Life for Rent

My favorite Dido song is White Flag ..Even though I’ve listened to ‘Life for Rent’ so many times; I kind of understand the lyrics now…and rather like the song.

Song: Life For Rent (Album Version) Lyrics

I haven't ever really found a place that I call home
I never stick around long enough to make it
I apologize that once again I'm not in love
It's not as if I dont mind your heart ain't exactly breakin'
It's just a thought, only a thought

If my life is for rent and I don't learn to buy
Well, I deserve nothing more than I get
Cuz nothin I have is truly mine

I always thought I would love to live by the sea,
to travel the world alone and live more simply
I have no idea what's happened to that dream
cuz there's really nothing left here to stop me.
Its just a thought, only a thought

but if my life is for rent
and I don't learn to buy
I deserve nothing more than I get
cuz nothin I have is truly mine

But if my life is for rent
and I don't learn to buy
I deserve nothing more than I get
Cuz nothin I have is truly mine

While my heart is a shield and I won't let it down
While I am so afraid to fail so I won't even try
Well how can I say I'm alive.

But if my life is for rent and I don't learn to buy.....

Well I deserve nothing more than I get
Cuz nothing I have is truly mine

Well if my life is for rent and I don't lean to buy
Well I deserve nothing more than I get
Cuz nothing I have is truly mine

Cuz nothin I have is truly mine
Cuz nothin I have is truly mine
Cuz nothin I have is truly mine

Truly has all this choice and travel and education and freedom left us undecided , is this indecision the root of our unhappiness …

Some more Dido lyrics and background from Wikipedia..

I will go down with this ship
And I won't put my hands up and surrender
There will be no white flag above my door
I'm in love and always will be.
o White Flag
White Flag – about a past relationship. Dido "regretted writing it" to begin with because of the further problems it caused with that person but now enjoys performing the song.( hehe ..i can imagine !!)

I haven't ever really found a place that I call home
I never stick around quite long enough to make it
I apologize that once again I'm not in love
But it's not as if I mind
that your heart ain't exactly breaking.
o Life For Rent

Life for Rent – written to reflect how she saw her life at the time.

If you're cold I'll keep you warm
If you're low just hold on
Cause I will be your safety
Oh don't leave home.
o Don't Leave Home
Don't Leave Home – written about the difficulties of drug addiction and made as a demo during the creation of her previous album.


I've still got sand in my shoes
And I can't shake the thought of you
I should get on, forget you
Why, why would I want to
I know we said goodbye
Anything else would've been confused but I wanna see you again.
o Sand In My Shoes



Oh I am what I am
I'll do what I want
But I can't hide
I won't go
I won't sleep
I can't breathe
Until you're resting here with me
I won't leave
I can't hide
I cannot be
Until you're resting here with me.
o Here With Me

If you were a king up there on your throne
would you be wise enough to let me go?
For this queen you think you own
Wants to be a hunter again
wants to see the world alone again
to take a chance on life again
so let me go.
o Hunter


My tea's gone cold, I'm wondering why I got out of bed at all
the morning rain clouds up my window and I can't see at all
And even if I could it'd all be grey, but your picture on my wall
it reminds me that it's not so bad
it's not so bad
o Thank You


If you gave me just a coin for every time we say goodbye
Well I'd be rich beyond my dreams, I'm sorry for my weary life
I know I'm not perfect but I can smile
and I hope that you see this heart behind my tired eyes.
o I'm No Angel

Why don't I watch the ocean?
My lover's gone.
No earthly ships will ever bring him home again
bring him home again...
o My Lovers Gone

Helen Fisher( The Anthropology of Love)

Thanks to Sharath for the link.. This is a good video of Helen Fisher speaking about The Nature of Romantic Love, why we love and the future of Love ……
a good talk … with good anecdotes ,quotes and information ..A definite must watch!!!!
http://ted.com/tedtalks/tedtalksplayer.cfm?key=h_fisher

more on this later..i'm in class now and my professor is sitting behind me..

Amul Ad's

Aren’t Indian advertisements the best!!?!?!? It’s really cool that Amul has posted some of its hit billboards on its website…I used to like seeing the ads the few times I could holidaying in Mumbai or Chennai.. (unfortunately not many Amul hoardings in small towns…)it’s good to go over the ads over the years.. kind of touch on a few key events of the past three decades…




Take on the hilarious and entertaining Bollywood film - Lage Raho MUNNA BHAI - September '06




Manmohan Singh's liberalisation policy encouraged multinationals to come to India and gave Indians the taste of Coke, Pepsi and good times.1994



Lots more here.

Happy Navratri

Can you believe I’m spending Friday night listening to Falguni Pathak (probably because it’s Navratri)… not much time till Diwali…. !!! I’m so tired really should go to sleep…. what I wouldn’t give for just five minutes wear a salwar kameez ( or sari )catch a rickshaw(or bus) or just go with dad … and eat Indian fast food (in India) ..with these Indipop/film songs in the background…..just for five minutes mind you !!


From 'The taste of India' camapign 1982-1983

On the occassion of Navratri festival.



Begin with Amul after the Roza fast.

Tell me about it!!!

Thank you for the lines Sups… they make a lot of sense!!! ..I actually called my mom after reading this ..ok ok was gonna call anyway..but will say this for dramatic effect :)..seriously 'Lage Raho' …is immensely watchable…something I can watch with my parents without my dad changing the channel.. and it appeals to all demographics me thinks…..

Shehar ki is daud mein doud ke karna kya hai?
Agar yahi jeena hai dosto, to phir marna kya hai?
Pehli baarish mein train late hone ki phikar hai?
Bhul gaye, bhigte hue tehalnna kya hai?
Serial ke khirdaron ka saara haal hai maaloom,
Par maa ki haal puchne ki phursat kahan hai?
Ab reth pe nange paav tehalte kyon nahi?
Ek sau aat(108) hai channel, par dil behalte kyon nahi?
Internet pe to duniya se touch mein hain,
Lekin padose mein kaun rehta hai, jaante tak nahi...
Mobil, landline, sab ki bharmaar hai
Lekin jigri dost tak pahunche aisi taar kaha hai?
Kab doobte hue suraj ko dekha tha e yaad hai?
Kab jaana tha sham ka guzarna kya hai?
To doston, shehar ki is daud mein doud ke karna kya hai?
Agar yahin jeena hai to phir marna kya hai?

Blast from the Past

It’s a weird,weird world out there….
I don’t feel particularly ‘wretched’. maybe a bit lost……

Amazing grace! (how sweet the sound)
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now I'm found,
Was blind, but now I see.

It’s been almost two years since I left… been logging on as invisible on messengers.. because I assumed there wouldn’t be much to talk about… then my comp started acting funny and I showed up as online.. wasn’t online two minutes and you guys said “Hi!!! wassup?”

Y’all told me things had changed ..you had gotten jobs, gotten close to graduating , people you loved had moved on, you’d found new people to love, people had moved in together , they were getting married !! “Was it me who poo poohed inter racial relationship’s and questioned their ‘genuine-ness’?? Well who are the one’s getting married!!! Couples I thought were stuck like glue were getting divorced… engagements were fixed or had broken.. people joined together at the hip weren’t roommates anymore, people had had babies, moved to other countries” …

Gosh !!! So much had changed in two years !!!..And then you ask me “what’s up” and the perennial question you all ask “ Why aren’t you seeing someone??!!?!” “when are you getting married” "do you get to go clubbing??!"..and my response is the standard it’s been for the past two years .(.if not longer)…. I haven’t changed ( much!!) . I doubt I’d classify the events of the past two years as newsworthy .. and for that I know I have to thank the person above for guiding me … no matter how lost or jaded I feel at times … I know that people have looked out for me the past two years … and in a world that seems to be changing so much …….some things stay constant :) ..thank goodness for my "non-exciting" life!!!

School days...

