Man- An irrational, self centered hypocrite.

 As a disclaimer, Id like to clarify that this post is not meant to offend anybody. Its may contain some of my views on the ideal life style which may conflict with your habits. This blog is a way of bringing out my thoughts, and that I shall do today.

 I happened to stumble upon this community on facebook called 'vegetarians'. Having been a vegetarian for 20 years, I instantly liked the community and joined it. Since then, Ive been spending around 1/3rd of my day time in reading articles and posting stuff on that community. Initially I used to read posts and reply sometimes, but later on, when I saw people around the world making colossal efforts to forgo their diet for many years, and turn vegetarian out of love for animals and a desire for a healthier diet, I couldn't help but get more involved. I hunted for celebrity names that are vegetarians, videos on youtube about vegetarianism and similar articles to help re-affirm their belief.

The debate of vegetarianism against meat eating is a very old one and  "Everyone is entitled to their own views, beliefs and practices" is the most convenient way to end this debate. In my opinion there is no question for a debate, or rather, there is no use of the debate in which one party refuses face-to-face confrontation , or see the truth and simply resorts to lame excuses to find its way out. 

Vegetarianism is mainly classified into 2 categories.

1) Vegetarianism due to health reasons.

2)"ethical vegetarianism" 

I respect and appreciate people who fall into the second category. "ethical vegetarianism" is vegetarianism embraced out of affection, concern and sympathy towards the millions of animals that are tortured/killed for food. This is the kind of vegetarianism that I stand for, and personally believe that If one were to go vegetarian purely for the first cause, he'd better remain a meat eater. You could exercise, work out eat meat and still be healthier than most of the veggies around. "Health problems" although can be a very good reason to turn vegetarian, especially if your not the physically active type, doesn't form the essence of vegetarianism. Its a tool used by animal right activists and vegetarians to convince the meat eaters to quit meat. I for one, believe that one needs to understand why he's turning a veggie, and more importantly how his sacrifice affects another animal. 

With all that said, lets have a look at some of the arguments of the meat eaters. It ranges from dietitians disputing the harms caused by a non veg diet, to religious men reading out verses from their books, to 'common man', the typical lazy-ass fellow who likes to feed on beef and chicken 2 times a day carrying a 'care a damn' attitude blatantly replying that he doesn't care for animals. I really despise these people. A very popular argument Ive been hearing time and again recently is that plants too can feel pain (Backed by scientific research) , and hence it wouldn't be fair to prevent killing of animals on one hand and feeding on plants on the other. Another argument I very recently heard was that 'as we speak', we kill millions of microbes, which is a 'non vegetarian act'. 

With all due respects to debaters of the meat eater's cause, I feel that man is running away from reality today. He fears confrontation, he fears to face his guilt. None of the meat eaters is so naive and ignorant as to not know where the meat he eats comes from. And, all of us through some or the other physical accidents or experiences know what feeling pain means. We also know that alike man, even the hens, lambs, cows, pigs, ducks... feel pain. Yet man is so irrational and self centered that he refuses to put 1 and 1 to arrive at 2. Today's meat eater is a selfish man running away from reality, valuing his 'taste' more than the lives of innocent, helpless creatures. 

Here are a few reasons which i cite to recommend vegetarianism:

1) First and foremost, "we can live without it, and they(animals) will live, without it". Scientific study shows that man's teeth, and limbs are not made to hunt animals and eat them. His digestive system cannot handle pure meat. Thats how man is different from the other carnivorous animals, In the sense that these animals have the physical power, and the sharp body parts to hunt down and kill, and a digestive system that demands only meat. By that I mean, a lion or tiger or an eagle cannot live on green food. Man's entry into non-vegetarianism was only possible because of his high intellect, and superior thinking ability which helped him to come up with sharp tools during the stone ages and more complex machinery in the modern day to prey upon and kill animals. The very 'superior thinking ability' that will tell him killing animals is bad, call it irony. Our cousins, the gorillas and the monkeys, (genetically very close to use), are herbivores. (eating insects doesn't count as meat eating). Our digestive system was originally meant for herbivorous food (which obviously has changed over ages, and adapted/evolved to digest meat). The basic point of the argument is, that we can survive on herbivorous food (there are communities/ sections of societies around the world, that have for ages remained vegetarians-happy and healthy), and we need not kill innocent animals for the same food.

