"Sometime no news is a good news"

When I was a kid, there used to be a very short segment for television news in India. It was about 15 minutes long and they used to cover almost all the important news mainly from the state and also from across the country. I used to get irritated since it used to interrupt my cartoon programs....or may be because of my parents used to stick to the television set for the 15 long minutes 'ignoring me.'

When I was a teenager, there used to be a half an hour segment allotted for certain set of news reporters, who supposedly used to deliver the news from literally North East West South corners of the country. I still used to get irritated because of their style of anchoring....or may be because of the fact that they used to include many unnecessary details of unimportant parts of the life in politics.

I left my teenage and grew a little more to become a smart youngster....and there used to be a channel for these news reporting people. Same set of journalists with same style of journalism showing the same content many times depending upon the importance of those for that particular time period. It certainly irritated me because then the news included advertisements.....or may be I did not have anything interesting to read in the newspaper during my breakfast.

I grew older to became a fine man...and  was disappointed to see that there were a lot of news channels competing with each other just to deliver the news faster to us...even before we wake up..even before we turn the newspaper pages....even before we go to work....even before we could log in...even before we come home....even before our bed time...and even after we were asleep. It was unbearable. I was tired to see the same faces...the same people...the same noise...the same attitude...the same content.

...or maybe because everyone knew everything before I did...!

I am just afraid...when I will be an old man....I might not be able to see, tweet, surf or update...I might not be able to scrap, write on wall, retweet, or change channels. I might not be able to walk, read, reply or type....

then I am really afraid that I might have to yell everyone to leave me alone....and I might have to tell them that “I know everything !”

- aDDY

Tears.....!!!

No matter how much I try, I do cry…..

I may be nice

I may be lucky

I can take care of myself

I am matured enough to enjoy life,

No matter how hard I try, I do cry…..

Being nice isn’t enough,

Being lucky is not sufficient

Taking care does not include caressing

Lacking sense of maturity that life is enjoying

No matter how much I hide, I do cry…..

When my fingers shiver…

When I think about being lonely

When no one is there to talk

When no one comes to disturb the silence

No matter how hard I hide, I do cry…..

The shivering increases impatience

Loneliness shows reality

Communication returns echoes

And silence is cacophonous….

No matter how much I fight, I do cry…..

The abundance of feelings becomes flooded

The existence of ‘being’ is loaded

The random thoughts quarrel out loud…..

Even the sky has only single cloud!

No matter how hard I fight, I do cry…..

A simple song haunts your day

Heart gives out SOS – the Mayday

The eye site becomes blur…

Without prior warning, two drops occur

Date with a WOMAN...!

After 21 years of marriage, my wife wanted me to takeanother woman out to dinner and movie. She said I love you but I know this other woman loves you and would love to spend some time with you.
The other woman that my wife wanted me to visit was my MOTHER, who has been a widow for 19 years, but the demands of my work and my three children had made it possible to visit her only occasionally.

That night I called to Invite her to go out for dinner and a movie.

'What's wrong, are you well,' she asked?
My mother is the type of woman who suspects that a late night call or a surprise invitation is a sign of Bad News.

'I thought that it would be pleasant to be with you,' I responded.
'Just the two of us.'
She thought about it for a moment, and then said, 'I would like that very much.'

That Friday after work, as I drove over to pick her up I was a bit nervous. When I arrived at her house, I noticed that she too seemed to be nervous about our date.

She waited in the door with her coat on.
She had curled her hair and was wearing the dress that she had worn to celebrate her last Wedding Anniversary.

She smiled from a face that was as radiant as an angel's. 'I told my friends that I was going to go out with my son, and they were impressed, ' She said, as she got into the car. 'They can't wait to hear about our meeting'.

We went to a restaurant that, although not elegant, was very nice and cozy.
My mother took my arm as if she were the first lady. After we sat down, I had to read the menu. large print. Half way through the entries, I lifted my eyes and saw mom sitting there staring at me.

A nostalgic smile was on her lips.
'It was I who used to have to read the menu when you were small,'
she said.
'Then it's time that you relax and let me return the favor,' I responded.
During the dinner, we had an agreeable conversation, nothing extra-ordinary, but catching up on recent events of
each others Life. We talked so much that we missed the movie.