There’s something about friends who knew you from kindergarten to the tenth grade… (not that the friends afterwards are different. but they end up being somewhat similar to you.. )

The 15 year old child bride, the google software developer at Riverside , the sindhi business woman in Dubai, the lecturer in a community college in rural Karnataka .. a dozen lovely married women with kids ( I mean how many married women with kids do I hang out with nowadays!!!:)) ,the lovely married women without kids,the doctor’s wife in Chicago , the CA in Dubai …the Mumbai Muslim girls who are probably married…and who I have no clue about their whereabouts now because I was out of the country when they called home…I probably won’t get to meet many like them now a days ..but I think those friends the ones who’ve really seen you grow up from the age of 3 to 15 …. They kind of know the real you …the person before the degrees, the husbands and the concept of who was cooler and who was richer or who was smarter . .
these were just girls you spent 4 hours each day ,six days a week for 12 yrs ..whenever and if I ever bump in to these girls again, no matter how many years we haven’t stayed in touch.. I’m sure we’ll always connect in the same way we did as 5th graders..

Some school facts…

I think from Kindergarten till the first grade I used to carry my pencils in the long plastic box thing that toothbrushes came in.. looking back it seemed weird and I wondered why my parents didn’t just by me a pencil box.. Later I learnt that it was my brilliant idea ..good step towards recycling….

The first time my family had Pizza (maybe second grade) and donuts (maybe ) prep (UKG) was after I heard from one of my classmates at school about the deliciousness of the above mentioned food items.. can you imagine a second grader dragging her parents to a Pizza Hut ??!??!..that’s what I did ..we became regular pizza eaters after that.. a good change from my dad’s favourite –KFC.


My mom did all my embroidery and stitching work for all such classes…and my dad used to make pretty good charts for work I volunteered for to put up in school notice boards.. they were pretty good works of art… some of them were still at the school resource centre the time I left….

In our school teachers used to ask us kids to get photocopies to distribute to the rest of the class.. usually it wasn’t a lot .the standard dialogue would be .” Who can get their parents to get photocopies”. There were a lot of us who eagerly volunteered…and when it was my turn dad had to photocopy some 34 pages… probably isn’t a big deal but even then…

Innocence Versus Insight

"So many questions. Inquiring minds want to know. Innocent minds might not want to know."

Innocence Versus Insight
by Robin Hanson, September 9, 2006.

There seems to be a fundamental tradeoff between innocence and insight. This tradeoff occurs at both personal and social levels. Adam and Eve are said to have lost their place in Eden because they ate from the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil;" their knowledge cost them their innocence and comfort. Our insight often comes at a similar price.

Innocence is a central concept in human affairs. It appears often in literature, but has been largely ignored by social science. Let us try to do better.
Innocence seems to be a potentially attractive kind of ignorance. Apparently, in many social contexts ignorance can be a good thing, in part because helps to preserve idealism. Idealism is a simplified view of the world that supports optimism about the abilities or motives of oneself, one's associates, one's groups, and of related social processes. So why might idealism be a good thing, and how could ignorance help it? Consider some examples.
First, consider marriage. In societies with strong arranged marriages, the marriage relation is more innocent. Married people there have not had several deep and perhaps sexual relations before they are married. This supposedly helps spouses become more deeply attached to each other, with fewer threats from other past or future or concurrent relations. This attachment comes at the cost of less exploration, which presumably means partners are not as well matched with each other.
Cultural variation in marital innocence might represent multiple equilibria. In a society where most people experiment, those who do not experiment may seem timid and undesired. In a society where most people do not experiment, those who do experiment may seem to lack self-control and an ability to commit.
Second, consider patriotism and travel. Someone who has had little contact with other nations or cultures might find it easy to innocently presume that his nation and culture are superior. Because of this, in some places those who travel may be suspected of being less loyal to associates and the local community, and of being more at risk of adopting disapproved foreign attitudes and customs. In other places, travel may be celebrated, because those who travel more show they have more social contacts, wealth, and knowledge of the world, while those who travel less appear dull and timid.
Third, consider attitudes toward careers, as expressed for example by students applying to graduate school. In their statement of purpose, some students focus on their enthusiasm for a certain world of ideas, while other students focus on their personal career ambitions. In a discipline where most students focus on career ambitions, those who focus on ideas may seem naive and perhaps unwilling to compromise enough to succeed. In a discipline where most students focus on ideas, those who focus on career ambitions may appear to have insufficient interest to keep them in the field over the long run. One equilibria may select more ambitious and realistic students, while the other one may select more honestly interested but naive students.
Finally, consider self-deception. Humans naturally think more highly of themselves and their communities than their evidence can justify, but deny that they are biased in this way. This sincere confidence helps people to convince others to think highly of them, and to convince their group of their strong attachment to it. If you force yourself to face facts squarely you may gain better insight into yourself and human nature, and perhaps even signal a certain rare ability to achieve this result. Buy you may less convince others of your other abilities, and to convince your group of your loyalty.
What can we learn from these examples? We can see that idealism, a simplified optimistic vision of abilities and motives, can help one to become more deeply attached to associates and groups. This innocence often comes at the expense of insight however, and people often prefer to signal that they have the ability to gain insight.
It should be noted that innocent idealistic visions of the world can be quite negative about some things, as long as they are positive about the innocent person and his associates. For example, an innocent might see sex as dirty and disgusting, to support a romantic vision of relationships. Or an innocent might see all politicians as corrupt, supporting a vision of ordinary voters as uncorrupted.
There are so many interesting questions about innocence. To start, idealistic people often seem to know how acquiring more insight would on average change their attitudes. For example, the young often know about the attitudes the old have on average toward marriage, careers, nations, and so on. Young who do not acquire insight from this fact need to explain such age differences in differing preferences or abilities, rather than differing information. Are they right, or do they fool themselves?
Another obvious question is whether we expect on average to see too much insight or too much innocence. Excess signaling could push it either way, as far as I can see. We could avoid insight too much to signal our loyalty and confidence, or we could pursue insight too much to signal our ability and courage. Which is it?
A related question is the optimal personal tradeoff between innocence and insight. There are always things we could do which would teach us more about ourselves, our local associates and community, and about how much we approve of local customs and mores. If we take such actions, we may gain the benefit of insight, but we may run the risk of seeming less attractive and attached to our associates, and of becoming less bound to common mores.
It seems clear to me that the optimum choice is interior, containing both insight and innocence. Extreme examples can make this point clear. For example, consider the possibility of having sex with animals. I expect that if I tried this, I would learn more about myself, and I might find out that I liked and approved of such acts. But I know that this would horrify the people around me. Even my being willing to experiment with such things might scare the begezus out of them. So it seems prudent for me to just preserve my innocence on this subject.
At the other extreme, the idea of living in a small tight community which avoids outsiders has some attractions, but mostly repels me. There the benefits of innocence seem to clearly come at too high a price. But what is the optimal tradeoff in-between these extremes? Do I too easily assume that the tradeoff my local culture rewards is globally best?
So many questions. Inquiring minds want to know. Innocent minds might not want to know.
For their comments I thank Colleen Berndt, Bryan Caplan, Yan Li, and Alex Tabbarok.
See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innocence, http://hanson.gmu.edu/openhide.html, http://hanson.gmu.edu/metacynic.html

So would one want to return to innocence ??maybe not…..
From here via here.

Gaata Rahe Mera Dil

I’ve been listening to this song over and over again ..i find it incredibly sweet and cute and inspiring :

Movie Name: Guide (1965)
Singer: Kishore Kumar, Lata Mangeshkar
Music Director: Burman S D
Lyrics: Shailendra
Year: 1965
Producer: Dev Anand
Director: Vijay Anand
Actors: Anwar Husain, Dev Anand, Jagirdar, Kishore Sahu, Rashid Khan, Ulhas, Waheeda Rehman
Theme: Love

Gaata rahe mera dil, tuhi meri manzil
kahin beete na yeh raaten kahin beete na yeh din
Gaata rahe ...

pyaar karne waale, are pyaar hi karenge
jalne waale chaahe jal jal marenge
pyaar karne waale, are pyaar hi karenge
jalne waale chaahe jal jal marenge
dil se jo dhadke hai woh, dil hardam yeh kahenge
kahin beete na ..

o mere hamrahi, meri baahon thame chalna
badle duniya saari tum na badalna
pyaar humne yeh sikhaladega, gardhish men sambhalna
kahin beete na ...

dooriyan ab kaisi, are shaam jaa rahi hai
humko dalthe dalthe samaja rahi hai
aati jaati saans jaane, kab se gaa rahi hai,
kahin beete na ...

