimed by astrology. Even though some physicists claim these are the only possible forces present in universe, if there is any other force present in this universe (the astro'logical' force), it should hold good to a statistical study.

I'm giving reference to one study conducted in India here. It was a double-blind trial to verify the statistical success of astrological predictions. The results showed that the astrological predictions were as accurate as that of a coin toss, around 50%, whereas statistically meaningful predictions would be 70% or higher. If one would do the same experiment to check electromagnetic force between a pair of charge carriers, the success of predictions would safely be above 99.99% (It would be 100% if any applicable quantum mechanics is included)

So, next time, if you are about to consult an astrologer for a match-compatibility, hold on and toss a fair coin. Look up as yes for heads, no for tails, check the result and proceed accordingly.

Even if you consult the astro-guy, the probability of a successful prediction from him would be the same !!

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The Gods that used to be crazy

Another one month, and I'm back with a new one.. Read on..

We used to wonder at many things in our childhood. Many of us used to wonder what happens in the skies every night, why the moon changes its size every night, where the stars would go in the day, how some objects show magnetism and why the sea roars with waves. We also used to wonder why medicines are bitter, why doctors are always fond of syringe and needle and why parents, unlike us, don't go to school and get beaten by teachers. We reason out at some, and experience some, providing answers to our questions and thus stopping the intrigue within us. Even then, there are still many wonders lying out there for us to ponder and rejoice.

During the summer vacation after my fifth standard, I got this book "Trojan war" from my senior batch. This book was the supplementary reader for the sixth standard english. Not to mention my fascination towards mythologies, I started reading it right away and re-read it some 6-7 times during my vacation. I loved that book. It's an epic. The men were audacious, women were blonde, hot and sexy, the Gods were crazy, the Goddesses were jealous of one another and bribed men with chicks. I used to get dreams where I would watch Ulysses coming out from the trojan horse, Achilles killing Hector and Paris running away with Helen. 

But one thing that fascinated me the most was their pantheon. Zeus, Neptune, Aphrodite, Poseidon, Apollo.. the list has no end. I would get introduced to a new God in every chapter. He would screw up the war by favoring one side till the men on the other side offer princesses and maidens (I dunno what's the fetish of virgins in every faith) as slaves to him. He accepts them and keeps quiet. Warriors like Achilles would also ask for maidens as they are children of the Gods. And when they don't get the maiden slaves they withdraw from the war. I think this craziness of mortals and immortals brings good element of surprise to Trojan war and makes it an epic mythology.

Now coming to the real reality, I used to think that the ancient Greeks were mad praying to those Gods. I would rather not welcome Zeus, Neptune and Venus into my life (even though Venus would offer women like Helen to my disposal) as I had my own set of Gods whom I felt were more sensible and realistic. Yes, I thought my pantheon was "realistic" and "divine" and I still dunno the reason for it. Even though I used to compare some of the Greek pantheon to the RigVedic pantheon, I felt the latter was more divine and realistic. I think the reason for not questioning why I thought so might be the fact that I'd been following this pantheon since my childhood without asking any questions.

Later in my schooling days, I visited some churches as I was interested to know how a church would look like from the inside and how a mass would be performed. I loved cathedrals with all the paintings, sculptures and stuff. I used to stare at the ceiling, walls, hangings, candles and decoration in the church when everyone else was busy praying deeply and some crying in ecstasy. Sometimes, the bishop would bless people who were sick and some would weep bitterly taking a cross into their hands.

All that time, I never understood what made them so ecstatic when english verses (I used to think it was some poetry written by Jesus Christ) are read loud from a neatly bound big book. I never understood how the sick could believe that a simple english verse from the big book and water smeared in the shape of cross on their forehead would heal them. But one thing, I never thought these people are crazy doing all this stuff. I think my reason behind this was that since many people follow this faith, it must have some sort of divinity or something.

And on the other hand, I never wondered why I would recite the same "suklam bharadharam", "saraswathi namastubhyam" everyday even though they're simple verses. Well, the only difference is that they're written in sanskrit. I also never wondered why people would wear talismans and walk around a tree 108 times just because it's in the premises of a temple. The reason for this might be the fact that I'd been following this faith since childhood without asking any questions

Now coming to ancient Greece again, why should one think the Greeks were mad? Or their entire pantheon was silly and stupid? Is it just because Zeus and his entire lot are jobless now? Zeus and co., is no ordinary lot. Some of them are notorious (read as miraculous) enough to stop winds when Agamemnon's army was sailing. Their mercy and grace favored Greeks and made them win the war. Their wrath and curses apparently caused tornadoes, hurricanes and famines all over Greece and Rome. One would be very cautious not demean any one of them in those days. Such was their might, will and power. It's irrational and senseless to claim they don't have divinity just because there's no cultural, traditional, social and political significance to any of them in the contemporary world

Alright, now one might agree that the Greek pantheon is great, divine, realistic and can be worshiped. Now what about Amun-Ra and co., from ancient Egypt? What about Thor, Balder and co., from Germany? Why should Greeks have all the fun? Even though Hitler was from Germany and Germany had Thor as God in the past, is it fair that the entire German pantheon shouldn't be respected? Does unemployment and failure in wars and politics make these Gods worthless of even acknowledging their existence?

So what can we say about this? One thing is for sure. All these were the Gods that used to be crazy. And even today, the God(s) are crazy, but their name(s) and the civilizations that worship these God(s) are different from those in the past. And as the comparative theologians always say, all the religions are qualitatively one and the same, and all the God(s) are also one and the same. Hence following the assertion, the contemporary faiths are also crazy (BTW I really hate to deduce things out of theological assertions)

If this is the case, then why are we so keen, sensitive, religious and devoted about the God(s) that are in our pantheon? I would say it's just the authoritative indoctrination and self-assertion over a period of time that makes us have blind faith in many things around us, including religious faith. It's this very lack of indoctrination and assertion that makes a christian not to have faith in hindu Gods and it's the same thing that never made me realize the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for sins of the entire humankind starting from homo antecessors to those who are gonna live till the next doomsday event.

