Peradeniya Botanical Garden

Situated in the Hill capital Kandy. A visit to the Peradeniya Botanical Garden garden provides spectacles of extraordinary beauty and absorbing interest for any nature lover and casual visitor. The extensive lawns play host to a variety of flora from all over the globe.
The best know attraction of the garden is the orchid House, which houses more than 300 varieties of exquisite orchids.

[A brief extract from my Lonely Planet - Sri Lanka]

Anyways it's was an awesome place. I would like to go back there in the future, as for now I have some pictures I can share with you of the 'exquisite orchids'.I have already shown you the giant fig tree.Incidently another name for the fig tree is the Bodhi Tree.


Orchids


Orchids




And Guess what ? more Orchids




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Trivial Links
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Orchids -

Orchids (Orchidaceae family) are among the most diverse of the flowering plant families, with over 1000 described genera and 25,000 (some sources give 30,000) species, and perhaps another 60,000 hybrids and varieties produced by horticulturalists.... [continue to read about them at Wikipedia]


Note - Don't copy and paste from a third source without reading the matter first . I�m just too careless.

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Sloping Roofs And All The Jazz


Living in a matchbox styled Tokyo type apartments in Bombay most of your life, you get used to small compact living spaces. I would think most denizens of the city are not used to open spaces and suffer from self-induced Agoraphobia. When I moved to Pune. My eyes slowly got used the ever increasing dimensions. To elaborate a little I live in my grandparent�s house. My grandparents are now deceased therefore I live alone.

My mother gets these brilliant ideas sometimes. My mother is a firm believer in buying things first and finding uses for them later. As an example to this, there was once an old Parsi house on Palli Hill. An ever-dimensioning bread of houses. I say 'was' because it has been demolished to make way for yet another large super sprawling ugly apartment complex. Anyways this old Parsi House had a 150-year-old teak roof. So as they were demolishing the poor creature my mother being my mother bought the roof. This would seem to be pretty funny or impractical to most because we have no use of the darn thing in the first place.
Since we now a 150-year-old teak roof and no use of it really, my mother got yet another brilliant idea Why not refurbish the house in Pune with sloping roofs and all the jazz incorporating the newly acquired roof ?

Therefore I was forcfully moved into the garage, which I should say was a dark stuffy load bearing structure, with a coconut tree running through my living room. I lived there for a greater part of a year while the refurbishment took place. Refurbishment I would say is wrong word to use. If you think demolishing a structure building another one, laying a new slabs, building a roof from with a set of wooden trusses as refurbishment then refurbishment it was.

Seven painful months later it was finished and I could move in to my new room. I�m not sure if they name houses in other countries but in India they name their houses like if it were a person or a dog or something. Therefore presenting to you Meher Nihal.

Here is what you�ll see if you ever walk through my front door. The wooden fa�ade is another example of my mother�s impulsive buys. It from a 1000-year-old temple in Ratnagiri somewhere. Then there are the two wooden Thai Buddha In front of which is a Vietnamese paper bowl.


This was the Parsi teak roof I was talking about, above.


My favourite place in the house the roof. Notice the terracotta Mangalore tiles.



My table, the perennial mess.



I believe they call this a Pergola [An arbor or a passageway of columns supporting a roof of trelliswork on which climbing plants are trained to grow.]


The library.



Look at all those chickoos.


To my mother, a tribute to her eccentric yet creative genius

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On the morning of the sun, the sky dances - A story of the Siberians Cranes


Sitting on a rock among other rocks and a pebbled beach at my front and the wind at my back, I wait. The sea glistened like a thousand mirrors and her frothy edges moved over the pebbles like a mothers hand. I took small puffs of air in through my teeth only to taste the salt at the tip of my tongue .I hear them, a sound trumpeting their arrival. A sound so distinct yet so far away like panpipes resounding through the Andes. The clouds now block the sun like they sometimes do and in the distance, I see them.
Flying in formation in black tipped Vs, they gleam happiness, they have reached. They�re journey of a thousand miles has almost come to an end. This thermal has bought them to their winter home. They swoop down breaking away from their warm blanket of hot rising air, landing on the beach in front of me. They do this like clock work just like the millions before them.
I watch them intently as they danced and they sang. Singing in their flute like musical voices dancing with a long, intricate sequences of coordinated bows, leaps, runs and short flights.
They are the The Siberian Cranes .

I say to myself

"I�ll sometimes think that warriors brave
Who met their death in bloody fight
Were never buried in a grave
But rose as cranes with plumage white"

But it time for them to go, fly away but I would always remember them like flowers in the wind.


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Trivial Links
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Here the Wikipedia Article on the Siberian Cranes

I found the interesting webpage of Angelo d'Arrigo

Angelo d'Arrigo holds a number of world records in the field of flight, principally with microlights and hang gliders, with or without motors.

In 2001 he initiated a sequence of breath-taking events which saw him flying alongside various birds of prey as he attempted to learn from them their techniques for migratory flight by taking advantage of thermal air currents for long distance flight with low energy consumption.
In 2003 he flew 5,500 kilometres from northern Siberia to the Caspian Sea in Iran in the company of a flock of Siberian Cranes who had been born in captivity and considered him their parent: the bird is at risk of extinction and in order to try to save the species, Russian ornithologists hatched this plan: have the eggs incubated under Angelo's hang-glider, so the chicks saw this as they hatched. Have Angelo be with the chicks as they fledge. And when they were ready to fly, have them fly alongside Angelo so they would consider him their mentor. That way, he could show them the traditional migratory route for their species. They had no other way to learn it.

In 2004 he is attempting to fly over Mount Everest with a pair of Nepalese eagles.