Having said that ..lately ( like since this past weekend)..I’ve been thinking I’ve over romanticized everything, that arranged marriages aren’t all that bad ,and involve a deep form of love as well……....

................ The love you have for your parents …………………

Some more good stuff!!

What can I say!!! I'm addicted to browsing for quotes!!!!

"We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations."
- Anais Nin

"The only real people are the people who never existed."
-Oscar Wilde

"Love and stoplights can be cruel."
- Sesame Street

When you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you."-Friedrich Nietzsche

"'Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?' 'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat. 'I don’t much care where--' said Alice. 'Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,' said the Cat. '--so long as I get SOMEWHERE,' Alice added as an explanation. 'Oh, you’re sure to do that,' said the Cat, 'if you only walk long enough.'


'Take some more tea,' the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly. 'I’ve had nothing yet,' Alice replied in an offended tone: 'so I can’t take more.' 'You mean you can’t take LESS,' said the Hatter: 'it’s very easy to take MORE than nothing.'

'I see nobody down the road,' said Alice. 'I only wish I had such eyes,' the King remarked in a fretful tone. 'To be able to see Nobody! And at that distance too! Why, it’s as much as I can do to see real people, by this light!'


"Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be, and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic!"

‘Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.’”

'There is no use in trying,' said Alice; 'one cannot believe impossible things.' 'I dare say you haven’t had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour each day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.'"

-Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland



You were right about the stars;
Each one is a setting sun.
-Jeff Tweedy, “Jesus, etc.”

What is that feeling when you’re driving away from people and they recede on the plain til you see their speck dispersing?—it’s the too huge world vaulting us, and it’s goodbye. But we lean forward to the next crazy adventure beneath the skies.
-Jack Kerouac, “On The Road”

Jadis! Jadis! Jadis, on etait ensemble, non? Ensemble! Ce grand môt d’amour…
A long time, a very long, long time ago, we were together, right? Together! This great name for love…
-Jack Kerouac, in a letter to friend Sebastian Sampas

The stars were the same then as they are tonight.
-Jack Kerouac, “The Dharma Bums”

My witness is the empty sky.
-Jack Kerouac

The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars...
-Jack Kerouac, "On the Road"


Take it easy, but take it.
-Woody Guthrie

Maybe the human animal has contributed really nothing to the universe but kissing and comedy--but by God that's plenty.
-Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

This is love, isn't it? When you notice someone's absence and hate that absence more than anything? More, even, than you love his presence?
-Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated


What would we be without wishful thinking?
-Jeff Tweedy, "Wishful thinking"

Summer afternoon—summer afternoon…the two most beautiful words in the English language.
-Henry James, Portrait of a Lady

One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.
~Nietzsche

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."
-Steve Jobs

[upon discovering their TV has been stolen} This sucks more than anything has ever sucked before.
— Butthead, from Beavis and Butthead Do America

Calvin: People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world. Hobbes: Isn't your pants' zipper supposed to be in the front?

May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
— George Carlin

Oh my God, I'm my father! I've been trying so hard not to be my mother that I didn't see this coming.
— Rachel from Friends

There's only one thing better than getting what you want, and that's getting what you want and pissing someone else off at the same time.
— Bender on Futurama

You coveteth my ice cream bar, but you cannot have it. I have had this ice cream bar since I was a child.
— Ren, from Ren and Stimpy

Be strong little marshmallow.
~Seen on a bumpersticker

You define yourself by the people you love and that's enough.
-Jeff Tweedy


The universe had not yet beckoned.
-George Eliot, “Middlemarch”

Gentle moon, find us soon.
-Mark Kozelek

Who am I, but my own past?
-Katherine Mansfield, “A Married Man’s Story”

Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are.
Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two.
- Captain Corelli's Mandolin

"From every human being there rises a light that reaches straight to heaven. And when two souls that are destined to be together find each other, their streams of light flow together, and a single brighter light goes forth from their united being."
--Unknown

. "The most wonderful of all things in life is the discovery of another human being with whom one's relationship has a growing depth, beauty and joy as the years increase. This inner progressiveness of love between two human beings is a most marvelous thing; it cannot be found by looking for it or by passionately wishing for it. It is a sort of divine accident, and the most wonderful of all things in life."
--Sir Hugh Walpole

"True love begins when nothing is looked for in return."
--Antoine De Saint-Exupery

Nothing shows a man's character more than what he laughs at.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A professor is one who talks in someone else's sleep.
Anonymous

Women and cats will do as they please. Men and dogs had better get used to it.
Robert Heinlein

There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.
Nelson Mandela



Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back,
always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation,
there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless
ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits
oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help
one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of
events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of
unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance which no
man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you
can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and
magic in it. Begin it now. " -- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

" Tolerance implies no lack of commitment to one's own beliefs.
Rather it condemns the oppression or persecution of others."
-John F. Kennedy

Practical people would be a lot more practical -
if they were just a little more dreamy."
-- J.P. McEvoy


We say we love flowers, yet we pluck them. We say
we love trees, yet we cut them down. And people still
wonder why some are afraid when told they are loved."
-anonymous

" I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge
That myth is more potent than history
That dreams are more powerful than facts
That hope always triumphs over experience
That laughter is the only cure for grief
And I believe that love is stronger than death."
--- Robert Fulghum

" When your heart is in your dream, no request is too extreme."
--Jiminy Crickett

" To be a star, You must shine your own light, Follow your own
path, And don't worry about the darkness, For that is when
stars shine brightest! " --- Author unknown

I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that
if at the end, when I come to lay down the reigns of power,
I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have
one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside me."
--Abe Lincoln

Out of India

Think of your husband as a lover from another life,
And wonder what you did to deserve him.

From 'How to live in Suburbia when your heart is in the Himalayas' by Gwen Davis

Enchanting thought isn’t it… just extending it could lovers in this life become husbands in another.. wishful thinking and I wonder what we would have done to deserve it..also maybe husbands in previous lives appear as lovers or people we encounter in this life!!! just a cosmic joke giving us a glimpse of what had been once ….Goes back to the whole eternal reccurance idea… life is just the sum of finite experisnes and people that you keep going back to

Actually went to the library to borrow “White Mughals” by William Darlymple, but chanced upon ‘Out of India’ a collection of snippets from Indian Writing through the ages… a very interesting read, given that I am so interested in collecting vignettes myself . Also got introduced to “Meghdoot” by Kalidas..i think I may have read bout it before ..but it was good to read it again…

Love Story

Love Story is a pretty good book by Erich Segal, I like ‘Acts of Faith’ as well …as far as pop romances go, and there’s no better type of romance novel right!!??!!… ‘The Promise’ by Danielle Steel is in this category of books any reader of romantic fiction should have read, just because they were so popular some 20-30 years ago. Was reminded of Love Story today and here are a few quotes , the first one appeals much more to me than the never having to say you’re sorry bit!!!

What can you say about a 25-year-old girl who died? That she was beautiful? And brilliant. That she love Mozart and Bach. And the Beatles. And me.


True love comes quietly, without banners or flashing lights. If you hear bells, get your ears checked.

Love means not ever having to say you're sorry.

Keep the Faith, and Keep Dwindling

I like this article, maybe it’s because one of my only two first cousins (so in actuality REAL Cousins ) who are married ;is married to a Parsi … ( FYI ..the other is married to an American.. ) …I wonder what precedent that sets for me ..being next in line and all ….anyhow.. there’s kind off a running joke in my dad’s side that goes something like “ I don’t what it is with these kids and Parsis!!” …my second cousin got married to his Parsi girlfriend last year, adding to the Parsi connection on Pop’s side … so yea my cousin's in-laws and her kids (being half Parsi) have been very, very good exponents of Parsi Culture for me…. that’s it though ; not having been brought up in Mumbai ;I don’t have many Parsi friends , but for what it’s worth …Family Matters and A Fine Balance are two of my favorite books !!! Yes I have an affinity for that community , though my connections are through intermarriages; I wonder how much the traditionalists will like that??!?? … I checked out all the links in the Sepia Mutiny article ..