2) Man today calls himself a poet, a writer, a philosopher, a doctor, a healer. He possesses the "higher thought". Now It really amazes me, how the same doctor who strives to cure a human suffering from pains, a poet who writes, expresses emotions and feelings of pain and happiness from his heart, and a mother who cares for the safety of her child and can't see her child in pain, all of these people enjoy the taste of carcasses of dead animals which have gone through immense pains and torture (which happens for months before the slaughter) to be served as food. If only the animals dying everyday had poets who could express their grief. If only the mother of the dying animals could speak out of her pains. If only these animals were fit to defend themselves. Paul McCartney said "If slaughter houses had glass walls, everybody would be vegetarian". To sum up the point, just ask yourself this question: "Would I be happy to see my loved ones and myself slaughtered and slit open to be served as food to a stronger authority, who by the way can do without the killing?". 

This video must be seen Iff and only iff you want to. It shows the bitter truth inside slaughter houses,

skip if you want to. 

And now, to answer the popular arguments that I earlier mentioned,

1) Fruits that are plucked and eaten from plants are meant to be separated from the plant body. The seeds in the fruit cause germination, and we act as facilitators to this process. Any part of a plant body cut out and eaten can grow back on it.(If a portion of the stem is cut out, it can grow back) The same doesn't apply to the animals we feed on. 

2) Killing microbes is not something that's under our control. I cannot prevent the killings of microbes even if i wished to. If this is still not convincing, lets say the vegetarian kills a number 'x' of microbes as he speaks. If we were to assume, that the meat eater kills the same number 'x', still, the vegetarian manages to save more lives than the meat eater. Besides, when we talk of microbes, they are just cells that do not have a nervous system or show a clear indication of 'pain'. 

To sum it all up, We need to stop running away from facts. The truth is ugly, but we cannot conveniently hide our faces from it and run away in guilt, to value 'taste' more than 'lives', and at the same time call ourselves civilized, learned, thoughtful, emotional, and mature beings. That would be total hypocrisy wouldn't it?

PS: This is not an attempt from my side to make people go vegetarian. All these points and arguments were justs thoughts that appeared in my mind to consolidate my beliefs and convince myself to continue with being a veggie!

Its all a mind game...

   Its 1:54 am, after a prolonged effort to get sleep,( in vain), i finally decide to bring myself to write this article.

90% of all battles are won in the mind they say. May sound hard to digest initially, but then after a lot of experiences, it seems like a reasonable statement. We often expend a vast amount of energy into refining a lot of superficial aspects before venturing into any enterprise, but fail to realize that all these outwardly important parameters help us just 10% in achieving what we set out to. History bares evidence to how huge, enormous talents have often failed to materialize to results due to lack of composure or mental stability at the deciding times.

  I'm sure we all can connect and relate to this point by recalling some instance from our own lives where we 'choked' or fell to pressure, when our 'potential' indicated a very high probability of enforcing a favorable result with ease, be it sports, or academics, or giving a live performance or for that matter, even simply walking up to a girl to make conversation. We often find ourselves in places wherein the very gravity of the situation and the grave consequences of failure apply tremendous pressure which gets the better of us. I spend  hours to practice a song on guitar, to reach a certain level of perfection, but fail miserable to even compare to the same when playing it to some one.

 Let us have a look at some of the examples from cricket:

1) The indian team under Sourav Ganguly (2002-2005) almost regularly chocked in the finals. The team would perform very well through out tournaments and would invariably loose to other teams in the final matches.

2) South Africa have earned the title of 'world cup chokers'.

3) Pakistan have never won a World-cup game against India. (Even on occasions when they were way better as a team and would either eventually go on to win the cup or end up as finalists)

4)There are also positive examples, like when a strong team faces the minnows, it sometimes so occurs that inspite of the minnows producing high quality cricket, the stronger team always ends up winners. (The fact that they are playing minnows gives them immense confidence)

There must be innumerable such examples, in diverse fields.

 The concept of 'subconscious mind' is astonishing and thrills me very much. The concept of a 'conscious mind' is something we are very aware of. Our brain allocates the different tasks we undertake to either the conscious mind or the subconscious mind. Its evident that most of the tasks undertaken by the subconscious mind are completed almost to perfection. In that case, the ideal deal one would think, would be to get your brain to allot as many tasks as possible to the subconscious mind. But we all know, this has its own limitations. How hard is it to push tasks into the subconscious brain and yet maintain enough balance between the conscious part and the former?

This is an intriguing point. food for thought!

Shaastra, projects, end sems and another semester old....

     Time flies by like sand slipping out of hands attempting to grasp it. Seems like it all began yesterday. The course registration, taking possession of my room, and the commencement of the semester, and its hard to believe that its all coming to an end in another 1/2 a week. 