And ironically for most of us, it's sheer accidence that we get born into a family of a particular faith that chooses the doctrine with which we get brainwashed all through our life. We never get a real choice in deciding this for ourselves.

And most of us remain in that sightless vision (as I call it) for the rest of our lives rejecting anthropology, history, reason, logic, and sometimes even common sense !!

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The Wealthy Peasants

Another 1 month and I'm back with another post. Read on..

Note: To avoid comments like "An argument wins over the situation but loses the person", I shall be using the word 'argument' in this post as the logical points of view two persons were trying to establish in course of a friendly impersonal discussion, after which there's no screw-up of the relationship between them.

Lately, I'm not able to restrain myself from refuting people's arguments whenever I find them nonsense. Earlier, I would never bother how everyone else is thinking as far as it doesn't affect me directly. I dunno if I'm getting philanthropic or over-assertive gradually, but I'm not able to let go if people have an opinion that doesn't make any sense and I'm trying to give them counter-arguments from various points of view refuting the rationale on their opinion. This is definitely not the typical white-man's burden and I don't really have any metaphysical motivation for doing this.

When I started these arguments, I observed that people were not able to get convinced by some points of view and they get persuaded with some points of view. Some get convinced by analogies, some rebuke analogies as fallacies in the strictest definition of the argument; Some get convinced by scientific argument and some completely discard scientific argument; Some need further references to get convinced and some don't even try to look up other references. I would be discussing the reasons I observed why people don't get convinced for various arguments

# Bad Analogy
I dunno what the deal with people and analogies is. Most of us don't agree to anything unless we find some analogy for the argument. These people get convinced only by analogies. They just want a familiar story with a conclusion logically agreeable to the argument. They cannot comprehend the logic behind the argument, and they would rather get convinced by a story with hypothetical scenario. This is the case with most of us. One must use creativity extensively to discuss with these people

May be that's the reason why mythological epics are so popular compared to philosophical works. I would say analogies help us understand the basic argument, but we shouldn't confine ourselves to learning from analogies. Analogies are overwhelmingly persuasive, but it's really difficult to derive a proper analogy for many arguments.

# The Scientific Argument
I think scientific argument is the most convincing argument for any disagreement. Philosophical arguments rely more on the way the argument is articulated whereas scientific argument is persuading without the need of any smart articulation. In spite of this, I observed many people not getting convinced by the scientific argument. I might classify the reasons behind this as follows

1. Unable to apply general science: I think, to understand most of the scientific arguments, one needs to have a basic knowledge of how things work. A higher-secondary school level knowledge of physics, chemistry and biology would do the job. Even though many of us have studied these subjects and got good grades, we have a tendency to forget them when we drift to a different field of profession. 

I have seen many engineering grads who believe in "Cosmic vibrations (nice word) emitted from gems affecting (non-existent) human aura" and "Undetectable (non-existent) forces exerted by distant planets effecting human psychology on earth" in spite of their IIT-JEE standard knowledge on heat transfer and fundamental forces in the universe. Also, many believe that "1 molecule remedy diluted in 10³⁰ moles of water homeopathic remedies" work in spite of good knowledge in chemistry. Medical stigmas on aids patients in general public in spite of basic knowledge in biology is another example

The problem here is that, we try to separate everything as distinct entities and we don't apply our general science knowledge in our beliefs/opinions. When we practise this everyday, we gradually tend to refute any scientific argument, however obvious it might be.

2. Quasi-scientific arguments: In addition to the conclusive factual scientific arguments, we also have an equal (in fact, more) number of arguments that "sound scientific" but necessarily are not so. For eg., I can say the reason why we have seasons is due to the elliptical orbit of earth, and summer comes when earth is closest to sun and winter comes when it's farthest. This argument is considerably persuasive, but most of us (ironically, not everyone) know that that's not the reason why we have seasons. "Water memory" claimed by homeopathic doctors is another example of a quasi-scientific argument.

Generally, people get confused by these contradicting scientific arguments and fail to understand which one's evident and which one's not. This is also one reason why people stop getting convinced by scientific arguments thinking they are not reliable.

# The Wiki Taboo
Whenever I give external references to people rather than hear the argument from me, most of them go through those and verify their argument. But there are some who think it's totally "uncool". They would refute encyclopedias and stick to their non-evident and non-referable argument. They say they would google it themselves if they ever want to verify. I would say if they ever googled it, they won't be sticking to the same irrational argument they have now. 

So, they never googled/wikied it, and when I  give an external reference, they say "I'll google it when I wanna verify". Hence the bottom line is that they never want to verify.

It makes me conclude this as a typical "resistance to change" behavior and unable to shift from their comfort-zone.

# I simply don't care
Saying "I simply don't care to know what's the fact" is really a powerful defense to stop the argument from further proceeding. I would say we really don't have a choice to care or not about the fact. It's a fact, and we have to know it.

If we don't care about knowing that earth is round, we might make a fool out of ourselves by joining 'Flat earth society'; If we don't care about  knowing that gems and stones don't affect human behavior and luck, we might be spending hard-earned money on getting the gems and wearing 2 rings on each finger. If we don't care about knowing homeopathic remedies are not medicines but just plain water/alcohol, we might end up using them for long periods of time and getting chronic for our ailments.