Here’s the NYT Article that inspired it … I feel it means a lot to all of us, how people from a dwindling community marry outside for love ; and how us folks who might belong to communities in no danger of getting wiped out ,stick so strongly to community for marital purposes ..( I belong to a largely endogamous community myself , not getting wiped out soon.. I can relate to parts in the NYT article where they speak about maintaining age old traditions , but I can also relate to the Parsi girls dilemma of ,for whatever reason, not finding a person to marry in the small subset she had to choose from. )

September 6, 2006
Zoroastrians Keep the Faith, and Keep Dwindling
By LAURIE GOODSTEINBURR RIDGE, Ill. — In his day job, Kersey H. Antia is a psychologist who specializes in panic disorders. In his private life, Mr. Antia dons a long white robe, slips a veil over his face and goes to work as a Zoroastrian priest, performing rituals passed down through a patrilineal chain of priests stretching back to ancient Persia.
After a service for the dead in which priests fed sticks of sandalwood and pinches of frankincense into a blazing urn, Mr. Antia surveyed the Zoroastrian faithful of the Midwest — about 80 people in saris, suits and blue jeans.
“We were once at least 40, 50 million — can you imagine?” said Mr. Antia, senior priest at the fire temple here in suburban Chicago. “At one point we had reached the pinnacle of glory of the Persian Empire and had a beautiful religious philosophy that governed the Persian kings.
“Where are we now? Completely wiped out,” he said. “It pains me to say, in 100 years we won’t have many Zoroastrians.”
There is a palpable panic among Zoroastrians today — not only in the United States, but also around the world — that they are fighting the extinction of their faith, a monotheistic religion that most scholars say is at least 3,000 years old.
Zoroastrianism predates Christianity and Islam, and many historians say it influenced those faiths and cross-fertilized Judaism as well, with its doctrines of one God, a dualistic universe of good and evil and a final day of judgment.
While Zoroastrians once dominated an area stretching from what is now Rome and Greece to India and Russia, their global population has dwindled to 190,000 at most, and perhaps as few as 124,000, according to a survey in 2004 by Fezana Journal, published quarterly by the Federation of Zoroastrian Associations of North America. The number is imprecise because of wildly diverging counts in Iran, once known as Persia — the incubator of the faith.
“Survival has become a community obsession,” said Dina McIntyre, an Indian-American lawyer in Chesapeake, Va., who has written and lectured widely on her religion.
The Zoroastrians’ mobility and adaptability has contributed to their demographic crisis. They assimilate and intermarry, virtually disappearing into their adopted cultures. And since the faith encourages opportunities for women, many Zoroastrian women are working professionals who, like many other professional women, have few children or none.
Despite their shrinking numbers, Zoroastrians — who follow the Prophet Zarathustra (Zoroaster in Greek) — are divided over whether to accept intermarried families and converts and what defines a Zoroastrian. An effort to create a global organizing body fell apart two years ago after some priests accused the organizers of embracing “fake converts” and diluting traditions.
“They feel that the religion is not universal and is ethnic in nature, and that it should be kept within the tribe,” said Jehan Bagli, a retired chemist in Toronto who is a priest, or mobed, and president of the North American Mobed Council, which includes about 100 priests. “This is a tendency that to me sometimes appears suicidal. And they are prepared to make that sacrifice.”
In South Africa, the last Zoroastrian priest recently died, and there is no one left to officiate at ceremonies, said Rohinton Rivetna, a Zoroastrian leader in Chicago who, with his wife, Roshan, was a principal mover behind the failed effort to organize a global body. But they have not given up.
“We have to be working together if we are going to survive,” Mr. Rivetna said.
Although the collective picture is bleak, most individual Zoroastrians appear to be thriving. They are well-educated and well-traveled professionals, earning incomes that place them in the middle and upper classes of the countries where they or their families settled after leaving their homelands in Iran and India. About 11,000 Zoroastrians live in the United States, 6,000 in Canada, 5,000 in England, 2,700 in Australia and 2,200 in the Persian Gulf nations, according to the Fezana Journal survey.
This is the second major exodus in Zoroastrian history. In Iran, after Muslims rose to power in the seventh century A.D., historians say the Zoroastrian population was decimated by massacres, persecution and conversions to Islam. Seven boatloads of Zoroastrian refugees fled Iran and landed on the coast of India in 936. Their descendants, known as Parsis, built Mumbai, formerly Bombay, into the world capital of Zoroastrianism.
The Zoroastrian magazine Parsiana publishes charts each month tracking births, deaths and marriages. Leaders fret over the reports from Mumbai, where deaths outnumber births six to one. The intermarriage rate there has risen to about one in three. The picture in North America is more hopeful: about 1.5 births for one death. But the intermarriage rate in North America is now nearly 50 percent.
Soli Dastur, an exuberant priest who lives in Florida, is among the first generation of immigrants who started the trend. Mr. Dastur grew up in a village outside Mumbai, where his father was a priest, the fire temple was the center of town and his whole world was Zoroastrian.
He arrived in Evanston, Ill., in 1960, where he knew of no other Zoroastrians, to attend college on a scholarship provided by one of the Parsi endowments in Mumbai, which have since provided scholarships to many others. He earned a Ph.D., worked as a chemical engineer and married an American Roman Catholic he met on a blind date 40 years ago.
Mr. Dastur is a priest in much demand to perform ceremonies because of his melodic chanting of the prayers. He and his wife, Jo Ann, have two grown daughters. Neither married a Zoroastrian.
“They’re good human beings,” Mr. Dastur said. “That’s more important to me.”
The very tenets of Zoroastrianism could be feeding its demise, many adherents said in interviews. Zoroastrians believe in free will, so in matters of religion they do not believe in compulsion. They do not proselytize. They can pray at home instead of going to a temple. While there are priests, there is no hierarchy to set policy. And their basic doctrine is a universal ethical precept: “good thoughts, good words, good deeds.”
“That’s what I take away from Zoroastrianism,” said Tenaz Dubash, a filmmaker in New York City who is making a documentary about the future of her faith, “that I’m a cerebral, thinking human being, and I need to think for myself.”
Ferzin Patel, who runs a support group for 20 intermarried couples in New York, said that while the Zoroastrians in the group adored their faith and wanted to teach it to their children, they in no way wanted to compel their spouses to convert.
“In the intermarriage group, I don’t think anyone feels that someone should forfeit their religion just for Zoroastrianism,” Ms. Patel said.
Despite, or because of, the high intermarriage rate, some Zoroastrian priests refuse to accept converts or to perform initiation ceremonies for adopted children or the children of intermarried couples, especially when the father is not Zoroastrian. The ban on these practices is far stronger in India and Iran than in North America.
“As soon as you do it, you start diluting your ethnicity, and one generation has an intermarriage, and the next generation has more dilution and the customs become all fuzzy and they eventually disappear,” said Jal N. Birdy, a priest in Corona, Calif., who will not perform weddings of mixed couples. “That would destroy my community, which is why I won’t do it.”
The North American Mobed Council is so divided on the issue of accepting intermarried spouses and children that it has been unable to take a position, said Mr. Bagli, the council’s president. He supports accepting converts because he said he can find no ban in Zoroastrian texts, but he estimated that as many as 40 percent of the priests in his group were opposed.
The peril and the hope for Zoroastrianism are embodied in a child of the diaspora, Rohena Elavia Ullal, 27, a physical therapist in suburban Chicago.
Ms. Ullal knew from an early age that her parents wanted her to marry another Zoroastrian. Her mother, a former board president of the Chicago temple, helped organize Sunday school classes once a month there, enticing teenagers with weekend sleepovers and roller-skating trips.
The result was a core group of close friends who felt more like cousins, Ms. Ullal said recently over breakfast.
Both of her brothers found mates at Zoroastrian youth congresses, and one is already married. Ms. Ullal stayed on the lookout.
“There were so few,” she said. “I guess you’re lucky if you find somebody. That would be the ideal.”
Ms. Ullal’s college boyfriend is also the child of Indian immigrants to the United States, but he is Hindu. [They married on Saturday and had two ceremonies — one Hindu, one Zoroastrian.] But Ms. Ullal says that before they even became engaged, they talked about her desire to raise their children as Zoroastrians.
“It’s scary; we’re dipping down in numbers,” she said. “I don’t want to hurt his parents, but he doesn’t have the kind of responsibility, whereas I do.”