As we arrived at her house later,
she said, 'I'll go out with you again, but only if you let me invite you.'
I agreed.

'How was your dinner date?'
asked my wife when I got home.

'Very nice. Much more so than I could have Imagined,' I answered.

A few days later, my mother died of a massive heart attack.
It happened so suddenly that I didn't have time to do anything for her. Some time later, I received an envelope with a copy of a restaurant receipt from the same place mother and I had dined.

An attached note said:
'I paid this bill in advance.
I wasn't sure that I could be there;
But nevertheless, I paid for two plates
one for you and the other for your wife.
You will never know what that night meant for me.
I love you, my son.'

At that moment, I understood the importance of saying in
time:'I LOVE YOU!'
and to give our loved ones the time that they deserve.
Nothing in life is more important than God and your Family.
Give them the time they deserve, because these things cannot be put off
till 'Some Other Time.'

I had read this story long time back but today my mother asked me to read this article that appeared in the newspaper. One of the most wonderful stories of all time - aDWAIT.

"The best poem of 2006"

***This poem was nominated by UN as the best poem of 2006, Written by an African Kid. ***

When I born, I black
When I grow up, I black
When I go in Sun, I black
When I scared, I black
When I sick, I black
And when I die, I still black

And you white fellow
When you born, you pink
When you grow up, you white
When you go in sun, you red
When you cold, you blue
When you scared, you yellow
When you sick, you green
And when you die, you gray

And you calling me colored?

Future Perfect !

I think I want to be
But I cannot be
Still I desire to be
And I fail to be

Sometimes I could be
Many times I would be
And every time I look at myself
I regret that I should be

Suddenly one fine morning
I feel I have to be
Then I make up my mind
And say I got to be

No matter how you decide
No matter how you behave
You pass through
Discrete phases of life

You tend to be speechless
But you are always bewildered
When you stand in front of
Your ‘would be wife’….

You have a constant fear
Of losing your bachelorhood
While you keep dreaming
What if, what you could....

- aDWAIT

Rahul Bose's Dream: His Speech at BITS Pilani OASIS 2009 Inauguration

This will touch your heart and if it doesn't then you dont deserve to be an Indian, I daresay. This is the speech by a well known actor Rahul Bose who is the founder of the NGO Foundation which aims to remove all kinds of discrimination is also on the board of Citizens for Justice and Peace, a Global Ambassador for the American India Foundation and a World Youth Ambassador for the World Youth Peace Movement

I have a Dream “That the 26/11 attack on Mumbai will spur civil society to unite and present a force that government will never again ignore.
That in time we will have the maturity to reflect on the mistakes India might have made to incite such hatred.
That our new generation of political leaders will truly look beyond party lines and do what astonishingly few leaders in post-independent India have done – their duty.
That Hemant Karkare’s work on the Malegaon case will not lose momentum or integrity.”

I have a dream “That one day, the next time women are thrashed anywhere in a pub in India, the entire country’s women will march half to Mangalore, stopping the entire city for months, the other half to the Prime Minister’s – stopping the government for months.
That 100 million Indian Children will not go to bed hungry every night. 100 million is two United Kingdoms.
That pregnant women will never again have their wombs slit, their living fetuses torn out and dashed to death while they were set on fire – Gujarat 2002. That there will not be a rape every 23 minutes in this country. Or a dowry death every 33 minutes.”

I have a dream “That small farmers will never again have to apologise to their children and then commit suicide.
That Article 377 making homosexuality a crime will be abolished.
That when a girl goes to her mother and says her uncle or her father has molested her, she will not be asked – Are you sure? And she will not be told – Don’t be silly – you’re imagining things. That Muslims who fled Bombay in 1992, will return to their homes and M F Husain will return to his.”

I have a dream “Of a time when we will cheer a Younis Khan sixer as we cheer a Yuvraj Singh one.
Of a time when no girl child will ever have to walk the 3 KM average to fetch water everyday - instead she will spend that time in a school.
That we will allow people with AIDS to work with us, eat with us, live with us – with dignity. Where God is not a Setu, a pandal blocking the street or the reason for jihad, but is linked with our hopes, our hearts, our homes.”

