Cultural events

When I look back at my school years, I wonder what I enjoyed the most. And it was the cultural events hands down. If there is anything I am proud of accomplishing, it is the fact that I took part in SO many events. I took part in Adzap, music competitions, dance competitions, drawing competitions, fashion shows, Rangoli, collage, dumb charades [somebody gently pointed to me a while ago that I had this typed as "dum charades", quite fitting :)))] ..... Name it and I did it. I feel so happy that I utilized every single opportunity I had. Of course, I had my parent's support in everything I did. They were always there to encourage me and pay for my expenses :)) If I ever have kids, they will go to every cultural event whether they do well in school or not :)) Ours was a girls school because of which we had the freedom to literally do whatever we wanted. I cannot ever forget how we danced like maniacs in sarees. I remember once when we were dancing, a woman took me aside and asked me how my saree hadn't fallen off after all the crazy dancing I was doing :)) Rhapsody was so much fun. Hmmm.... I wish I could all of that again. :((

OK.. sorry.

My previous post was vitriolic. I am sorry if I hurt anyone's feelings. Especially sorry to this friend who is dear to me. At work, she is the one who listens to all my ramblings and here I am dissing her beliefs. I know she does not read this blog or even know of its existence. Yet, I am sorry if you ever read this. I respect this friend of mine because her beliefs are polar opposite to mine and yet she never imposes her ideas on me. She has strong convictions but will never try to convince me that mine are faulty. She is the only person with whom I can talk for hours together and still not get into an argument with. Thank you for putting up with me and my caustic statements. :)) Peace.

I mean.. come on!!!!

[All pictures taken from http://www.durangobill.com/Creationism.html]


I am EXTREMELY angry as I write this blog. I just watched a video of some women arguing about creationism and Darwinism on "The View" and it drove me NUTS!!!! Sherri and Elizabeth Hasselbeck are so fu****g ignorant, it is not even funny. These women do not believe in Darwin and think God created this world. I am willing to bet all my money on the fact that neither of these women truly understand Darwinism. They just believe in one book, "The Bible". And EVERYTHING else that contradicts this "sacred" writing is bullshit. Ask these women to describe what they think evolution is and they are going to stammer and stutter. They are a freaking disgrace to women and society. And the worst aspect of this is that, it is women like these that homeschool their kids. I am not against homeschooling but am mighty suspicious that most of these people have ulterior motives. Honestly, I felt like punching Elizabeth's and Sherri's face. I fail to comprehend how religion and science got so mixed up in this country. I do definitely understand the need for prayer and such. Sometimes when you feel out of control, it is comforting to know that there is a superior being that can handle the situation. But do these people actually believe that there is a guy up there sitting in the clouds making children??? That is scary s**t. I am from a so called "third world" country and in my "third world" country, if you hear people dissing science, trust me, you will be ostracized. People in India might do things that contradict science and most of them don't even understand that their actions imply that, but no one would ever, ever diss science. I am not saying one shouldn't question science, questioning itself is one of the most important aspects of science but so is research. There is a question and there is an answer, but THERE IS RESEARCH HAPPENING IN BETWEEN. You can't just pull stuff out of your ass and expect to convince people. Where is the evidence? These people will publish stuff in some unknown religious journal and will claim it is science. And then when you tell them the journal has no impact factor, they will say, "Ahh.. all these other journals are run by scientists who are together on a conspiracy and therefore don't count." My foot they don't count. One can virtually concoct any number of conspiracy theories to wriggle out of situations but it is people who don't have any facts to back their claim that will come up with such excuses. So please spare me. If I ever see one of these creationists stepping into my house again, I swear I am going to break their face.

An ode to a lost loved one.......

Today we lost a valuable member of our family. Our dear dear driver Ganapathy. Though he did drive our cars for a living, he was far more than a driver to us. He was like an uncle to my brother and me, a younger brother to my dad, a son to my grandparents. Today, he passed away at the age of 42 leaving behind a young wife, an infant child and 2 young children.

I remember Ganapathy as this warm young person who had an eternal smile and referred to me as "papa". He was around when I first learned to ride my bicycle and was around to take me to my first swimming lessons. He was ever happy to take my grandfather to the beach and my grandmother to her gazillion temples. But today, he isn't around to either teach his youngest child to ride a bike or to teach her the alphabet. He was so proud to drive me around everywhere and eventually taught me to drive. One day, on the pretense of taking me shopping, he actually took me to the beach to let me drive our car. I was but only 14- 15 then and did not have a license. Being a rather clumsy driver, I attracted a cop's attention by driving on the wrong side of the road. Ganapathy so tactfully got me out of the sticky situation by claiming that I was a lawyer's daughter and spared me a good spanking. He saved my skin more than once and today I am unable to even see his face as he is being buried in some far away town in India.

Our hearts bleed. Ganapathy, you were a part of our family. You were there to help my grandfather move during his last few years and you were there to carry our grandmother when she was dying. You so skillfully lifted my uncle when he was immobile and today we aren't around to pay our last respects. Sorry!! We miss you!!!

Everyday ignoramuses.

I was conversing with a couple of visitors we had form Netherlands the other day. One of them is originally from Africa and my curiosity led me to ask her about her country. Here's the conversation.