Does Money Buy Happiness

Status Dimensions

But this is a problem only if you are determined to compete in that status race. If you are so determined, and you’re having a hard time of it, that’s your problem. You are not suffering from inequality; you are suffering from your preferences, and, within fairly broad limits, our preferences are under our control.

Read the entire article here.

Also the article that sparked it all ...Does Money Buy Happiness?

The International Herald Tribune
Economic View: Does money buy happiness?
By Robert H. Frank The New York Times
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 30, 2006

Interest in the lifestyles of the rich and famous varies with economic conditions. Just as someone who is seven feet, or two meters, tall may seem almost normal at a National Basketball Association practice session, the purchases of the wealthy typically attract little notice when inequality is low and stable. But when inequality is high and growing rapidly, luxury purchases are sometimes as hard to ignore as a seven- foot sixth grader.

When "The Great Gatsby" was first published in 1925, income and wealth disparities were at record levels. It is thus no mystery that F. Scott Fitzgerald's saga of wealthy Americans during the Jazz Age became an instant best-seller.

Inequality diminished rapidly during the Great Depression and remained low until the 1970s. But since then, it has again been rising sharply. Disparities today are once more at record levels, which may help explain the resurgence of interest in Gatsby. Fitzgerald's novel was recently selected, for example, for common reading programs at Cornell and other universities, programs in which students, faculty, alumni and staff are encouraged to read and discuss the same book as the academic year begins.

With my last literature course, taken in high school, just a dim memory, I was naturally apprehensive when Cornell administrators asked me to speak at the university's Gatsby convocation for incoming freshmen last week. In the process of preparing for that assignment, however, I was delighted to discover the extent to which my economics training actually seemed to illuminate important elements of the novel's story line.

Consider, for example, the link between wealth and personal attractiveness. Everyone wants a house in a safe neighborhood with good schools, but those with low incomes cannot be sure of getting one. So, economists are not surprised that women mention earning power at or near the top of the list when surveyed about traits they find attractive in men. Gatsby understood that his humble station in life made him an unlikely suitor for his coveted Daisy. And so he labored with singular focus and determination to achieve material success on the grandest scale possible.

The theory of compensating wage differentials helps illuminate a particular detail of this quest. This theory holds that the more unpleasant and risky a job is, the more it pays. Some of the largest available pay premiums, it turns out, are those paid to highly qualified people who are willing to do morally questionable work. Tobacco industry consultants, for example, were once paid extremely high fees for their willingness to testify under oath that smoking had not been shown to cause serious illnesses. Gatsby realized that to have any chance of achieving his goal, he could not be cautious or squeamish.

Fitzgerald never reveals the precise details of how Gatsby amassed his fortune. But he leaves little doubt that Gatsby's work was not just morally suspect, but also well outside the law. Gatsby surely realized that if he were caught and punished, his dream would evaporate. But no matter. A less risky path would have meant certain failure.

The burgeoning literature on the determinants of human well-being also sheds light on events in Gatsby. Once the almost exclusive domain of psychologists, happiness studies began to attract the attention of economists after Richard Easterlin posed a timeless question in an influential 1974 paper. Does money buy happiness? Current research supports seemingly contradictory answers to this question.

One is that in any given country, the average level of measured happiness remains essentially unchanged over time, even in the face of substantial growth in average incomes. But if getting more money does not make us happier, why do people often struggle so hard to earn more? An answer is suggested by other studies showing that within any given country at a single point in time, people are happier, on average, the more money they have. To the extent money influences measured happiness levels, then, it is relative, not absolute, income that seems to matter.

But since Gatsby's income was enormous, in both relative and absolute terms, why wasn't he happy? Researchers have identified other factors that affect happiness levels far more than income does. For example, happiness levels rise substantially with the number of close friends someone has. One of the most striking scenes in the novel is of Gatsby's funeral, which almost no one bothered to attend. In his single-minded pursuit of material success, he appears to have developed no real friendships at all.

Gatsby's unhappiness may also be explained in part by the finding that those who focus most consciously and intensely on material success also tend to experience low levels of measured happiness. This is a singularly important finding for the many incoming freshmen whose only apparent goal is to become fabulously wealthy by age 25.

A far more promising strategy, according to the happiness literature, is to seek work you love. Those who find such a calling typically become deeply engaged in their professional lives. And engagement, in turn, leads to expertise, which in some fields, at least, leads to wealth. Finding work that you value for its own sake is thus not only a promising path to happiness, it may also increase your chances of becoming rich. But even if not, it will improve your odds of becoming an interesting person, someone who is attractive to both friends and potential mates alike.

F. Scott Fitzgerald probably would have appreciated this finding. For although the novelist himself married a wealthy woman, he advised others not to marry for money. "Go where the money is," he counseled, "then marry for love."

Robert H. Frank, an economist at the Johnson School of Management at Cornell University, is the co-author, with Ben Bernanke, of "Principles of Economics." E-mail: rhf3@cornell.edu

Lage Raho Munnabhai!

Bole toh……………
Watch Lage Raho Munnabhai!!!!! Definitely worth the $6 ticket!!!!

Karma Points

I wonder how Karma points add up…I know they do, I’m not exactly suffering in spite of somewhat ok karma ..,not that I’m maintaining a list or anything ( at least not on paper)!!!but I need both hands to keep track of people whom I knew before they got together, I wouldn’t say I played cupid but the simple act of a few good words , a nudge here , keeping my mouth shut at times , helped bring happiness in to the lives of many people (angel that I am)..Inconsequential person that I am ;people have gotten jobs based on my recommendations, all this isn’t very great each one of us have done the same …I wonder though sometimes ;when I see the sixth couple I knew before they knew each other pair up with the person of their dreams .. ;“So now why cant they set me up with mine…” but I guess that’s not the way karma points work…anyway good karma might not work ..but I’m not too sure about negative ones..i can be blunt at times… sometimes I feel the accumulated muttered curses of past ‘suitors’?!!? has sort of affected my life..but you wish only good for people that you love right?!!??
Anyway found this :

Once, when I was young and true,
Someone left me sad-
Broke my brittle heart in two;
And that is very bad.
Love is for unlucky folk,
Love is but a curse.
Once there was a heart I broke;
And that, I think, is worse.
-Dorothy Parker

I believe in the symmetry theory ..if it's meant to happen it will, if it wasn’t meant to happen well it didn’t …wasn’t “true love" I guess
And back to true love read this letter by Victor Hugo:

To Adele Foucher (1821)
My dearest,
When two souls, which have sought each other for,
however long in the throng, have finally found each other
...a union, fiery and pure as they themselves are...
begins on earth and continues forever in heaven.
This union is love, true love,...
a religion, which deifies the loved one,
whose life comes from devotion and passion,
and for which the greatest sacrifices are the sweetest delights.
This is the love which you inspire in me...
Your soul is made to love with the purity and passion of angels;
but perhaps it can only love another angel, in which case I must tremble with apprehension.

Yours forever,
Victor Hugo

Hmmm …. Somehow I find the first few lines interesting

Here’s something that I really like

" I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times,
in life after life, in age after age forever."
~Rabindranath Tagore~

So maybe my good karma points are adding up for the next life ……..

Khushwant Singh

Man how come I haven’t posted a Khushwant Singh article..he’s one of the first Indian authors I’ve read more than one book by…. Grew up reading his joke books..thank you very much!!! How much I understood at the time is open to question………..

Oh, That Other Hindu Riot Of Passage
By Khushwant Singh


07 November, 2004
Outlook Magazine

There are two anniversaries so deeply etched in my mind that every year they come around I recollect with pain what happened on those two days. They occurred 20 years ago. One is October 31, when Mrs Gandhi was gunned down by her two Sikh security guards. The other is the following day, when the 'aftermath' consummated itself: frenzied Hindu mobs, driven by hate and revenge, finally killed nearly 10,000 innocent Sikhs across north India down to Karnataka. Four years later, Mrs Gandhi's assassins Satwant Singh and Kehar Singh paid the penalty for their crime by being hanged to death in Tihar jail.

