Spherical Musings

Attaullah Khan's "Tera Har Gham Mera Gham"

2010-05-26T22:32:00.000-04:00

This guy is definitely one of the great maestros of Punjabi music....

Our Jewish friends in Waziristan

2010-01-18T13:17:00.010-05:00

Oh the irony of it all... :)

Can't help but want to be a fly on the wall in one of those heavily walled compounds in the Af-Pak tribal areas when Ibrahim realizes he's an Abraham...

From The Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/17/israel-lost-tribes-pashtun

Israel is to fund a rare genetic study to determine whether there is a link between the lost tribes of Israel and the Pashtuns of Afghanistan and northern Pakistan.

Historical and anecdotal evidence strongly suggests a connection, but definitive scientific proof has never been found. Some leading Israeli anthropologists believe that, of all the many groups in the world who claim a connection to the 10 lost tribes, the Pashtuns, or Pathans, have the most compelling case. Paradoxically it is from the Pashtuns that the ultra-conservative Islamic Taliban movement in Afghanistan emerged. Pashtuns themselves sometimes talk of their Israelite connection, but show few signs of sympathy with, or any wish to migrate to, the modern Israeli state.

Now an Indian researcher has collected blood samples from members of the Afridi tribe of Pashtuns who today live in Malihabad, near Lucknow, in northern India. Shahnaz Ali, from the National Institute of Immuno¬haematology in Mumbai, is to spend several months studying her findings at Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology, in Haifa. A previous genetic study in the same area did not provide proof one way or the other.

The Assyrians conquered the kingdom of Israel some 2,730 years ago, scattering 10 of the 12 tribes into exile, supposedly beyond the mythical Sambation river. The two remaining tribes, Benjamin and Judah, became the modern-day Jewish people, according to Jewish history, and the search for the lost tribes has continued ever since. Some have claimed to have found traces of them in modern day China, Burma, Nigeria, Central Asia, Ethiopia and even in the West.

But it is believed that the tribes were dispersed in an area around modern-day northern Iraq and Afghanistan, which makes the Pashtun connection the strongest.

"Of all the groups, there is more convincing evidence about the Pathans than anybody else, but the Pathans are the ones who would reject Israel most ferociously. That is the sweet irony," said Shalva Weil, an anthropologist and senior researcher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The Pashtuns have a proud oral history that talks of descending from the Israelites. Their tribal groupings have similar names, including Yusufzai, which means sons of Joseph; and Afridi, thought by some to come from Ephraim. Some customs and practices are said to be similar to Jewish traditions: lighting candles on the sabbath, refraining from eating certain foods, using a canopy during a wedding ceremony and some similarities in garments.

Weil cautioned, however, that this is not proof of any genetic connection. DNA might be able to determine which area of the world the Pashtuns originated from, but it is not at all certain that it could identify a specific genetic link to the Jewish people.

So far Shahnaz Ali has been cautious. "The theory has been a matter of curiosity since long ago, and now I hope a scientific analysis will provide us with some answers about the Israelite origin of Afridi Pathans. We still don't know what the truth is, but efforts will certainly give us a direction," she told the Times of India last year.

Some are more certain, among them Navras Aafreedi, an academic at Luck¬now University, himself a Pashtun from the Afridi tribe. His family trace their roots back to Pathans from the Khyber Agency of what is today north-west Pakistan, but he believes they stretch back further to the tribe of Ephraim.

"Pathans, or Pashtuns, are the only people in the world whose probable descent from the lost tribes of Israel finds mention in a number of texts from the 10th century to the present day, written by Jewish, Christian and Muslim scholars alike, both religious as well as secularists," Aafreedi said.

The implications of any find are uncertain. Other groups that claim ¬Israelite descent, including those known as the Bnei Menashe in India and some in Ethiopia, have migrated to Israel. That is unlikely with the Pashtuns.

But Weil said the work was absorbing, well beyond questions of immigration. "I find a myth that has been so persistent for so long, for 2,000 years, really fascinating," she said.

Two Words

2009-11-23T11:49:00.003-05:00

"What if..."

Two words….one syllable each, 6 letters in total - yet combined together probably amounting to the most powerful powerful phrase in the English language, guaranteed to initiate some degree of introspective soul searching and omphalic contemplation. Each one of us will occasionally come across that fork in the road and make a considered choice as to which path in life to follow. Hindsight will ultimately prove to be the judge of such choices, and yet we will always come back to the 'What if' train of thought….how would things have turned out if I had chosen A instead of B or C instead of B ?

Even so, I still prefer the 'What if' analysis to the alternative variation of 'If only' which implies a degree of regret or hapless resignation to the former's implied positive affirmation of having at least made a choice with the best available information at the time.

Either way, enjoy the journey. We'll leave the destination part for another day…… :)

The mysteries of cricket....

2009-10-14T16:49:00.004-04:00

...if you've ever wondered like myself.....well now you know......

Goodbye Mr Robson

2009-07-31T15:23:00.004-04:00

Sometimes you define a certain time in your life by an event, an object, or a person. Today witnessed the passing of a great sporting legend, Bobby Robson, the former manager of the England football team and who won club trophies in four different countries from England, Holland, Portugal and Spain. My youth and university days of soccer tribalism followed the joys and pain of watching Bobby Robson take England to World Cups in Mexico 86 and the unforgettable Italia 90, as well the 88 Euro Championships. I found watching and listening to his interviews an intriguing mix of introspective Zen-like philosophy, realism and hardened determination.

So, yes, it with a certain sense of sadness that I am saying goodbye to Bobby Robson. Peace be with you.

From the NYT today:

LONDON — No matter where in the world you mention the name Bobby Robson, the response is the same: a man of soccer. A man who lived his 50 adult years for the game and through the game.

A man, above all else, whose passion never tired and was never defeated by culture, language or ultimately by the insidious impact of money on the sport.

Sir Bobby Robson died in the early hours of Friday in his native Durham, in northern England. He was 76, he fought five different cancers from 1991, and even last weekend, even in a wheelchair, he was on a soccer pitch in Newcastle.

Some of the great players, his players, formed a guard of honor as he was wheeled on. They thrilled him by reenacting the 1990 World Cup semifinal, which the England side he managed lost on penalty kicks to the West German team of Franz Beckenbauer.

Each of the players still able to kick a ball played last Saturday for as long as they were able. The match was to raise yet more money for Robson’s last great venture, his foundation for a cancer research center to trial new drugs on patients in his home city.

To that end, his life’s full circle had turned from playing the game as a coal miner’s son to managing world renowned players in England, the Netherlands, Portugal, Canada, Spain.

He was raised in a terraced coal miner’s cottage and left school at 15. Until soccer intervened, he was destined to follow his father down the local pit, as an electrician. “My father Philip,” he would say on introducing his parent to anybody he met. “A wonderful man, he only ever missed one shift in 51 years down the pit.” And Philip would settle into the background as people either fawned upon his son, or in his time as England team manager from 1982 to 1990, would seek to tear down his authority.

It was ever thus. From Fulham, the London club where Bobby Robson started as a professional player in 1950, to Ipswich, then Eindhoven, Lisbon, Porto, Barcelona and finally to take over Newcastle, the team his father loved, Robson was single minded, combative, dedicated.

“I saw Frank Sinatra sing when he was nearly 80,” Robson once said. “And I thought it was the best thing I witnessed in my life. It depends who you are and where you are.” His treatment of players is legion. He took the Brazilians Romario and Ronaldo when they were in their teens and far from their culture, in Eindhoven and Barcelona. He dealt with boys and men, with turbulent personalities and meek players.

Often he could barely pronounce, or remember, their names. He often mispronounced Josep Guardiola, now a successor of his as coach to Barcelona, as Gladioli.

But the guiding ethics of his life were hard work and love of the game.

I still have the original text he wrote for a speech at a coaches’ conference in 1977. He was then the team manager at Ipswich Town, a small club he raised to a bigger one in England.

His subject was “The period of Apprenticeship and selection of Professional Material.”

“What do I look for in a young player?” he wrote. “The same things that I look for in a player who might set me back more than one hundred thousand pounds in the transfer market.

“He must have pace, control, understanding and dash. He must be enthusiastic, brave, courageous and dedicated. He must have a certain amount of technique, although that can be added as he matures. If these raw materials are evident, you have something to work from and you have a good chance of producing a professional player.” The script then cautioned: “The qualities are developed during the apprenticeship years by sheer hard graft.” He was to spend the rest of his days nurturing boys from varying walks of life, and from different nationalities, though homesickness and alienation into developing the most precious thing they possess: talent.

I recall a day in Poland where his father had gone along to see an England game, and Bobby asked his guest to take the old man out of the hall, buy him a beer, make sure he does not see the bear baiting of the England manager by the English press.

I recall another day, when Robson was coach to a World XI chosen to play for a Unicef match against the then world champion Germany in Munich. Players arrived by the hour from the far corners of the world. He couldn’t pronounce or remember their names, but he knew their faces, and their talents.

Within one training session he had somehow gelled those disparate players into a team that played a coherent 4-4-2 formation. Each of them called him “Mister,” all played a charity match as if it were the World Cup final. And each of them to this day can remember that training session, that communication, that fun day.

Underlying it was the cause, and underlying Robson’s last cause, his cancer charity was what brought the German and English players of 1990 back to Robson’s boyhood stamping ground, Newcastle United. He had worked through his recurrent bouts of cancer — in the mouth, the lungs, the brain — with humor and fortitude and, his single most evident trait, sheer determination.

The million pounds raised by his charity in its first few months astounded him. It should not have.

People responded to the man he was, the enthusiasm he imparted. “Its difficult to compare achievements, and this is different to football,” he said of the cancer trust in February. “We are talking about saving lives, not winning matches.

“But this is up there with anything I have achieved in the game. Football makes a huge difference to people, but what the people here at this research center are doing is more important.

“Soccer is about beating your opponent, this is about beating death. I have met unforgettable people, and this has been a great year.”

In a German mood...

2009-07-28T12:03:00.007-04:00

Never really considered myself a World Cinema fan, but given the recent lack of cinematic quality output from Hollywood, Bollywood or England, I decided to allow Germany to have an opportunity to shine on the big screen at home. First rented 'Downfall' - a fly-on-the-wall perspective of Hitler's last days living out an increasingly paranoid existence in a Berlin bunker , and then took out an option to try 'Goodbye Lenin' - a black comedy with a touching view of a son trying to reconcile her East German mother (who has just come out of a coma), to the fact that communism has fallen and the world has changed forever.

Verdict ? Excellent, deep and challenging - both of them.

An accidental discovery: Carménère wine

2009-06-25T15:44:00.010-04:00

I don't normally make oenological type blog entries, but I recently made an accidental discovery at my local wine store that is worthy of writing. Whilst searching for a decent New World wine which would also be bottled in a screw cap (thus dispensing with the need to use my ageing ye olde rusty corkscrew), I purchased a bottle of Chilean wine that was made with the Carménère grape variety. And my verdict ? Absolutely great taste full of character, spice and smooth tannins. It has gone straight to the top of Spherical Musing's nasha chart, usurping such perennial favourites like Bacardi, Baltika and Campari.

Found some interesting info on the web:

Carménère is an ancient variety, thought to have been one of the ancestors of several of the more common French varieties, and one of the original grapes of Bordeaux. It arrived in Chile during the 19th century in a shipment of Merlot vines, and growers inadvertently kept it alive for the next century and a half under the mistaken assumption that it was Merlot. Because the Carménère grapes were processed right alongside the Merlot, Chilean “Merlot” had a very distinctive taste unlike any other Merlot in the world.

Eventually, researchers decided to look into the reason behind this difference, leading to the identification of Carménère vines in the 1990s. Chile immediately latched on to its new discovery, and there are now many single varietal bottlings of Chilean Carménère on the market, as well as several Cabernet-Carménère blends.

Interestingly enough, the exact same thing happened with Carménère in Italy, except there it was confused with Cabernet Franc. In 1990, several vines at the Ca’del Bosco winery were identified as Carménère, not Cabernet; shortly afterwards, several producers in other Italian wine regions also discovered that they had been harbouring this vineyard stowaway.

While some esoteric wines can command ridiculous prices on account of their obscurity, Carménère’s low profile has kept its price down. A good bottle of Chilean Carménère usually goes for around $20 a bottle, often less.

Carménère tends to make deeply coloured wines; indeed, the name of the grape comes from the French word for crimson, carmin.

Scenes from Punjab

2009-02-23T07:24:00.033-05:00

Better late than never....finally got a chance to post some of the 700+ shots I took on my recent trip to India.

^ ^ At a rest stop along the GT Road somewhere near Patiala.

^ ^ Waiting for a bus (I presume). They look uncharacteristically calm...prolly still half-asleep...LOL.

^ ^ My parents' place in Moga City.

^ ^ Millions of these Tata trucks on the road....the subject of many a Punjabi song.

^ ^ Punjab framed. :)

^ ^ Apna Punjab.

^ ^ LOL....I think I know how you're gonna drive. I think this was the most ridiculous thing I saw on my travels.

^ ^ Feeding time at the zoo ?

^ ^ The Golden Temple, Amritsar.

^ ^ ^ Oh the irony of it all.

^ ^ GT Road again. In Punjab, overtaking and double over-taking are a national sport.

^ ^ ^ Personal transportation has definitely progressed over the last 5 years.

^ ^ The evening commute.

^ ^

The dreaded shopping trip

^ ^ ^ Punjab's Gold Reserves.. :)

^ ^ ^

The latest shopping mall developments are on a par with the West.

^ ^ ^
Having a 'Mirinda' at Delhi Airport. It's definitely an acquired taste and not for everyone.

^ ^ ^
Departure Lounge at Delhi. Was not asked for a bribe once....how pleasant. :)

Flying high with Singh is King

2009-02-20T10:09:00.002-05:00

It's quite a psychedelic experience watching 'Singh is King' at 39,000 feet - the lack of oxgen and cabin pressure must really play havoc with one's perceptions of reality - but this was the case as I flew on British Airways from London to Delhi a few weeks ago. Unfortunately the in-flight entertainment system was on the blink and the usual 30+ choice of movies was reduced to watching either Singh is King or some inane documentary about flower arranging. Given my failure to bring aboard any alternative reading material, I was forced to watch this film about 2 - 3 times and I'm sure the soundtrack has deeply embedded itself in my DNA by now...LOL. However, I guess I wasn't alone.....it was a weird experience returning from the washroom towards my seat and seeing rows of white sahibs in their seats watching 'Singh is King'... :) In their case, I hope they can distinguish between reality and bakwaas....we are not all like that you know... :)

I wouldn't necessarily go as far as the Guardian newspaper did in asking the question: "What happens when a mentally subnormal Sikh peasant becomes the don of the Australian mafia ?". Yes, Happy Singh (played by Akshay Kumar) definitely displays some retarded tendencies....but 'mentally subnormal' may be taking it too far....LOL. (ps. somebody should really tell the Bollywood studios how to spell 'King').

However, I fully concur with the rest of The Guardian's observations:

The plot has more holes than a typical Indian highway, and even a seasoned artisan like Om Puri is made to look wholly incompetent as he plays Happy's grouchy kinsman, Rangeela, grappling with a script that seems to have been written by a five-year-old who's been drinking way too many bhang lassis. At one point, British Airways mistakenly lands Happy in Egypt rather than Oz, where he cavorts amid the dunes with the deliciously lithe and coffee-coloured Katrina Kaif, playing his love-interest, Sonia. One of the most gorgeous but breathtakingly untalented women on earth, watching this former London-based model is like staring at a black hole – a thing of unspeakable beauty and infinite emptiness. There's even a cameo by Snoop Dogg who, in the title tune, the first ever Bollywood-Compton crossover record, raps the historic lines: "Watch me zoom by, make it boom by. Word-up to all the ladies hanging out in Mumbai".

Time to get political....

2009-01-26T14:27:00.002-05:00

I recently tested my political attitude on the website Political Compass, and here are the results. According to this I should be sipping Havana Club rum and playing cards with Castro and Chavez. :)

I suppose I shouldn't really be surprised considering I spent my formative years reading Marx and Lenin, and that one of my favourite sayings is "walk softly with a big stick"..LOL.

Western hypocrisy over Georgia

2008-08-28T13:40:00.002-04:00

As I tried to make sense over recent events in Georgia, I was struck by a sense that things didn't quite add up as presented by the West's media outlets. Trying to achieve a high moral ground sounds a little hollow after the brutal invasion and illegal occupation of Iraq by US forces and ill-disciplined private mercenaries.

Lesson to Georgia (and it's puppet master) - if you're going to punch a bear on the nose - please consider your next step also.

From The Guardian:

The outcome of six grim days of bloodshed in the Caucasus has triggered an outpouring of the most nauseating hypocrisy from western politicians and their captive media. As talking heads thundered against Russian imperialism and brutal disproportionality, US vice-president Dick Cheney, faithfully echoed by Gordon Brown and David Miliband, declared that "Russian aggression must not go unanswered". George Bush denounced Russia for having "invaded a sovereign neighbouring state" and threatening "a democratic government". Such an action, he insisted, "is unacceptable in the 21st century".

Could these by any chance be the leaders of the same governments that in 2003 invaded and occupied - along with Georgia, as luck would have it - the sovereign state of Iraq on a false pretext at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives? Or even the two governments that blocked a ceasefire in the summer of 2006 as Israel pulverised Lebanon's infrastructure and killed more than a thousand civilians in retaliation for the capture or killing of five soldiers?

You'd be hard put to recall after all the fury over Russian aggression that it was actually Georgia that began the war last Thursday with an all-out attack on South Ossetia to "restore constitutional order" - in other words, rule over an area it has never controlled since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Nor, amid the outrage at Russian bombardments, have there been much more than the briefest references to the atrocities committed by Georgian forces against citizens it claims as its own in South Ossetia's capital Tskhinvali. Several hundred civilians were killed there by Georgian troops last week, along with Russian soldiers operating under a 1990s peace agreement: "I saw a Georgian soldier throw a grenade into a basement full of women and children," one Tskhinvali resident, Saramat Tskhovredov, told reporters on Tuesday.

Might it be because Georgia is what Jim Murphy, Britain's minister for Europe, called a "small beautiful democracy". Well it's certainly small and beautiful, but both the current president, Mikheil Saakashvili, and his predecessor came to power in western-backed coups, the most recent prettified as a "Rose revolution". Saakashvili was then initially rubber-stamped into office with 96% of the vote before establishing what the International Crisis Group recently described as an "increasingly authoritarian" government, violently cracking down on opposition dissent and independent media last November. "Democratic" simply seems to mean "pro-western" in these cases.

The long-running dispute over South Ossetia - as well as Abkhazia, the other contested region of Georgia - is the inevitable consequence of the breakup of the Soviet Union. As in the case of Yugoslavia, minorities who were happy enough to live on either side of an internal boundary that made little difference to their lives feel quite differently when they find themselves on the wrong side of an international state border.

Such problems would be hard enough to settle through negotiation in any circumstances. But add in the tireless US promotion of Georgia as a pro-western, anti-Russian forward base in the region, its efforts to bring Georgia into Nato, the routing of a key Caspian oil pipeline through its territory aimed at weakening Russia's control of energy supplies, and the US-sponsored recognition of the independence of Kosovo - whose status Russia had explicitly linked to that of South Ossetia and Abkhazia - and conflict was only a matter of time.