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�Look Ma a Washing Machine !!�

In country of extremes, there are the �haves� and the �have nots� and if I were to believe President Bush there is a third category of the �have mores�.
On a trip to Punjab, a fellow Urban Indian was treated to the hospitality of a rich Punjabi farmer. One who drives to work in his BMW SUV and spends his day working on his John Deere tractor. My friend the rich farmer is small minority of rich farmers in India, a minority who have so much money they don�t know what to do with it and with no income tax officer knocking on his door it doesn�t help the picture.

Having a lot of money amounts to one thing spending it (exception to the rule Sam Walton & Azim Premji) therefore the end resultant of my Punjabi friends beautiful occupation is that their house (or farm house\mansion) is blessed with all the gadgets, which they don�t usually have a utility for. An example to this is a funny anecdote. Walking into their kitchen the urban Indian finds a large front loader washing machine spinning away to glory to what looked like a heavy wash cycle. If you looked very closely at the contents of washing machine you would be surprised that instead of a dirty load of laundry, some detergint (& may be some fabric softener) you would find a 2 to 1 ratio of curd is to water some salt and some pepper.
The prefect lassi-maker don�t you think ?
Utility defines Use. For what to you is a washing machine to them is a lassi maker and a good one for that.



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Trivial - info
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Lassi -

Lassi is a traditional Indian beverage made by blending yoghurt with water, salt, and spices until frothy, and enjoyed chilled as a hot-weather refreshment. Traditional lassi is salty and usually flavored with ground roasted cumin and chili peppers. Sweet lassi is a more recent invention, flavored with sugar, rosewater and/or lemon, mango, strawberry or other fruit juice

Traditional salty (namkin) lassi

* 4 c (1 litre) yoghurt
* 3 c (750 ml) cold water
* 1 c (250 ml) crushed ice
* fresh green chili peppers (quantity according to taste), chopped
* 1 ts cumin, roasted and ground
* 3 tb lime or lemon juice
* 2 ts salt

Combine all ingredients except ice in blender(or washing machine) and blend until smooth. Then add ice and continue blending until frothy.

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Dick & Garlick - [Blogreview 1]

I found this great new blog. Found it interesting and hence the mention. It goes by the name of Dick & Garlick and goes by the tagline

"Notes on Indian English, Hinglish, Tamlish, Bonglish & other -lishes"

.
As the tagline suggests it documents (or tries to) all the desi induced english we speak(or don't for that matter). It worth your browse .
yenjoy !


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Trivial - info
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Hinglish is the arbitrary usage of Hindi and English, combining both, in one sentence. For example... "pitaji, time kya hua hai?" (Father, what is the time right now?)

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Would you like a cup of Tea ?

Part - 2 The Chronicles of the Giant Fig Tree


A few hours later and still terribly cold, walking along a road winding along a what seems to be a hill .Tea gardens surround me as I watch the rising sun.

Two leaves and a bud, thats all it takes.




Believe me or not , this is the Worlds largest fig tree. Yes you heard me right I said fig tree.This is the view form the inside.




Notice the large growth in the center of the picture that is the fig tree I was talking about above. This massive tree has foilage cover of 3000 square feet. Talk about real estate.

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Would you like a cup of tea ?


Part - 1 - The Enchanted Tea Pluckers of Labookelle

Like most people I like to get my daily supplement of caffeine, some like it in the form of coffee others like me prefer tea. My day isn't complete without at least three cups of it. So if you where to ask me "Akshay
, would you like a cup of tea?" the answer in most cases would be in the affirmative.
I'm not fussy either, from to cutting chai to earl grey they all taste the same to my me.
Coming back to the post. In the recent past , I awoke one morning and this time I was not just looking for my morning cup, I was looking for my morning basket full . If you are a little confused at this point don't be. For this faithful morning I was going on the hunt for the tea-puckers of Ceylon.
Two thousand metres above sea level ,floating on a cloud lies Nuwara Eliya blushing with her lush grren acres and acres of tea plantation.Here my adventure begins at 5 am on a blistering cold morning in July. My search for the enchanted tea pluckers .




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Stay tuned for Part - 2 tommorow. I was feeling lost, so I thought I would go on a little blog holliday.What do you think ?
And yes I accidently deleted my earliar template and since I could not repair it I had to get a new one.

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Today is Dasara , where Good triumphs over Evil.

What is Evil to you ?


This quote from Nietzsche does it for me .

Battle not with monsters
yest ye become a monster
and if you gaze into the abyss
the abyss gazes into you.

We all have to fight are own demons to fight evil.
I wish you a victory in your effort .
Happy Dasara .

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Gypsies of India

Gypsies.If you think about the word in your head and close your eyes you'll probably see a picture of a caravan or may be an old women with a crystal ball or something.But thats not entirely true let us look at the actual defination of a gypsy.

A member of a people that arrived in Europe in migrations from northern India around the 14th century, now also living in North America and Australia. Many Gypsy groups have preserved elements of their traditional culture, including an itinerant existence and the Romany language.

.::. Banjara .::.

The Banjara (also called Lambadi or Lanbani) are a nomadic tribe in India. They are directly linked to the romany gypsies of eastern europe. It is believed that these gypsies migrated to Europe seveal centuries ago.
**Read**
1 > Romany Gypsies came out of India
2 > The Roma and the Persistence of Memory
3 > Gypsies Came From India (Varman.org)
The colourful stream of the Banjaras began to travel down to the South in the 14th century. In the early 1800s, following the invasion by the armies of Aurangzeb, and thanks to the number of cattle they owned, the Banjaras worked for the Moghuls as commissariat carriers transporting provisions and arms, setting up camps on the outskirts of army encampments. When the Southern campaigns ended, the Banjaras forgot their desert homes in Rajasthan and settled down in the Deccan, the plateau of central peninsular India.