Twenty years later, the killers of 10,000 Sikhs remain unpunished. The conclusion is clear: in secular India there is one law for the Hindu majority, another for Muslims, Christians and Sikhs who are in minority.

October 31, 1984: The sequence of events remains as vivid as ever. Around 11 am, I heard of Mrs Gandhi being shot in her house and taken to hospital. By the afternoon, I heard on the bbc that she was dead. For a couple of hours, life in Delhi came to a standstill. Then hell broke loose-mobs yelling khoon ka badla khoon se lenge (we'll avenge blood with blood) roamed the streets. Ordinary Sikhs going about their life were waylaid and roughed up. In the evening, I saw a cloud of black smoke billowing up from Connaught Circus: Sikh-owned shops had been set on fire. An hour later, mobs were smashing up taxis owned by Sikhs right opposite my apartment. Sikh-owned shops in Khan Market were being looted. Over 100 policemen armed with lathis lined the middle of the road and did nothing. At midnight, truckloads of men armed with cans of petrol attacked the gurudwara behind my back garden, beat up the granthi and set fire to the shrine. I was bewildered and did not know what to do. Early next morning, I rang up President Zail Singh.

He would not come on the phone. His secretary told me that the president advised me to move into the home of a Hindu friend till the trouble was over. The newly-appointed prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi, was busy receiving guests arriving for his mother's funeral; home minister Narasimha Rao did not budge from his office; the Lt Governor of Delhi had no orders to put down the rioters. Seventy-two gurudwaras were torched and thousands of Sikh houses looted. The next few days, TV and radio sets were available for less than half their price.

Mid-morning, a Swedish diplomat came and took me and my wife to his home in the diplomatic enclave. My aged mother had been taken by Romesh Thapar to his home. Our family lawyer, Anant Bir Singh, who lived close to my mother, had his long hair cut off and beard shaved to avoid being recognised as a Sikh. I watched Mrs Gandhi's cremation on TV in the home of my Swedish protector. I felt like a Jew must have in Nazi Germany. I was a refugee in my own homeland because I was a Sikh.
What I found most distressing was the attitude of many of my Hindu friends. Two couples made a point to call on me after I returned home. They were Sri S. Mulgaonkar and his wife, Arun Shourie and his wife Anita. As for the others, the less said the better. Girilal Jain, editor of The Times of India, rationalised the violence: the Hindu cup of patience, he wrote, had become full to the brim. N.C. Menon, who succeeded me as editor of The Hindustan Times, wrote of how Sikhs had "clawed their way to prosperity" and well nigh had it coming to them. Some spread gossip of how Sikhs had poisoned Delhi's drinking water, how they had attacked trains and slaughtered Hindu passengers. At the Gymkhana Club where I played tennis every morning, one man said I had no right to complain after what Sikhs had done to Hindus in Punjab. At a party, another gloated "Khoob mazaa chakhaya-we gave them a taste of their own medicine." Word had gone round: 'Teach the Sikhs a lesson'.
Did the Sikhs deserve to be taught a lesson? I pondered over the matter for many days and many hours and reluctantly admitted that Hindus had some justification for their anger against Sikhs. The starting point was the emergence of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale as a leader. He used vituperative language against the Hindus. He exhorted every Sikh to kill 32 Hindus to solve the Hindu-Sikh problem. Anyone who opposed him was put on his hit list and some eliminated. His hoodlums murdered Lala Jagat Narain, founder of the Hind Samachar group of papers. They killed hawkers who sold their papers.

The list of Bhindranwale's victims, which included both Hindus and Sikhs, was a long one. More depressing to me was that no one spoke out openly against him. He had a wily patron in Giani Zail Singh who had him released when he was charged as an accomplice in the murderof Jagat Narain. Akali leaders supported him. Some like Badal and Barnala, who used to tie their beards to their chins, let them down in deference to his wishes. So did many Sikh civil servants. They lauded him as the saviour of the Khalsa Panth and called him Sant. I am proud to say I was the only one who wrote against him and attacked him as a hate-monger. I was on his hit list and continued to be so on that of his followers-for 15 long years-and was given police protection which I never asked for.
Bhindranwale, with the tacit connivance of Akali leaders like Gurcharan Singh Tohra, turned the Golden Temple into an armed fortress of Sikh defiance. He provided the Indian government the excuse to send the army into the temple complex. I warned the government in Parliament and through my articles against using the army to get hold of Bhindranwale and his followers as the consequences would be grave. And so they were. Operation Bluestar was a blunder of Himalayan proportions. Bhindranwale was killed but hailed as a martyr. Over 5,000 men and women lost their lives in the exchange of fire.
The Akal Takht was wrecked.Symbolic protests did not take long coming. I was part of it; I surrendered the Padma Bhushan awarded to me. Among the people who condemned my action was Vinod Mehta, then editor of The Observer. He wrote that when it came to choosing between being an Indian or a Sikh, I had chosen to be a Sikh. I stopped contributing to his paper. I had never believed that I had to be one or the other. I was both an Indian and a Sikh and proud of being so. I might well have asked Mehta in return, "Are you a Hindu or an Indian?" Hindus do not have to prove their nationality; only Muslims, Christians and Sikhs are required to give evidence of their patriotism.Anti-Sikh violence gave a boost to the demand for a separate Sikh state and Khalistan-inspired terrorism in Punjab and abroad. Amongst the worst was the blowing up of Air India's Kanishka (June 23, 1985), which killed all its 329 passengers and crew, including over 30 Sikhs. Sant Harchand Singh Longowal, who signed the Rajiv-Longowal accord (July 29, 1985), was murdered while praying in a gurudwara just three weeks later. In August 1986, General A.S. Vaidya, who was chief of staff when Operation Bluestar took place, was gunned down in Pune in August 1985. The killings went on unabated for almost 10 years. Terrorists ran a parallel government in districts adjoining Pakistan which also provided them arms training and escape routes. It is estimated that in those 10 years over 25,000 were killed. Midway, the Golden Temple had again become a sanctuary for criminals. This time the Punjab police led by K.P.S. Gill was able to get the better of them with the loss of only two lives in what came to be known as Operation Black Thunder (May 13-18, 1988). The terrorist movement petered out as the terrorists turned gangsters and took to extortion and robbery.The peasantry turned its back on them.

About the last action of Khalistani terrorists was the murder of chief minister Beant Singh, who was blown up along with 12 others by a suicide bomber on July 31, 1995, at Chandigarh.It is not surprising that with this legacy of ill-will and bloodshed a sense of alienation grew among the Sikhs. It was reinforced by the reluctance of successive governments at the Centre to bring the perpetrators of the anti-Sikh pogrom of October 31 and November 1, 1984. A growing number of non-Sikhs have also come to the conclusion that grave injustice has been done to the Sikhs. Several non-official commissions of inquiry-including one headed by retired Supreme Court chief justice S.M. Sikri, comprising retired ambassadors and senior civil servants-have categorically named the guilty. However, all that the government has done is to appoint one commission of inquiry after another to look into charges of minor relevance to the issue without taking any action. The Nanavati Commission has been at it for quite some time: I rendered evidence before it over two years ago. It has asked for further extension of time, which has been granted till the end of this year. The only word I can think of using for such official procrastination is disgraceful.

I have to concede that the attitude of the bjp government led by Atal Behari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani towards the Sikhs has been more positive than that of the Congress, many of whose leaders were involved in the 1984 anti-Sikh violence. Some of it may be due to its alliance with the principal Sikh political party, the Akalis, led by Parkash Singh Badal. It also gives them a valid excuse to criticise the Congress leadership. Nevertheless, I welcomed the Congress party's return to power in the Centre because it also promises a fairer deal to other minorities like the Muslims and Christians. And I make no secret of my rejoicing over the choice of Manmohan Singh, the first Sikh to become prime minister of India and he in his turn selecting another Sikh, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, to head the Planning
Commission.