The CIA has in fact been closely involved in Georgia since the Soviet collapse. But under the Bush administration, Georgia has become a fully fledged US satellite. Georgia's forces are armed and trained by the US and Israel. It has the third-largest military contingent in Iraq - hence the US need to airlift 800 of them back to fight the Russians at the weekend. Saakashvili's links with the neoconservatives in Washington are particularly close: the lobbying firm headed by US Republican candidate John McCain's top foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, has been paid nearly $900,000 by the Georgian government since 2004.

But underlying the conflict of the past week has also been the Bush administration's wider, explicit determination to enforce US global hegemony and prevent any regional challenge, particularly from a resurgent Russia. That aim was first spelled out when Cheney was defence secretary under Bush's father, but its full impact has only been felt as Russia has begun to recover from the disintegration of the 1990s.

Over the past decade, Nato's relentless eastward expansion has brought the western military alliance hard up against Russia's borders and deep into former Soviet territory. American military bases have spread across eastern Europe and central Asia, as the US has helped install one anti-Russian client government after another through a series of colour-coded revolutions. Now the Bush administration is preparing to site a missile defence system in eastern Europe transparently targeted at Russia.

By any sensible reckoning, this is not a story of Russian aggression, but of US imperial expansion and ever tighter encirclement of Russia by a potentially hostile power. That a stronger Russia has now used the South Ossetian imbroglio to put a check on that expansion should hardly come as a surprise. What is harder to work out is why Saakashvili launched last week's attack and whether he was given any encouragement by his friends in Washington.

If so, it has spectacularly backfired, at savage human cost. And despite Bush's attempts to talk tough yesterday, the war has also exposed the limits of US power in the region. As long as Georgia proper's independence is respected - best protected by opting for neutrality - that should be no bad thing. Unipolar domination of the world has squeezed the space for genuine self-determination and the return of some counterweight has to be welcome. But the process of adjustment also brings huge dangers. If Georgia had been a member of Nato, this week's conflict would have risked a far sharper escalation. That would be even more obvious in the case of Ukraine - which yesterday gave a warning of the potential for future confrontation when its pro-western president threatened to restrict the movement of Russian ships in and out of their Crimean base in Sevastopol. As great power conflict returns, South Ossetia is likely to be only a taste of things to come.

Zimbabwe - 4 legs good, 2 legs bad

2008-05-30T11:50:00.000-04:00

The parallels between Orwell's 'Animal Farm' and the current state of mis-rule and despotism in Zimbabwe are becoming more and more apparent each day.

Mugabe's corruption of the ideals of the war of Liberation is breathtaking to say the least. 28 years later, the former breadbasket of Africa has been brought to economic and social ruin. Just like Orwell's fictional head pig, Napoleon, all despotic decisions by Mugabe and his cronies are justified in the name of the revolution.

I say it's time to get out the pitchfork and start making the pig squeal.....

Spinning wheels

2008-02-08T09:17:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I felt like a stranded German Panzer tank commander on the Russian Eastern front during the Second World War. The cruel Russian winter was one of key factors in halting the march of the Third Reich. Roll on another 65 years and in another part of the world, and lo and behold another marvel of German engineering is stopped by the elements. To be fair to the V-Dub, we had a huge dump of snow (our third snowstorm in less than a week) and I hadn't shovelled the driveway before attempting to make a quick getaway. It took several attempts at pushing and shovelling before I was back on the road again......

Staying Dry

2008-02-01T12:08:00.000-05:00

Today represents the completion of a whole month since I last drank alcohol and I feel great ! To the men-of-god sadhu/hermit types who live in a forest it might not sound like a big deal, but the last time I can recall being this dry was back in the early 90s. Rather than setting a New Year Resolution, I've decided to set different challenges for each month of the year....but things that money can't buy...so January was Prohibition month...lol. :)

The experiment was good while it lasted and I proved to myself that I could do it, but tonight I party.....and here's a glass to that. :) Stay tuned for next month's challenge, but in the meantime I'm ready to party like these dudes..... :))))

In the year 3025

2008-01-06T10:46:00.000-05:00

Ontario recently effected a ruling which made it illegal to put an expiry date limit on Gift Cards. The systems analyst inside of me wondered about how store IT departments would make the relevant software programming changes. Would they set the expiry date to 00/00/0000 or spaces ? Would their applications accept zero values or spaces in the Date_Expiry data field ?

Well, the answer is clear in the case of Sears. In my hands I have a receipt for a Sears Gift Card, and the expiry date has been set to 1st January 3025. Yep...3025. Wonder what I or you will be doing then ? :)

But seriously folks, what will the world look like in the year 3025 ? How many wars will have occurred by then and what scale ? What will the climate be like, as well as the economy and technology ? How will our moral values have changed ? Questions, questions, all....because of an ordinary gift card purchase......

Word of the day is.....Implosion

2007-12-28T05:32:00.000-05:00

"Implosion is a process in which objects are destroyed by collapsing in on themselves. The opposite of explosion, implosion concentrates matter and energy. An example of implosion is a submarine being crushed from the outside by the hydrostatic pressure of the surrounding water".

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto must rank as one of the worst days in Pakistan's short history to date. The country is reminding me more and more of Yugoslavia, and we all know what happened there.

It seems that the vision of Jinnah’s democratic nation-state will remain an unattainable utopian one. The experiment has failed.

Southall Sikh Temple

2007-12-26T08:51:00.000-05:00

Images from my recent trip to England, which included a visit to the Southall Gurdwara. I was in total awe of the re-design and architecture, which was built to replace the previous temple on the same site.

Meeting dynamics

2007-12-19T16:32:00.000-05:00

I just stepped out of a meeting at the office today and I noticed how people put others down......it goes something like this....

If you ever want to put someone down and and categorize them as an uncouth peasant, just choose one of the following statements:

[After 20 minutes of detailed discussions]........

Person A says: "I think we need to step back and look at the big picture" (The implication here is that everybody has their nose so close to the detail they cannot see significant trends)

Person B retorts: "I agree somewhat, but we need to step back even further and understand the wider context"

Person C joins the fray (not wishing to be outdone): "Actually we need to get back to the core basics and go back to the beginning"

Finally, Person D chimes in with their own unique twist: "We need to approach from the bottom up, as top down approaches are now redundant".

The Joy of Car Pooling

2007-12-18T16:46:00.000-05:00

Who does it here ? I have currently been car pooling with 2 other visible minority chaps and this is our 4th month of car pooling - and we each drive every third week in rotation.

Pros:

1) One's driving expenses (petrol and mileage) go significantly down.
2) You get to know the other person(s) very well.

Cons

1) You get to know the other person(s) very well....
2) The other pooler's car may not be in a road worthy state (eg bald tires, bad brakes, weird noises, no auto breakdown policy coverage)...
3) One guy talks non-stop about their homeland which in my opinion should be re-named 'Absurdistan'.....
4) You get to hear some animated conversations at 130 kph (esp where one of them is a vegan Hindu 'Om Shanti Om' type and the other is a pro-Hizbollah jihadist carnivore)....

V-dub in der haus !

2007-11-18T10:01:00.000-05:00

I've always wanted a German Shepherd dog, but knew I'd never get the chance to fully exercise it, so as a compromise meet 'Amadeus' - the latest turbo charged addition to the family.

Eight months ago I ditched my mind numbingly boring Toyota SUV for a Made-in-the-Fatherland VW Passat. This is my first ever German car, and if cars are supposed to be an extension of one's personality, I have been practising adopting a more serious Teutonic demeanor and smiling less, drinking more Blue Nun, and trying to score some very lucky goals on the soccer pitch...LOL.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand - 'Amadeus' is fast, very fast. This is the first car that actually makes me grin like a Cheshire Cat just by flooring the pedal. The turbo engine makes light work of accelerating during my daily commutes on the autobahn and feels rock steady. My only regret is not getting the manual transmission, but that said, the 6 speed automatic with the Drive, Sport and semi-manual Tiptronic mode is very responsive with zero turbo lag. For me, the big difference between this and other Japanese vehicles I've driven is how solid and well built it feels. The power steering feels heavier but that's not a bad thing compared to the feather light steering-with-one-finger feel of Japanese autos.

I just love taking the 'dog' out for it's daily exercise.... :))

My return from exile

2007-11-17T16:44:00.000-05:00

After a long hiatus I'm finally back in the land of blog ! Call it work, age, the superficial distractions of Facebook, I don't really have any tangible excuses....

Wine and Crime

2007-07-15T09:47:00.000-04:00

It's not just music that can soothe the savage beast.....LOL.

July 14, 2007
Associated Press

WASHINGTON–Police here are baffled by an attempted robbery that began with a handgun put to the head of a 14-year-old girl and ended in a group hug.

A group of friends was finishing dinner when a hooded man slid through an open gate.

"Give me your money or I'll start shooting," he demanded.

"We were just finishing dinner," Cristina Rowan told the man. "Why don't you have a glass of wine with us."

The intruder had a sip of their Château Malescot St-Exupéry and said, "Damn, that's good wine.'' He took another sip and a bite of Camembert cheese, apologized and put the gun in his sweatpants.

"I think I may have come to the wrong house," he said. "Can I get a hug?''

Rowan stood up and wrapped her arms around him and the other guests followed.

The man walked away with the crystal wine glass in his hand. No one was hurt.

"He was a good man......"

2007-06-14T11:23:00.000-04:00

Why is it that we only say great things about people after they have died and not during their lifetime ? Why do we have that anguished sense of regret of having missed the opportunity to express real appreciation of another person's company, their contribution and general presence ?

If we spent a fraction of the time and effort used to create an eloquent eulogy praising another (deceased) human being, to instead say that to their face - isn't that sufficient reward just to see their smiling reaction to those words of praise ?

Some things I will never quite fathom.

Gated Communities

2007-06-06T14:29:00.000-04:00

Having read a few articles about gated residential communities in South Africa (mainly inhabited by affluent minority whites), complete with 24 hour armed patrols, in-built panic alarms in each house and steel bars on external windows etc, I wondering how much would each of us ever consider living in a fortress style gated community ?

What does the existence of a gated community say about the society you live in and about you ? Is it symbolic of a dysfunctional society whose social-moral framework has broken down between the haves and the have-nots ? Does having a gated community give legitimacy to the existence of structural social and economic inequalities ? Or is having a siege like mentality the only viable sane response to a situation where law and order has broken down and violent crime is endemic ?

Status Anxiety

2007-05-27T15:31:00.000-04:00

Do you suffer from it ?

It with a sense of morbid curiosity when I come across individuals whose sense of social self-worth is primarily defined by their material objects and lifestyle, which they evidently use to project their self-worth amongst their "not-so-lucky" peers. What is even more interesting is when it becomes a two-horse race between two individuals or families and turns into a material version of the Cold War M.A.D doctrine, except the weapons at stake are apparently limitless lines of credit and an array of purchase finance options to pursue the 'poor boy made good' dream..... It's not really a case of keeping up with the Joneses or Singhs, it's about exceeding whatever they have and really rubbing their faces in it....

'Status Anxiety' is the title of Alain de Botton's book.

Here is an extract from his website:
http://www.alaindebotton.com/status.htm

This is a book about an almost universal anxiety that rarely gets mentioned directly: an anxiety about what others think of us; about whether we're judged a success or a failure, a winner or a loser. This is a book about status anxiety.

Alain de Botton, bestselling author of The Consolations of Philosophy and The Art of Travel, asks - with lucidity and charm - where worries about our status come from and what if anything we can do to surmount them. With the help of philosophers, artists and writers, he examines the origins of status anxiety (ranging from the consequences of the French Revolution to our secret dismay at the success of our friends), before revealing ingenious ways in which people have learnt to overcome their worries in their search for happiness. We learn about sandal-less philosophers and topless bohemians, about the benefits of putting skulls on our sideboards and of looking at ruins.

The result is a book that isn't just highly entertaining and thought-provoking, but also genuinely wise and helpful too.

And here's part of a review from the Globe and Mail:

To underscore that point, he includes a strange photograph. It's a picture of the 1902 Heinz Company Convention in Chicago. For this reviewer, that photograph, more than anything else in the book, was chillingly instructive. Looking at the faces of these ketchup and pickle salesmen, then at the date, then back at the faces, you realize that every one of them, to a man, is dead. And so is everything they fretted about at four in the morning: Who's the boss's pet, who got passed over for promotion, who got the job on an uncle's coat-tails -- all gone, poof. De Botton writes, "In the presence of a skeleton, the repressive aspects of others' opinions have a habit of shedding their power to intimidate."

Life Strategy 101: Pareto`s 80-20 rule

2007-05-26T10:57:00.000-04:00

Hmm...according to this theory it pays to be imbalanced.

Extract:

This counter-intuitive but remarkably simple principle was originated by Vilfredo Pareto, an Italian economist who studied the distribution of wealth in a variety of countries around 1900 and discovered that about 80% of the wealth was owned by 20% of the people.

- In recent times this principle has been expanded and applied to many other areas, think of these (approximates): 80% of the crime is committed by 20% of the criminals, 20% of the clothes in a wardrobe are worn 80% of the time, 20% of customers bring 80% of profits, 80% of the credit received for a job stems from 20% of the effort put in.

- The poignant conclusion of this is that a small number of causes is responsible for a large percentage of the effect, in a ratio of about 20:80, the problem of course is identifying the small number of causes.

- The real stinger is that this means 20% of results absorb 80% of one's resources or efforts

- If this was the situation and nothing can be done this is would depressing indeed, however once identified and observed Pareto's law can be used to gain significant advantage.

- Identify and then focus on developing this key area of any activity, and you will likely see a magnification in the results/credit/profits of that activity.

- It can be applied to almost any situation - focus on the 20% that matters and it will seem as though you have almost an unfair advantage - it seems to be good to be imbalanced.

The Village People

2007-03-19T14:21:00.000-04:00

No - this post is not about that iconic 70s band that represented all that was flowery, camp and gay......this post is about my extended relatives from the pind (village ) who now call Canada home. When I first came over about 7 years ago, the tribe probably regarded me as something of a cultural novelty......the England wala who preferred to converse in Angrezi, white collar occupation (or at least didn't drive a truck), who preferred soccer to kabbadi, possessed a filled bookcase and preferred sipping wine then the usual macho ritual of getting semicomatose from swigging the hard amber stuff. I'm afraid my attempts at Jatt-ness must have been sorely lacking in the eyes of my fellow chest beating Punjabi babbar sheres...

In moving to Canada, I suppose I've experienced a more rustic Jatt version of 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding' and I've noticed some distinct cultural differences between desis here in Canada and those in England. In England immigration from the sub-continent has been virtually shut down for the last 30 years, resulting I suppose in a more homogenous urban outlook amongst the desi community which has been there since the 50s, 60s and early 70s. Contrastingly, most desis I have come across in my circle have been here for barely 10 years, direct from a rural Punjabi village and via the family class immigration category. Culture and language are two biggest differences I've noticed.....there is a constant western/rural desi cultural faultline which means east and west never quite fuse together. The gurdwaras here (in Ontario) are a lot more hard-core pro-Khalistani than the ones in England, and it seems that bright red lipstick in still in vogue with the chunni and salwaar kameez brigade who go weekend shopping for wholewheat atta and mangoes.

Still, it ain't all bad though....even though my ribs are continually sore from the countless number of bear hugs I've received over the years - it is a testament to the genuine affection I've received from my tribe who ask for nothing and yet are willing to give. In fact it reminds me of a passage in Partap Sharma's 'Days of The Turban' novel:

"The bus will take you there. Now. But before it was wild. Desolate. The backyard of Punjab. Here, in my village, the men carry guns and anger easily between their quotidian farming chores.

These are the men of the far North born out of the forerunners and morass of all civilizations that attacked India through the Himalayan passes. These are the men born out of and into the war.

They carry their bloodshed lightly between jokes and daily lawful living. They are men and women of the earth, as basic as that - as quick to yield harvests of kindness and goodness, as quick to dry up and turn sullen and destroy. These are my people".

ps. and for those of you who did a Google search for Village People (the musical version) and came across my sociological rantings, here is consolation prize for you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Jmfix-st9U

Review: Partition - the movie

2007-03-13T10:32:00.000-04:00

I recently had, for want of a better word the misfortune to watch 'Partition'. In fact after watching this, I want the 2 hours of my life back that I spent watching it.

Yep - big thumbs down.....the film moved at a glacial pace, and made several cultural sell-out compromises for the white sahibs who will go and watch it......I mean how many sardars in 1947 Punjab publicly french-kissed the way they did in the middle of a field ?? (In fact I thought at one point his false beard was gonna get pulled away by her teeth). Mistry had a permanently pained constipated expression on his face throughout the movie, and his adopted gori begum looked so waif-like that never in a thousand years could she be mistaken for a real Punjabi woman....

Worst of all, the movie suffers by comparison to 'Gadar' on which it is based. Okay, the Bollywood version may have had the usual over-the-top scenes, but if I had to choose between an effeminate mumbling meandering Mistry and a volcanic Sunny Deol at full charge, then I think the latter wins hands down.

2/10.

Which is the real rogue state ?

2007-03-09T14:59:00.000-05:00

An excellent article from The Guardian:

Noam Chomsky
Friday March 9, 2007
The Guardian

In the energy-rich Middle East, only two countries have failed to subordinate themselves to Washington's basic demands: Iran and Syria. Accordingly both are enemies, Iran by far the more important. As was the norm during the cold war, resort to violence is regularly justified as a reaction to the malign influence of the main enemy, often on the flimsiest of pretexts.

Unsurprisingly, as Bush sends more troops to Iraq, tales surface of Iranian interference in the internal affairs of Iraq - a country otherwise free from any foreign interference - on the tacit assumption that Washington rules the world.

In the cold war-like mentality in Washington, Tehran is portrayed as the pinnacle in the so-called Shia crescent that stretches from Iran to Hizbullah in Lebanon, through Shia southern Iraq and Syria. And again unsurprisingly, the "surge" in Iraq and escalation of threats and accusations against Iran is accompanied by grudging willingness to attend a conference of regional powers, with the agenda limited to Iraq.

Presumably this minimal gesture toward diplomacy is intended to allay the growing fears and anger elicited by Washington's heightened aggressiveness. These concerns are given new substance in a detailed study of "the Iraq effect" by terrorism experts Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank, revealing that the Iraq war "has increased terrorism sevenfold worldwide". An "Iran effect" could be even more severe.

For the US, the primary issue in the Middle East has been, and remains, effective control of its unparalleled energy resources. Access is a secondary matter. Once the oil is on the seas it goes anywhere. Control is understood to be an instrument of global dominance. Iranian influence in the "crescent" challenges US control. By an accident of geography, the world's major oil resources are in largely Shia areas of the Middle East: southern Iraq, adjacent regions of Saudi Arabia and Iran, with some of the major reserves of natural gas as well. Washington's worst nightmare would be a loose Shia alliance controlling most of the world's oil and independent of the US.

Such a bloc, if it emerges, might even join the Asian Energy Security Grid based in China. Iran could be a lynchpin. If the Bush planners bring that about, they will have seriously undermined the US position of power in the world.

To Washington, Tehran's principal offence has been its defiance, going back to the overthrow of the Shah in 1979 and the hostage crisis at the US embassy. In retribution, Washington turned to support Saddam Hussein's aggression against Iran, which left hundreds of thousands dead. Then came murderous sanctions and, under Bush, rejection of Iranian diplomatic efforts.