The women in the picture are construction workers.They work as labourers and they actually work in full traditional attire with all there ornate jewellary.
The Banjara women, however, are holding steadfast to their ancient mode of dress which is perhaps the most colorful and elaborate of any tribal group in India. Undoubtedly, their dress and jewelry sets them apart from all others. Their full length skirt, is blazing red with borders embroidered in mustard and green thread. The odhni (mantle) which covers the head is long enough to drape down their backs almost touching the feet. This also elaborately embroidered and studded with little mirrors which embellish their cholis (blouses). A variety of materials - silver, brass, some gold, cowries, ivory, animal bone and even plastic - are used in the making of a Banjara wardrobe. The women wear pretty silver anklets which clink as they walk barefoot. Long silver earrings are conspicuous, and patterned cowrie shells decorate their hair, and are worn on their wrists and ankles. 

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Eva - Part 3 (SANS Typos I hope Updated - 17/10
OK I lied there are a million more typos to correct)

(Read Part 1 & Part 2)


You move towards her using all your energy. But you go nowhere it's like you're running in the sand or swimming in honey. The floor beneath your feet becomes soft as butter and your legs begin to dissolve like salt in water. Molecule by molecule you disintegrate till you are just a puddle of salt water. You�re now nothing but an amoeba left with your thoughts. You revolve around your them lost like Alice was in Wonderland .

She tilts her head ever so gently and frowns. She looks at you, standing there frozen in your impending motion. All she sees is a fellow human being caught in the outer reaches of reality where nothing really matters and everything is an illusion. Her frown turns to a smile.

Her smile a catalyst for change causing your molecules to re-multiply like they never done before. Limbs grow back where there were limbs, hair where there was hair, and eyes where there were eyes. You are reborn, if you close your eyes all you�ll see is the light. Your heart starts pumping, blood start flowing, your feel the power in your muscles. In your new form you smile back.

Everything returns to normality. I mean normality like everything else in relative terms. You look at your self, brush away the dust from your wrinkled shirt, run a hand through your hair. Its like nothing really happened. You feel rejuvenatated as if the alcohol that earlier blurred your vision has turned to caffeine and you are now blessed with the agility of a crocodile wrestler. You walk quickly across the room nudging away all in your way. You are on a mission my friend a mission to be free.

�A smile is a powerful weapon; you can even break ice with it�

she thought to herself.As she does her smiles turn more radiant than the sun and one glimpse at which would make melancholy man change his name.

You walk up to her and look down at her and stare with dreamy eyes. Seconds pass by but you�re still standing there directly above her. She makes the first step. �May I help you�? To which you briskly reply, � Is this seat taking�. Taking the seat next to her before she could answer you wait. Counting the seconds you double 2s ,calculate the rpm at which the ceiling fan is rotating .You do everything but look at her or better talk to her.
She sits there in dormancy, still no response; she begins to get frustrated by your nonchalance. Faith intervenes, faith has a habit of intervening into matters that are none of her business but if you know faith she also has a habit of making it her business. As for Lady Luck she is far to complicated to analyze. Ask the gambler who has just lost his shirt?
You look at her nudged ever so gently by faith ,into the vast expanse that are her watery brown eyes. She sits there like a Georgian Water Color painting wrapped in silk. You open your mouth to talk but the next thing you know she is in your arms in a loving embrace. Her perfume engulfs you like a meadow of spring flowers. You know the fragrance but it escapes you. You pull her hair behind her ears and you move to kiss her, she closes her eyes in anticipations you move closer ��


� Clap Clap Clap .�
You wake up with a jolt, breathing heavily. You find your self on a large couch and disoriented.

�That will be enough for today son, thank you. See you next week. Remember to take your medication,� say a middle age man dressed formally sitting on a rather large leather chair.
Then it comes to you it was French Vanilla. That was the perfume she was wearing. French Vanilla.

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Note -
Phew !!! its finally over. That was an exhausting excercise I tell you I burned more calories than I would have if I had run the Boston Marathon.Anyways I now have to get someone to proof read it (any volunteers ??).Any final comments from any of you people who have read all the 3 parts ?How does it sound ?.. Is it any good ?? Questions Questions.I have had pretty strange responses till now. My mom thinks I'm on LSD .
I'd to tell her the truth ..

" No Mom I'm actually on Heroin, I have this iranian friend who gets it really cheap for me."

Note to self - Please get someone to proof read before you publish crap .

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What have I become
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know goes away
In the end
And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt

- Johnny Cash


I have feeling guilty. What have I done to change? Change a word used often yet not often understood. Today I woke up and asked myself
Akshay What have you done?
The silence was my answer.


.:::.Change.:::.

1 a : to make different in some particular : ALTER b : to make radically different : TRANSFORM c : to give a different position, course, or direction to
2 a : to replace with another b : to make a shift from one to another : SWITCH c : to exchange for an equivalent sum or comparable item d : to undergo a modification of e : to put fresh clothes or covering on

I want to change that . I want to change that Now !! as a matter of fact. It hurts me , a hole . Something is missing . I feel so incomplete. Questions Questions Questions.

What have I become ? ?
I can't fathom my existence and it makes me cringe . What am I supposed to become. Am I supposed to become a software engineer. Deep Down Inside no matter what I tell other wise I know that is not true.

Then
What do you want to become Akshay ? ?
I don't know actually. I know that sounds clique but that is the truth. If I was blessed with clarity of thought I wouldn't be here I guess. I know it is pointless say that I really don't want to do something and give no other alternative. More then Pointless it is counter productive.
All I know is that I want to be a catalyst for change.

Catalyst for Change .... HA !
Sounds like something born of a Statement of Purpose.
I'll tell you something when I was in school I read this poem in Hindi..It was called Ye duniya Nushwar Hai .
Which basically means this everything has an end.
May be the same is the case with my present state of mind.

Beneath the stains of time this feeling will disappear.

MothMAN ? 



Stairway to nowhere ? 