The dark months of alienation are over; the new dawn promises blue skies and sunshine for the minorities with only one black cloud remaining to be blown away-a fair deal to families of victims of the anti-Sikh violence of 1984. It was the most horrendous crime committed on a mass scale since we became an independent nation. Its perpetrators must be punished because crimes unpunished generate more criminals.

From his column in the Hindustan Times
Taking refuge in nostalgia...

Khushwant Singh | with malice towards one and all...

August 26, 2006

There was a time I made three visits to Khan Market everyday. It is across the road from my flat. The first was in the mornings, when the shops opened, to buy provisions. The second would be in the evening to see the raunaq, pick up magazines, browse over books and have some gup-shup with the proprietors. We had much in common: all were Punjabi refugees from Pakistan, mostly from the Frontier Province, a few like me from Lahore. The third visit was after dinner, mostly at the insistence of our dog, Simba. My wife, I, our son and daughter would follow him as he would lead. At Khan market, my wife would buy him an ice-cream cone. We would then proceed to the paanwala buy the rolled up betel leaves and go back home.
With the passage of years, things began to change. The first generation of Khan Market shopkeepers died. The paanwala’s shop became a fancy general store. Simba died. My son moved to Bombay, daughter got married and moved to her husband’s flat. My wife died. I became too old to cross the road. I could only look longingly at the Khan Market shops. No one missed my disappearance: most thought I had joined my forefathers. As a matter of fact, I was still around but somewhat alienated. I felt they were dishonouring the name of Dr Khan Sahib, elder brother of Abdul Ghaffar Khan, ‘Frontier Gandhi’ after whom the market was named.

The impasse was broken by an exhibition of photographs taken by the Time-Life’s Margaret Bourke-White of the massacres of innocents during Partition. It was Pramod Kapoor of Roli Books’ idea to match the pictures with extracts from my first novel Train To Pakistan. Huge posters were on display round the market. Sheila Dikshit, CM, Delhi, inaugurated the exhibition. I was asked to be present. I went reluctantly.
Was it worth opening old wounds which had healed? I felt it was. The wounds may have filled up but the poison of communal hatred was still in our minds. It keeps erupting periodically in different parts of our country. For the murder of Mrs Gandhi by two Sikh bodyguards, thousands of Sikhs were murdered in cold blood. Destruction of Babri Masjid was followed by bomb blasts in Bombay. There was massacre of innocent Muslims in Gujarat following a train set on fire at Godhra. It was a timely reminder of what happened in the biggest mass migration in the history of the world (over 10 million uprooted and a million innocent people — Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs, butchered).
The lesson is clear: if you don’t want these things to happen, purge your bodies of communal virus in your blood stream. Repeat Bapu’s words like a mantra: “Hate kills the man who hates.”

Hello? Hello?
I simply can’t understand why my telephone goes dead almost every month. Having only one line and no cell-phone, I have to beseech my neighbours to lodge a complaint on my behalf.
Recent deaths of my phone have fallen into a pattern. Two yamas (they always come in twos) come to examine the box outside. I sit back and relax. The phone goes dead again in a few days time.
I get somebody to lodge a complaint which is duly noted down and numbered. Nothing happens for a couple of days, usually on weekends or holidays. Ultimately, the same two men arrive, tinker with wires and reanimate my instrument. For the trouble they take, I give them a tip and cup of chai. I ask them what had gone wrong. The usual answer I get is ‘Cable Fault’ — whatever that means. I have stopped giving baksheesh or chai. So my telephone gets killed more often. It did not happen when BM Khanna was the big boss because people working under him knew he was a good friend. Nor when I was an MP and later member of the Social Audit Panel. It happens now because I am a nobody. My neighbour Reeta Devi of Cooch Behar has devised a way of restoring life back to my telephone. She asks some high-ups, some Minister’s PA to tell the telephone wallas that Minister Sahib wants to speak to me; so would they put life back in my phone — ek dam! It works. The only word I can think of is disgraceful.
Fixing papa
Teacher: How old is your father?
Sunny: As old as I am.
Teacher: How can that be possible?
Sunny: He became a father only after I was born.
Bapu’s gift
Teacher: Because of Gandhiji, what did we get on 15th August?
Students: A holiday.
(contributed by Vipin Bucksey, New Delhi)

Philosophy of Science ..and then some...

Got a lot of bang for my buck at my statistics class this week!!!!

• Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them… We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.
~The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945) Karl Popper

Before we as individuals are even conscious of our existence we have been profoundly influenced for a considerable time (since before birth) by our relationship to other individuals who have complicated histories, and are members of a society which has an infinitely more complicated and longer history than they do (and are members of it at a particular time and place in that history); and by the time we are able to make conscious choices we are already making use of categories in a language which has reached a particular degree of development through the lives of countless generations of human beings before us. . . . We are social creatures to the inmost centre of our being. The notion that one can begin anything at all from scratch, free from the past, or unindebted to others, could not conceivably be more wrong.
~As quoted in Popper (1973) by Bryan Magee

• No matter how many instances of white swans we may have observed, this does not justify the conclusion that all swans are white.
~Popper The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1959)


"You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!
~From A Christmas Carol, Scrooge on seeing Marley’s Ghost Charles Dickens

from Paradise Lost
From man or angel the great Architect
Did wisely to conceal, and not divulge
His secrets to be scanned by them who ought
Rather admire; or if they list to try
Conjecture, he his fabric of the heav'ns
Hath left to their disputes, perhaps to move
His laughter at their quaint opinions wide
Hereafter, when they come to model heav'n
And calculate the stars, how they will wield
The mighty frame, how build, unbuild, contrive
To save appearances, how gird the sphere
With centric and eccentric scribbled o'er,
Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb
-John Milton

Love Quotes

Found loads of quotes on love.... here...was actually googling for lyrics of a particular song..any way read at your leisure..

It is wrong to think that love comes from long companionship
and persevering courtship. Love is the offspring of spiritual
affinity and unless that affinity is created in a moment, it
will not be created for years or even generations.
~ Khalil Gibran ~

Love... What is love? Love is to love someone
for who they are, who they were, and who they will be.
~ Chris Moore ~

Love is like a river, always changing,
but always finding you again somewhere
down the road.
~ Kelly Elaine ~

People need love even when they don't deserve it.
~ Nikki Ledbetter ~

When first we fall in love, we feel that we know all there is to know about life.
And perhaps we are right.
* * * * * * * * *

Love can find an entrance, not only into an open heart,
but also into a heart well fortified, if watch be not well kept.
* * * * * * * * *

Listen to the love around you. Your ears are open even if your mind is closed.
* * * * * * * * *

Sometimes it is a relief to find you are not in love
* * * * * * * * *

Dream on do in pursuit of your dream. The dunes are changed by the wind but the desert never changes That's the way it will be with our love for each other. If I am part of your dream you'll come back one day.
* * * * * * * * *

A smile is nearly always inspired by another smile.


***
If you want the rainbow, you have to put up with a little rain!

Dolly Parton
********************

"Woe to the man whose heart has not learned while young to hope, to love - and to put its trust in life."
-Joseph Conrad
* * * * * * * * *

"The magic of first love is our ignorance that it can ever end."
-Benjamin Disraeli
* * * * * * * * *

In love, never put yourself in a situation where you're not sure of where you stand in a person's life...Never assume, never expect so that if they drop you, you have enough strength to move on....Unknown.
* * * * * * * * *

It isn't possible to love and part...You can transmutate love, ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you. I know from experience that the poets are right: love is eternal....E M Forester.
* * * * * * * * *

Love means to love that which is unlovable,
or it is no virtue at all;
forgiving means to pardon the unpardonable,
or it is no virtue at all;
faith means believing the unbelievable,
or it is no virtue at all;
And to hope means hoping when things are hopeless,
or it is no virtue at all....G.K. Chesterton.
The joy of late love is like green firewood when set aflame, for the longer the wait in lighting, the greater heat it yields and the longer its force lasts....Chrétien de Troyes.
* * * * * * * * *

Love is broad; if you love someone, you love all things, not just their beauty. Love is narrow; you love one and only one, compared to them, no one matters....A. Braxton.
* * * * * * * * *

When you really want love you will find it waiting for you....Oscar Wilde.
* * * * * * * * *

If we listened to our intellect, we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go into business, because we'd be cynical. Well, that's nonsense. You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down Love has the power to break all chains - Swim the deepest seas - Endure the strongest pains - Love is the glow in the darkest night leading you on until you have sight....Cristoto

Some emotions don't make a lot of noise. It's hard to hear pride. Caring is real faint -- like a heartbeat. And pure love -- why, some days it's so quiet, you don't even know it's there....Erma Bombeck.
* * * * * * * * *

There are only four questions of value in life...
What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made?
What is worth living for? What is worth dying for? The answer to each is the same. Only love....
* * * * * * * * *

Two things you should NEVER say to the one you love: "I love you, but..." and "If you loved me, you would..." Should you really qualify love with conditions?....Unknown
* * * * * * * * *

I believe in the sun even when it's not shining. I believe in love even when not feeling it. I believe in God even when He is silent....Unknown
* * * * * * * * *.