Last July, Israel invaded Lebanon, the fifth invasion since 1978. As before, US support was a critical factor, the pretexts quickly collapse on inspection, and the consequences for the people of Lebanon are severe. Among the reasons for the US-Israel invasion is that Hizbullah's rockets could be a deterrent to a US-Israeli attack on Iran. Despite the sabre-rattling it is, I suspect, unlikely that the Bush administration will attack Iran. Public opinion in the US and around the world is overwhelmingly opposed. It appears that the US military and intelligence community is also opposed. Iran cannot defend itself against US attack, but it can respond in other ways, among them by inciting even more havoc in Iraq. Some issue warnings that are far more grave, among them the British military historian Corelli Barnett, who writes that "an attack on Iran would effectively launch world war three".

Then again, a predator becomes even more dangerous, and less predictable, when wounded. In desperation to salvage something, the administration might risk even greater disasters. The Bush administration has created an unimaginable catastrophe in Iraq. It has been unable to establish a reliable client state within, and cannot withdraw without facing the possible loss of control of the Middle East's energy resources.

Meanwhile Washington may be seeking to destabilise Iran from within. The ethnic mix in Iran is complex; much of the population isn't Persian. There are secessionist tendencies and it is likely that Washington is trying to stir them up - in Khuzestan on the Gulf, for example, where Iran's oil is concentrated, a region that is largely Arab, not Persian.

Threat escalation also serves to pressure others to join US efforts to strangle Iran economically, with predictable success in Europe. Another predictable consequence, presumably intended, is to induce the Iranian leadership to be as repressive as possible, fomenting disorder while undermining reformers.

It is also necessary to demonise the leadership. In the west, any wild statement by President Ahmadinejad is circulated in headlines, dubiously translated. But Ahmadinejad has no control over foreign policy, which is in the hands of his superior, the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The US media tend to ignore Khamenei's statements, especially if they are conciliatory. It's widely reported when Ahmadinejad says Israel shouldn't exist - but there is silence when Khamenei says that Iran supports the Arab League position on Israel-Palestine, calling for normalisation of relations with Israel if it accepts the international consensus of a two-state settlement.

The US invasion of Iraq virtually instructed Iran to develop a nuclear deterrent. The message was that the US attacks at will, as long as the target is defenceless. Now Iran is ringed by US forces in Afghanistan, Iraq, Turkey and the Persian Gulf, and close by are nuclear-armed Pakistan and Israel, the regional superpower, thanks to US support.

In 2003, Iran offered negotiations on all outstanding issues, including nuclear policies and Israel-Palestine relations. Washington's response was to censure the Swiss diplomat who brought the offer. The following year, the EU and Iran reached an agreement that Iran would suspend enriching uranium; in return the EU would provide "firm guarantees on security issues" - code for US-Israeli threats to bomb Iran.

Apparently under US pressure, Europe did not live up to the bargain. Iran then resumed uranium enrichment. A genuine interest in preventing the development of nuclear weapons in Iran would lead Washington to implement the EU bargain, agree to meaningful negotiations and join with others to move toward integrating Iran into the international economic system.

Advice fatigue syndrome

2007-03-07T13:47:00.000-05:00

Do you ever get that sense of déjà vu when the same person(s) periodically ask for your advice on something time and time again ? And when you give that advice (providing part mixture of guarded encouragement and part reality check), they still go bunny hopping away full of false hope and you know it’s gonna end in tears for the umpteenth time ?

Do you:

a) Forgive and forget and keep up the late night radio talk-in persona and listen to their latest crisis ?

b) Keep repeating the ‘I’m here for you’ routine and keep up the charade of being an unquestioning sycophant

c) Or just screw it and tell them as it really is and point out their A-Z of character deficiencies and flaws ?

Pitfalls of car buying research

2007-02-21T11:11:00.000-05:00

Okay right now I'm looking to replace my current vehicle and one of the biggest frustrations when researching for a car on the internet is that amid all the car review sites, discussion forums etc, is that I have to apply a great big King Kong sized discount factor to North American opinions about what is acceptable or unacceptable in a vehicle. The easiest analogy I can think of right now are men who choose their partners based solely on bra size and degree of blondness......LOL.

Okay I admit, I came from a high fuel cost country where a 2.0 litre engine was considered big or at least satisfactory for 99.9999% of all A to B driving needs. The upside was an emphasis on style and practicality as well as a fun to drive factor. Given all that, I have to decipher if a car would meet my needs based on the meandering ramblings of American car journalists who write in their reviews that certain models are:

1) Not powerful enough for North American tastes (less than 3.5 litres is considered puny)
2) No V8 option available
3) Not big enough (seats are too narrow for the typical American waistline)
4) Styling failed a focus group (at some McDonalds drive thru in creationist theory loving Kansas)
5) Interior is too sophisticated (presumably for the NASCAR fan base)
6) Horror of horrors - it's a hatchback (second only in crime to supporting Osama)
7) Ride is too hard (we like to float)
8) Have to shift the manual transmission (like DUH.....)
9) Cup-holders not wide enough (supersize me baby !)
10) Not enough chrome

It is little wonder that the Big 3 North American auto makers are in dire straits, when practicality and styling take a back seat and lip service is paid to both Kyoto and the status of non-renewable fossil fuels. In the meantime, the search for an intelligent, interesting, humorous and talented partner rather than a 42DD air-head continues............

Indo-Canadians & their love of big houses

2007-02-02T11:39:00.000-05:00

I was somewhat bemused to read the following article....

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/westcoastnews/story.html?id=d3b84f97-81ad-4098-84da-5b0e390ff5f6&k=87735

SURREY - New Indo-Canadian residents of north Surrey vowed to continue their battle for bigger homes after city council voted Monday for the second time in five weeks in favour of smaller house sizes in the area.

Kamaljit Singh Thind said he will go back to the St. Helen's Park neighbourhood to try to get more support for zoning that would favour his position.

Thind, who bought in the neighbourhood last April because of a new Khalsa School being built nearby, said he was disappointed that council had twice voted to reduce the maximum house size.And he said he is sure the issue is being motivated by racism, despite strong denials by councillors, the mayor and long-time area residents.

"We will continue our fight. I have made an opposition party over there," Thind said late Monday, surrounded by dozens of disappointed supporters.

Thind has registered a new group called the St. Helen's Park Neighbourhood Ratepayers' Association, to take on the long-established South Westminster Ratepayers' Association that lobbied for almost three years for smaller house sizes in the historic neighbourhood.

After the South Westminster group's success at council last month, many Indo-Canadians led by Thind said they felt the restrictions were racist since it was their community that wanted larger homes.

About 150 people attended a public hearing Monday night at which Councillor Judy Higginbotham tried to put through a motion to reconsider the issue.Higginbotham said she felt the other motion had gone through too quickly and without the chance for the minority to have its say. But South Westminster association president Grant Rice told The Vancouver Sun that the group had gone through a meticulous process over three years to place the 3,250-square-foot limit on house size.

Rice said he was disappointed the contentious issue was coming up just a month after the original council vote.Thind said his realtor told him nothing of the fact there was a plan to change regulations in the neighbourhood by cutting back house sizes by 300 square feet.

Paul Brar, who lives nearby, said some people have been unfairly describing Indo-Canadian homes as "monster houses."

"Is it fair to say we live in monster houses? We are not monsters," Brar said.

He said Indo-Canadian developers are responsible for cleaning up some of Surrey's worst neighbourhoods."There are many people who resent the success of our hard-working people," he said.With more and more real estate for sale in the vicinity of the new Khalsa School on Old Yale Road, the issue is likely to continue to spark controversy.

Review: Children of Men

2007-01-15T14:08:00.000-05:00

Watched the futuristic nightmare thriller 'Children of Men' last night. Definitely a visual feast for the eyes, set in a dystopian future Britain which appears to be on the brink of social and economic implosion. It is a society devoid of collective moral values, exacerbated by the fact that the human race is on it's last legs as no child has been born anywhere in the last 18 years. Women have become mysteriously infertile across the world, and whether it is due to pollution, chemical contaminants in food, genetic experimentation etc, no one is quite sure. Into this world comes a woman who has inexplicably become pregnant and the rest of the film focuses on various attempts to protect her from harm.

More than the actual storyline, are the apocalyptic scenes which I found most compelling. London in the year 2027 has become another grimy Beirut with terrorist attacks almost daily, and the government has set up a series of Guantanamo style camps for illegal refugee immigrants. The general populace looks haggard and fear is everywhere, and various violent cults have sprouted in spritual response to the awaited end of the human world.

Great film. 8/10.

Brown politicians make me sick.....

2007-01-05T22:37:00.000-05:00

The recent news that Wajid Khan, MP for Streetsville-Mississauga has decided to switch from Liberal to Conservative does not surprise me in the least.

Brown politicians make me sick....most of them are only in it for themselves, and create a bad name for the south asian community. On my drive home today, CBC radio had an interview with the President of the Liberal Riding Association in Streetsville, another Pak Muslim, who said in his broken English that he fully supported Khan's decision since he is a close friend of his.....I mean like WTF ???? Does your 'effing sharia wife-beating, honour killing tribal loyalty take precedent over the Canadian citizens who voted that idiot into power ?

Other notable examples in recent times include Ujjal Dosanjh who switched from NDP to Liberal after leading the NDP to their biggest defeat in the BC provincial elections in 2001. And then we have that buffoon Gurmant Grewal and his pathetic attempts to secretly negotiate his switch from Conservatives to Liberals a couple of years back. And don't think it's just an Indo-Canadian thing......British Asian MPs have been known for accepting stuffed brown envelopes too.....

Express shopping lines for non-Christians ?

2006-12-28T09:24:00.000-05:00

Having seen the mad rush last week of brain-washed Xmas shoppers, I reckon that shops should have express counters for non-Christians and those who are not celebrating the birth of the prophet Jesus. Upon producing the appropriate documentation (eg. identity papers, copy of Koran/Gita, Yellow Star of David, branded tattoes, ethnic gear etc), these shoppers could be allowed to enter the express queue and purchase their everyday items in relative tranquility.

Days Go By - Dirty Vegas

2006-11-17T23:06:00.000-05:00

Continuing the theme of remembering a previous yaar.....

Laal Dupatta

2006-11-14T10:05:00.000-05:00

This laal dupatta is all I have of you,
Its fabric between my fingers a reminder of you,
Soft to touch and easy to tear,
Like you - something very rare.

Your laughter still echoes in my head,
As I lie restless upon my bed.
I think back to the past,
Of carefree seasons and mulaqats in the sun.

Of talks of our future until the sun would set,
Binding us like day and night.
But it was not to be,
For reasons still unknown to me,
You chose him over me,
Resigning yourself to becoming just a memory for me.

SM

The Sigmoid Curve

2006-11-13T13:24:00.000-05:00

What dya reckon ?

Apparently according to proponents of the theory, it can be applied to all areas of human life (eg.career changes,emigration,spiritual etc), and allows you to re-generate upward growth before you reach downward decline. The hardest part appears to be the ability to have the foresight to quit while the going is good, and move on and do something else that will start another upward growth curve.

Here's an extract:

"The sigmoid curve is the S-shaped curve that has intrigued people throughout history. The curve sums up the story and time line of life itself; we start slowly, we experiment and falter, we then grow rapidly, then wax, and wane. It is the product life cycle, it is the biological life cycle. It describes the rise and fall of empires, dynasties, companies, and individuals. It also describes the course of love and relationships."

And here's a pic...

What are you listening to ?

2006-11-07T20:36:00.000-05:00

Somehow, and don't ask me why, I was in the mood for some bouncy Europop tunes and this brought back memories... :)

Spheric revealed

2006-11-05T00:23:00.000-05:00

Yes...this is moi! Kinda felt guilty that I knew what other bloggers look like but never reciprocated...till now.

Winter approaches...

2006-11-03T16:43:00.000-05:00

It felt good this morning when I got out of the car and my shoes made contact with the first snow of the year. That the snow was but a light sprinkled dusting in a town located in the rural bible belt of Ontario is neither here nor there. I have decided that in the 6 years since I came to Canada, I prefer winter to the oppressively hot humid summers of Ontario. I can actually think and focus better in a colder climate - my level of mental alertness increases exponentially in a shivering environment, and the quality of my night sleep improves significantly. Plus I appreciate more the bricks-and-mortar sanctuary that I call home as the North Wind howls outside....

In fact I am positively looking forward to arctic sub-zero temperatures, more of the white stuff and even have a secret hankering for the occasional winter storm. No doubt I'll be watching 'The Weather Network' with a heightened sense of anticipation in the days ahead...... :)

America's first Socialist senator ?

2006-11-01T21:49:00.000-05:00

Comrades,

Our day is finally approaching....... :)

From The Guardian:

Amid the furious debate over Iraq and the speculation that George Bush may be a lame duck after next Tuesday's mid-term elections, an extraordinary political milestone is approaching: a cantankerous 65-year-old called Bernie looks set to become the first socialist senator in US history.

Bernie Sanders is so far ahead in the contest for Vermont's vacant seat for the US Senate that it seems only sudden illness or accident could derail his rendezvous with destiny, after eight terms as the state's only congressman. His success flies in the face of all the conventional wisdom about American politics.

He is an unapologetic socialist and proud of it. Even his admirers admit that he lacks social skills, and he tends to speak in tirades. Yet that has not stopped him winning eight consecutive elections to the US House of Representatives.

"Twenty years ago when people here thought about socialism they were thinking about the Soviet Union, about Albania," Mr Sanders told the Guardian in a telephone interview from the campaign trail. "Now they think about Scandinavia. In Vermont people understand I'm talking about democratic socialism."

Democratic socialism, however, has hardly proved to be a vote-winning formula in a country where even the word "liberal" is generally treated as an insult. Until now the best showing in a Senate race by a socialist of any stripe was in 1930 by Emil Seidel, who won 6% of the vote.
John McLaughry, the head of a free-market Vermont thinktank, the Ethan Allen Institute, said Mr Sanders is a throwback to that era. "Bernie Sanders is an unreconstructed 1930s socialist and proud of it. He's a skilful demagogue who casts every issue in that framework, a master practitioner of class warfare."

When Mr Sanders, a penniless but eloquent import from New York, got himself elected mayor of Burlington in 1981, at the height of the cold war, it rang some alarm bells. "I had to persuade the air force base across the lake that Bernie's rise didn't mean there was a communist takeover of Burlington," recalled Garrison Nelson, a politics professor at the University of Vermont who has known him since the 1970s.

"He used to sleep on the couch of a friend of mine, walking about town with no work," Prof Nelson said. "Bernie really is a subject for political anthropology. He has no political party. He has never been called charming. He has no money, and none of the resources we normally associate with success. However, he learned how to speak to a significant part of the disaffected population of Vermont."

Mr Sanders turned out to be a success as mayor, rejuvenating the city government and rehabilitating Burlington's depressed waterfront on Lake Champlain while ensuring that it was not gentrified beyond the reach of ordinary local people. "He stood this town on its ear," said Peter Freyne, a local journalist.

"I tried to make the government work for working people, and not just for corporations, and on that basis I was elected to Congress," Mr Sanders said. He has served 16 years in the House of Representatives, a lonely voice since the Republican takeover in 1994. He has however struck some interesting cross-party deals, siding with libertarian Republicans to oppose a clause in the Patriot Act which allowed the FBI to find out what books Americans borrowed from libraries.

He says his consistent electoral success reflects the widespread discontent with rising inequality, deepening poverty and dwindling access to affordable healthcare in the US. "People realise there is a lot to be learned from the democratic socialist models in northern Europe," Mr Sanders said. "The untold story here is the degree to which the middle class is shrinking and the gap between rich and poor is widening. It is a disgrace that the US has the highest rate of childhood poverty of any industrialised country on earth. Iraq is important, but it's not the only issue."

In a state of just over 600,000 people he also has a significant advantage over his Republican opponent, Rich Tarrant, a businessman who has spent about $7m on his campaign. "Sanders is popular because even if you disagree with him you know where he stands," said Eric Davis, a political scientist at Vermont's Middlebury College. "He pays attention to his political base. He's independent and iconoclastic and Vermonters like that."

Automative thought of the day

2006-10-25T11:41:00.000-04:00

Well, actually a plea to new model Honda Civic drivers. At night when it's dark and stormy outside and you're insulated and cocooned from the rest of the world, driving along without a care in the world, and the light from your dashboard controls and dials bathes in you in a blue-ish spaceship glow.....think of us poor humble drivers right behind you.........and switch your bloody rear lights on !!!!!!!!!!

Sidenote: I dunno if it's a Honda design fault but Honda Civics dashboard lights and rear lights are not automatically linked.....not sure why this is the case - perhaps Japanese babies are born with night X-ray vision ?

Diabetes and Indian lifestyle

2006-10-21T08:29:00.000-04:00

Yes, I know it's kind of ironic that I post this on Diwali (btw, Diwali greetings to everyone !), but I felt this needs to take precedence over any festive candle pictures etc. Don't think I'll be touching gulab jamum or jalebi for a while......

Article (N.Y.Times)

Modern Ways Open India’s Doors to Diabetes

CHENNAI, India — There are many ways to understand diabetes in this choking city of automakers and software companies, where the disease seems as commonplace as saris. One way is through the story of P. Ganam, 50, a proper woman reduced to fake gold.

Her husband, K. Palayam, had diabetes do its corrosive job on him: ulcers bore into both feet and cost him a leg. To pay for his care in a country where health insurance is rare, P. Ganam sold all her cherished jewelry — gold, as she saw it, swapped for life.

She was asked about the necklaces and bracelets she was now wearing.

They were, as it happened, worthless impostors.

“Diabetes,” she said, “has the gold.”

And now, Ms. Ganam, the scaffolding of her hard-won middle-class existence already undone, has diabetes too.

In its hushed but unrelenting manner, Type 2 diabetes is engulfing India, swallowing up the legs and jewels of those comfortable enough to put on weight in a country better known for famine. Here, juxtaposed alongside the stick-thin poverty, the malaria and the AIDS, the number of diabetics now totals around 35 million, and counting.

The future looks only more ominous as India hurtles into the present, modernizing and urbanizing at blinding speed. Even more of its 1.1 billion people seem destined to become heavier and more vulnerable to Type 2 diabetes, a disease of high blood sugar brought on by obesity, inactivity and genes, often culminating in blindness, amputations and heart failure. In 20 years, projections are that there may be a staggering 75 million Indian diabetics.

“Diabetes unfortunately is the price you pay for progress,” said Dr. A. Ramachandran, the managing director of the M.V. Hospital for Diabetes, in Chennai (formerly Madras).

For decades, Type 2 diabetes has been the “rich man’s burden,” a problem for industrialized countries to solve.

But as the sugar disease, as it is often called, has penetrated the United States and other developed nations, it has also trespassed deep into the far more populous developing world.

In Italy or Germany or Japan, diabetes is on the rise. In Bahrain and Cambodia and Mexico — where industrialization and Western food habits have taken hold— it is rising even faster. For the world has now reached the point, according to the United Nations, where more people are overweight than undernourished.

Diabetes does not convey the ghastly despair of AIDS or other killers. But more people worldwide now die from chronic diseases like diabetes than from communicable diseases. And the World Health Organization expects that of the more than 350 million diabetics projected in 2025, three-fourths will inhabit the third world.