Meet Eva 

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Eva - Part 2 ....... contd from Part 1

Her eyes are on you, she is watching. A teardrop rolls down her cheek at the sight of your fall from grace. She grimaces but sits there motionless on the sofa. Her diaphragm contracts gently as she breaths in and breathes out small puffs of air. Breathing is such a trivial exercise born out of a craving to be alive. As she sits there she thinks of better days when everybody was together for togetherness
like everything else in this world togetherness is temporary. In the inner breaches of her mind she looses herself to thoughts of life, death and the fallen you.

As you lie there on the glass of what was your drink you don�t feel like getting up you�re satisfied in just lying there in your illusion that everything will be ok. But compulsion is greater then illusion. Disoriented and drunk you get up and walk to the sofa. You know what people say to you?

�You�re Drunk when you�re sober.and you�re sober when you�re drunk. If you would only take LSD you would answer the questions of existence.�

I know it doesn�t make any sense but thats what people say.

Woken from the inner breaches of her mind by the clambering steps of the fallen .Her eyes broaden and she becomes alert like a tigress is to her prey. The glint of your reflection hovers over her eye like the future does over a crystal ball. She looks at you carefully from head to toe, she counts the folds on your shirt, counts your white hair from your black, she notices your untied shoe lasses. She can see the pain in your eyes the blood in your mind and the hole through your heart.

There is a romance in the two colors, black in white. If you seen a rainbow in black and white you would see the same two colors in seven shades of the same. The face of the people you have met in the years of life ,flash by like mug shots in a police archive. Then you catch a glimpse of her brown eyes, black flowing locks of hair and she smiles .Her face, just a mirror for the Sun.


Note --- Stay tuned for part 3.. the last and final part in this trilogy of posts.
Ahh before I forget the heres the link for Young Indian Writers .

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EVA ; Part 1

In a shimmering black fur coat she sits on the sofa lounging extravagantly. Sophistication oozes out of her like hot lava does from a volcano. Sitting there silently she waits for her next pray for she has mastered the art of manipulation. One glance into her large brown eyes would put into a hypnotic trance a slave to her every desire. Her name is Eva.
As for you, you have no name.

A jazz quartet plays in the background the smooth sounds only magnified by the alcohol in your blood stream. You stand there moon bathing in the balcony with a tall glass in your hand. Kissing the glass ever so softly at brief intervals of time you dream. The land breeze cools your brow and aurora of light from a million light bulbs blinds your eyes while the drink in your hand blocks out your brain.
Your legs jingle to the sound of the saxophone and your body sways to the music like a cobra. You close your eyes only for a moment turn and forget who are, just for a second you become just nobody.
Turning slowly you walk measured steps the music gets louder and you can feel the presence of people around you but you can not see there faces. Vision plays trick on you because you always see what you want to see and not what is actually there. There is no getting beyond your eyes. You look around trying to make contact like a lone alien on a quest to find his home planet lost in space. Yet all you see is nothing, faceless premonitions of people and all you hear are noise of a distant music.
The world is spinning around you and the centrifugal force is pushing you outward like a wayward curve and now gravity is your only savior as you fall to the ground like one of Galileo�s experiments. Time freezes cold and it seems to take forever and a nanosecond before the impact you smile as face hits into the icy marble floor.

Note : - Stay tuned to part 2 coming tommorrow. I'm planning to send it in for the
Stories at the Coffee Table
Contest. I know its pretty amatuerish but guess what I'm kind of a rockie at writing and my blog is mediocre.There is this great organisation in India promoting young writers in India aptly named Young Indian Writers check it out.
Anyway feedback on how part 1 sounds would be greatly appreciated.

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I watched Donnie Darko yesterday . The experience of which is still floating in my brain.
I'm searching for words to describe what I felt as I watched it .

As Gary Jules sings Mad World in the background you're floating through time and space . You find yourself in a metal craft traveling at the speed of light and then it happens you think to you're self this movie is "bloody brilliant".

As seen in my earliar post time travel fasicnates me as does many people (read Time Travel).
Well the movie revolves around the life of one Donnie Darko a paranoid shiezopreinic who is capable of time travel and his imaginary friend frank who is 6 foot tall bunny rabbit.
Director Richard Kelly describes the film as a cross between Sam Raimi?s 'The Evil Dead', Martin Scorcese?s 'The Last Temptation of Christ' and Robert Zemeckis?s 'Back to the Future'.
The movies I love keep me guessing.Movies that you can predict are grossly boring.Donnie Darko is a wild ride with a new suprise hiding at each bend.

There are finer elements of the film which minic reality in an almost surreal way this can be illustrated by the following dialogue.

Donnie : My parents didn't get me what I wanted for Christmas.
Dr. Lilian Thurman : What did you want?
Donnie : Hungry Hungry Hippos.
Dr. Lilian Thurman : And how did you feel, being denied these hungry, hungry hippos?
Donnie : Regret.

All and All 4 Stars. . . 

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Looks like I'm not going to sleep again. Twice in three days ,talk about of sleep deprivation not that I like wearing a crown of thorns or sleeping on a bed of nails (sleep a quality lacking in my case) it's being forced on me by the powers that be. The result being no sleep.
The "powers that be" - Who are they?
You may ask I don't know but falling back on words of Jack Black from the School of Rock about the existence of "the man" and at this point the "the man" doesn't like me very much. Not sleeping is unpleasant to say the least. I have starting seeing thing, Halucinations..
On hallucination I go back to another movie "I'm seeing things"- sixth sense.I'm hearing voices, seeing and talking to inanimate objects,flashing lights ,having long detailed conversations with myself on the consistency of the complexion of the moon and all the jazz.
Sleep deprivation is one long deja vu you've been there before and sometimes for the same reason and your body is giving you the same blinking warning lights.
It like when you're got a high fever and you're delirious you get the same feeling it kind indescribable but it the same redundant feeling like someone has put a bag over head and you can breathe but you wonder why??
The thing about not sleeping agents I'm going without the help of 'external agents' and shit no vivarin for me .. simply because it simply not available in India.
Should go now and finish the algorithm for Radix Sort.