I: Where in Africa are you from?
Visitor: Oh, I am from Zimbabwe. It is a small country in ..
I: Oh,please. You do not have to tell me where Zimbabwe is! Of course I know. And, you guys have a cricket team don't you? I am sure that makes every Indian well aware of your country.
Visitor: [Laughs] Well, we used to have a cricket team. Sorry for trying to explain the location of my country but many people in Europe think Africa is one BIG country!
I: Are you kidding me?
Visitor: No. Just the other day, I had this person ask me if I knew his friend John from Ghana!
I: No kidding.
Visitor: No seriously, they do not understand that Ghana is a totally different country. How am I supposed to know this John?
I: Oh, well, at least this person did not live in Africa. When I was in grad school and I told my friend I was visiting New Mexico, she asked me if I needed a visa. And this was not even an immigrant. She was a white American who got her degree in engg from Urbana-Champaign and her Masters from Indiana.
Visitor: Seriously??
I: Yeah!!!

Auto bailout

The only compelling reason would be to save the jobs of thousands of people. But workers losing their jobs seems inevitable anyway if these companies don't mend their ways. Time after time, we have been warned about global warming and the depleting oil resources. And what do these companies do? They churn more and more SUVs and minivans. Did they actually think people would continue to buy them despite the soaring gas prices? Now that all those hummers are in parking lots with huge "FOR SALE" signs printed on them, these automakers want a bailout. I fail to understand the logic behind some of the solutions suggested to cut US dependence on foreign oil. "Drill baby drill", "we need to ask Saudi Arabia to produce more oil". Why do right wingers have this notion that oil is a never-ending resource? Don't they see that no matter what they do, they are finally going to run out of oil and will be forced to move to alternate sources of energy? And why are they bent upon destroying other life forms before they destroy earth? It is not rocket science you know? When you run out of something, you switch to a better, viable option.

I hate the fact that oil prices are now at an all time low. I say, jack the prices up so high maybe 10$ a gallon so that these morons that drive SUVs and mini trucks are forced to sell their monstrosities. And then take the money away from oil companies and use that to build infrastructure. Good public transportation is what we need now. We also need to invest in technology that will help transmit energy generated by windmills and such. Transmitting and storing this energy seems to be the stumbling block.Apparently, North Dakota alone could supply one third of the country's energy if there were an efficient way to transport the energy to where it's needed.

According to Michael Moore, who drives a Chrysler(BTW, why is he driving a Chrysler? Shouldn't he be driving a hybrid? A quick Google search only comes up with Chrysler Aspen hybrid 2009, so I assume it is not out yet.),
you could buy ALL the common shares of stock in General Motors for less than $3 billion while they want $25 billion. Now that surely seems like a good deal! Even I, the dumbest person when it comes to money can see the gaping hole in this arrangement. But the dems give white-house an ultimatum. In my "expert" opinion, there needs to be a bailout. What we need to do is to bailout on the automakers as opposed to bail them out.

Am I an atheist?

It depends. I know for sure that I am not very comfortable being called an atheist.
a·the·ist Pronunciation Key - [ey-thee-ist]
–noun a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings.
You are an atheist if you believe that God does not exist. My stand is similar to Bill Maher's. I just don't know and it is impossible to know. I guess by definition that makes me an agnostic. Being atheist is being sure of God's non-existence and that is not being humble or in fact scientific in some sense. In science I don't think you throw anything away unless you prove it wrong. I cannot throw any idea away unless I know for sure that it is faulty. How can anyone be sure?

I am a believer. How can I be one when I am an agnostic? Because, I believe that God is not a separate entity but that he/she resides in each one of us. To respect each other and have compassion for one another is to respect God. I don't think I believe that there is this supreme being that created all of us and continues to do so. But I do believe that there is something. I am not sure what it is. But I believe there is a thread that connects all of us that can be tapped. A thread of energy? Maybe, I don't know. Like I said, I am not sure. But I certainly detest following any sacred book in the name of God or religion. I believe in using my brain. I cannot live by something I do not comprehend. None of these books ever have any convincing answers anyway. Take The Bhagavat Gita for example. No matter how many times I read it, I still cannot convince myself that Arjuna did the right thing by killing his relatives.

I am also a non-believer. When I see innocent people being killed everyday, I question the existence of an almighty. Why is there so much suffering if there is an omnipotent being? Please don't give me this crap about karma and previous birth. Isn't God supposed to forgive? Isn't he supposed to love everyone, the evil-doers and the good alike? Why create miscreants and then punish them? Catastrophes make me believe that everything happens at random, there is no order. There is no karma, there is no afterlife and there is no selection process (here, I am NOT referring to Darwin's theory, I am referring to selection based on karma) that determines who dies and who lives. And if you still believe in this supreme being, I must say that he is rather cruel.

There is a fundamental difference between the fundamentalists and non-believers. Fundamentalists think that we should not use our brain. Why? Because according to their logic, we are imperfect beings created by a perfect almighty. So our thought process is imperfect, which leads to imperfect reasoning. So we should blindly follow what He has prescribed. I must say, I NEVER would have come up with this reasoning if not for my friend who enlightened me on why religious conservatives do not use their brains. To me this convoluted logic is absolutely ridiculous. I am not willing to live a life worrying about afterlife. I let my brain and sometimes my heart decide what is right or wrong.

Am I an atheist? You tell me. The following quotes sum up my belief.

We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God,
who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes. - Gene Roddenberry

I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of confidence. - Doug McLeod

It ain’t the parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand. - Mark Twain

I refuse to believe in a god who is the primary cause of conflict in the world, preaches racism, sexism, homophobia, and ignorance, and then sends me to hell if I’m ‘bad’. - Mike Fuhrman

If God created the world, then who created god? and who created whoever created god? So somewhere along the line something had to just be there. So why can’t we just skip the idea of god and go straight to earth? - Ryan Hanson

I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure -- that is all that agnosticism means. - Clarence Darrow

I have known many good people who did not believe in God. But I have never known a human being who was good who did not believe in people. [language slightly modified] -John Lovejoy Elliott