“I’m concerned for virtually every country where there’s modernization going on, because of the diabetes that follows,” said Dr. Paul Zimmet, the director of the International Diabetes Institute in Melbourne, Australia. “I’m fearful of the resources ever being available to address it.”

India and China are already home to more diabetics than any other country. Prevalence among adults in India is estimated about 6 percent, two-thirds of that in the United States, but the illness is traveling faster, particularly in the country’s large cities.

Throughout the world, Type 2 diabetes, once predominantly a disease of the old, has been striking younger people. But because Indians have such a pronounced genetic vulnerability to the disease, they tend to contract it 10 years earlier than people in developed countries. It is because India is so youthful — half the population is under 25 — that the future of diabetes here is so chilling.

In this boiling city of five million perched on the Bay of Bengal, amid the bleating horns of the autorickshaws and the shriveled mendicants peddling combs on the dust-beaten streets, diabetes can be found everywhere.

A Noxious Sign of Success

The conventional way to see India is to inspect the want — the want for food, the want for money, the want for life. The 300 million who struggle below the poverty line. The debt-crippled farmers who kill themselves. The millions of children with too little to eat.

But there is another way to see it: through its newfound excesses and expanding middle and upper classes. In a changing India, it seems to go this way: make good money and get cars, get houses, get servants, get meals out, get diabetes.

In perverse fashion, obesity and diabetes stand almost as joint totems of success.

Last year, for instance, the MW fast-food and ice cream restaurant in this city proclaimed a special promotion: “Overweight? Congratulations.” The limited-time deal afforded diners savings equal to 50 percent of their weight (in kilograms). The heaviest arrival lugged in 135 kilograms (297 pounds) and ate lustily at 67.5 percent off.

Too much food has pernicious implications for a people with a genetic susceptibility to diabetes, possibly the byproduct of ancestral genes developed to hoard fat during cycles of feast and famine. This vulnerability was first spotted decades ago when immigrant Indians settled in Western countries and in their retrofitted lifestyles got diabetes at levels dwarfing those in India. Now Westernization has come to India and is bringing the disease home.

Though 70 percent of the population remains rural, Indians are steadily forsaking paddy fields for a city lifestyle that entails less movement, more fattening foods and higher stress: a toxic brew for diabetes. In Chennai, about 16 percent of adults are thought to have the disease, one of India’s highest concentrations, more than the soaring levels in New York, and triple the rate two decades ago. Three local hospitals, quaintly known as the sugar hospitals, are devoted to the illness.

The traditional Indian diet can itself be generous with calories. But urban residents switch from ragi and fresh vegetables to fried fast food and processed goods. The pungent aromas of quick-food emporiums waft everywhere here: Sowbakiya Fast Food, Nic-Nac Fast Food, Pizza Hut. Coke and Pepsi are pervasive, but rarely their diet versions.

The country boasts a ravenous sweet tooth, hence the ubiquitous sweet shops, where customers eagerly lap up laddu and badam pista rolls. Sweets are obligatory at social occasions — birthdays, office parties, mourning observances for the dead — and during any visit to someone’s home, a signal of how welcome the visitors are and that God is present.

“When you come to the office after getting a haircut, people say, ‘So where are the sweets?’ ” said Dr. N. Murugesan, the project director at the M.V. Hospital for Diabetes.

The sovereignty of sweets can pose ticklish choices for a doctor. Trying to set an example, Dr. V. Mohan, chairman of the Diabetes Specialities Centre, a local hospital, said he had omitted sweets at a business affair he arranged, and nearly incited a riot. Last year, his daughter was married. Lesson learned, he laid out a spread of regular sweets on one side of the hall and on the other stationed a table laden with sugar-free treats. Everyone left smiling.

In the United States, an inverse correlation persists between income and diabetes. Since fattening food is cheap, the poor become heavier than the rich, and they exercise less and receive inferior health care. In India, the disease tends to directly track income.

“Jokingly in talks, I say you haven’t made it in society until you get a touch of diabetes,” Dr. Mohan said. He points out that people who once balanced water jugs and construction material on their heads now carry nothing heavier than a cellphone. At a four-star restaurant, it is not unusual to see a patron yank out his kit and give himself an insulin injection.

The very wealthy have begun to recoil at ballooning waistlines, and there has been a rise in slimming centers and stomach-shrinking operations. In high-end stores, one can find a CD, “Music for Diabetes,” with raga selections chosen to dampen stress.
The rest of urban India, however, sits and eats.

In Chennai, workers in the software industry rank among the envied elite. Doctors worry about their habits — tapping keys for exercise, ingesting junk food at the computer. Dr. C. R. Anand Moses, a local diabetologist, sees a steady parade of eager software professionals, devoured by diabetes. “They work impossible hours sitting still,” he said.

S. Venkatesh, 28, a thick-around-the-middle programmer, knows the diabetes narrative. Much of his work is for Western companies that operate during the Indian night. So he works in the dark, sleeps in the day.

“The software industry is full of pressure, because you are paid well,” he said. “In India, if you work in software, your hours are the office.”

His sole exercise is to sometimes climb the stairs. A year and a half ago, he found out he had diabetes.

Unshod, and Unprotected

The diabetic foot is a recurrent backdrop among the unending cases that clog the waiting area at the M.V. Hospital. Dr. Ramachandran, its managing director, sees the parade of festering sores and frightful infections. He knows that only creative thinking can help.

The difficulty is that bare feet prevail here. People shuck their shoes before funneling into homes, some offices and always the temple. Farmers go barefoot in the country. In the cities, autorickshaw operators thunder through town, flesh pressed against hot pedals.

Diabetes, though, ruins sensation in the legs, and foot infections go undetected and are often a preamble to amputations. So doctors like Dr. Ramachandran strongly recommend against going barefoot. Yet the culture demands precisely the opposite.

Seeking a middle ground, Dr. Ramachandran presses his patients to don what he calls Temple Socks during worship. They are made at his hospital, conventional socks with rubber bases stitched inside. They are a slow sell.

Dr. Vijay Viswanathan, the hospital’s joint director, gives patients stickers to affix to their bathroom mirrors: “Take care of your feet.” Like doctors elsewhere, he promotes custom shoes. He drifted into them because of leprosy footwear.

Leprosy damages feet and requires special shoes, with tougher undersoles and without nails or sharp edges, that also suit diabetics. But when the diabetics in the telltale footwear appeared at restaurants, they were shooed away, thought to be lepers. So now the hospital makes distinctly different designs.

The consequences of the diabetic foot can be grim. While the affliction knows no class distinctions, the solutions do.

In his lectures, Dr. Ramachandran recounts the case of an impoverished diabetic with a hideously infected leg. Unable to find medical care, he laid the leg across the railroad tracks. The next train to hurtle past did the surgery.

For a limb replacement, the very poor may make do with a $50 wooden leg that does not bend. A woman like Mrs. Chitrarangarajan, 49, who runs a school for the autistic and is married to an oil executive, opts for the best. Her right leg was surrendered to diabetes in 2001. She found a German leg for $6,000 and ordered it over the Internet.

S. P. M. Ameer owned a shoe store when diabetes befell him 30 years ago. Soon, circulatory problems attacked, he closed his shop, he lost his wife, then his leg last January.

Now, at 58, occupying a mirthless room in a cheap hotel on a rackety side street, he no longer recognized the solemn shape of his life. He rarely left his squalid room. “Who hires a man without a leg?” he asked.

He had yet to arrange for a prosthesis. He had no way to pay for one. “God has to apply,” he said.

These stories circulate. But the cultural imperatives hold strong. Even in the sugar hospitals, with admonishments plastered on the walls, some patients insouciantly stride about barefoot. Directly outside the office of one local sugar doctor, beside a sign preaching against the perils of bare feet, another sign notified patients to remove their shoes before entering. And so, barefoot, they sat before him and heard him lecture them not to go barefoot.

Sick Without a Safety Net

Krishnasamy Srinivasan, 66, did not look good. He rarely did anymore. He was recumbent in a hospital bed, his shirt off, his eyes underslung with bags. He had come in by train for another checkup. He now lived deep in the suburbs, where it was cheaper, part of the sad new mix of his life.

He had done very well as a textile exporter, came to own four homes, and enjoyed rental income from those he did not occupy. Then diabetes hit when he was 40. He paid it little mind as it marinated inside his body. Over the last 15 years came heart problems and the need for bypass surgery. His kidneys deteriorated. He is now on dialysis.

He held up the needle-marked right arm of his malfunctioning body, identifying it as “my dialysis arm.”

He had to stop working. To cover the medical costs, he sold three of the homes. His family has been living off the evaporating proceeds, their past irreclaimable.

Diabetes is bankrupting people in the country, often the reasonably well off, and mainly because of a lack of insurance.

Few in India have health insurance, and among those who do, policies generally do not cover diabetes. Middle-class diabetics often exhaust a quarter or more of their income on medications and care. Instances abound where the sick must sell their possessions and compress their lives to feed the diabetes maw.

S. Kalyanasundaram, the chief regional manager in charge at the Chennai office of the National Insurance Company, one of the country’s biggest, explained that the issue with insurance was the odds. “Insurance can only work if the law of averages applies,” he said. “There are too many people with diabetes.”

Some concepts are easy to sell in India, Mr. Kalyanasundaram said, but health insurance is not one of them. “The capacity to pay is not there,” he said. “And many people take disease as a God-given thing to just accept. So why buy insurance?”

Things are beginning to change, even the possibility that policies may cover diabetes for an appropriate premium, but who knows how much they will change? Mr. Kalyanasundaram mentioned that certain preferential customers merited customized policies with an unorthodox clause. If they have diabetes and claim no expenses for four years, then afterward their diabetes will be covered.

“We are testing a belief,” he said. “We think it possible that if diabetes doesn’t manifest in those four years, then it will not manifest in the future.”

It was an odd thought for a disease that usually worsens with time. As for the results, he said it was too early to know how the test was going. “We are still testing.”

With many things it is still too early in India. And so rural dwellers often cope with unavailable or inaccessible health care, frequently relying on unlicensed doctors, many knowing little, if anything, about diabetes. Diabetes researchers estimate that three-quarters of those stricken with the disease in rural villages do not know they have it.

In urban areas, the sick, other than the poorest, prefer to bypass beleaguered government hospitals and seek private care. But without insurance, the cost of a long-term illness can be crushing.

Mr. Srinivasan’s wife, Srinivasan Muthammal, 61, also has the sugar, but not its complications yet. Like her husband, she is overweight. As she listened to him talk of their black hours, her face was frozen.

“We are angry with the god,” she said. “You gave us four houses in four directions and all the wealth, and now you have taken it all away. Why?”

Mr. Srinivasan suggested they had cash for one more year, perhaps a little more.

“I’m angry with the diabetes,” he said. “You are a pauper all because of the sugar.”

Till Diabetes Do Us Part

Divorce is rare in India, but in these changing times it is very much on the upsweep. Diabetes, here and there, even figures in the marital strife. Women may be stigmatized. Men find themselves impotent and then newly single.

K. Sumathi, a Chennai lawyer who sometimes deals in the accelerating number of divorces, appreciates the impact of diabetes in a country where different centuries breathe side by side.
She said a young woman with diabetes, for example, is often deemed damaged and unmarriageable, or must marry into a lower caste. Indian law recognizes five broad grounds for divorce, one being if either spouse acquires a chronic disease. Diabetes can rapidly debilitate a breadwinner and impose impotency, either outcome a solid marriage wrecker.

She told the story of a recent case: A wife, living as custom has it with her in-laws, said the stress of the circumstances contributed to her getting diabetes. She wound up in a diabetic coma and had to be hospitalized. Her husband, a dentist, chose to attend to cavities rather than visit her. The divorce was completed seven months ago.

There was also the account of a husband who accused his unhappy wife of sneaking extra sugar in his tea, hoping he would acquire diabetes and die. It proved to be a poor concept. He survived. The marriage did not.

J. Vasanthakumari, a marriage counselor who is friendly with Ms. Sumathi, said she has seen the disease percolate in the back stories of some of her clientele. Diabetes. Then sexual dysfunction. Unhappiness. Appointments with her.

“You must understand one basic thing,” she said. “People in personal matters will not bring diabetes to the surface. But women tell me, ‘He’s not affectionate, he’s not taking care of me, he’s not like before.’ It’s the diabetes.”

She went on: “Sometimes someone gets diabetes partly because he’s an alcoholic. The marriage falls apart. The real reason is the alcoholism. But the diabetes becomes the last straw on the camel’s back.”

Folklore and Frustration

The shabby disease remedy shop was small for its outsize promises. A dusty storefront crunched between souvenir stands, it sat near the Kapaleeswarar temple, a familiar tourist choice in Chennai. Inside spilled a teetering mass of ready relief for arthritis, heartburn, gout, piles. Beneath the scalding sun, an ox cart pounded past, scattering a swarm of people padding down the street.

The grizzled proprietor, who was asked if he had anything for diabetes, readily proffered a bottle of pea-soup-colored liquid. It cost roughly $3. Its exact contents, the man said, were as privileged as Coke’s formula. But drink a capful twice a day for three months, he assured, and the diabetes would vanish.

Though no universal cure exists for diabetes, “cures” and other mischievous medicines nonetheless abound in India. Much of the population gravitates to cryptic beliefs threaded with untruths that are hard to nullify.

People believe in bitter gourd juice and fenugreek, an Indian spice, which can temper sugar levels, but are not cures. Some years ago, the wood water cure gained considerable traction. Drink water stored overnight in a tumbler made of Pterocarpus marsupium heartwood, the promotion went, and it would wash away the diabetes.

All this exasperates Dr. Murugesan. He is among those trying to stanch the spread of the disease. Diabetes education is hard enough, without tomfoolery and witchcraft to discredit.

He had something to show on his desktop computer at the M.V. Hospital for Diabetes, a prevention program known as “Chubby Cheeks.” Animated mothers on the screen merrily admitted that they associated being chubby with health. Animated chubby students chafed that their parents refused to let them play, but forced them to study endlessly so they could become doctors and engineers. They studied, they sat, they enlarged. Dr. Murugesan takes his cautionary tale around to schools and waves it like a lantern.

Dr. Murugesan is himself an Indian diabetes story. A health educator, he devoted 20 years to erasing leprosy in southern India. Two years ago, with that scourge largely beaten back, he itched for a fresh menace. He chose diabetes. He saw its rapid ascent.
What’s more, he had diabetes.

Upon enlisting in the sugar fight, he felt it behooved him to test the blood sugar levels of his own family, and he excavated truths he had not wished for. His wife, daughter and one of his sons were all bordering on becoming diabetic. His other son, just 28 then, already had diabetes.

“I say it’s like Jesus Christ,” he said. “When you don’t look for him, he’s not there. When you look for him, he’s there. You look for diabetes, and it’s there.”

Prevention, he recognizes, is a mountainous climb in a country with a severe shortage of medical workers. What health care money exists is overwhelmingly applied to infectious perils.

The health minister, Dr. Anbumani Ramadoss, recently said he would begin a diabetes program, but the timetable and scope are unclear. Indian politicians in pursuit of votes rarely campaign on matters of health, but promise the poor cheap rice or free color televisions.
All of which perpetuates a dual continuum. Rural Indians flock to the cities, only to encounter diabetes, while Westernization sweeps its way to the villages, carrying diabetes as its passenger.

Thus Dr. Mohan, among other efforts, dispatches prevention teams to Chunampet, a cluster of villages a couple of hours south that are a feeder area for Chennai. Most of the villagers have no idea what diabetes is.

Meanwhile, Dr. Murugesan has enlistees operating in the Srinivasapuram slum, a grid of cramped thatched huts and makeshift tents that hug Chennai’s long beach.

The diabetes rates among these raggedly lives are notably below those of the middle and upper classes. But they are catching up. When evening gushes over the slum and the mosquitoes emerge, a scattering of diabetics drift over to the tiny Vijaya Medical shop. They are poor at “self-poking,” as they explain, and have no refrigerators to chill their insulin. Some fill mud pots with water and stuff their vials in there. Others rely on the medical shop proprietor, a merry young man with legs withered by polio.

He tapes their names to the appropriate bottles and, each day, administers shots.

Misconceptions populate the conversations. Some residents say they occasionally have diabetes: a few years with it, then a few years without it. They think that diabetes pays visits.
Others are rabid apologists for the disease. Uninterested in eating less, they say that when they feel like a big meal, a luscious plate of sweets, they just swallow an extra pill or inject themselves with more insulin.

“They don’t understand,” Dr. Murugesan said. “They don’t see the darkness of this disease.”

Late in the day, back at the M.V. Hospital, he trooped upstairs to the rooftop auditorium, where 40-odd doctors had assembled to talk about prevention efforts. One thing they talked of uncomfortably: A particular profession in India, they heard, a well-paying one involving a lot of standing around, had practitioners who did not necessarily heed their own advice.

The profession was thick with diabetes. It was doctors themselves.

Do friendships have an expiry date ?

2006-10-18T11:08:00.000-04:00

I'm trying to type up a report and the sounds of a once familiar song which I last heard several years ago come floating into range:

I step off the train,
I'm walking down your street again,
and past your door,
but you don't live there anymore.

And I miss you
- like the deserts miss the rain.

And I miss you -
like the deserts miss the rain.

What happens inside of us when we come to the realization that a friendship has died ? Do we shrug our shoulders, take a deep breath and quietly express 'That's life' type sentiments ? And in doing so, do we have an implied karmic acceptance that no friendship lasts forever ?....that we are all but transients in this journey called life, with people temporarily sharing a collective conscience and then hopping off when another destination (or duty) calls ?

Sometimes it may be due to circumstances beyond our control (eg. changing countries, physical distance, careers, or just growing up) that a friendship dissipates over time...indeed it is a rare occurrence where a dosti will just fracture and snap instaneously. But what about those past friends who still exist in near physical, social (and virtual) proximity, but for which now exists radio silence ? Why did we both move on to different frequencies ? Some questions have no answers....

Irrespective of how a friendship evaporates, do we ever bother to commemorate that time together, the lessons learnt and the lasting legacies that will pass into the next phases of our life ? I think of past friendships from which I learnt much about myself, and look forward to future new friendships that may transpire.

I wish you all a great journey and many travelling companions....

Bahai Principles

2006-09-13T11:55:00.000-04:00

Is there anyone here who is a Bahai ? Very occasionally for the last couple of years or so, I go and read some of the principles of the Bahai faith. I find them to be both inspirational and up to date. They have a really beautiful temple located in Delhi, shaped like a lotus flower....

1. The oneness of mankind
"It is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather for him who loveth the whole world. The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens." --Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 250.

2. The oneness of religion
"All these divisions we see on all sides, all these disputes and opposition, are caused because men cling to ritual and outward observances, and forget the simple, underlying truth. It is the outward practices of religion that are so different, and it is they that cause disputes and enmity -- while the reality is always the same, and one. The Reality is the Truth, and truth has no division. Truth is God's guidance, it is the light of the world, it is love, it is mercy. These attributes of truth are also human virtues inspiredby the Holy Spirit."

3. Independent investigation of truth
"Furthermore, know ye that God has created in man the power of reason, whereby man is enabled to investigate reality. God has not intended man to imitate blindly his fathers and ancestors. He has endowed him with mind, or the faculty of reasoning, by the exercise of which he is to investigate and discover the truth, and that which he finds real and true he must accept."