"Goodnight and Sweet Dreams"

What the f&*& is WTF ?

I was not stressed I justoverexerted myself
-Aalap.

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3:58 am.
I'm tired of writing so I thought I would type something. A cockroach is climbing up the wall.Ohh there comes "green" (my wall gecko) and RIP dear cockroach, my head is throbbing.Need sleep !!! but simply cannot afford to sleep. Too much work.(Yawn !!!)
My bloodshot eyes pear drearily at the computer screen and my back is screaming for some rest.
Rohit and Sid , have gone off to sleep . Sid crashed around 3am and Rohit has left me the job of nightwatchmen...
Speaking of nightwatchmen , it reminds me of one of my favourite painting Rembrandt's The Night Watch
. Think I'll leave you with it as I sign off. 

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Updated my Photo Blog >>> Click here to visit !!!

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Is My Blog Traffic going to Explode ???

Ever go to Google and do a ramdom seearch just to see what comes up in the sponsored links?? I do it all the time.
Why? It is just one of the many ways that to find something that interest you. Occasionally, you'll find something really good and/or worth knowing about.(You could find something interesting just syndicate me ,Look up at the google ad bar.!!!!)

Yesterday, I came across this site called BlogExplosion.com. They claim that they can �explode� your blog traffic, for free. Here are come of their features

* 2:1 traffic ratio means for every two blogs you visit, one person will visit your Blog in return!

* Get your blog listed in the Blog Explosion blog directory and get free trafffic as long as you are a member!

* Add unlimited blogs you want to promote!

* Add unlimated banners with clickthrough reporting to help promote your blogs

* Enter great monthly contests and win bonus Mystery Blog traffic 24/7!

* Blogexplosion provides full statistics for your blog traffic including total visitors, unique visitors, time of day, and what country your blog traffic is coming from

* Refer new members to BlogExplosion and generate huge referral traffic on five tiers (10%,10%,10%, 10%,10%). Watch your blog traffic fly as you earn a percentage of blog traffic from people you refer to BlogExplosion.


I really don't know how it works to the fullest of my understanding yet ,simply because I just joined but it looks like the full deal .
I'll update y'all on how it works ??

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Who is Alice Richman?

As I walked into the garden , my eyes adjusted to the intensity of light droping from a torrid white to a more mellow blue filtering down through the now dense foliage ,in contrast to the shield less sky.
I walked at a slow yet calculated pace scanning the surroundings , which I must mention where not entirely new to me yet not familiar either. I have been here before once yet now it is strangely different.Yes it has rained and ,the soil has retained a certain moistness as cotton would if placed in front of an air conditioner in a humid coastal city .It is strangely different as I already said not to sound redundant but it is and I tell you as I can't put my finger on the reason. Yes then it was morning and now it is mid afternoon.
Under the apparent shade of the somewhat tall , aged dense woody tropical trees sat people ,some in pairs , some in threes some in larger groups and some like me where here alone.
Lovers sitting on dense unkempt grass , some in deep conversation others in deeper mood of silence.. but This should not preoccupy me , I was here for a reason.
I was here to find a place where I would rest my self and peer into my rather large technical book and study. After about minutes in the this unfamiliar yet growingly familiar place I found my self at what seemed to be raised stone plinth. In the centre to be which , appeared to look like a memorial from far which but on closer investigation was a grave...in the shape of a cross on this elevated surface. I sat my self on the stone plinth and worked on my as I mentioned on my "rather large" textbook. At first I didn't notice this strange marble cross on the ground ... But as time walked by my eyes fell on the following inscription -

"BORN MELROSE SOUTH AUSTRALIA NOVEMBER 13 1856 AND DIED AT THIS SPOT OF CHOLERA AT THIS VERY SPOT JANUARY 1886"

Curiosity got the better of me , as I got up walk around this central object and on the other side inscribed on the dark stone
" IN THE SACRED MEMORY OF THE LOVED"
 

I did a rough calculation in my head the person in question was or is 30(not got beyond 30 at least) when he/she had died of cholera as I already mentioned..
A name came then came to sight a name Alice Richman on the front end was inscribed..
As went back to my place and then to my book.
I began to think.
A question resonated in my mind
Who is Alice Richman?

P.S -
Recycled ,edited and Improved from an earlier post

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Gateways of Green 
Click on the Picture to Expand

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Pictures Within Pictures
Picture say so much , snapshots of the past, your passport to travelling down memory lane .. Here are some Pictures Within a Picture. 
Click on the Picture to Expand.

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Stairway to Heaven.
Was feeling somewhat bored and a little depressed (read previous post), decided to take a break from Data Structures and Algorithms and the world of Searching & Sorting and so I decided take a walk in the Pune University(my varsity) Garden and take a few pictures. 
Click on the Picture to expand

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Do you have the feeling that the world is passing you by?
Do you get the feeling that you're the "stagnant" among the dynamic?

I get it all the time I so hate being mediocre. In a world looking for perfection in everything, the mediocre are the ones left behind. The thing is I know I'm capable of more, but when more is demanded of 'me' I always end up giving less.

The World Leaving you behind ...

The sad thing about me being mediocre is that I'm so sure I could do better and the thing is everybody know you can but since you don't it simply rubs more salt into your festering wounds.
Its like sitting by the window of a crowded coffee shop by the window and the world passes you by but in the end of it you're still there. Just there , having achieved absolutely nothing .

Achieving absolutely nothing ...