Listen more carefully • Notice the seasons change • Hold hands with someone you love • Give more hugs • Watch more sunsets • Take walks • Sing out loud more often • Square dance a little • Have more picnics • Make friends wherever you go • Feel good about yourself • Daydream a little • Laugh as much as possible • Take your shoes off • Use your imagination • Tell more stories....
* * * * * * * * *

Once you love, you cannot take it back, cannot undo it. What you felt may have changed, shifted slightly, yet still remains love....Whitney Otto.
* * * * * * * * *

To love someone means to see him as God intended him....Fyodor
Dostoyevsky

I fell in love with her courage, her sincerity, and her flaming self-respect and it's these things I'd believe in even if the whole world indulged in wild suspicions that she wasn't all she should be…. I love her and that's the beginning of everything.
~F. Scott Fitzgerald

* * * * * * * * *

Hopeless romantics are only hopeless in the eyes of those who don't believe in romance.

* * * * * * * * *
You know its love when all you want is that person to be happy, even if you're not part of their happiness
.
Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.
-- Marcus Aurelius
* * * * * * * * *
If it is your time, love will track you down like a cruise missile.
-- Lynda Barry
* * * * * * * * *

The story of a love is not important - what is important is that one is capable of love. It is perhaps the only glimpse we are permitted of eternity.
-- Helen Hayes
* * * * * * * * *

Love is like pi - natural, irrational, and very important.
-- Lisa Hoffman

He was like an angel, you know? I never knew life could be like that. He was the one thing I followed through in my life, the one thing I didn't give up on. I was good at loving him.

-- The Untamed Heart

That's why they call them crushes. If they were easy, they'd call them something else

-Sixteen Candles
Remember my sentimental friend, you will be judged not by how much you love, but by how much you are loved.

-Wizard of Oz



* * * * * * * * *



School is still the same.. there's still that one guy that you get up and go to school for in the morning. The one with the mysterious confidence that every girl falls for. Those years of school wouldn't have been the same without him. I wouldn't have been the same without him

- Never Been kissed



* * * * * * * * *

I wonder how many people never get the one they want, but end up with the one they're supposed to have

-Fried Green Tomatoes



* * * * * * * * *

Sometimes I wish I had never met you. Because then I could go to sleep at night not knowing there was someone like you out there.

-Good Will Hunting



* * * * * * * * *


There Are Millions Of People In This world, But In The end It All Comes Down To One

-Crazy/Beautiful



* * * * * * * * *



You spend all your time looking for love yet you feel nothing even when its staring you in the face I will love again but You will spend all your life knowing you turned your back on love and that makes you a hypocrite

-Cruel Intentions



* * * * * * * * *



I always thought that there was this one perfect person for everybody in the world, you know, and when you found that person the rest of the world kind of magically faded away, and, you know, the two of you would just be inside this kind of protective bubble, but there is no bubble, I mean if there is you have to make it, I just think life is more than a series of moments, you know, we can make choices, and we can choose to protect the people we love, and that's what makes us who we are and those are the real memories

-Forces of Nature
***************

Dory : You mean ... you mean you don't like me?
Marlin : No, of course I like you. It's because I like you I don't want to be with you. It's a complicated emotion.

-Finding Nemo



* * * * * * * * *
Don't you hate that? Uncomfortable silence. Why do we feel it's necessary to talk about bull in order to feel comfortable? That's when you know you've found somebody really special. When you can just shut the hell up for a minute and comfortably share a silence



* * * * * * * * *

When you realise You want to spend
The rest of your life with somebody,
You want the rest of your life
To start as soon as possible.
--When Harry Met Sally

* * * * * * * * *

I believe there's a place where the restless souls wander, burdened by the weight of their own sadness. They wait for a chance to set the wrong things right. Only then can they be reunited with the ones they love. Sometimes, a crow shows them the way; because sometimes, love is stronger than death.
-City of Angels


* * * * * * * * *



Eleanor: Did he tell you that he loved you?
Marianne: Yes! No, no... it was everyday implied, but never declared. Sometimes I thought it had, but it never was.. he has broken no vow.
Eleanor: Broken no vow?! He made us all believe he loved you!
Marianne: He did, he did! He loved me as I loved him! (She starts crying)

-Sense and Sensibility


* * * * * * * * *
Samantha: I have to ask you a question. It's a good one so think about it. If two people love each other, but they just can't seem to get it together, when do you get to that point of enough is enough?
Jerry: Never.

-The Mexican
********************************

Just random thoughts….

For people who are in relationships ..(I mean ‘real’ ones!!??!!)… I’m guilty of thinking this as well ..especially in my cynical later years.. Well I’ve noticed that everyone thinks that the relationships they are/were in are somewhat pure or more genuine than everyone else’s… and most people don’t hesitate from voicing their opinion regarding the same…. DUH!!!! Boyfriends/girlfriends, friends ,lovers, wives,husbands… world over are the same …there are no levels….but still people cast aspersions on anyone and everyone who isn’t them…

I’m starting to realize that in pretty much everyone’s lives there is a point where someone we look up to the most lets us down… it’s not easy to deal with … but in crunch situations I think most people crumble…. It’s interesting to see how folks deal with such situations…

I didn’t realize so many people thought about parallel universes …:..would’ve posted earlier on parallel universes .. ..but you know, wasn’t too sure about what would’ve happened in my best parallel universe , maybe the decisions I’ve made would be different, but I’m quite happy with the ones I’ve made up to this point so…maybe if the decisions/actions of others would be different ,things would be better ???!!??..I for one wouldn’t mind being in a universe where everything was “great” ..but you know I feel that like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz and Jimmy Stewart’s character in “It’s a wonderful life” ..in the end , inspite of everything I’d probably want to come back to where I am now (“There’s no place like home types”)..Though heaven knows why…

I watched Love Actually… I’ve been wanting to see it forever and saw portions of it last labour day and watched it last week completely ?(coincidence…yea life is full of coincidences!!) any how..it was a good movie ..in the league of Four Weddings and the Bridget Jones movies….no over the top, inspiring ..’make you wanna go out and act your own love story type’ scenes ( Serendipity, When Harry met Sally , Pretty Woman are more in that league)..But it did make me somewhat nostalgic for any country that wasn’t the US!!!!

Update: Been listening to some really old Hindi songs lately , I’m a bit of a retro freak.. but these songs if my parents knew I liked them they’d be a bit surprised.. because these are from when my parents were my around my age or close. My mom tells me to listen to Jagjit Singh.. but I cant seem to get beyond his cover versions of old Indian film songs.. anyhow.. i think the reason I like the old hindi songs is because they are something that my parents listened to while I was growing up… I guess those kannada Raj Kumar songs my dad played once in a while might fit into all this nostalgia…umm maybe not.. I’m not too sure my folks would find “if you come today’ as hilarious as I did!! …Back to Hindi I’m listening to Tujhse Naraaz from Masoom, I used to watch this movie umpteen times as a pre teen ,it released in 1984..(dont think it was a kid’s movie though… Mr. India was more a kiddie movie.. though I felt sad when the girl died towards the end…) also downloaded Kahin Door Jab from Anand.. seriously mom and dad are going to give me strange looks when they hear this it’s like on some level we’re on the same plane.. while for them it’s nostalgia ..with me it’s nostalgia for nostalgia.. getit??!!