4. Religion as a source of unity
"He (Baha'u'llah) sets forth a new principle for this day in the announcement that religion must be the cause of unity, harmony and agreement among mankind. If it be the cause of discord and hostility,if it leads to separation and creates conflict, the absence of religion would be preferable in the world."

5. The evolutionary nature of religion
Baha'is view religion as a progressive, evolutionary process which needs to be updated as humanity evolves mentally, socially, and spiritually. Every so often a new Prophet is sent to humanity to update religion to the current needs of mankind. These Prophets bring essentially the same spiritual message to mankind; in a form that meets the needs of the people of Their time. Baha'is believe that Baha'u'llah has brought an updated message for mankind today.

"There is no distinction whatsoever among the Bearers of My Message. They all have but one purpose; their secret is the same secret. To prefer one in honor to another, to exalt certain ones above the rest, is in no wise to be permitted. Every true Prophet hath regarded His Message as fundamentally the same as the Revelation of every other Prophet gone before Him... The measure of the revelation of the Prophets of God in this world, however, must differ. Each and every one of them hath been the Bearer of a distinct Message, and hath been commissioned to reveal Himself through specific acts. It is for this reason that they appear to vary in their greatness... It is clear and evident, therefore, that any apparent variation in the intensity of their light is not inherent in the light itself, but should rather be attributed to the varying receptivity of an ever-changing world. Every Prophet Whom the Almighty and Peerless Creator hath purposed to send to the peoples of the earth hath been entrusted with a Message, and charged to act in a manner that would best meet the requirements of the age in which He appeared."

6. Harmony between religion, science, and reason
"Religion and science are the two wings upon which man's intelligence can soar into the heights, with which the human soul can progress. It is not possible to fly with one wing alone! Should a man try to fly with the wing of religion alone he would quickly fall into the quagmire of superstition, whilst on the other hand, with the wing of science alone he would also make no progress, but fall into thedespairing slough of materialism."

7. Peaceful consultation as a means for resolving differences
In the Baha'i Faith, difference of opinion is not squelched, in fact it is encouraged. "The shining spark of truth cometh forth only after the clash of differing opinions."
However, differences of opinion can be expressed in a way that doesn't humiliate another human being. The Baha'i principle of consultation requires that an individual be detached from his or her opinions and always be open to the truth, from whoever or wherever it comes from.

"They must then proceed with the utmost devotion, courtesy, dignity, care and moderation to express their views. They must in every manner search out the truth and not insist upon their own opinion, for stubbornness and persistence in one's views will lead ultimately to discord and wrangling and the truth will remain hidden. The honored members (of the consulting body) must with all freedom express theirown thoughts, and it is in no wise permissible for one to belittle the thought of another, nay, he must with moderation set forth the truth..."

8. An international auxiliary language
"It behoveth the sovereigns of the world -- may God assist them -- or the ministers of the earth to take counsel together and to adopt one of the existing languages or a new one to be taught to children in schools throughout the world, and likewise one script. Thus the whole earth will come to be regarded as one country."

9. Universal education

"Unto every father hath been enjoined the instruction of his son and daughter in the art of reading and writing and in all that hath been laid down in the Holy Tablet. He that putteth away that which is commanded unto him, the Trustees of the House of Justice are then to recover from him that which is required for their instruction, if he be wealthy, and if not the matter devolveth upon the House of Justice. Verily, have We made it a shelter for the poor and needy. He that bringeth up his son or the son of another, it is as though he hath brought up a son of Mine; upon him rest My Glory, My Loving-Kindness, My Mercy, that have compassed the world."

10. The elimination of all forms of prejudice
"...again, as to religious, racial, national and political bias: all these prejudices strike at the very root of human life; one and all they beget bloodshed, and the ruination of the world. So long as these prejudices survive, there will be continuous and fearsome wars."

11. Equality of men and women
"To accept and observe a distinction which God has not intended in creation is ignorance and superstition. The fact which is to be considered, however, is that woman, having formerly been deprived, must now be allowed equal opportunities with man for education and training. There must be no difference in their education. Until the reality of equality between man and woman is fully established and attained, the highest social development of mankind is not possible"

12. The abolition of the extremes of wealth and poverty
"O Ye Rich Ones on Earth! The poor in your midst are My trust; guard ye My trust, and be notintent only on your own ease."

"We see amongst us men who are overburdened with riches on the one hand, and on the other those unfortunate ones who starve with nothing; those who possess several stately palaces, and those who have not where to lay their head. Some we find with numerous courses of costly and dainty food; whilst others can scarce find sufficient crusts to keep them alive. Whilst some are clothed in velvets, furs and fine linen, others have insufficient, poor and thin garments with which to protect them from the cold. This condition of affairs is wrong and must be remedied. Now the remedy must be carefully undertaken."

13. Universal peace
"The time must come when the imperative necessity for the holding of a vast, an all-embracing assemblage of men will be universally realized. The rulers and kings of the earth must needs attend it, and, participating in its deliberations, must consider such ways and means as will lay the foundations of the world's Great Peace amongst men. Such a peace demandeth that the Great Powers should resolve, for the sake of the tranquillity of the peoples of the earth, to be fully reconciled among themselves. Should any king take up arms against another, all should unitedly arise and prevent him. If this be done, the nations of the world will no longer require any armaments, except for the purpose of preserving the security of their realms and of maintaining internal order within their territories."

The village soldiers of Hezbollah

2006-08-06T11:52:00.000-04:00

Irrespective of one's politics and views on the current conflict, from a purely human perspective one has to admire the courage of those on the very frontline fighting against the fourth most powerful army in the world.

The Observer - 6th Aug 2006.

When war came to the southern Lebanese village of Kfar Kila, a stronghold of the Hizbollah-led Islamic Resistance, it did not have very far to travel. A kilometre of olive groves, and decades of hatred and mutually divisive history, separate this impoverished mountain village from the uniformly red-roofed houses of Metula, Kfar Kila's nearest neighbouring town. Except Metula is in Israel.

They are so close that from the village you can see Israeli cars parked by their houses. So close that the border at one point - at the Fatima Gate - forms the eastern boundary of the village.
Now Israel is at war with Hizbollah, Kfar Kila is at the very front of the front line. The olive trees on the ridge above the village have been scorched black by the phosphorus flares Israeli soldiers used last week to set them aflame. Buildings have been smashed and ruined, set on fire. Some are stained with blood.

Farm animals, kept in sheds and yards behind the bigger houses, have been injured by the shrapnel from tank shells, which scream in with a jarring, lethal regularity. Ibrahim Yahia, a 26-year-old farmer and part-time defender of Kfar Kila, leads us to a Friesian cow, blinded in one eye by shrapnel. Blood streams from one nostril. As Yahia tries to take its muzzle and comfort it, the animal is spooked, and bucks and kicks.

But nothing appears to spook Yahia. A member of Amal, the group fighting alongside Hizbollah in the Islamic Resistance, he barely flinches as the Israeli shells crash in. The streets are open on one side to observation from the gunners around Metula. 'If they want to come, they'll come,' he said sombrely, showing off the rubble in his parents' house, where a shell had punched a hole through the wall. 'Then we will fight them.'

It is a confidence buoyed by the sense of victory that followed the fighters of Kfar Kila's first major encounter with Israeli ground forces in this war. The day before we spoke, the Israelis had tried to take the village with three tanks and infantry advancing from two directions. Over two days, Yahia and his colleagues fought them to a standstill.

One tank was disabled, by Israel's account - three according to Hizbollah's - before the Israeli troops pulled back from Kfar Kila across the fence, burning the olive groves as they went, to resume the business of hurling high explosives against the ridges above the village.

'I'm not like the Israelis,' Yahia said.

'I won't fight without a reason. But because I have a reason I will fight. Because this is my land, I am prepared to die for it. How could you stay silent when you see your land burn and your children get killed? The whole population here is now resisting.'

It is a crucial difference, he seems to suggest, which explains why Israel is struggling to make ground in this campaign - its soldiers are not fighting in their own villages to defend their homes. 'They hit and run,' Yahia said scathingly about the Israeli tactics. 'When they meet us they run like rabbits.'

It is something that strikes you forcefully when you reach the front line of this war. In these villages that form the strongholds of the Islamic Resistance, the men - many of them obviously fighters out of uniform - do not talk much in terms of ideology or religious fanaticism. They are not the zealots and jihadis that Israel claims. Instead, they talk about their damaged property and their livestock scattered by the shelling on the mountains. They talk about family who have fled and those who have stayed. And all the time they carefully skirt talk of the fighters. If they do talk politics it is sometimes with an unexpected spin. Several say that it is not so much the Israelis they blame for this - indeed, who they suggest would agree to a truce - but US President George Bush, who they claim is the real force behind the war.

While religion is an element, it is part of a much more complex formula. Yahia mentions that he follows Ayatollah Sistani, the moderate Shia leader in Iraq, and says he is prepared to be a martyr in this fight for his home. But it is said in a casual way. For Yahia, like the other men in the village, religion is important in the same way as his land, his home, his family and his people.
The south of Lebanon, with its Shia majority, is both strongly observant and socially conservative. 'We do have time to pray while we are fighting,' said Yahia. 'Some of us defend while others pray and then we pray while others defend. If I get an hour of rest I will try to visit my family. Otherwise we eat sand and bullets!'

As we talk, Yahia's commander and another younger fighter arrive to examine a dud shell. The older man is bearded and in his late fifties. 'I don't want to say how many fighters we have in Kfar Kila, but it is a large number. If the Israelis come again they will not get in.'

All the evidence suggests that the commander is not exaggerating. While uniformed members of the Hizbollah missile brigades in the villages around the largely Christian town of Marjeyoun are almost invisible, evidence of their presence is not. It suggests that the fighters here are more numerous, better armed and better trained than Israel imagined.

One afternoon, by chance, we do see three Hizbollah fighters walking down from the olive groves on the slopes into Kfar Kila carrying an ammunition bag. Despite the bombardment, their walk is jaunty and they return a wave with an embarrassed grin, as if caught out by being spotted in the open.

Otherwise, the presence of Hizbollah is only discernible in the puff and whoosh of their missiles; by the scorched ground in the scrub where the launchers briefly halt to fire, and by their many bunkers, heavily camouflaged on the hillsides.

While both sides speak of their victories, seen from the frontline vantage point of Kfar Kila, this is a grinding, grimly pointless war of mutual intimidation that, it appears, neither side can win.
Israeli jets drop their expensive US bombs, usually far from where Hizbollah has been firing. Tanks pound the limestone ridges and envelop them in smoke ('Shooting at ghosts and trees,' says Yahia wryly). In retaliation, Hizbollah fires its rockets blindly across the border, while Metula's sirens wail.

Meanwhile, the Israeli army, the world's fourth most powerful, is driven back by the fierce resistance of shepherds, farmers and mechanics - who are not afraid to die, unlike young Israelis - and then retreats, while leaders on both sides threaten worse, while hinting at conditions for peace.

Caught in the middle, inevitably, are Lebanon's civilians. And every day they flee or die. And sometimes both. Last Tuesday afternoon, as the Israelis were still trying to enter Kfar Kila, we met Ismail Hamoud, 53, on the northern outskirts of the town. His family have gone but, like so many men, Hamoud has chosen to remain.

'It's the second day that the Israelis have tried to advance,' he said wearily, after a sleepless and fearful night and amid the noise of shellfire hitting the village's southern half. 'They already tried once to get into the village and then at 5.30 last night they tried again to come in from the other side of the town.

'We heard small-arms fire, but the resistance fought back and hit three of their tanks. That is when they started firing phosphorus and setting fire to the crops, burning all the houses on the hill.'

And while the Islamic Resistance claimed the battle as a victory, other villagers are less certain. The Israeli action, they suspect, was not to capture Kfar Kila, but to frighten out its remaining residents.

With Hamoud was Yamen Hassan, a tattooed young man in a blue T-shirt. As Hamoud looked warily up the street, Hassan called us over to observe a small group of approaching Israeli troops, moving through the olive trees on the small plain between Metula and the northern outskirts of Kfar Kila, trying to outflank the fighters in the village.

Hassan had come to Kfar Kila to rescue families trapped beneath the Israeli bombardment, but he had halted on its outskirts. 'I am crazy,' he said. 'But I am not so crazy that I will go any further.'

Instead, Hassan had found different passengers to drive out of the town, Mousab and Zainub Rida, who on hearing that Israeli soldiers were creeping through the groves beside their home, elected to flee with a handful of their belongings. As Zainub packed a few possessions on to a tractor-trailer for her husband to take out of town, she wept.

'I've had enough,' said Mousab, a rubbish collector. 'And my wife is just too scared for us to stay.'
A day later, however, they returned to their house. It was only a brief respite. The next day, amid new fears of a general Israeli invasion of the south, up to the Litani river, we saw them once again. This time they finally had fled Kfar Kila. They had not been alone in struggling between fear and their desire to remain.

After more than three weeks of shelling that has seen most of the population of 12,000 flee, a handful are still slipping out of the village every day, their endurance finally brought - like the Ridas' - to snapping point. A few escape in private cars driven by volunteers such as Yamen Hassan. Others leave in a private ambulance, whose insanely cheerful drivers - apparently impervious to the fear of death - shuttle in and out a day, even under the worst fire, delivering bread and other food provided by the local municipality and taking out those who want to leave to the school in Marjeyoun.

But there are those in Kfar Kila - a few hundred at most, perhaps - who have decided to stay. Among them is Mahmoud Hassan Ali, 76. We met him among a small group of women and children who had emerged from their shelters during a lull in the bombing. He showed us his home, damaged by an Israeli shell. 'We were in the house sleeping when the shell came in,' he said. 'Then we ran.'

While we were talking another shell came into the village, scattering the residents back to their homes and basement shelters. So Kfar Kila's war goes on.

Saving Private Ryanstein - the Israeli version

2006-07-22T11:28:00.000-04:00

The irony about the the current Israeli version of Spielberg's cinematic epic, is that the two kidnapped soldiers are more likely to be killed by Israel's indiscriminate air bombing of Lebanon than anything else. It would appear that in the currency exhange of human life, the life of an innocent Arab civilian blown to bits by a US-made satellite guided bomb is worth infinitely less than that of a non-Arab.

And on another note - it is curiously interesting to note that western news media avoid use of the term 'war' in articles about Lebanon, Iraq etc preferring the more neutral 'conflict' as a term of reference. (Terms like 'illegal occupation', 'invasion' and 'installation of pro-US puppet regime' are similarly avoided but that's another topic for another day). My dictionary defines 'War' as a state of armed conflict between two or more opposing groups, usually state sponsored. What is happening in Lebanon is war....nothing less. Israel destruction of Lebanon's infrastructure and the indiscriminate killing of hundreds of civilians is nothing short of war, and is a disproportionate and barbaric response to the kidnapping of two soldiers (note: Hezbollah targetted soldiers not civilians, with the aim of a prisoner swap for which previous precedents exist). There is nothing 'self-defence' about the Israeli response and they and their puppet masters, the US, risk further alienation in a world which is teetering on the brink of regional anarchy due to constant invasions and illegal occupations.

On assignment in the Lone Star state

2006-04-14T12:29:00.000-04:00

I recently returned from a consulting engagement in Dallas, Texas and the above is the view from my hotel room, which was what I called 'home' for 6 days and 5 nights. Of course it was nothing like home, lacking in the usual creature comforts and the routines that come with home family life. There was no pyaar or emotional support that radiated from the 4 walls of my room. My only link to the outside world, apart from my daily visits to the client, were the room TV, the high speed internet connection and of course, my cell phone. Otherwise, I think I would have (as the Brits call it) 'lost my marbles'.

On another level observations I noted in general about Texan life:

a) Texans love their food (even by the excessive standards of North America). Every day of the week, the restaurants were packed. And it would appear that the concept of 'vegetarianism' does not exist in these parts.....now don't get me wrong, as a red-blooded Punjabi shere (hahahaha) I enjoy meat too, but not to the extent that Texans devour the stuff with the appetite of a resident of Jurassic Park.

b) Maybe related to the above, the average waistline of the Texans I met were 2-3 inches wider than their Torontonian counter-parts...I kid you not amigos. :)

c) I guess my appearance confused some of my Texan clients - both Anglos and Hispanics. The only Indians most Texans have had dealings with are the south Indian software coolie types (LOL) or watching Apu on the Simpsons. North Indian types are a rarity in their world. They automatically presumed I was of Latino origin, and occasionally a Spanish phrase would come my way awaiting an expectant response. And I suppose it was even more disorientating for them when I opened my mouth and sounded more like Hugh Grant in About a Boy rather than Manuel from Guadalajara...lol. :)

d) Overall, Texans are a very friendly open bunch of people whom I'd gladly invite to my next backyard barbecue. :) (Though I'd probably want to filter out the bible preaching types).

e) Texas is a big place. Even Dallas airport has it's own 3 lane highway connecting between the different terminals.

That all said, glad to be back in Maple Leaf country. :)

Review: V for Vendetta

2006-04-06T15:01:00.000-04:00

Have to say I totally enjoyed this movie based on the book of the same name. Set in a totalitarian fascist Britain, the film follows the story of 'V' a political anarchist whose reasons for his violent actions are gradually revealed through a series of flashbacks of his past life. At one level the film is a very human drama with all kinds of emotions on display. Yes, there is violence too, but thankfully it is all in the context of the plot.

The film diverges significantly in parts from the book which I read a while back, but that is okay as allows the viewer and reader to have two different comparative interpretations. Interpretation is a subjective thing, and one of the messages I took away is that sometimes it is harder to free yourself from the prison of your own mind than it is to break free from the bricks and mortar kind.

A most definitive 10/10.

I am Canadian !

2006-04-03T14:09:00.000-04:00

After almost 2 long years since applying, I finally became a Canadian citizen last Thursday. The sense of belonging is now complete. Things would definitely have been quicker had it not been for the events of 9/11. Still, I can now show my Canadian passport at Pearson Airport without the usual accusatory glances from Canadian/and or onsite US immigration officers wanting to know where I'm going, where I'm coming from, why am I going/arriving etc. The times when a British passport would inspire awe and head-bowing respect from the natives have long since gone.....LOL. :)

The citizenship ceremony was interesting enough. There were 127 people from 28 countries represented at the Mississauga Citizenship Office. The oath of allegiance could do with some updating though......4 of the 5 lines were all to do with swearing allegiance to the Queen and her successors. Once all the speeches were done and we received our citizenship certificates, we were asked to congratulate folks sitting on either side and you could sense the genuine happiness and warmth of the occasion.

After that, it was a fast drive to the passport office to apply for my new shiny blue passport.

My God is better than your God

2006-03-24T08:19:00.000-05:00

How is it that conversion only works one-way for certain religions ? After hearing about this case I wonder if the world would be better off if we all turned atheist......

Asia Times:

Losing faith in Afghanistan
Syed Saleem Shahzad KARACHI

Even as the Bush administration steps up pressure on Afghanistan over the plight of a Christian convert, thousands of youths are descending on Kabul to demand that he be hanged for renouncing Islam.

US President George W Bush and other Western leaders have latched onto the case of Abdul Rahman, 41, who was arrested last month and accused of apostasy for converting to Christianity in 1990, saying that the issue was one of "honoring the universal principle of freedom".

For many Afghans, though, it is just another rallying point to step up pressure for a broader alliance against the presence of foreign forces in the country, while for the Bush administration and its allies it is an opportunity to rethink their position on Afghanistan. The United States has more than 18,000 troops in the country, while the UN-mandated International Security Assistance Force numbers about the same. Germany and Italy have already hinted they may reassess military support for Afghanistan. And German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble suggested that Afghanistan could lose aid or technical support for reconstruction because of the case.