So "I simply don't care" means "I don't wanna verify and I don't mind getting screwed up for my belief"

Finally, concluding the post, I think this constant refutation of logic and evidence to change our opinion/belief would make us, as Noam Chomsky calls it, "a bunch of shattered wealthy peasants". There are many things which we inherently believe without reasoning to ourselves why we do it or just because of authoritative indoctrination. We tend to assert those beliefs/opinions to ourselves by false conclusions from what we observe without questioning it and without thinking if an alternate evident, logical argument exists for it. After a point, we stop changing our opinions, however irrational they might sound, as we don't like to realize that we spent the rest of our life believing in nonsense.

I hope most of us won't become these "Wealthy Peasants" over a period of time!!

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Uncle Mess @ KZP

It has been one month and I'm back again with an interesting (for all the foodies out there) post. If you are not a food lover, you can stop reading this post and go to my older posts. Just kidding.. I always wanted to use this "If you're blah blah blah, then stop reading this book and go screw your gal friend" disclaimer.. Now read on..

The person who said "We cannot appreciate light unless we know darkness" is really a genius. Personally, I've never been a food-lover until I came to NITW. The messes we had in NITW are the one and only of a kind and they are the worst of that kind. Here the regular menu is bad and the special mess menu is worse. The curry combos in NITW messes can be seen nowhere in the rest of the world. Can you ever think of a Bhindi-Aalu-Tomato combo? Or a Brinjal-Aalu-Tomato combo? Or can you ever think of eating a curry wondering what veggies might be in there? All the 5th mess (Narmada mess) boys were exposed to these kinds of bewildering experiences every other day. And I am one of those lucky bastards for the entire 4 years of my engineering

Hence the reason for becoming a foodie after I joined NITW. It's not just me; I'm with those hundreds of foodie-converted boys from NITW hostels, whose number is increasing exponentially every year. And we all were desperate for a food-joint on that NH-202 that would satisfy our taste deprived taste-buds. News about new food-joints, restaurants, messes near NITW used to spread like pandemic in the campus and the NITW faculty faced competition from the students in those joints. Personally, I started getting jealous of the people staying near KZP leaving for home during weekends.

Amidst this chaos and desperation, some day-scholar fellow told us about "Uncle mess" one day. This uncle (I dunno his name) had his small mess running at his home. His wife (we used to call her "Auntie") cooks the food and this guy manages the business. But this place is a bit far to walk from the campus. The first time we went and tasted the food there, we were "Oh my God.. where was this place hiding till now? And who are those lucky bastards eating here regularly??" I'm not a fan of KFC, but the food at this mess was really finger-licking good. Actually, it was neighbor's-finger-sucking good (I'm not gay, for the record). But there's the drawback: far to walk from the campus. So only the day-scholar lucky bastards were enjoying auntie's recipes and we were stuck again in the Narmada mess

Many people from our class stayed in the hostel itself during the summer after my second year. The best (and the worst) thing about NITW in summer is that the messes are closed. It's best for obvious reasons and worst as Warangal scorches up with heat in summer and we will get roasted like tandoori chicken given considerable time spent outside. And we don't have any alternative for food in the college, except for the canteen fellow who rations the lunch quantity as if he's serving holocaust and war prisoners. Anyway, we used to manage the lunch in canteen and would visit Uncle mess for dinner

The best part about Uncle mess is that he charged 18 bucks for the dinner. And no need to mention, almost everyone staying in NITW during summer would come there. Even some faculty (whose family were out of town, I guess) used to come there for lunch and dinner. Around 6 of us would go together and have dinner in one batch. We were not gluttons or something, but we would have a hearty meal and return to the hostel

I still remember that one day when 6 of us (I, KD, Madhu, Rajesh, Shravan(not sure), Kishore) took one table and started eating. The curries were so good that the 6 of us have finished 3 basins (big ones) of rice and gave the empty basin to uncle for another round. He was surprised by this and didn't return with rice until we understood the situation and told we would have curd and finish the dinner. That was one funny (and embarrassing) incident I recall whenever I find myself gluttonizing over food

Sometimes, Uncle and Auntie would visit their native place and inform us about the closing of mess for a few days. We used to feel disappointed and think about the other food joints for dinner. And as it happens, they all sucked and we would go to Uncle mess again when they returned. Who would prefer restaurant/fast-food to home made delicious food??

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The "Eco-unfriendly" encyclopedia

Hello everyone.. not much delay this time (only one month).. I'm back with some "stuff"..

Today, I saw this board in my office wash room.. it says "We are Eco-friendly organization, please co-operate in this regard". Well, I see that board everyday, but today I was rather observant. I see many individuals, organizations, companies, industries, factories claiming themselves as "Eco-friendly" (btw I still cannot figure out how factories can be eco-friendly). This eco-friendly fanaticism is becoming much popular lately.

Now, facts aside.. It just occurred to me today if there's any organization which claims itself as "Eco-unfriendly".. This hypothetical organization says "We are Eco-unfriendly, we hate the Eco, Eco's totally uncool, The last person with whom we make friends is Eco". And what might their wash room boards read? "Use the toilet paper as much as you want, We have lots of bamboo around" or "One paper might not meet the requirement, think again.. With a shit-smelling ass on your back, saving trees is not really your problem right now" or "Couldn't solve the su-do-ku on this square? Try another puzzle on the on-coming toilet paper, we have 4 difficulty levels".