Achieving absolutely nothing ,
causes me squint my eyes , the muscles in my right arm twitch in pain and they�re this strange emptiness in me like somebody has drilled a hole through me .
It's so frustratingly depressing.
Looking at the stars , and seeing that there not shining for you and the bells are tolling ,the signs revealing the actual triviality of your existence.
AND all you can do is nothing. nothing. nothing.

In any case I should study now.

nothing touches me man
these walls are three feet thick
wouldn't take one of them little drills to get through
i try to make her listen
when i turn away she's split
i try to make her listen
when i turn away she's split
she went...
nothing touches me
nothing touches me now
nothing touches me man
no matter how you split
sticks and stones can get through bones
so i've given up looking out of it
i try to make her listen
when i turn away she's split
i try to make her listen
when i turn away shes split
she went...
nothing touches me now
laugh if you can, at me now

-Radiohead

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"Right-handed people live, on average, 9 years longer than left-handed people."



I was reading the Sunday Paper and a supplement titled 'Amazing Medical Facts ' came along with it. It contained your usual facts you would see on any biology textbook
'Our blood is on a 60,000 mile journey ' and so on..
And reading on I found this.
Right-handed people live, on average, 9 years longer than left-handed people.
Being left handed (Read I'm Left Handed) I felt pretty strongly , you would if you where being told that you are going to 'on average' die 9 years earlier just because of your 'hand' preference. I thought they were bull-shitting me or something so I decided to do a little research. Then things got allot more freaky.
I found this medical paper called
Creation of the Sinister: Biological Contributions to Left-handedness
Which went on to say just because of my lateral preference of the brain is the right, I suffer from a genetical disorder called Geschwind-Behan-Galaburda (GBG) Theory of Left-Handedness
, here�s a excerpt from this paper by Monica Watkins

The GBG Theory holds that genetics is a minor factor in the determination of left-handedness. Influences outside a strict genetic program exert the most control over determination. Studies have shown that injury to the developing brain at specific developmental stages can cause significant changes. It is possible that variations in the chemical environment of the fetus may cause such changes, and lead to a certain cerebral dominance. These chemical variations also influence the development of the immune system. Later in life, the effects of these chemical influences may manifest themselves as immune disorders and abnormal brain structures.

According to the GBG Theory, the chemical variation and its effects account for the following: why left-handedness is more common in men (Oldfield, 1971), why language disorders are more prevalent in men (Heceaen, 1984), why left-handedness is linked with developmental disorders of childhood (Porac and Coren, 1981), and why immune disorders and other diseases are more common in left-handers (Geschwind and Behan, 1982, 1984). In other words, left-handedness is the common thread among problems thought to be unrelated.

After which feeling deprived of the 9 years(50% of my life) I decided to call up my mother and say good-bye.
& Tell her -

Me -Ma I have just been self-diagnosed for a strange genetic disorder that weakens my immune system and I'm going to die 9 years before my right handed counterparts ,life expectancy in India is 61 , therefore doing some quick math I going to die at 51 , may be if I move to Japan where life expectancy is 80.

Ma - (Sounding concerned) Really , Akshay Where did you read this ?

Me - There nothing anybody can do I'm doomed to die young .Can you call the Make A Wish Foundation ,I always wanted a Red Ferrari ,second-hand will do.

Ma - "Don't you have anything to do but to pull your poor mothers' leg long distance. I'm putting down the phone now".

You know what people say about death , once you've accepted that you're going die this strange feeling of happiness overpowers. My friend Sid (a.k.a dabba) wakes up each morning thinking "I'm going to die today" and each day he is disproved (thank god for that he drives me to college).Anyway coming back to my sinister awkwardness. This 'sinister awkwardness' was disproved as easily as it was proved by an article run by the
Associated Press (A/P) titled Study finds left-handers don't die earlier

Here�s a short excerpt ---

LONDON -- Left-handed people don't necessarily die any younger than right-handers, according to new research that disputes the findings suggested by some studies.

In a nine-year study, Dr. Simon Ellis and his colleagues at Keele University in England examined the link between left-handedness and the risk of dying earlier using 6,049 people ranging in age from 15 to 70.

"Handedness did not make a significant contribution to the outcome of death," concluded the study, published Friday in this week's issue of The Lancet, a British medical journal.

The question of whether lefties die younger is controversial. Several studies have suggested a connection, but others have shown no link

Hurray for the English I say.
Thus with my 9 years reinstated I felt like a man saved from the a claws of death a person you was moving into the light but who had been brought back into the realms of the living.

Therefore this Sunday I lost 9 years of my life in a quarter of an hour and got them back in 5 minutes. Strange

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At noon the sun is always at its meridian. When the mornings are cloudy, though it is not dark, the sun is not visible. When it is cloudy at night, the darkness is more. Suppose it is cloudy until a quarter to twelve noon, and suddenly the clouds disappear at midday. When the sun shines, it will be the usual, bright midday sun. But there is a difference in the atmosphere. The sudden appearance of the sun after the clouds will prove pleasing and cheerful. But if clouds remain for a month, it will give rise to disgust, which would increase every day. When the clouds finally disappear, the disgust will also disappear. Everything will then look cheerful and fine, and the effect of the sun on the mind, heart and health will be very good.

Thus is the case with me. The clouds may disperse even at one minute to high noon, but in that one minute I feel greater disgust. Just as with a pregnant woman having birth pangs and feeling fed up until she delivers the child, I too feel greater disgust at the time clouds are dispersing. The woman knows that the child will be born in five minutes and she will be free of her troubles; still, at the moment she feels it is better to die. Just see the limits of disgust in these five minutes. My disgust is now nearing that pitch! How ridiculous it would be to ask the woman in labor to take a walk in the fresh air. She would reply that she knows all about what is going to happen to her, since she has already given birth to ten children. So he who has had experience of this sort of disgust knows it only too well
- Merwan Sheriar Irani

God must have written that.