I have a dream “That one day I will be six inches taller. Have a full head of hair. Look nineteen forever....... And always have the right, witty answer when face to face with a beautiful woman.”

But I also have a dream “That I will never ever be scared to speak the truth.
That one day I will have the means, the time, the heart to gather all the street children in this country, put them on a train and take them to a land where they can heal. Where they can play, laugh, eat, do nothing.
That we realize that – slum dwellers – are not the cockroaches of the world......... They are fathers forced out of their villages through poverty, now struggling to make money pushed and abused by the police.......... They are mothers working as Kaamwalis in three houses a day so that their children can do what they didn’t – go to school......... They are children, who have like all children an equal dose of delight and tears in them, not dirty, lice – ridden creatures shivering in the rain holding today’s papers in a plastic bag.”


I have a dream “Where every Indian plays a sport, any game, for at least an hour a day.
Where no hockey player will ever again have to sell his medals to feed himself.
Where we win twenty Olympic gold medals in London 2012 – [if we do things right, its possible.] Where the Indian Rugby team wins the World Cup – [We are ranked 83 rd now – I will cheer from my wheelchair.”]

I have dream “That one day we will all stop what we’re doing.......... working on laptops, tending to hundreds of patients, sweating it out at cricket practice, running our homeopathy clinic, trying to balance the books at your non-profit organization, begging our child to have buus one more bite, commuting in a local train, closing that complex merger .….....
We will stop everything what we’re doing and suddenly realize, all of us together, at the same, precise moment,.......... that we are all Indians and that there is no one like us on this planet – we are unique.
Because we fight with words all the time, with fists sometimes, we talk loudly on our phones, laugh loudest at our own jokes, we are sexist, smelly, love sweets, swear we will exercise tomorrow and don’t believe in queues.
But that we are also moved by tears by a sad film song, we fight to pay the bill in a restaurant, you cannot leave our home without at least a cup of tea (and thepla and vadai and shingada and matthi ….),
.........we feel guilty when we don’t stand up if someone elderly walks into the room, we don’t shake hands – we hug, we are all first cricket selectors, then bankers, lawyers, bad actors ….,
we stand up and cheer during the climax of Chak De, we all watch terrible soaps on television and swear we don’t and we all love Sachin Tendulkar.

And at that moment,........ that moment when we realize we are all the same, the choice will be ours – to turn to the stranger on our side and say – we are 1.2 Billion. The world is six billion. That’s one Indian for every four non-Indians. Sounds Good - Let’s do it.”

Amish Technology

Engineering ethics cannot emphasize enough on colonization and contextualization. By studying various engineering practices, one has to balance his/her life so as to follow Platonic and Aristotelian virtue ethics. Similarly, Amish people believe in following a primary method called ‘Ordnung’ which has peace, love, contentment, equality and unity as its governing aspects. A group of anti-technology rural farmers, who has banned machines, is how Amish people have been portrayed. But according to the Amish president, it is not the individual technology that affects Amish but it is the total chain. Banned use of electricity and automobiles is not meant for just the fear of fire or keeping them un-automated, but it is their careful regulation of technology so as to preserve their culture. The choice of horses as the means of transport, over vehicles, might reduce the speed, but it is of utmost prudence when one thinks of questions like why, how, when and which technologies are to be used. Amish are social constructionists who voluntarily choose the technologies that are different in order to maintain their unique culture. ‘Rumspringa’ (Running about) - a phase of Amish youth to be non-Amish, helps them understand humility, patience and dedication required to be a respected ordnung. Today when the world is connected by internet, Amish have restricted the use of telephone since they believe in accepting technology on their own terms and not as distracting value-laden tools. A society that lives in a group of 30-50 families called district is always cautious while dealing with technology and is likely to prohibit it, due to the fear of disruption of their religion, tradition and families. Amish, whose key industries are ‘Carpentry’ and ‘Farming’, who keep Sunday as their rest day and day for church services; place a celebrated significance on humility, equality, simplicity and community.