    Time brings the inevitable change along, as they say, but frankly it has brought about very little change in me- for after another semester, i still continue to remain the same old, 'peace loving' idiot, completely oblivious to the disastrous effects it could have on my performance. Although some things have changed, like say my body posture (after a conscious effort from my side to monitor this time and again), which was otherwise quite sluggish, the title of this blog (which with a little observation can be noticed) changed to 'voice of reason' inspired from Larry David, and of course, I think Ive made some progress in feeling comfortable taking to women. : P

     Out of the many things that made this '22 credits-peace max semester' rather painful, (the most important being my carelessness) were Shaastra, and our projects- AM and MDS. Our AM prof, (for the past 2 semesters, and most likely, the next semester too), with all due respect to the man's intelligence, has really irritated me with his innovative examination and assessment techniques. Granted that the guy is one of the best in the business, and his deep understanding of the subject and excellent teaching and communication skills is worth a praise. But making groups of 3 random students, putting them through a project together, (and also a test) seemed completely senseless and baseless to me. His argument to support it being 'I never chose my colleagues. I just got them', which seems to be right from a wider perspective. But speaking on the behalf of all others who opposed this idea, i think 'unlike in here, colleagues do get fired if they don't work'. 

      So again another end semester examination is about to end, winter kicking in, (regularly heavy night rains in chennai infact). Another string of sleepless nights spent in last minute desperate preparations in the insti, and after all this comes to an end, the same thought looms around 'In the next semester, I'm not gonna waste my time. I am gonna begin afresh'. But little do we know that this is actually only the tail of a vicious cycle, thats gonna come back to bite itself after another 4 months. :P To end this one on a more positive note, Merry Christmas and a happy new year in advance! :)

      

Coaches, Software engineers and Dasvidaniya pune ;)

Another 7 days for college to commence, no more a freshie, and no more anxiousness.
6 days and im gonna be off to the same old super-hot, super-humid city down south. Mixed feelings running in my mind. A part of me longing for college, to get relieved from boredom, while the other part, not willing to leave my mum for the next 4 months. But as they say, separation is inevitable, and besides, who wouldn't want to forget the lousy vacation i had this summer..bah..

Moving on, from the senti, to the disturbing. Lately, ive been watching a lot of indian men getting really despo. You switch on the TV one day, you hear that xyz coach has been sacked, for asking sexual favours from his players. A couple of players get out of the closet ,out of no where, and scream out loud that they were sexually harassed by the man. Then a camera man reveals a pick of the coach getting intimate with a thai lady in his hotel room. The next day you switch on your TV to hear that a national weight lifting coach gets sacked because of a similar sex scandal with one of his disciples.

I mean c'mon!! give me a break. As said rightly by Bipasha Basu 'Indian men need to get a hang of their lust'. After 'Chakde India' in 07', Women's Hockey got the much deserved respect from all over India. SRK, though im not a big fan of his, revolutionized the concept of coaching. People expected such wonders from all coaches after that movie. 3 years later this coach goes on to do something exactly opposite .I often wonder how a man can stoop down to such ridiculously low levels, as to get into sex scandals with a had full of his students. I mean, 1 ,understandable, even if he's married. 2, is horrible, but the whole team is way beyond the limit. One can sense the level of discontentment in his married life. And for a man of that age, i must say he has an incredibly high sex drive. Today being the day of 'guru poornima' coincidentally, I guess its a nice example of how the 'guru-shishya' chemistry works in the 'kalyug'

Now, im disturbed by all that's being shown on TV, what do i do? I switch to the internet. And what do i see on youtube?? this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPVG2dt8tS0&feature=related . Criss Hansen, a TV personality, does this show for NBC, where he holds string operations to catch sexual predators, indulging in pedophile activities. He does an episode in California, where he sets up a trap for men who deceive children over the net. He catches not 2, or 3, but 4 such cases, involving Indian men, working in USA. All of them call themselves 'software engineers'. One of them even claims that he's got a 'phd, and a lot of respect in the society'.A real sad story, for us Indians. There are people who'v made India the famous land it is amongst the western countries, with its culture, religion and diversity. And then there are people like these that are persistently take all that away in seconds.

Some of these things make you really start doubting the very existence of God. What did these young girls do to deserve a punishment as bad as this?? Im firmly with this notion that's risen lately, to punish sexual predators with a death sentence. With me, im getting all ready to pack up, and leave Pune. I'll miss all puneri friends. Some of whom had great plans for the summer that never materialized. And some of whom broke a toe, to be restricted from enjoying summer the way they expected to. Dasvidaniya..'See you l8r' ;)

Trying to bend time space continuum...