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Imagine yourself walking into a fast food reasturant and order yourself a
"Vada-Pav" and a large coke.This day my freinds is not far behind Mumbai's favourite cheap snack would be reaching a mall near you as we speak.
For those who have never not been enlightened enough to have eaten one ,a Vada Pav(batter-fried mashed potato with bread & chutney) is the daily fast-food staple of millions of Maharashtrians and particular denizens of Bombay.
Back to the post on hand a company in Bombay is selling vada-paav(TM) under the brand of JumboKing , through seven stores all over Mumbai.Now it has been branded and TQMed to compete with McDonald's and is all set to take over the world. This is true reverse globalization-Here comes India!


Vada Pav Trivial

Mumbai?s favourite snack was born 35 years ago, when Ashok Vaidya, a snack seller outside Dadar station, decided to experiment. The combination of batata vada and split pav continues to be the city?s sledgehammer answer to the burger.

Just hoping the Vada Pav at your canteen, Chandralok Gardens improves from, tastless to edible.
Chandralok which if you translate into English means Moon People.Strange name don't you think. ?

 

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Pardon my photography, but you've read it right the sign reads.

PLEASE DON'T FEED THE MONKEYS .THEY BREAK OUR TILES

I took this picture ,this year in Sri Lanka with the sole reason of publishing it in my blog.I found it pretty hilarious ,the first time I read it so I thought I'll be my usual trigger happy japanese photo-tourist self and take a picture. AND yes the monkeys do break their tiles I found that out at 2am in the morning (Yawn!!).

Sid if you're reading this I'm in Bombay, back on tues.
Yes you've heard right I'm in Bombay/Mumbai therefore my next post will have some Bombay masala or may be some of my Bombay dreams (bad pun I know).

Can you believe Bollywood (Indian film industry) ripped off an Adam Sandler movie.
Yes there's a Hindi version of Anger Management running around , I bet Mr. Sandler will see the humor in that. I'm not a connoisseur of Hindi movies I do see them (I don't how this related but I must tell you Quentin Tarintino Rocks).
I was forced into seeing it on the bus (read Neeta Volvo) with dolby surround sound and all(Picture of a Monkey(me) with hands on his ears).
Anyway it's called
Mujse Shaade Karoge (if you're don't know Hindi heres a fun exercise ,use it on the next person you know who knows Hindi).
Goodnight .

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Eyes open, to the sound of tangling clocks, bells, and buzzers chimes, courtesy Pink Floyd's Time. This is my wake up play list that my computer randomly spits out at exactly 9am.
Yes I'm a late riser and I need my beauty sleep (which I need allot of, refer to profile picture to know why.).

Ticking away the moments
that make up the dull day
You fritter and waste the
hours in an off hand way

Sometimes time fails to wake me up, and I lie there on my bed dreaming I'm awake.
This happens 50% of the time therefore I rely on my fail-safe wake up protocol.
This song has the sole aim of waking you up.
Wake Up, THE DOORS.

Wake up!
You can’t remember where it was.
Had this dream stopped?
The snake was pale gold
Glazed & shrunken.
We were afraid to touch it.
The sheets were hot dead prisons.

After waking up I show signs of sleepiness by yawning and outstretching my hands above my head. There is theory going around that I'm never really awake, that and I'm perennially high. The second one is true.
I therefore walk to the bathroom, brush my teeth after which I continue towards the toilet pot to relieve myself; I’m suddenly woken up with a jerk and a tickle in my heart. It’s like kick starting a motorcycle.
I then stand in front of the mirror and this is how the mirror will describe me -

He's got, a slight cold and his nose is blocked so you can hear him sniffle his way through life. His face has turned a shade of greenish brown and his eyes are red and watery and his face has been chiseled in to a permanent frown.


Then my day takes a u-turn towards hell. I go to college and spend the day sleeping through a galaxy of lectures.
But sometimes I don't go college then I spend my time calculating the rpm of my ceiling fan which is so fun or I count the specks on my wall or I have a ball doubling 2s.

Doubling 2s is fun exercise you should try it.

You start with 2 and that becomes 4 8 16 32 64 128 .... you get the picture
on day a particularly uninspiring day I reached 524288.
You add 0 to that number you get a number of one my "great friends" please call that number , tell him I sent you.

Anyways enough rambling for the day.
It's raining again.
I don't like September RAIN.

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if you were sitting where I'm sitting right now and you turn your head a 90 degrees to the right this is what you will see.In a few hours darkness will fall the light ,dissappear but most likely I'll still be here and this picture will never come back. The dry palms you see on the side are the home of my bat friends they make quiet a racket in the night.I won't be lying if I tell you I don't open my windows in the night.But know since the window is open ,might as well keep it open. 

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My life in a nutshell, going to college.Morning 10:30 traffic Law College Road listining to my ipod .
Boy ! I really love this picture .Notice the on coming motocycles that's signature Pune nightmare traffic. BTW for those who don't know this mode of public traffic this the internal view of a yellow and black Bajaj RE autorickshaw (read Rickety Rickshaw )
 

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Winds of Change . 

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Caveat Reader, Readers Beware!!
Ok I'm not a Latin scholar or anything, the only Latin I leant during my schooling was

Perseverantia Et Fide Et Deo.

I know to most Indians it sounds like a spell out of Harry Potter.But it stands to mean simply "Try, Try till you succeed". I tried to live by that in school but look where it got me. Moving on.

Lingua franca

a medium of communication between peoples of different languages.

India has no one lingua franca . It's hard to home on to one language in a country where the people speak near a million. Unlike other in India the language spoken changes every 100 km and the dialect of the language spoken changes every 20Km.
Thus where such a large variation of language and dialect a "common language" a lingua franca is important. As there is diversity in ethnicity the first barrier for communication is one of 'people' to 'people’. Here there is a need for national language the "Rashtriya Bhasha" (national language). That is 'Hindi'.
Many atime when I have been on foreign soil people have asked me strange questions like -

Speaker - So you are Indian.
Akshay - Yes, It's appears so.
Speakers - Do you know how to speak Indian?