The US begun reducing its troop strength in Afghanistan this year and has indicated that it will continue to do so. Bush said this week that US forces did not help liberate Afghanistan from Taliban rule so that conservative Islamic judges could issue death sentences against people because of their religious beliefs. He added that he was "deeply troubled" by the case, while Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice phoned Afghan President Hamid Karzai to call for a "favorable resolution to this case at the earliest possible moment". The masses in Afghanistan are not listening, though.

"Regardless of the court decision [whether or not he is hanged], there is unanimous agreement by all religious scholars from the north to the south, the east to the west of Afghanistan, that Abdul Rahman should be executed," Engineer Ahmad Shah Ahmad Zai told Asia Times Online on telephone from Kabul.

Ahmad Shah is a prominent mujahideen leader and head of the Hizb-i-Iqtadar-i-Islami Afghanistan. He was an acting prime minister in the government of Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani before the Taliban came to power in 1996.

"There is widespread dissent among the masses against the activities of Christian missionaries. These missions exploit the poverty of Afghan people and they pay them to convert. These activities will only translate into fierce reaction as Afghans do not tolerate anything against their religion," Ahmad Shah said.

"Since Abdul Rahman comes from the Panjshir Valley, people of the area are coming down to Kabul to show their dissent against him and demand that the court execute him," Ahmad Shah explained.

Rahman, a former medical aid worker, faces the death penalty under Afghanistan's Islamic laws for becoming a Christian. His trial began last week, and now the Afghan government is desperately searching for a way to drop the case, with the latest move being to call for Rahman to undergo psychological examinations to see whether he is fit to stand trial. Senior clerics in Afghanistan, however, have already given their verdict: he should die.

"We will not allow God to be humiliated," Abdul Raoulf, a member of the Ulama Council, Afghanistan's main clerical organization, told Associated Press. "We will call on the people to pull him into pieces so there's nothing left."

Asia Times Online contacts in Afghanistan say that ministers in the cabinet are reluctant to take a stand on the issue because of fierce public reaction. There are clear indications that the minute the court gives any decision other than death penalty, Islamic parties will make it an issue with which to tackle the US-backed Karzai government and allied forces for intervening in the Islamic laws of Afghanistan. The Afghan constitution has contradictory provisions. Article 7 commits Afghanistan to observing the United Nations charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which guarantees freedom of religion. But Article 3 says that no law can contradict Islam.

It is significant that the issue has come at a time that efforts are being made by Islamic parties in the north and south to forge an alliance inside and outside parliament. Unpublicized negotiations have taken place in southern Afghanistan between various tribal leaders so that they can present a united front against the foreign presence in the country.

In a separate development, the Taliban's spring offensive has begun, with the insurgency significantly increasing its activities. Rahman's case is the latest of several controversial issues that have served to strengthen the hands of clerics calling for a nationwide, broad-based opposition to foreign elements in the country. Last year, anger swept the country over reports that US interrogators had desecrated the Koran at the Guantanamo prison facility in Cuba, while cartoons published in Europe this year ridiculing the Prophet Mohammed further inflamed passions.

Religious aspects apart from the serious political implications, Rahman's case raises some thorny religious issues, with non-Muslims questioning how it can be acceptable for people of other faiths to convert to Islam, but not the other way round.

"It is more of an ontological debate than anything," said renowned Muslim intellectual Shahnawaz Farooqui. "If somebody tries to practice his religion or faith, Muslim society will not stop him or pressurize him to change his faith. Nobody is allowed to even motivate a non-Muslim to change his religion. However, discourse is allowed. After such discourse, if somebody feels they want to embrace Islam, it is allowed," Shahnawaz said.

However, for a Muslim to change his religion, "he will have to be executed because it is related to an ontological debate". "If somebody at one point affirms the truth [belief in God] and then rejects it or denies it, it would jeopardize the whole paradigm of truth. This is such a big offense that the penalty can only be death." Execution for apostasy has been accepted in Muslim society from the times of the Prophet Mohammed, and there is no difference among the schools of Islamic jurisprudence, be they Hanafi, Malaki, Shaafai, Hanbli or Jafari (Shi'ite). "At the very most, some scholars argue that the person should be given time to rethink, and if he embraces Islam again, he will be forgiven," said Shahnawaz. "I saw President Bush's statement in which he asked to honor the universal principle of freedom. This is not a question of social liberty or social rights or freedom, this is a question for the affirmation of truth and nobody will be allowed to distort the truth. No society can give people the right to distort the truth or play around with it".

Person of the week award goes to...

2006-03-18T11:36:00.000-05:00

...Senator Celine Hervieux-Payette.

CanWest News Service:

Coming to the defense of Canada's seal hunt, a Liberal senator has lashed out at the United States' foreign policy, the Iraq war, the death penalty and the country's gun culture in an email to an American family considering cancelling a vacation because they are opposed to the "horrific" annual seal cull.

"What I find 'horrific' about your country is the daily killing of innocent people in Iraq, the execution of mainly black prisoners in U.S., the massive sale of guns to U.S. citizens every day, the destabilization of the whole world by the aggressive foreign policy of U.S. government, etc.," Senator Celine Hervieux-Payette wrote in an email response to the McLellan family of Minnesota.

The initial March 12 letter, from Ann, Pam, Nancy and Dale McLellan to all Canadian senators, urges an end to the "horrific mass slaughter of innocent harp seals" and warns of a boycott on travel and Canadian seafood because the annual cull is "going against what we like about Canada."

The McLellans wrote they have "great respect" for the country because their "ancestors" were Canadians and they live near the Canada-U.S. border, but they are loathe to spend $8,000 on a vacation while the hunt goes on.

Hervieux-Payette's response, coming two days later, defended the harp seal hunt as an exercise in controlling the population and ensuring the livelihood of local hunters and fishermen.

"They are not killed for sport reasons like our deer, moose by Canadian and U.S. hunters," the senator from Montreal wrote. "You may visit us and you will see that we are a safe and humane society, respecting the traditions of the aboriginal people, not trying to impose the 'white people' standards of living on them."

The regulated, two-month hunt of the 5-million-strong seal herd is intended to keep the fast-growing population in check and to maintain the fish stocks on which Inuit and Atlantic Canadian fishermen earn a living.

Senator George Baker, a Newfoundland Liberal, deemed his colleague's response inappropriate, but he said it may have been influenced by her time on the Senate legal affairs committee, where members were subject to a fierce protest when they were studying a recent animal cruelty bill.

© The Gazette (Montreal) 2006

Beowulf & Grendel

2006-03-10T11:19:00.000-05:00

This releases tonight at the movies, and assuming I stay sober and/or no relatives drop by uninvited, I have a feeling I will go out and watch this tonight. :) Looks interesting, and I can finally visualize what my former English Literature teacher used to rave about on many a long lazy summer afternoon as I looked longingly outside the classroom window wishing I was somewhere else...

From The Guardian:

He is the original action hero, a fearless Norse warrior who slew a murderous troll and helped inspire Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. And he is coming to a multiplex near you.The race to turn Beowulf, the hero of the first great written English poem, into a box-office star to rival the likes of Aragorn, Achilles and Alexander the Great, has begun.

Two films starring the fictional 6th-century sword-slinger are in production.Beowulf & Grendel, directed by Sturla Gunnarsson, is a $12m co-production from Britain, Canada and Iceland, starring the Scots actor Gerard Butler. Filmed in Iceland, it is described by its producers as a "spiritual film".

Butler's Beowulf is a complex man who grows to understand and even sympathise with the troll Grendel.The second film, Beowulf, is a $70m Hollywood production financed by the American millionaire Steve Bing and Sony Pictures. Its director is Robert Zemeckis, whose crew will use the stop-motion technology recently employed in the children's film The Polar Express.

Beowulf is no children's film, however. The script, co-written by Roger Avary, Quentin Tarantino's collaborator on Pulp Fiction, has been described by its co-author Neil Gaiman as "... a sort of dark-ages Trainspotting [as in the film], filled with mead and blood and madness".Beowulf & Grendel is to be released this year; Zemeckis' film is in pre-production.

Adam Minns, the British film editor of Screen International magazine, said filming Beowulf was symptomatic of the industry's interest in "epic-scale, fantasy-type" material following the success of Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings trilogy."Beowulf was one of the key inspirations for Lord of the Rings and I'm not at all surprised the success of that franchise has galvanised these two projects," he said.But adapting the poem to the big screen has proved difficult in the past. The 1999 Beowulf-inspired epic The 13th Warrior, directed by John McTiernan, was an expensive flop. It was followed a year later by Beowulf, a lamentable science-fiction take on the poem starring Christopher Lambert. Both films failed to impress critics and audiences.Andrew Rai Berzins, the Canadian screenwriter for Beowulf & Grendel, cites the implausibility of parts of the story, which was written in Anglo-Saxon by an unknown author sometime between 700 and 1000.There was also a 50-year gap between the early events of the poem and Beowulf's climactic battle with a dragon, which proved a big hurdle in filming.His screenplay focuses on the battle between Beowulf and the troll, and fleshes out the story with "several significant characters".But he believes the script is true to "the bones of the story, the horror, the beauty and the doom".He said: "If the Beowulf poet rolls over in his grave, I'm trusting it'll just be to get a better view of the screen."A spokeswoman for Steve Bing's production company, Shangri-La Entertainment, declined to comment on its Beowulf script.

John Burrow, emeritus professor in the University of Bristol's English department, said Seamus Heaney's accessible 1999 translation of the "ripping yarn" had broadened interest, and that he would welcome the kind of mainstream interest the films might provoke.

Review: The Snow

2006-03-01T20:54:00.000-05:00

The snow started falling on the sixth of September, soft noiseless flakes filling the sky like a swarm of white moths, or like static interference on your TV screen - whichever metaphor, nature or technology, you find the more evocative.....And at the beginning the people were happy.

But the snow doesn't stop. It falls and falls and falls. Until it lies three miles thick across the whole of the earth. Six billion people have died. Perhaps 150,000 survive.

'The Snow' is the latest offering from British sci-fi novelist Adam Roberts, and deals in part with themes of global apocalypse and human survival in in the face of catastrophic climatic change, and need to re-create social and political structures in the new era.

Curiously enough, Adams decides to choose as his main protagonist, Tira, a woman of south Asian Indian background (a profile also shared by Ursula Le Guin's main character in 'The Telling').

Adams succeeds in keeping the suspense going as to the origin of the snow and nature of what lies beneath the white frozen deserts. The book has shortcomings and is no classic, but is definitely an interesting book to read as those snowflakes settle gently outside on your window pane. :)

7.5/10.

Summer....Winter

2006-02-17T18:03:00.000-05:00

Hmm...wonder which one I prefer ?

Lychees

2006-02-16T10:04:00.000-05:00

I love lychees....in fact I'm addicted to them. Unlike 99.99999% of my fellow desis I'm not really into mangoes, but lychees are so deliciously different...

My local stores have not had any shipments for the last three weeks and I'm going insane just thinking about the rose fragranced fruit, and it's delicate flesh inside.....

If this drought continues for much longer I may have to make my way to Thailand myself...

Interviews....

2006-02-02T18:32:00.000-05:00

Right now, I'm totally whacked out from going to interviews and relaying to total strangers what I've done, achieved and how I'm going to help their bottom line - all with a generous sprinkling of business school speak like how I will be 'adding to the knowledge supply chain process' and 'the value proposition inherent in my inventory of skills and experience to date' blah blah blah... :) LOL...sometimes I surprise even myself with some of stuff that comes out of my mouth...hahahaha.

It's not so much the interviews, but the mental preparation required beforehand and being prepared to answer questions from whatever angle they may come. I actually look forward (yes I know how sad I am) to panel interviews where the interviewers attempt to look 'sophisticated' in psychological techniques by adopting the 'good cop, bad cop' approach as if they're re-enacting their media fantasy of being on CSI (or Guantanamo Bay for that matter). And sometimes, they'll have that 'silent' figure in the background who doesn't say anything and is writing something on his/her notepad when in fact they're probably trying to decide what they're gonna eat tonight.... :)

Hopefully the end is in sight very soon.... :)

Republic Day

2006-01-26T07:42:00.000-05:00

Happy India Republic day greetings to everyone, including our friends across the electrified barbed wire border... :)

My back !

2006-01-06T10:56:00.000-05:00

The human body is an amazingly complex marvel of evolution. Yet much of it remains undiscovered in terms of cause and effect of ailments that beset it. Take me for example... :) 3 days ago whilst tying my shoelaces prior to leaving the house for work, I got this inexplicable shooting pain that went across my back....I felt like some black dude that had just been taser shocked by Toronto police (not that I've ever had the pleasure of being tasered by any law enforcement agent...LOL).

The pain has not fully subsided and even now, three full days later, I have this area just below my right shoulder blade which sears me like a hot poker...sleeping is painful and only gets better during the day when I'm upright. (All this coming from a person who previously never got back pain and gets a headache maybe once every 2 years). I don't really want to see a doctor - medical or witch - coz I suspect the pain will go away just as quickly as it arrived (I hope). I will check out my 'medical cabinet' over the weekend and see if certain medicines like Black Label and/or Bacardi will help loosen the intransigent muscles in my back.... :))

Egyptian film tackles social taboos

2006-01-04T15:33:00.000-05:00

One suspects that issues raised in this film stretch far beyond the borders of Egypt. Why is it that many established religions and socially conservative societies, especially those of the more dogmatic variety, attempt to suppress certain indeniable aspects of human behaviour ? (As an aside, honour killings are one of the more extreme examples of ignorant social reaction, even when both partners are of the same race, same religion, same region and obviously like each other).

Article from Al-Jazeera:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/7B692E07-80C6-4D3A-B44D-A2CC737815E8.htm

A new Egyptian film has sparked controversy over its scenes of intimacy between a woman wearing the Islamic headscarf and man on a bus. A young man on the back of a Cairo bus kisses and gropes the woman next to him as he peels off her hijab.

The scene from an independent film about sex and double standards in Egypt shows little nudity but provokes gasps of surprise from audiences in the largely conservative country.

Director Ahmed Khaled's 14-minute film, the Fifth Pound, follows the weekly bus journey of a young man and woman who dodge the suspicious glances of other passengers and exploit the unused back seats to indulge in physical intimacy.

Cairo has a long-established film industry and is traditionally regarded as the centre of Arab artistic production but themes linking sex and religion remain largely untouched by filmmakers in the predominantly Muslim country.

In Khaled's film, verses from the Quran play in the bus as the driver steals glances in his rear-view mirror of the young man and the veiled woman.

Khaled says most venues in Egypt, the Arab world's most populous nation, have refused to show his film because its subject matter could draw criticism in a country where the hijab is seen by many as the height of female respectability.

But many young Egyptians say the setting is entirely realistic. They say use of public buses as a setting for romantic encounters is so common the air-conditioned vehicles favoured by couples have earned the nickname "mobile beds".

Khaled said: "The film is about double standards in our society, about how people try to portray themselves in one way and then behave in a different conflicting way.

"There are a lot of things that happen in Egyptian society that Egyptians don't like to talk about."

"The film is about double standards in our society, about how people try to portray themselves in one way and then behave in a different conflicting way"

Khaled said independent filmmakers in Egypt seeking to tackle controversial issues often struggle finding funds to make the films, and, once done, they cannot always raise the cash to show them at festivals at home or abroad.

He said: "The people who make the decisions, those people in the government cultural centres, they like safe films that don't break any boundaries."

Among the boundaries that young Egyptian women want to challenge is the preferential treatment men receive.

Rania al-Far, a film-goer, said: "What will shock people about this film is the fact that it's a woman, and a woman in a veil at that, who is doing these things ... but no one says anything about what men are doing."

The film shows the young couple boarding the bus and paying the driver four Egyptian pounds ($0.70) for two tickets before shuffling past other suspicious passengers on their way to the back seats.

In the film, the young man address the audience, saying: "The scariest thing is the mirror which looks over the bus and which is used by the driver to see what happens in the back."

The bus driver keeps looking at the couple through the mirror as if waiting to catch them indulging in illicit activity.

As the bus continues its journey through the streets of Cairo, the film cuts to a dream sequence where the driver walks to the back of the bus, takes the young man's seat and begins to kiss and disrobe the woman.

Khaled said: "That's double standards... The driver is playing the Quran in the bus and watching the couple as if he is a moral guardian but inside his head he fantasises about being the one who is with the girl."

As the couple leave the bus, the young man hands the driver an extra, fifth, pound.

The young man adds in the narration: "He knows nothing, and you did nothing."

Khaled said he was trying to show that some people give the impression of religiosity and ascetic piety but secretly covet worldly attractions such as money and sex.

He said: "We have a lot of problems and issues in Egypt; but we are not going to deal with them if we pretend they are not there."

Hard work = happiness ?

2006-01-04T13:56:00.000-05:00

Work hard people.... :)

Article link:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4577392.stm

Hard work may be the last thing people want as they return to their jobs after the festive break, but experts say it could be the key to happiness.

Researchers from Gothenburg University in Sweden have been studying published data on what makes people happy. They believe working to achieve a goal, rather than attaining it, makes people more satisfied - although they said good relationships were important.

UK experts agreed, but said the work had to match an individual's strengths.

The Gothenburg team have been studying hundreds of interviews carried out with people across the world to find out what makes them feel fulfilled. They said winning the lottery or achieving a goal at work gave a temporary high, but it did not last.

Instead, they found that working hard to reach a target was more fulfilling. Lead researcher Dr Bengt Bruelde, from the university's philosophy department, said: "The important thing is to remain active.

"From our research the people who were most active got the most joy. It may sound tempting to relax on a beach, but if you do it for too long it stops being satisfying."

He said the full research would be published in the summer.

Averil Leimon, of the British Psychological Society, said: "Hard work is satisfying, but only if it suits you.

"The work has to use a person's strengths otherwise it can be demoralising." If it does, research has shown that the happiness is not even linked to the rewards that are on offer.

But she added: "Relationships can also have a significant impact. Strong relationships whether through family, the church, friends or work can inoculate you against feeling low."

New Year Greetings !

2005-12-30T13:53:00.000-05:00

Wishing everyone out there in cyberspace a wonderful New Year with joy, prosperity and friendship. Here's to hoping that the world is a lot more peaceful in 2006.

Pre-partition Map of Punjab

2005-12-28T15:46:00.000-05:00

Punjab was a huge area prior to the 1947 partition, and further subsequent dismemberment into Himachal Pradesh and Haryana. Click on map for a larger view (after clicking you should be presented with another icon option in bottom right hand corner to expand to full size)

Here's an updated recent version of the current East Punjab. I hail from the region between the cities of Moga and Ludhiana which are located in the centre of the map. (Click to expand map)

Review: Kong

2005-12-23T11:47:00.000-05:00

Watched 'Kong' last night at the big screen. Oh.my.god - the film is a chick-flick ! Never realised I'd put it in the same category as something like 'Bridget Jones'.... The 'romance' between the over-sized ape and the anorexic blonde was just a little too much to bear (somebody pass me a bucket). LOL...reminds of how some desi men court their women. :)

There were some interesting creature fight scenes, and I thought the atmospheric build-up for the barbaric island that Kong lived on was excellent. Definitely one could see the Peter Jackson input that was put into this lavish 3 hour epic.