You know, its one of those times, when u are constantly hoping for something to happen fast. One faces great difficulty in blogging when there's nothing happening around, but still, this seems to be atleast some sort of recreation for me at the moment. Im gonna briefly share a couple of incidents that took place, and a couple of thoughts that ran through my head. So,here goes.


I landed in Pune city, on the 6th of may, optimistic of making these holidays memorable in some way. Hoping that i would make this vacation count in a useful way after not staying back in IIT like my peers did, undertaking various projects. Hey, if nothing, i thought that hanging out with a bunch of friends, 'spending quality time with family', and escaping the erstwhile horrid chennai climate would serve to cheer me up.Turned out to be the exact opposite. My bunch of friends, were , apparently glued to their books gearing up hard for their exams, 'quality time with family' was spent watching, what was quite literally a ship wreck, of a mother daughter relationship, 2 people indulging in a chain of endless verbal fights; the weather of Pune slightly hotter than chennai, and its raining like cats and dogs in chennai.


So, a couple of days into the vacation, and i find myself in a spot where death in the hands of boredom, seems inevitable. Right then, the T20 comes to my rescue, or so i thought. Also a couple of friends were relatively relieved from their exam preparations, who occasionally came to my help. So, T20 it is, every fan is glued to his idiot box, harouring hopes for the injury striken, out-of-form, ipl returned indian cricket team. For one thing, i was positive that this team wouldn't make it to the semis, and turned out perfectly. I have some how taken an intense animosity to the indian cricket team of late, which only grew after Dhoni's childish excuses during yet another post-WC-debacle press conference.The Indian team has put on excessive weight, coach says he's fitter than most players in the team, they mess around with a couple of NRI gals in a late night bar, all this though disgusting, kept me glued to my TV set.


Then, all of a sudden, the 'Tehelka' emerge from no where with a video taped evidence against pramod muthalik. The man is causing serious damage to an other wise rare first name. That makes him really dispecable. So thus the WC ends, and my miseries begin. I had exhausted all the material i had downloaded from the institute LAN. Normally, under such situations, u turn to facebook, but that too seemed to get boring.


So now im left all by my self, to fight boredom. Since a couple of days, ive been out all the day. I get out of the house without purpose, hoping to meet someone, see something, do something. They say time flies fast when u are enjoying it. Also on the other hand, id like to say that it kills like none else, and goes so slow that you almost feel like you are making a journey to eternity, the infinity, the ultimate bound of the universe. Something has to happen, and soon otherwise, i might just create a time machine, and attempt to traverse through time.

A tribute to the best rock band of all times..

I know im no poet. but this is something that came out right from the bottom of my heart..(amidst all the boredom during a physics class:P)
So here goes:

I listen to so many artists, patiently but yet,
always wonder how close, to the Beatles they can get..
Bands are made and then they fade, but none had such a spree
Its been a while, since Judy's cried, since 1970..

My Heart cries out, and so aloud..
why did they have to split..
well, what d'you know, a woman's toe..
could make old Johny quit..

'Hey Jude' they sang, 'i wanna hold your hand'..
'While my guitar gently weeps'..
Georgy looked the floor and saw,
It surely 'needs a sweep'..

'Penny lane' they went, 'Abbey road' they walked..
John, Paul, Georgy, Ringo, always rocked.
If soul is bread, the music's butter,
And with the Beatles it never cud get better..

But, what followed was as fate pleased..
As Georgy, John Rest In Peace,
But in my heart there still is a place..
where John sings,Paul's words fill the space..
I listen to so many artists, so patiently but yet..
I listen to so many artists ,so patiently but yet...

Dedicated to the beatles, (and Boredom, the step mother of invention)

ipl magic, effects on indian cricket....

First of all, i must admit that i am no expert commentator, or cricket pundit as they call em'. So, any comment that i make in this piece means no offense to anyone, and clearly arises from my fanatic feelings for certain teams, and some personal perspectives, point of views.

A new ipl, new host nation, new team structures, new coaches, new strategies , new bats, but the same old fan base and spirit for cricket. With not much to be surprised about, MI started off as the most cheered club, following what was nothing less than a master class month for the master blaster. Truly speaking, although Sachin is regarded as one among the elite league consisting of none other than probably Lara and Sir Bradman himself, i have never seen the master perform as good as he did for as long as i can remember. Probably, the master has stamped his authority on the 'best batsman' position rightfully through the display of batting he has made in the past one year or so.