And in the printer room, something like "We encourage one-sided printing, We actually regret why HP made two-sided printers and micro-printing machines".. on the paper-boxes "I'm desperate, use me pleeez". And in the email signatures, "Never think twice before printing this e-mail. Have printing problems? Click here" or "Our organization is committed to the best practices in order to become the biggest customer for paper industry"

In this "Eco-unfriendly" organization, every goddamn notification would come as paper circulars with people delivering them to each employee. And there would be much clarity if the circulars have captions like "Our vision 2012 is to hire the largest facilities staff in the business" or "Take a photocopy and share this with your colleagues, A combo of HP photocopier and paper really makes life simple". Also, PPTs won't be much encouraged, and chart presentations would be applauded saying "Why Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V when you can write and draw?" or "Use your hands, buddy.. Ask for marker pens and charts, we have the largest facilities staff in the business to serve you"

Now, enough with this hypothetical stuff, let's speculate what if some companies we have in the business now start this "Eco-unfriendliness".. Kimberly-Clark would start making "120 GSM toilet-paper" and "Executive-bond toilet-paper" with captions like "Loo-paper for the executives, comes with an executive touch" or "Thicker, cleaner, much better and lasts longer". Microsoft would have to give MS Office free with Windows as no office buys the software. Adobe can stop its work on Acrobat reader. 

Wonder what would happen if Wikipedia goes "Eco-unfriendly"!! I think after that, some final surviving pieces of bamboo would be kept in museums under the "fossils" section..


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The Palmist effect

OMG it's been two months since I posted on my blog. In fact I couldn't select a topic to write. It's like there are so many items on the menu and I'm pondering over each dish forgetting that at EOD, eating is all about pacifying hunger. So I was enlightened in a restaurant 2 days ago and here I am, back with some "stuff" to post.

The first time I read a book on palmistry was when I finished my intermediate and was writing these engg entrance exams, one after the other. I happened to find one "Palmistry for beginners" book at my aunt's house and I went through it, without contributing much memory to it. Actually, I was trying to read my hand based on the book and I couldn't find many lines on my hand to get a proper reading (For eg., my destiny line wasn't properly developed back then). Well, I don't remember much about the self-reading I did that time.

In my engg final year, I happened to read that book again during one of my Weekend+Monday visits to hyd. This time, I went through the book pretty seriously and I even prepared a notes on the important points and some illustrations (I still wonder what made me do that). After this somewhat serious reading, I took a self-reading and astonishingly found some points, which I thought were uncommon in people, matching close to my personality. And when I returned to college, I started reading others' hands just to check the correctness of palmistry. I've been with this habit of accepting many things only after a satisfactory first-hand verification since my schooling days.

My experience in reading others' palms in college was exciting, memorable and amazing. I was rather surprised at the level of enthusiasm people show to get a reading. And they found the readings strikingly close to their personality (I call these "hits") and this encouraged me to read other books like Cheiro palmistry to get a better understanding on the subject. I've been developing palmistry more like a hobby since then and I still give readings if someone asks.

Coming to the topic, I observed some points while I was reading others' hands. One is that people try to think about even the most general of predictions as specifically tailor-made to themselves. For eg., If I tell someone "You have good intuitive power", they talk about it positively and lo, I have a "hit". In fact, I told many people that they have good intuitive power, which is an attribute found in everyone. Everyone has intuitive power, and the "goodness" of this intuitive power is entirely subjective. Everyone thinks they have "good intuitive power"  and that they have a hunch in discovering hunches. That's the reason why we have lot of gossiping and conspiracies on every other damn thing around us. 

Other good examples for this general-but-misleading lines are "You are a cautious person" (Everyone is cautious), "You are independent" (Everyone is a mixture of dependent and independent nature), "Your family has effect on you in choosing your career" (90% of people in India have this situation). All these lines become "hits" for the palmist for obvious reasons.

Another thing is that people accept some things which they really don't know if they have those or not. For eg., If I say something like "You have difficulty in choosing friends"; Even though the other person is not sure whether he has that difficulty in choosing friends, he doesn't really find it difficult to recall some goddamn incident in his life where a friend pissed him off real bad. And now, since he recalled it successfully, he nods and the palmist has another "hit". To be honest, we really don't know about ourselves deep within and we would become saints or god-men if we really knew properly about ourselves.  So, after a considerable number of general-prediction "hits" from the palmist, the other person starts doing this ignorant "hit-giving" business.

Well, the lines given by the palmist like "You have a good intuitive power", "You have difficulty in choosing friends", etc., are not supposed to manipulate the person taking the reading. In fact, some lines on the palm actually refer to those qualities. These references are so obviously general but on the contrary, the other person deludes himself thinking they are specific to him. When I look at my hand now and try to decode the lines, I see myself laughing at the generality of the reading.

All this stuff I discussed now is only from my observations while giving readings. I validate these observations whenever I read a hand and every time they fall right in place. I find this "Palmist effect" so amazing that I sometimes wonder why people even bother to get a reading of their hands just to delude themselves.

It's really a weird world we live in !!


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Some "stuff"..

So I'm back again with some stuff. Stuff, ha.. this word "stuff" is a really a tricky one.. I've been seeing it getting paraphrased very creatively I could never imagine. I have seen people giving the word "stuff" as an alias for many things depending on the situation. For instance, during my school days, "stuff" meant the normal stuff, like papers, pens, pencils, sometimes chits during exam and sometimes snacks. Well, I still wonder how people started "stuff" for paper chits and snacks.. hey wait.. why the word "stuff" for snacks? As if you were not supposed to eat snacks and hence coded it into "stuff"? I think some heavily pampered fat-ass school kid fellow might have started this "stuff" word for snack. Anyway, we used it in that way and sometimes I still use it (for unknown reasons.. may be childhood really has a profound impact on us throughout our life.. Hey, this is Sigmund Freud's "stuff".. not mine)