I would have given this movie a 9/10 but I deducted 2 points for the 'it loves me, it loves me not' scenes between the chimp and the actress.

7/10....worth watching just for the island scenes.

White Christmas

2005-12-21T10:41:00.000-05:00

Sings..."I'm dreaming of a white Christmas, just like the ones I used to know..."

*Okay, wake up, wake up* - Spheric's alter-ego starts slapping him around the face... :)

Man, I long for a white Christmas....and I don't mean weather-wise, but in an ethno-cultural sense. You ever seen any of those tv scenes/commercial ads which feature a gora (white) family with perfect teeth and smiles, complete with sane grandparents, sat around some elegant table loaded with Christmas culinary dishes (albeit bland and tasteless by Punjabi standards but let's not go there today) ? Well, believe or not in true Ripley style, I want one of those social experiences.

Let me explain and qualify my comments further before I get added to the Shiv Sena/Babbar Khalsa hitlist...LOL. Experience to date suggests that whenever there's a tribal gathering of fellow Punjabis, everything is just so over-the-top in terms of eating, drinking, inane gossip and character assassinations (LOL) but it is also fragmented with separate areas for different ages, men and women. Walk into one room and you'll see Punjabi men eagerly living upto their self proclaimed shere (lion) reputations by ravenously devouring tandoori chicken legs by the plateful and washed down with copious amounts of whisky....another room will resemble a zenana scene from Mughal-e-Azam with some bored looking women in their radioactive bright silk outfits... :) According to this model, women, children and other life forms will eat at a separate time to their lords and masters, the latter group only coming to the dining table once they have reached the required alcohol induced coma state of (un)consciousness.....LOL.

As utopian as this may sound, for once I'd love to have some civilized conversations where everyone gets involved - all ages, men, women, and maybe we could eat together too ?

End of rant. :)

First Sikh officer in Pak Army

2005-12-20T16:13:00.000-05:00

Oh great....Khalistan fauj is now on both sides of border - cries of 'Bole So Nihal' on one side of the border will now be greeted by 'Sat Sri Akal' on the other side. :)

From Dawn: http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/20/nat12.htm
LAHORE, Dec 19: Harcharan Singh, 19, of the Nankana Sahib, is the first Pakistani Sikh in the country’s 58-year history who has been commissioned in the Pakistan Army as an officer.

The minorities in Pakistan are allowed to sit in all examinations, including the one conducted by Inter Services Selection Board (ISSB), but neither a Hindu nor a Sikh could get selected for the army service since the country’s inception. However, many Christians served in the army.

Harcharan was sceptical this year while appearing in the ISSB’s preliminary tests, thinking that such examinations were not meant for them (Sikhs) as he could not get through the initial phase last year.

“This year, I got through the preliminary phase and appeared in the ISSB examination. However, I was mentally prepared to take admission in BA (Architecture) in the National College of Arts”.

“It was the happiest moment of my life when I came to know about my selection in the army. I am privileged to have this honour which none of my predecessors could ever achieve,” Harcharan told Dawn.

Harcharan, who passed his FSc (pre-engineering) in 2004 with 726 marks, wants the government to open the doors for his community to the law enforcing agencies as well.

Harcharan passed his matriculation from the Government Guru Nanak High School, Nankana Sahib, with 677 marks. He says that his school should be equipped with modern laboratory and competent teaching staff.

He says when his fellow Sikhs in Nankana Sahib learnt about his selection in the army they really felt proud of him. It has also changed their perception. Now they believe that young Sikhs have a fair chance to join the country’s most prestigious institutions.

Having a younger brother and three elder sisters, he wants his brother to follow suit. He says after the death of his father, a shopkeeper, some seven years ago, the credit of their education goes to his mother. “My mother wants me to earn a good name for the country.”

He says that his family migrated to the Northern Areas at the time of partition and in 1970s shifted to Nankana Sahib.

Beware of killer samosas

2005-12-20T14:20:00.000-05:00

What with the festive season upon us, here is a Spherical public health announcement... :)

From BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3325175.stm

Health chiefs are warning the south asian community about the health risks of their favourite foods. They are concerned that too many people are feasting on tasty, but unhealthy snacks such as samosas. And they believe this is a major reason why diabetes and heart disease are increasing in British cities with large south asian populations.

In Birmingham, health workers are visiting Sikh temples to issue warnings, and offer health checks. Diabetes among the city's Sikhs is now three times higher than within the white European population - and heart disease is one-and-a-half times more prevalent.

Rishpal Chana, an Aston-based health visitor for Heart of Birmingham Teaching Primary Care Trust, has found that nearly a third of those weighed and checked in the Sikh gurdwaras need immediate help from a GP.

Samosas, and other traditional foods from the sub-continent such as pakora and bhajis, are packed with fat.

Ms Chana said: "Samosas are one of the worst foods you can eat and I am trying to get people to eat less of them or cook them with olive oil instead of ghee.

"The Asian diet is very fattening because a lot of the food is fried in this way, yet people don't realise just how bad for you they are." Ms Chana said just one samosa had 25 grams of fat - the same as a large slab of butter.

Blood pressure and blood sugar tests are being offered in the temples on Sundays when they are at their busiest.

I feel like Superman...

2005-12-20T11:49:00.000-05:00

...well almost, and a cross between Archimedes and the dude who built the Great Pyramids in Egypt.:)) Last weekend I installed one of those over the range microwave appliance that sit 'suspended' in mid-air over the cooker (stove for North Americans). The previous "made-in-the-good ol' U.S of A" microwave had died (surprise, surprise). And after selecting and taking delivery of a replacement Samsung model, I spent most of Sunday with pencil and tape measure, (occasionally scratching my head at the installation instructions) making the theoretical calculations required to locate and drill the required holes both in the wall and cabinets to fit the new appliance. The point of no-return was when I started the drilling..........and guess what, the damn thing actually fitted !!! Yep, no tears, no recriminations, no beating myself over the head !

And as a bonus - to date, fingers crossed, the microwave hasn't collapsed or anything.... :))

I vant this for Christmas....

2005-12-20T10:29:00.000-05:00

Oh balle balle.....so I just happened to be browsing the UK Amazon site vhen I came across 'Desi Monopoly'. It's a south asian version of the famous property trading board game presumably set in the Little Punjab(s)/Gujarat(s) of London. Sounds interesting. Vunder if it includes the standard desi hera-pheri and tax avoidance options...... :)

Consultants: Money for nothing ?

2005-12-19T15:58:00.000-05:00

"That ain't workin' that's the way you do it
Money for nothin' and your chicks for free" (Dire Straits)

Okay, musical trip down memory lane aside, how many of you have actually got value for money from external consultants ? Specifically those involved in system implementations ? I'm looking at 2 consultant documents in front of me - 1) a sub-standard system design document with what amounts to an incomplete defined scope, non-descript testing and training strategy, a tendency to use verbose abstract concepts which means little to anyone outside of an MBA class and 2) an invoice for payment of consultants whose hourly rate is $250+ per hour.

I am sooooo definitely in the wrong job...

Why are white people..white ?

2005-12-16T11:38:00.000-05:00

Well now you finally know.....

ps. I'm just glad I have a sun-kissed complexion. :)

SM starts singing play that funky music white boy... :))

From The Times:

A GENE that partly explains why white people have pale skins has been identified for the first time.

Scientists in the United States have discovered that a tiny mutation in a gene plays a key role in determining skin colour, with Caucasians inheriting a different version from other racial groups.

While it is known that colour is genetically determined, this is the first research to pinpoint a particular stretch of DNA that underlies normal differences in human pigmentation.

The findings promise new insights into cancer and other diseases influenced by genes, and shed light on the evolution of different hues of skin.

The discovery of the gene, named slc245a5, has emerged from research into cancer that used zebrafish as an animal model. A team led by Keith Cheng, of Pennsylvania State University, noted that a variant of the fish, known as “golden”, had paler markings than usual, and that this lighter pigmentation was caused by a mutation in slc245a5.

As the gene is known to exist in people, Dr Cheng wondered whether it might be responsible for some of the variation in human skin colour. First he transplanted the human gene into fish and found that it had the same effect on pigmentation. He then teamed up with a colleague, Mark Shriver, to investigate how different versions of the gene were distributed across human populations, using the recently completed HapMap, which charts genetic variation.

The researchers have found that while people of African and Chinese origin carry one version of slc245a5, those of white European ancestry have a different one. The results, published today in the journal Science, indicate strongly a big influence over skin colour.

The work suggests that the dark version of the gene occurs as a default, and that the light variant is a mutation that probably evolved as humans moved out of Africa and migrated into northern latitudes. This supports a theory that lighter skin evolved as an adaptation to the weaker sunlight of northern climes. Sunlight is essential for the body to manufacture vitamin D, and pale skins make this easier when the Sun’s rays are not particularly strong.

The slc245a5 gene does not vary between Africans and much lighter-skinned Chinese, or between Europeans of Swedish and Greek ancestry. It is thought to be responsible for between 25 and 38 per cent of colour variation between Europeans and Africans, and other genes are certain to be involved.

While genes that are mutated in albino people have been identified, this is the first that has a significant influence on normal variations.

The results promise to assist research into malignant melanoma, the deadliest skin cancer, which is rarer among dark-skinned people. They should also help scientists seeking to tease out the genetic contribution to conditions such as heart disease and diabetes, which are often influenced, like skin colour, by multiple genes.

Dr Shriver said: “We cannot expect to use human genetics to understand complex diseases most effectively without first working out how fundamental characteristics, such as eye, hair and skin colour are determined.”

SKIN DEEP
- Scientists generally assume that the first anatomically modern humans, who evolved in Africa, had dark skins.

- The evolution of other skin types, particularly the fair complexions of Europeans, has long been one of the big mysteries of biology. It has been suggested that dark skin is an adaptation to strong sunlight in the tropics, and protects against skin cancer. While this might be possible if dark skins had evolved from light ones, the process happened the other way around

- A more plausible theory is that light skin evolved as an adaptation to the weaker sunlight of northern latitudes.

- Sunlight is necessary for the body to produce vitamin D, and dark-skinned people struggle to do this when the Sun is weak. Some ethnic minorities in northern Europe have higher rates of rickets, a disease caused by vitamin D deficiency

- Many scientists, however, think the adaptive advantages of light skin are too small for the effect to be the result of natural selection

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-1934310,00.html

Badminton musings

2005-12-15T10:04:00.000-05:00

When played well, and I ain't talking about the genteel back garden variety played by folks who think it is played over a volleyball net, badminton is one of the fastest reaction sports in the world. I've made many friends over time through membership of the 5-7 clubs I've been at and it is a rewarding sport. :)

Couple of observations:

1) I've always enjoyed playing a style of badminton which is hard and fast yet also tactical and cerebral....but one inescapable conclusion remains. For the most part, playing mixed doubles remains essentially a game of men's singles with two women standing at the net....LOL Admittedly this may sound parochial but I base this on the average standard of play I've seen over the years both in England and Canada (but more so in the latter). Guys should be prepared to sweat buckets and cover the entire court, as well as shadow his female partner to 'cover' that 'invisible hole' that exists in middle of her racquet...... :)

2) Feather shuttlecocks are over-rated for game play and their exhorbitant price and durability is questionable. I could easily smash through a tube of crappy (and expensive) Yonex feathers in an evening if I was so inclined. The air resistance of feather birds appear to mitigate against a fast smashing game, and it renders cross-court backhand shots ineffectual. And the thing that gets me is the lack of flight consistency viz a viz synthetic shuttles......each feather bird will not always land in the target baseline zone. And I'm not prepared to do some voodoo mumbo-jumbo of steaming the damn things just so that they can supposedly reach a similar flight path quality as their synthetic counter-parts. Their only redeeming feature is the crack sound when hit, but I'll forgo that and the illusion of 'quality' play, in favour of consistency and equitable economy of price for all. (Plus, I ain't really in the mood to catch avian bird flu either...LOL).

It's karaoke time !

2005-12-12T10:56:00.000-05:00

It just occurred to me whilst driving to work this morning and singing along to Malkit Singh's Midas Touch 2 album at full blast, that I may have found my true vocation and passion in life ! The one thing that has been missing in my life is....*drum roll please*........is a karaoke machine ! Jee haa meray pyare dosto - you have been deprived for too long of my singing talents and smooth vocals. LOL. For too long I have been selfishly keeping my vocal talents to myself and the shower, but this is all about to change ! :)

Now being the realistic rational Virgo type :) I don't think my local Walmart is going to stock bhangra/bollywood karaoke tunes, but I would be happy just to belt a few 90s or even 80s songs to my adoring audience. We can go on a collective trip down memory lane and sing Wacko Jacko, Madonna, 2 Unlimited, Duran Duran, Culture Club (I sing a wicked 'Do you really want to hurt me?'..LOL) or even Frankie Goes to Hollywood......oh the memories. :)

Where are my Clementines ?

2005-12-07T15:50:00.000-05:00

I've given up on eating tangerine oranges.....besides, I always thought they looked a bit creepy sitting there in the supermarket fruit section.

In the absence of my preferred (seedless) clementines I bought a bag full of tangerines the other day so as to allow me to cope with hitting the 3pm wall, but everytime I got my jaws into salivating eating mode I had to stop to spit out a mouthful of seeds. What is with that ? Where is the instant gratification ? Is this the gastronomic version of coitus interruptus ? You would have thought the way the US government and big agro-food corporations have tried to bully the world into eating genetically modified Frankenstein foods, that they could create some seedless orange varieties for yours truly.... :)

Faux pas

2005-12-06T09:46:00.000-05:00

I was witness to an unintended social faux pas last weekend. It was with a sense of sympathetic empathy that I felt for the hapless transgressor left to make conciliatory amends.....

...Life can be uncomfortably complicated with it's multi-layered tiers of social norms for those used to a simpler way of life....

Iraq is the new Vietnam

2005-11-30T15:02:00.000-05:00

Seems like the USA is going to continue their illegal occupation of Iraq for the forseeable future....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4484330.stm

President George W Bush has said he will not accept "anything less than complete victory" in Iraq. In a major policy speech, Mr Bush refused to set an "artificial deadline" to withdraw US troops, saying it was "not a plan for victory".

It comes after the release of the first Iraq strategy document, which rejects widespread calls for a timetable. Mr Bush has come under growing pressure from Democrats on Iraq. Polls give him the lowest approval of his presidency.

They also suggest that six out of 10 Americans think the war in Iraq is not worth the cost. As such, this was a speech from a president in deep trouble, says the BBC's Justin Webb in Washington.

Genetic basis for caste ?

2005-11-25T13:11:00.000-05:00

What do you think ? The evidence is anecdotal and subjective, but I've always seem to notice a physical similarity in people of the same caste. I'm thinking that hundreds and possibly thousands of years of strict marriage within caste has resulted in subtle DNA differences.

If you have the time, read the following academic research paper entitled "Genetic Evidence on Origins of Indian Caste Populations" (pdf file).

http://jorde-lab.genetics.utah.edu/elibrary/Bamshad_2001a.pdf

How interesting.... :)

2005-11-16T15:43:00.000-05:00

Matilda is truly spinning....

2005-11-16T10:15:00.000-05:00

Congratulations to Australia in beating Uruguay in the play-offs, and qualifying for the 2006 World Cup for the first time since 1974. As perennial winners of the Oceania qualifying group, they've always come up against the juggernaut of competing with South American teams in a play-off to grab the last spot in the World Cup.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/internationals/4435400.stm

Is time passing you by ?

2005-11-15T13:58:00.000-05:00

Do you ever feel that the relentless march of time is a little too relentless ? Ever wish you could slow time down ? Does continually procrastinating and delaying a task until next week eventually aggregate into next month and then next year ?

It's quite remarkable how one year seamlessly rolls into another, and you get that constant feeling of deja vu (eg. this Xmas is just like last Xmas, or this summer might as well been last summer etc).

I'm guessing there are a lot more people in the same boat than would care to admit. After all, go-getting types get much more adulation and peer respect than those whose lives seem to be perenially set on auto-pilot - no matter how close those mountain peaks appear to be...

Today is Remembrance Day

2005-11-11T11:34:00.000-05:00

Remembering the sacrifices of all soldiers, including the 5 million troops from United India who fought in both World Wars.

Check out this British Ministry of Defence link below which highlights the sacrifices made by soldiers from the Commonwealth nations:
http://www.mod.uk/wewerethere/intro.html

How do you punish yourself ?

2005-11-07T14:10:00.000-05:00

In the 'Da Vinci Code' a member of the Opus Dei sect punishes himself for personal transgressions by use of a cilice - a barbed chain worn around his leg. That is an extreme example, but have you ever felt remorse or regret for something you did and if so, how did you atone for it ? In such circumstances do you deny yourself some worldly pleasure, go into temporary social exile, or subject yourself to some self-imposed onerous task ? Did it make you feel better afterwards ?

Article reference:
http://www.rickross.com/reference/opus/opus56.html

The best-selling novel "The Da Vinci Code" pays hostile attention to the zealously conservative Roman Catholic order Opus Dei and its use of "corporal mortification" - voluntarily punishing one's own body as a spiritual discipline.

This practice may seem odd if not odious to many nowadays but it was used by such revered Catholic saints as Francis of Assisi, England's Thomas More, Jesuit founder Ignatius Loyola and Jerome, translator of the Latin Bible.

In modern times, mortification is associated with some Catholic and Eastern Orthodox monks, but Opus Dei advocates it for lay members in everyday life.

The Rev. Michael Giesler, an Opus Dei priest in St. Louis, defends mortification in the current issue of Crisis, a Catholic magazine. He describes two methods: the cilice, a sharp chain worn around the leg, and "the discipline" or flagellum, a small whip of knotted cords applied to one's back.

One of his arguments is that the practice "dates back to biblical times."

Giesler finds biblical precedent for self-whipping in the scourging of Jesus before his crucifixion. The intent is for the believer to identify with the savior's sufferings. However, Jesus himself provided no example for self-abuse of the body; his punishments were inflicted upon him by others.

The cilice, Giesler says, is a version of the ancient hairshirt, a rough garment of animal hair worn next to the skin for penance. In turn, the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1914 says the hairshirt "was probably the same thing" as sackcloth, an Old Testament garment usually made from goat's hair. Giesler also sees sackcloth as a biblical precedent.

But others disagree. Perhaps with Catholic practices in mind, a Protestant work, "The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible," says "there is no indication that the coarseness of the (sackcloth) produced physical discomfort when worn or that it was used for the purpose of self-punishment, but it was put on as a sign of mental anguish at times of personal loss and national calamity."

Sorrow was indeed the stated motive when Old Testament figures wore sackcloth. However, three verses specify extreme circumstances where sackcloth was worn next to the skin, possibly providing background for the hairshirt: Job 16:15, 1 Kings 21:27 and 2 Kings 6:30. The third passage seems to indicate the garment was worn beneath outer clothing to keep it secret, not necessarily for physical punishment.

From the New Testament, Giesler quotes Paul's statement, "I pommel my body and subdue it" (1 Corinthians 9:27), translated in Catholicism's New American Bible as "I drive my body and train it." This passage compares athletic training with spiritual discipline and modern Catholic commentaries do not apply it to mortification.

Other New Testament teachings cited by Opus Dei are generalized admonitions of self-denial or overcoming of bodily temptations, for instance Jesus' statement, "If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me" (Luke 9:23).