I too, had a favorite in the beginning of the season: Deccan Chargers, primarily because of the huge Gilly fanatic that i am. Although they didn't begin on an optimistic note, i still harbored hopes for them. Some how, one gets the feeling that they are just falling apart this season. Although winning a T20 tournament and defending it are two different things to me. Defending a T20 title is much more difficult than winning it. Kolkata on the other hand are doing pretty good, which is quite contrary to the reputation theyv earned in the 1st 2 IPL seasons. Looking good to not finish in the bottom of the table again.

Certain points that made news and created hype in the season were:
*Haydos displaying the mongoose bat
*Yusuf pathan belting a hundred off just 37.
*Kolkata doing comparatively better under a new coach
*Dada on fire to say the least.
*Sachin continuing his master class display.

As far as the changes in the squads go, 2 main additions that happened where kieron Pollard to MI and Shane Bond, who calls involvement in the 'rebel' ICL, one of his 'biggest mistakes in life', to KKR. Amongst the remarkable performances so far saw David Warner showing how destructive he can get, Chaminda Vass showing that age isn't a barrier for performance with the ball. Murali was amongst the wickets, and Tiwari, the 'wanna be Dhoni' in terms of his new hair style, proved his talent for the MI. Luck has been hard on Suresh Raina who leads Chennai filling in on the absence of the regular skipper Dhoni.

This season, there hasn't been that much of an involvement of the celebrity component into the ipl as was seen in the 2nd season and more remarkably in the 1st edition. SRK final thought that may be it would be right for him to stay away from the cricketing issues of his team, as he explains in his own words 'If i start to teach them how to play cricket, then they'l start teaching me how to act'.hmmm..., well, with some SRK fans back there, i wouldn't go more further than this, (although i have thought of a very sarcastic reply to it)

One can only feel for what the Kings XI Punjab have been going through. with 1 win out of 8 played so far, its probably as tough as its ever gotten for them so far. As they say, 'when the going gets tough, the tough gets going'.Yuvi hasn't been in best of forms both with bat and fitness issues of late. A point that does not just concern Priety and her boys but also the Indian cricket. Brett Lee hasn't quite made a statement with the ball, mahela and sangi although have got to good starts haven't been able to make hay. One can almost wanna loose to bring back the smile and the dimple on priety's face. With her break up with Ness wadia, film career not going sky high, and now KIXP not living up to the expectations, understandably, things are not hunky dory for her.

So with the ipl almost half played out, the situation stands quite interestingly poised. MI topping the table followed by the ever consistent DD. RCB and RR too make it to the top four.But as one can see, there is not much to choose between RCB, RR,KKR and chennai, all the four separated just by a margin of 2 points. With one half of the season left to go, the aussie, and kiwi hunks coming over, you could expect anything. Even a complete turnover of the tables should not be a surprise package. Here in IITM, there is a lot of energy and ipl spirit floating around. although this hasn't come for us at the most appropriate of times, (with end sems knocking on the doors), we still are enjoying most of the season.There are people going crazy, betting,doing a lot of other cranky stuff. As for me, im all worked up for the 2 matches coming chennai's way: MI vs Chennai, DD vs Chennai for which ill be going. Hoping to see sachin, jayasuriya , warner and viru make a game out of both the encounters.

With all the fun aspects of the ipl discussed, i think its worth pondering upon the deep effects that it can leave on indian cricket and also world cricket to a great extent. Its known fact, that almost all the nations consider India on home soil one of the most challenging tasks to take on. Infact since the past 10 years, its just happened once that a team touring india (aussies in 2004) have managed to pull off a series win. This is primarily due to the exceedingly difficult and alien conditions we have in india, and more importantly, the kind of players who can make most use of them. All this said, the IPL happening in india every year, will make the other teams more acquainted with the indian conditions.

The indian wickets, and weather condiditons which currently haunt most players outside the sub continent might become regulation stuff for them in a couple more years of IPL backed by a possibility of all the '2 IPLs per year' talks floating. This could mean a serious loss to india's edge over the other cricketing nations.Looking at the larger picture, i.e world cricket, what the IPL could do is it could make people know the weaknesses and strengths of various other players. Once these sort of things happen, world cricket will never be the same.Above all, with all this T20 format killing the longer and elite version of the game, the IPL is really not helping the issue.

Anyways, as every issue can be tackled by addressing it at the right time, probably this isn't such a right time to discuss these issues. Probably, when the time comes, World cricket would find an optimized path to find a remedy to the issue. But till then, Its gonna be T20 IPL all the way. The fever is catchin', there is no place to hide, no where to go.The only thing to do is to get sunk into it..