And when I came to college, "stuff" meant many things. Hey, it's not what you are thinking, at least in this stage. In college, "stuff" meant intelligence, talent, etc., (If you studied in an AP intermediate college, you could know that I'm not faking) For eg., some lecturers used these kinda statements "This boy has stuff", or "Mm, this girl has stuff" (intelligence, talent here also.. I too was confused at dat "Mm" initially.. but I believe people meant that way). So in college, everyone has this "stuff" up to some extent and after that only some people had this "extra stuff" (like extra talent, luck) that pushed them much forward than the rest

Now comes the graduation. I can think what you are thinking. And buddy, wait for some more time, it's not the same thing again. During my graduation, "stuff" initially meant movies and stuff... What, did I use "stuff" just now? Ok, it meant movies in the beginning, and after some days, it was you-know-what kinda movies. And then, "stuff" meant drink: alcoholic and non-alcoholic except water and fruit juices. Also, many people used "stuff" for money and dope.. "Do you have some stuff?", "Can I get some more stuff?", "Which stuff, Desi or American?", "Nah, I am bored with regular stuff", "This stuff is making me crazy, man", etc.,

These statements mean differently in different situations. But you ask anyone this "You have stuff?", they know what exactly you are asking for. This word "stuff" is like the words "God" or "devil".. even though there are  many look-up values, the other person would know the exact thing you were referring in that context. It's a magical word, it need not be explained, just a "stuff" is sufficient and no confusion. I would say it's the most effective way of communication I can think of. For eg., I have this kind of chat many times

Person A: Stuff?
Person B: Yep

Person A: Send, pl :)
Person B: Yea, sure :)
And, sending.....

See? Simple, plain and yet, effective

Well, I was telling here only the look-ups used by men, I dunno how and where women use "stuff". Sometime back, I heard (actually I eavesdropped) some girl saying to another "We kissed and stufffff".. I was like "Wtf.. girls use 'stuff' this way, I never saw a man who used 'stuff' in this context". And what's that "stuffff" with multiple f's? She meant the "stuff" went for a long time? Or  she was hinting it's the f-word she's referring to? Hmm.. I really cannot understand women

Anyway, nice "stuff" on this "stuff", eh??

P.S: Lately, I've not been able to decide on which topic I should post next. It's like that rat joke where the rat, shaking its head not able to decide which nut to eat, eventually breaks its neck. Can you folks suggest me some topics?

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2nd post of the month

Yes.. this is 2nd post for this month.. of-late, every fourth person is asking me "Why are you not posting?", "Is your blog dead", "So when is the funeral service? Shall we bring flowers".. no limits to sarcasm.. and when I check my blog now, I can see only one post in April and May. This is not the way a blog should be maintained.. I need to post at least once in ten days or so. Well, I take resolutions.. and no one knows if I stick to it or not.

It is really easy to take resolutions and give suggestions. On the other hand, following those resolutions and taking the suggestions is hard. I won't be talking about following resolutions now.. tell me who criticizes himself in his own blog?? So lets talk about giving suggestions and how people might react to the donation.

Some suggestions given by people are really stupid. Take for eg., when I had this fever and cough, many people have suggested "Go to a doctor", "Go and see a doctor", "Why are you not going to doctor?". The tone of these suggestions sounds like "Go to hell", "Go and see the devil", "Oh you are still alive, why don't you go to hell?". Some advise as if the patient doesn't know who a doctor is and when to consult him. They don't even ask if he has visited one. Honestly, how do you respond to such suggestions? I usually point to the medicines beside my bed to them when they give such kinda advise. And I dunno how they feel about my reaction, but many say "Oh.. nice.. so what medicines did he prescribe?" and they check those medicines. The funny part is that, they cannot even pronounce the medicine's name properly. And some, instead of checking the name, check the expiry date !! I think only in some 70's pharmacists might have sold expired medicines.

Another kind of suggestion, is regarding the present market, especially, IT industry. Even your servant maid comments on IT industry as if she had some 10+ yrs industry exp and freelancing now. I dunno if its the half-baked stories by local news papers or some kind of "personal hunch", but many people have their own "mark" in expressing their opinion on IT industry. Some people frown on the mention of growth in IT, some shake their head in disagreement and say "IT industry is hopeless. See Ramalinga Raju for eg., IT industry is hopeless". I cannot infer the logic in their statement. Some say "These days computer can be learned  in any training institute (What the hell is "learning a computer"?). You can even learn at home by yourself. On what skill-set are IT companies hiring?" I think these people have picked up a word "skill-set" and are using it wherever they need to fill a void. 

I agree that these people do not have any slightest idea on what they are suggesting and why they are doing so. If they really dunno about the topic, why are they advising in the first place? No one asked their opinion.  Moreover, this advising stuff is not out of empathy or philanthropy.. this is just to show us that they have "some knowledge" on the topic. I think they know that they are becoming fools by saying this crap, but they cannot resist themselves from advising.

I have mentioned only a couple of scenarios. We find many instances where people give us really silly suggestions that have no logic and common sense. And I cannot figure out how to react to such suggestions.. whether to simply smile and ignore them, or to answer them in such a way that they would not be daring to discuss on that topic again.. no idea. I have come across many of such people and nobody ever tried to discuss the same topic for the next time. Well, I dint react in the same way to everyone, but I dunno what changed their attitude towards me.

May be as Paulo Coelho says "When we want to achieve something, the universe conspires in helping us to achieve it"?? The universe is conspiring to help me?? What the **** !! And why did I put those asterisks?

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Airs of clarity??

Airs of clarity?? Really?? The wondering itself is full of confusion, where is the "clarity" now? I guess I need to stop questioning now and start some "Causal Analysis and Resolution".. wow.. QMS seminar is working on me at this hour..