In another passage cited by Opus Dei, Paul spiritualizes punishments others inflicted upon him: "I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church" (Colossians 1:24).

There are ample and unambiguous examples from Jesus and other biblical figures for one form of physical denial: fasting (going without food for the purpose of spiritual cleansing and concentration).

Biblical materials aside, it's certain that physical mortification began to be practiced by the hermits and monks during Christianity's early centuries. Giesler acknowledges that things got out of hand with the fanatical "flagellants" in certain 14th-century sects that were repeatedly condemned by Catholic authorities.

Opus Dei notes modern support for its practice in writings by the recent popes John XXIII and Paul VI and by Wisconsin's Bishop Robert Morlino, in a 2003 article criticizing "The Da Vinci Code." Also, Giesler says, Opus Dei founder Josemaria Escriva, who died in 1975 and was named a saint 27 years later, "performed heroic mortifications."

Escape Velocity & Survival of Life

2005-11-03T12:03:00.000-05:00

I was thinking the other day about the applicability of maths to real world problems, and it occurred to me that the formula for Escape Velocity is arguably one of the most important mathematical discoveries in humankind. Without it, we would not be able to launch ourselves from the prison of gravity and enter space and discover new worlds. And if you believe some of the science journals and sci-fi novel plots, eventually our Sun will die (many millions of years hence), and Man may settle somewhere else in the galaxy. Our future literally depends on this formula.

Technical description can be found on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_velocity

In physics, for a given gravitational field and a given position, the escape velocity is the minimum speed an object without propulsion, at that position, needs to have to move away indefinitely from the source of the field, as opposed to falling back or staying in an orbit within a bounded distance from the source. The object is assumed to be influenced by no forces except the gravitational field; in particular there is no propulsion, as by a rocket, there is no friction, as between the object and the Earth's atmosphere (these conditions correspond to freefall) and there is no gravitational radiation. This definition may need modification for the practical problem of two or more sources in some cases. In any case, the object is assumed to be a point with a mass that is negligible compared with that of the source of the field, usually an excellent approximation. It is commonly described as the speed needed to "break free" from a gravitational field.

In the simple case of the escape velocity from a single body, it can be calculated by setting the kinetic energy equal to minus the gravitational potential energy. This is because the positive kinetic energy is needed to increase the negative gravitational potential energy to zero, which applies when the object is at an infinite distance.

where ve is the escape velocity, G is the gravitational constant, M is the mass of the body being escaped from, m is the mass of the escaping body (factors out), and r is the distance between the centre of the body and the point at which escape velocity is being calculated, and μ is the standard gravitational parameter.

Two moans and you're out !

2005-11-03T11:30:00.000-05:00

Interesting article about how to stop negativity in workplace...

**********************************************
A German businesswoman has launched a campaign to stop her fellow countrymen whining, threatening her employees with the sack if they complain.

Ramona Wonneberger, 42, head of a Leipzig IT company, said she introduced a "two moans and you're out" policy to clamp down on "negative energy" stunting its growth.

She has since launched a website called "Be happy" to spread her message across the country.

"Unfortunately, Germans are the world's most inveterate whingers and bellyachers, particularly concerning things they cannot change like the weather or a late train," she said.

"I thought 'I have to do something to change this mentality'."

After a particularly bad bout of complaining at Nutzwerk, her company, "about everything from the traffic to the fact that a husband had forgotten a wedding anniversary", she decided to act, and took her employees to a comedy show.

"After a serious evening of constant laughter which did us a lot of good, I put it to them that we should ban moaning in the company from then on," said Mrs Wonneberger.

Employees now have a clause in their contracts which states: "moaning and whingeing is forbidden... except when accompanied with a constructive suggestion as to how to improve the situation".

So far three employees - two of whom had been given warnings, one of whom chose to go voluntarily, claiming she was being "censored" and had nothing to talk about any more - have been dismissed.

Mrs Wonneberger, whose motto is: "Those who moan rob others of energy and time", says that the company's turnover has doubled to £2 million thanks to the policy.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/11/03/wmoan03.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/11/03/ixworld.html

Ranjit and Juliet

2005-11-01T10:44:00.000-05:00

I've always been curious about those couples involved in inter-racial marriages which cross boundaries of culture, religion and linguistics. Note: I stress the term marriage as opposed to relationship as both partners have made a commitment to legitimize and obtain legal and tribalistic recognition of their union.

Several questions spring to mind:

Were there a lack of viable candidates from each partner's host culture to marry within culture ?
Was either partner's host culture found to be lacking in terms of offering scope for personal fulfillment, tolerance or sophistication ? Does marrying out of race/religion/culture offer increased options for upward social mobility ?
Given the connection between thought processes and language, can partners from mutually exclusive cultures totally understand what the other person feels ?

5, 10 maybe 20 years down the road, will there ever be a sense of regret in not being with someone who was born and raised on the same soil, breathed the same air and shared the same tone of skin colour, and were able to say 'I love you' in the same tongue.....

Amrita Pritam

2005-10-31T13:19:00.000-05:00

From BBC:

Renowned Indian writer Amrita Pritam has died at her home in the Indian capital Delhi after a long illness. Known as the doyenne of Punjabi literature, 86-year-old Ms Pritam also wrote extensively in Hindi and Urdu.

Her first story collection, in the Punjabi language, was published when she was 16 years old. She received many awards, including India's highest literary award, Jnanpith, in 1981. Born to a Sikh family in Gujranwala, Pakistan, in 1919, Ms Pritam crossed to India after the partition of the sub-continent in 1947. Moving to Delhi, she began writing in Hindi and also worked for the state-owned All India Radio till 1961.

The first prominent woman Punjabi poet and fiction writer, many of Ms Pritam's writings dealt with the pain she felt at the division of the sub-continent. One of her famous novels, Pinjar (Skeleton), was made into a feature film a few years ago.

The story is set against the backdrop of the violent frenzy and rioting that engulfed the whole of Punjab in the months preceding partition.

"Her death symbolises the end of an era. Punjabi literature, after the country's independence, will be known as her era," said London-based Punjabi poet, Amarjit Chandan.
Ms Pritam's literary works have been translated in several languages including French, Japanese and Danish.

She has written several novels and short stories.

She often wrote on the condition of Indian women and her writings reflected their neglect and suppression in Indian society.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4393970.stm

Forgotten Soldiers of WW1

2005-10-29T14:17:00.000-04:00

My maternal great-grandfather fought and died during the First World War in France, so I found this article about forgotten Indian soldiers in Germany a rather poignant one.

Luke Harding in Wünsdorf
Saturday October 29, 2005
The Guardian

Until recently there was nothing to identify the quiet, leafy spot where Jafarullah Mohammad and Mata Din Singh were buried. The two servicemen were among thousands of Indian volunteers who fought for Britain in the first world war, and were captured at sea or on the western front.

For more than 80 years the German graveyard where Mohammad, Singh and 204 other Indian volunteers are buried was forgotten. But today the war cemetery in Wünsdorf, in a forest 40km south of Berlin, is to be officially reopened.

The restoration is a recognition of the role played by troops from undivided India, who fought in the bloody battles of Ypres, Neuve Chapelle and Loos. Many died. Others ended up interned in German prisoner of war camps.

"Very few people are aware of the role Indian troops played in both world wars," Peter Francis of the Commonwealth Graves Commission said. "In some Indian units the casualty rate was 80%. In three days' fighting in Neuve Chapelle in 1915, for instance, some 4,200 Indian soldiers perished." Most of the soldiers and sailors buried at Wünsdorf died of disease while stationed at the PoW camp in the nearby town of Zossen. The Nazis later used the area as a vast military training camp.

After the second world war, the Russians took over the camp, including the graveyard - using the surrounding heathland for mock tank battles. Locals, meanwhile, looted the headstones; the plot disappeared under rhododendrons and fallen oaks. It was only after the fall of the Berlin Wall that British officials were able to gain access to the site.

Diplomats from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh will attend today's rededication ceremony, as well as officials from Russia and France, to honour Tartar soldiers who are buried on the same site.

Bling

2005-10-28T09:41:00.000-04:00

I found this ad rather amusing... :)

Lion,Witch & the Wardrobe

2005-10-27T11:41:00.000-04:00

As a kid I grew up reading the Narnia Chronicles by C.S.Lewis before graduating onto Tolkien. So I was pleased to hear that the movie version of LWW is coming out in December at cinemas nationwide. Anyone else read the books, or planning to watch the film ? (There is also an excellent animated version which has been around several years).

Of the other Narnia books my other faves include Prince Caspian, The Horse and His Boy and The Silver Chair (the latter I'm re-reading now). There have been several analyses of Lewis's interpretation of 'good' versus 'evil' struggle which manifests itself throughout the books.

Bright

2005-10-26T10:45:00.000-04:00

There was a young lady called Bright,
Whose speed was much faster, much faster than light,
She departed one day in a relative way,
And arrived on the previous night.

(Author unknown)

Cultural significance of the Bindi ?

2005-10-24T16:43:00.000-04:00

I always wondered about the social anthropological meaning of the Bindi in Indian society. Well now you know.......LOL. :)

Is this picture moving..or are you ?

2005-10-21T11:43:00.000-04:00

The age of miracles is dead

2005-10-20T16:13:00.000-04:00

Main Entry: mir·a·cle
Pronunciation: 'mir-i-k&l
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Old French, from Late Latin miraculum, from Latin, a wonder, marvel, from mirari to wonder at
1 : an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs
2 : an extremely outstanding or unusual event, thing, or accomplishment
3 Christian Science : a divinely natural phenomenon experienced humanly as the fulfillment of spiritual law

^ ^ ^ ^

My comment:

I don't think the world will ever see a religious miracle on the scale documented in the all the main religious scriptures that exist in this world, either in the East or West. In fact I don't believe any historical episode where apparently some supernatural feat was performed by some messiah, prophet or guru. The tales of resurrection after death, flying chariots, individual faith worshippers killing 100 of the enemy single-handedly, or duels with the devil in the desert are just that - tales - to be treated in the same incredulous grain as the existence of Santa Claus flying around the world on Christmas eve with his herd of reindeer. They are metaphorical allusions to the power of faith - but nothing more.

In an age where digital media and recording devices are as common as sliced bread, of real time streaming internet news, and where every other person has a camera-cellphone and/or mini-camera, how is it that no miracles have yet been captured on film ? The reason: miracles of a divine nature do not exist, never have and never will.

Review: The Tiger Claw

2005-10-20T14:06:00.000-04:00

Finally finished it ! :)

"December moved in, taking up residence with Noor in her cell, and freezing the radiator. Cold coiled in the bowl of her pelvis, turning shiver to quake as she lay beneath her blanket on the cot. Above, snow drifted against glass and bars. Shreds of thoughts, speculations, obsessions...some glue still held her fragments together."

There are writers and there is Shauna Singh Baldwin. The breadth and depth of her latest novel is breathtaking, and leaves you both exhausted and enthralled at the same time.

'Tiger Claw' is based on the true life of Noor Inayat Khan, of Anglo-Indian Muslim origin (and a direct descendent of Tipu Sultan), who served as a secret agent transmitting radio messages from Vichy France during the Second World War. As her life story is in the public domain, I'll make no secret of the fact that she was betrayed and then subsequently captured by the Gestapo and rather than being treated as a prisoner of war, instead was held as a 'night and fog' prisoner (ie. officially does not exist), and eventually executed by her German Nazi captors.

What starts off as a spy thriller, meanders into themes of love, betrayal and idealism. As the tides of fortune slowly turn against Noor, she still harbours the belief that one day she would be re-united with her Jewish lover who is held in an unknown concentration camp. The more poignant parts of the book are when she is almost resigned to the inevitability of death in prison, yet steadfastly refuses to show her fears and still stubbornly clings onto hope where there is none. There is a message in there for all of us somewhere in this book.

One of the more powerful parts of this book, is the parallels that Baldwin draws between German occupied France and British occupied India. Both were acts of aggression, and yet I wasn't aware until reading this book, that 4 millions Bengalis died of starvation during 1943-44 due to a deliberate policy by the British to divert rice to other parts of the empire. Almost as many people died in the Bengal famine as during the Jewish holocaust.

This book will leave a huge impression on me for a very long time. A quality read.

ps. You can read more of her life story here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noor_Inayat_Khan

On natural justice and Saddam Hussein

2005-10-20T11:02:00.000-04:00

If Saddam Hussein is to eventually hang from his neck, as inevitably he will given the charade of a show trial he is now involved in, then so should Bush, Rumsfeld, Blair and other war criminal terrorists who illegally invaded and occupied Iraq on the basis of lies, and caused untold genocide upon the ordinary men, women and children of Iraq. Yes, Hussein was a mass murderer, but he was not the only one in the circle of international leaders, and he could not have acted alone in the killing of Kurds and Shias without the active support of the US in the pre-Gulf War days.

There is a difference between 'natural' justice and 'constitutional' justice. The latter is something that can written to appease one's puppet masters (think of Nazi occupied Vichy France, or British occupied India), but natural justice is something that overrides paper charters written in meanigless legal speak. Natural justice can potentially call for an 'eye for an eye', of satiating the human blind rage that has the potential to exist in each one of us, or collectively, in an orphaned brotherhood or nation.

They say history is written by the victors. Never has a statement sounded more truer than that.

If you could see the end...

2005-10-14T16:32:00.000-04:00

Last week's terrible devastation from the earthquake in Pakistan has got me thinking as to how fragile human life is. None of us knows when it will be our turn to leave this physical abode known as 'life' and depart forever. The thousands who died never had a chance to say goodbye to their surviving loved ones, and many of those who did survive are now destitute and left to endure a living death of sorts. I pray that through the grace of Waheguru, recovery and relief will be as quick as humanly possible, especially given that the first snow flakes have already landed in some areas heralding the imminent arrival of winter.

Carrying on the theme of an earlier point, what would you do if you knew your final day was to come ? (It's sometimes hard enough driving a loved one to the airport for a long absence abroad, and no matter how much one's eyes may well up with tears at the departure gates, at least in your heart you know they will come back or you can go see them again one day). But what if you knew - this is it. Finito. The End. Then what ? And let's assume, you had a choice of either one month, 6 months or 1 year to live - then what ? Who would you see, what would you do, what would you say? How much more would you talk, joke, laugh, love ? And should it matter what the timeframe is ? Why can't we live life cherishing each day as if this could be our last ?

Khamosh Pani (Silent Waters)

2005-10-05T16:03:00.000-04:00

After searching for what felt like eons, I finally found a copy of 'Khamosh Pani' over the weekend. Will watch it probably tonight. Have heard nothing but good reviews about this film.

Here's a review I found on Rediff.com:
http://www.rediff.com/movies/2004/dec/02pani.htm

There is a side to Pakistan most of us are blind to. At least visually. Director Sabiha Sumar presents that side to us -- a desolate, barren Pakistan, a magnificent, sprawling wasteland worthy of a Sergio Leone classic. For someone used to the congested streets of an Indian metropolis, seeing this grand, hilly Pakistani village, full of whispered secrets and echoed threats holds a surreal poignancy.

In the Charkhi village of Punjab in Pakistan, life is quirky, quaint, and increasingly foreboding. The setting itself presents a paradox: there are fortresses available for youngsters to romantically rendezvous, but no place for a kafir (non-Muslim) to hide.

Khamosh Pani revolves around the life of a simple, middle-aged woman, Ayesha, played by Kirron Kher. She seems normal enough, a typical Pakistani lady, living the placid life of a widow, supporting her family by giving Quran lessons to neighbourhood children. As the film builds slowly into its plot, we begin to suspect the central protagonist is actually her wistful son, Saleem.

Saleem, played by Aamir Malik, looks exactly in the Jimmy Mistry (The Guru, East Is East) mould, just floppier, lazy, and intensely likeable. With a boyish grin firmly in place, he is smitten with girl-next-door, the no-nonsense Zubeida, who's trying to goad him into getting a job. As the two murmur besotted secrets to each other across the roofs of conveniently empty minarets, Saleem realises that Zubeidaa's dreams of going to college and fashioning her career and her own riches far outweigh his own. In fact, he doesn't have any dream at all, just shuffling through life listlessly. He needs a vocation, a higher cause to believe in.

At this crucial juncture in his youth, Charkhi's naïveté is shattered by the arrival of Islamic fundamentalists. We suddenly realise that the year is 1979, and we're told emotionally that Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto has just been hanged.

There is ample scope for over-dramatisation, but the scene has been handled with wonderful restraint -- a postman stands by his bicycle, seemingly lost. When Ayesha repeatedly asks him what's wrong, he just shakes his head and shows her the paper, muttering in disbelief that the prime minister has been hanged. Immediately, we're framed into uncannily familiar perspective:

General Zia's period of marshal law has begun.

As the Sikhs are allowed to cross the border and revisit their native places of worship, dissent and fundamentalism sets in deeper. Saleem is now one of them, a misguided boy strongly hanging on to a deluded version of Allah.

The film turns darker and more sombre as an important issue comes evocatively to the fore. A gentle visiting Sikh alludes to the prospect of some female relatives being left behind during Partition, but is silenced vehemently by those around him. It is an issue of pride, and we are awakened to the nightmare that families actually killed their own, sacrificing them brutally to avoid dishonour at the hands of the enemy.

The irony is painfully simple: the womanfolk were actually safer in the hands of the very enemy, whose attempt at dishonour was probably preferable to the slaughter their own families put them through.

Zubair (Navtej Johar), however, is a Sikh determined to find his long-lost elder sister, and is sure she lived around these parts. The film is based on true incidents of the time, and as we shuttle through flashback and the present, Khamosh Pani confronts us with information many of us are unaware of.

The film is subtle, and refreshingly free of hysteria, enough to make it one of the best films in the increasingly crowded Partition genre, and reminds us that the subject still has so much to explore. It's a film striking in its simplicity, unlike most recent attempts that usually peter off into melodrama or pander to clichés and even propaganda.

Most directors, with an eye on the festival circuit, try to exaggerate their viewpoints, and show off cinematic abilities. Mira Nair is a case in point. Here, the debutante filmmaker has made a commendable first effort, with visible sincerity. Her lead actress, Kher, has done an overwhelming job, underplayed but truly a wonderfully written role.

Scotia Half-marathon

2005-09-26T16:40:00.000-04:00

It's a rainy Monday afternoon outside, and right now my legs feel so stiff and sore after running in the Toronto Waterfront Half-Marathon yesterday.

There is a definite price to pay for running the 21 km (13 miles), but just like the other few thousand runners who took part, it was well worth it. The elated sense of achievement after crossing the line is unbelievable. :)

Brothers in arms

2005-09-11T12:08:00.000-04:00

The lyrics from this classic Dire Straits song have an almost spiritual feel to them. I'm in this kind of mood today...

These mist covered mountains
Are a home now for me
But my home is the lowlands
And always will be
Some day you'll return to
Your valleys and your farms
And you'll no longer burn
To be brothers in arms

Through these fields of destruction
Baptism of fire
I've watched all your suffering
As the battles raged higher
And though they did hurt me so bad
In the fear and alarm
You did not desert me
My brothers in arms

There's so many different worlds
So many different suns
And we have just one world
But we live in different ones

Now the sun's gone to hell
And the moon's riding high
Let me bid you farewell
Every man has to die
But it's written in the starlight
And every line on your palm
We're fools to make war
On our brothers in arms