After reading my last post, a friend of mine asked me if I was drunk when I was posting it. Honestly, I wasn't.. and obviously not now.. that post was the words which popped up into my mind when I laid my hands on the keyboard.. may be it was just the reflection of my mind.. confused, dazed.. even I was surprised looking at my post that day.. 

You might ask me if I have a different mindset now. I really don't know the answer, but many things have happened after later that made me feel lighter. Much confusion has cleared out, had some confessions and ruled out some impossibilities, that "chaos" thing has almost disappeared now. Last week, I got this sata-usb adapter and connected my cpu's hdd to my laptop.. I almost cried after it was successfully connected.. I was badly missing that hdd for some 8 months. Surprisingly, my mind has become fresh and clear after this episode.. I really cant figure out whats my voodoo with hdds and laptops..

So whats so special about that hdd?? Come on, it was my 4yrs collection.. movies, sitcoms, songs, what not.. it was my entertainment channel for 4 yrs. One fine day.. actually it was a very bad day.. my monitor had got repaired and lo !! my motherboard bios rom got screwed up, and hdd got separated from me.. could not get a sata-usb connector even after searching rjy entirely.. shopkeepers were pleading under oath that they never heard of such an adapter.. Welcome to RJY.. here supply runs the demand.. u need to buy what is available.. u cannot really get what u want..

I would not say I missed my hdd completely, but missed that carnatic music collection I had in it.. listening to BalaMurali daily is making me cheerful and is keeping my spirits high.. I really missed it all these days.. BalaMurali will definitely get BharataRatna one day.. he already has the next civilian honor PadmaVibhushan.. he is a genius..

Hold on.. What am I doing?? I really wonder at myself.. now I am speaking like any other person.. dry, nonsense in sense of humor, where has all my 'knack' gone? This dry person is not me.. definitely not me.. definitely not me.. I am not some horse or ass (not arse.. donkey) to cover myself in stripes and become a zebra (phew.. bad one).. I am a human, and I dont need some skinny skin to cover my ass (not donkey).. proud to be different.. yes.. Definitely.. Maybe (I added that 'maybe' coz it sounds like a film title.. dont take that part literally).. aha.. now back to form..

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Non-musings

This is really crazy.. I am not able to acknowledge the fact that I didn't post anything since October. Actually I posted one in November and my good friend Irfan advised me to delete it !! Not really a controversial one, it was regarding some soft-skill training I had at Oracle during my incubation. Any way, I deleted it within 2 hrs of posting. This shows how fast people were getting updated with my blog ;)

In fact, I almost forgot to update my blog.. Hail KAL (Korean Airlines) for keeping me busy. I think I got some kind of "Writer's block".. I always wanted to start writing on something, then I do this musing, musing and musing on that and finally end up reading wikipedia at odd hours like this. Then I started to realize I am really confused..  and the movie "Deconstructing Harry" made me worse.. I was successful in identifying myself with Woody Allen's character in that flick. Oh my God !!
Thanks to Arun, my classmate and colleague, I saw some link of his blog 3 days back and got inspiration to resume posting in mine.

The funniest thing is that, when I clicked on "new post" button now, I had this strange weird feeling.. its like telling sorry to your girlfriend when you came to know that she came to know that you had banged another chick who never came to know that you have a girlfriend.. Don't think I am sick or paranoid, but sorry my dear blog, forgive me for being unfaithful (!!) to you.. Oh my God.. wats this.. I gave some stupid comparison earlier and I am now asking forgiveness from a 'blog'.. I really need some medical help..

I think this genius(read as silly) movie "Leader" is the reason for my craziness at this moment.. what a sensible(read as senseless) film.. CM having a girl friend, meeting her daily for date, even proposing to her, and giving speeches in assembly.. this is the 4th film of Kammula I dint like(he made 4 films till now).. watching this film sacrificing the elixir of life(sleep) at this time is really sensible(read as senseless).. the only thing I liked in this film is the heroine.. Richa Gangopadhyay.. what a beautiful(read as beautiful) girl..

No musing to muse upon.. no topic to debate upon, my brain is now half-empty (read as half-filled).. I am feeling as if I am in metamorphosis since May 2009.. dunno when I would become a frog from this tad-pole avatar.. and speaking of avatar.. no.. we will talk about it some other time..

See how I am drifting from one topic to another.. if I dont stop now, I might end up reading wikipedia till 5 am.. so good night.. Subha ratri.. Shabba Khair.. hmm.. I think I will read about KBC in wikipedia now.. then Amitab may be..

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No, we can't..

I am getting really astonished these days.. Barrack Obama getting Nobel peace award, Oracle giving joining date, and the most important thing.. my blog not getting people's attention.. I dunno if google has stopped concentrating on google analytics or what, but my blog's google analytics hasn't recorded a single page visit since the last 9 days !! But you see, the page visit counter on the blog page is still being incremented.. that's why I'm doubting google analytics..

Coming to the point, one of my friends commented in my blog saying that I need to post some funny posts so that many people might get bored reading my history stuff (see how much self-centric people are.. they generalize everything  they think as a public/unanimous opinion.. may be that's why geo-centric theory has evolved first).. seems he is correct.. in any case, I myself am fed up posting this history stuff.. so giving it a break, I wanna post some funny posts (see how self-centric I am.. if I feel something 'funny', it doesn't necessarily mean everyone would find it the same way.. seems I too belong to the 'typical human nature' sect.. at least I'm human.. see again.. I can't help being self-centric)

Coming to 'self-centrism', we find many instances where people say they are not self-centric and at the same time quote self-centric examples to prove themselves as 'non-self-centric' (now I'm inventing a new word like Bush invented 'misunderestimate'.. even the blogger proofing tool is showing red line when I'm typing it.. ha ha).. If Barrack Obama also invents some words (not the phrases like 'yes, we can'), I can be sure that I am eligible to contest for US senate (what to do.. I can't contest for presidency.. I need to be born in US for that.. but for Nobel peace prize, there's no such rule)

See how self-centric I am.. I even went to the heights of getting a Nobel prize while proving that I am non-self-centric.. again.. I had created a word and I am using it now.. I really am self-centric.. Let's see the self-centrism of general public.. We hear people saying very commonly that "Our times were golden times.. lifestyle has degraded of late, people are learning their lesson and are following yesteryear's lifestyle now.. earth is round and the past lifestyle comes again".. if we don't agree that this is the peak of self-centrism, we can safely assume that we don't have a head with hair on a neck..

Now let's see what they say.. "The earth is round".. so their lifestyle will come into the picture again.. so they think that their generation's lifestyle is the starting point.. isn't it.. they don't know that their yesteryear generation used to comment on them in the same way.. and now they are commenting on us like this.. and even we will comment like that in the near future.. some of us are commenting now itself.. Oh my God !! whats up with the world and self-centrism?? Is that a bond like 'fevikwik'? (Seriously, I haven't seen any other adhesive like fevikwik.. once I wanted to test it and glued my thumb and forefinger like in the way they used to show in the ad.. what happened next I don't think needs to be mentioned.. I don't wanna recall those moments)

I shall start posting funny posts from now until people get fed up with fun and want to shift to history stuff.. If you think this post is funny, lets try not to be self-centric from now onwards.. can we do it??

Yes, we can.. (I request the Nobel award committee to consider me for the next year in the 'literature' category.. I wanna write awesome literature in the future and I think giving this statement is sufficient for a 'Nobel'.. well.. for a 'Nobel', I think I need to tell this to some 300 million people and a couple of universities in the middle-east)

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YSR.. the visionary??

Well.. I m not stopping the 'What if??' series.. I shall continue it by providing discussions to the posted questions..

As we all know, it was a major tragedy for the AP state Congress yesterday. YSR has been missing since Wednesday. After 24 hrs his track on air was lost, the chopper was traced and his body was recovered. By that time, a long night in the jungle along with a deal of rainfall sufficiently heavy to decompose the burnt body has happened and the body was eventually wrapped up in clothes for display.

I've been rather bewildered at the media's (all regional news channels) remarks about YSR for the last 3 days, to be honest. First of all, they started off with quotes like 'The visionary leader missing', 'Our beloved CM missing', etc., As time progressed by and finally when his death was declared at the crash site, the quotes were changed to 'The greatest visionary leader', 'Apara bhagiratha', 'The best CM till date', etc., Keeping this aside, even after 9 hrs have passed after the chopper had gone missing and search operations were going on, they were still debating during the night on the reasons why "YSR has not communicated yet".

This shows how much ignorant the media (regional news channels) are about chopper crashes. First of all, its not the duty of the 'Visionary CM' to communicate if there has been an emergency landing. It is the protocol of the pilot when an emergency landing really happens and he will definitely stick to it. Secondly, when a chopper has gone missing without any 'distress signal', after some time of no communication from pilot, it can be safely assumed that it is not good news. Of all the TV channels that did an exclusive coverage on this search mission, only CNN-IBN was pointing to these really significant points. In contrast to this, the regional channels were simply encouraging the innocent average viewer to pray to God that YSR would return safe and continues to hold the office !!

In addition to this, the very news channels, that discussed about the failures of YSR's last term and stuff a week before he died, started regarding him as 'The greatest visionary CM', 'Apara bhagiratha', etc., Now I ask this question, "Does a person really become a hero after he has died?" It is not any kind of rule that we need to regard people by false praises when they die. A person's deeds, whether they are good or bad, will always remain the same even if he dies. No one needs to mask either the good things or the bad things. It would be sheer 'unintelligent hypocrisy' if one does so.

Talking about YSR in particular, many people who offered their condolences on-screen regarded him as 'The greatest visionary leader'. I could not understand how he was visionary. It is true that YSR did not care about creating wealth in the state in his term of 5 years. He simply distributed and increased freebies like Pensions, Fee reimbursements, Houses and the highly regarded Arogyasri, etc., Its a hard fact that he did not even bother about losing huge projects like Volkswagon and Tata Nano which would increase the productivity of the state, boost the economy of AP and create some lakhs of jobs. Lets not forget how much passive he has been in the KG basin issue recently.

Coming to the aspect of agricultural focus which, according to YSR, was given the highest priority in the last term, we have seen a complete U turn. Even the much awaited 'Polavaram project' has seen nothing more than a foundation stone that was laid some 4 years back. In spite of the good rainfall for the last 5 years, the agricultural productivity has not increased much. The price of rice has got tripled now and no comments on the price of Red gram (its around 120 INR per kg in AP presently). And YSR recently  in an assembly session advised the people of Andhra to take 'sturdy rice' and 'mattar' instead of the above foods !!

In this way 'The multi-faceted YSR' has also become a nutritional expert  giving senseless diet charts to people instead of giving a subsidy on food items in the recently proposed state budget. Even the state budget was ridiculous. Only 26 crores of capital expenditure were allocated for Energy and industries whereas 15,361 crores were for agriculture and  irrigation. 532 crores were allocated to health, uplift of scheduled castes and housing. Only God knows how many crores in these 15361+532 would be misused in the single year of 2009.

I did not mean that increasing pensions, giving fee reimbursements and freebies is wrong. But at the same time, much focus needs to be given on the 'wealth creating schemes'. The Government cannot simply allocate its annual budget to distribute freebies. The tax money needs to be used for these welfare activities. Increasing employment opportunities creates wealth and increases the number of tax payers. This in turn needs to be allocated for the freebies and stuff. Simply ignoring these things and running the state will definitely increase the 'vote-bank' for the party. But it would simply destroy the state's economy somewhere in the near future.

YSR was definitely 'The greatest visionary' in the perspective of AP congress party. But he is 'One of the worst Administrators' in the perspective of AP state welfare. One thing here, he does not become a 'great leader' when he gets elected for the second term by means of freebies. Even if common people embrace him, the facts speak for themselves and it would be totally the stupidity of someone who ignores these things.

I thank myself for not presenting the scandals in which YSR faced several allegations in this post. Its ironic that YSR is finally buried at 'Idupulapaya' which has become the biggest land scandal in the beginning of his previous term.

May his soul rest in the very magnitude of peace that he created in the state !! I think this is a fair statement.


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The 'stars' must be crazy!!

Two days back i attended a function at one of my relative's place.. durin da usual chit-chat on politics(i wud rather call it crap-chat) one of my uncles (hez a distant relative) said dat in dec'08, he read in a news paper an article published by an astrologer predictin da outcome of AP state elections goin to be conducted in march'09.. my uncle said dat da columnist predicted YSR as the cm, and tdp, prp n da others wont give significant contribution to da outcome of election.. well dis was predicted based on da individual "kundali" of the respective political party leaders.. dis column was published in dec'08..

Then i happened to recall a tv show hosted in 'i news' channel on da night b4 the declaration of AP election results.. dis was after the elections in da second week of may'09.. the guests were some 6 famous astrologers in the state.. well although dey differed individually on da num of seats each party wud get (i bet all my future earnings dat the num of seats cannot be predicted in ne astrological means by examining the kundali of individual party leaders).. all dese famous astrologers agreed to one point.. dat Chiranjeevi wud either become a "King" or a "King Maker".. well he became a clown in the king's court (assembly) n is presently cheerin the crowd..

So now we can easily tell y da outcome was in favour of YSR in da former case n y it had become in favour of Chiru in da latter case.. even dese astrologers get carried away by the media-hype, election speculations, exit polls n want to make predictions dat wud be the most likely outcome to happen.. not based on astrology or kundali or watever crap for which dey r famous in the first place but by the speculations in media and decidin on their own intuition which is done by every average tv viewer..

So how can dese astrologers

#1. Who really dont believe in the stuff in which they were "allegedly expert" in (predicting human behavior n future by kundali)

#2. Who believe in their mere human intuition (even animals do dis.. animals have the power of intuition over logic whereas mankind has the power of logical analysis over intuition.. dis is a trade-off)

#3. Who dont believe in themselves

be relied upon for predictin the human behaviour n even deciding the compatibility of couples b4 marriage advising dem not to marry the astro'logically' incompatible couples??

We all know dat 'kundali' is made based on da time n place of birth of an individual.. consider dis realistic (not hypothetical) scenario.. I was born on 17th june 1988 at 10:07 AM in Rajahmundry (now dont ask me accordin to whose watch.. coz da question is perfectly logical n hence shud not be appreciated).. some 50 children might have born on the same day at the very same time in rjy (in rjy dere were some 25 well practising obstetricains dat time.. i m considering a fair possible case)

So the kundali of all dese 50 children ll be da exact same (same date, time n place) n hence the influence of da stars/planets/galaxies/pulsar stars/black holes (even artificial satellites may come into dis list in future) will be the same thoughout their lives.. but its obvious dat the behavior, personality, abilities, areas of interest, way of life, degree of success (what not?) are quite different for dese 50 people.. some may be "Kings" now, some may be "King Makers" now n some may be sittin idle at home now writing blogs like me..

I ll tell u how different people think abt dis astrology n their mode of belief in it..

#1. The first kind of people believe it with their heart irrespective of their education (educated people shud be at least sensible.. keep aside rational).. i've seen dis guy near the labor room in a hospital.. his wife in labor (critical situation) was in operation theater n dis guy was shoutin at his in-laws for gettin the operation started in "astrologically inauspicious" time of the day.. well eventually both the lady n the child were saved.. the punch of dis hunch was dat he is a postgraduate!!

#2. The second kind of people give importance to astrology wen the time/reason/risk permits.. dese people criticize behaving in da above manner for da above situation.. but believe in "auspicious times" wen time permits (for eg. startin a business), consult astrologers for marriage compatibility, etc.,.. i feel dat dis is worse dan the above case.. in the above scenario the person believes in himself although havin the logical ability in da magnitude of a tea-spoon.. but in dis case the guy thinks hez an "ideal,educated, smart intellectual".. but in fact he doesnt believe his head, his heart, the astrologer, even himself..

#3. The third kind of people think astrology is bullshit (include me in dis category) n tell people the way dey think abt astrology (like wat i m doin now).. well i don't wanna criticize myself in my blog.. so feel free to comment upon dis kind of people..

I ll conclude dis post by givin a piece of advice to people who believe in astrology/kundali/horoscope (i generally don't advise.. but u know.. pathetic people badly need help)

So here's the advice.. from now onwards whenever u r hiring someone, don't ask for their resume, ask for their kundali instead n hire dem accordingly.. coz u cant know by lookin at his resume how ur stars/planets/black holes might get influenced after u hire him.. moreover da planets may cast an angry spell on u if u ignore dem in da hiring process.. also to add fuel to da fire, dis is a recession time boss.. the 'stars' must be crazy!!

Predict my future astro'logically'.. i dont believe in myself!!!

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