Let me interject here see there is no language called Indian. Thus no one can speak Indian.
Even though Hindi is the official national language, English is India's second lingua franca and then there are the others

Comming back to me my language skills which are appallingly bad and thus I gained profiency in only one.
I speak English.
Apalling Hindi.
Even more Apalling Marathi.
Can't Speak French (even after studying it for 2 years).
Can't Speak Punjabi which supposedly is my mother tongue.

Don't know you Mother Tongue ? ... Crime against Humanity ?

Most people India think it Pleasant conversation to dig deep into your personal life and history .
Most people ask you your name and surname then by looking at your name and surname they decipher what geographic corner of India you hail from and then logically decipher your age , education background , bank balance , caste and all this my asking you a series of very tough questions.
Most of the time , one thing leads to another and converstion leads to the following.

Person - Ok , you're Punjabi (person from the state of Punjab ,NW India).
Akshay - Yes I'm .
Person - Do you know Punjabi.
Akshay(dreading that question) - No actually I don't know punjabi.
Person (in disbelief) - But, it's your mother tongue !!!!
Akshay(getting pissed)- I know.
Person - You're parents never taught you ???
Akshay - NO

You get the picture. Not knowing your mother tongue is a serious crime.
As for of you my now thorougly bored by my rambling don't forget I warned you.
Caveat Reader.

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As the Gmail debate rages on,privacy or no privacy , 1Gb of no 1Gb most will agree gmail is still in fashion , it's like the mail equivalent of the ipod.
Yes ,gmail give it you 1Gb but even rediff gives you same ,then what makes gmail click.
I think it is exclusivity that Gmail holds that makes the G capital.I found that gmail's "invitation only" enrollment process is the key to the attraction it still holds.It works like a pyramid scheme where only blogger members (owned by google) and those you are "invited" get their id @gmail.com and now there entire sites which cater to people who want gmail or those who want to barter a gmail invite for something ( read gmailswap.com).
I too bartered an invite for a postcard from Mexico City.
Anyway this being my 101st entry .. I thought I'll give away my 3 remaining gmail invites.

Thus for the first three lucky people who mail me at akshaym@gmail.com get the invites.

In other trends looks like amazon's A9.com is giving google a run for it's money.

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Striker's Anonymous 1
Part 1
Monday the 6th of September.
Bombay , India.

Akshay is sitting at home and being the couch potato that he is ,is watching television . He is clicking away at the remote as if it where a game console of some type , channel surfing.
[A cellphone "rings" and "vibrates" on the wooden side table making an even stranger noise]
Akshay outstretches his hands and picks up the phone and talks into it like people usually do.
If you where present there you would have heard the following :

Akshay - Hello, Was sup in college?
Akshay - What!! MIT is on strike. You're joking right ?[in disbelief]
Akshay - No way ,All of Second Year Engineering !![in disbelief again]
Akshay - Police and all came , God this is simply unbelievable !
Akshay - Their demanding 34 grand back!! awesome !!![come on this is too good to be true]
Akshay - How come I always miss out on the fun?
Akshay - Yes I'm coming back to Poona tomorrow. See you in College. Ciao!

The next day...
Tuesday,7th of September.
Mumbai-Pune Expressway,India.


Times of India , Pune
- page 3 -
[Reads]
MIT students boycott class in protest against fee

PUNE: Close on the heels of engineering students from the Maharashtra Academy of Engineering, Alandi protesting against the "steep" fee structure, their counterparts at the Maharashtra Institute of Technology (MIT) at the Kothrud campus on Monday boycotted classes demanding an immediate refund of excess fees collected by the college management.
Over 300 students from the second year, who gathered in the college campus early ,Monday morning, said they will continue with their agitation till the management agrees to comply with the fee structure determined by the Shikshan Shulka Samiti headed by retired high court judge RA Jahagirdar, and refunds the excess amount already charged from them.

Clouds overcast,a blue Neeta Volvo bus yonder ,passes by you in a flash.
Little does our protagonist know that you are watching him as he sits on seat number 22 reading The Da Vinci Legacy (a da vinci code clone) which by the way for your information he is still reading.
As the bus moves closer to it's destination we switch locations to the Campus of Maharashtra Institute of Engineering , where the strike is entering it's second day .The Management has agreed to refund Rs.20,000 of the Rs.34,000 demanded by the students .The students refuse and the strike continues with sloganeering in high pitch.

1300hrs :
Akshay reaches the campuss greated by the shouts of a hundred of his fellow students.
They shout -
"Refund!!! Refund!!!"[as if it where a football chant]
followed by
"Ganapati Bapa Mooriya amche paise vaapas diya [Marathi]" (Give are money back)
In all the excitement and the adrenaline of the mob ,Akshay joins in the festivities,only to recieve a hundred missed calls form his mother asking him not to get involved.But Akshay being the stubborn buffoon that he is dives right in , you know what they say once you're wet might as well get drenched.


{to be contd}

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I felt like Alice in Wonderland on Magic Mushrooms.


Went back to school today, it’s been three years .The feeling was strange to say the least .It was like meeting a old friend who you where once very accustomed to but now don't meet anymore .You remember all the good and bad times you shared and that nostalgia leaves you into a surreal place .

Today, 6th September is celebrated in India as Teachers day, a day where students everywhere pay tribute to their gurus and being in Bombay I decided to visit school for old times sake. I thought it would be nice to share some of my thoughts and feelings on the visit.
Firstly as I mentioned it was kind of surreal . On the drive there I had this feeling at the bottom of my stomach , the kind of feeling you get in a school bus or when you don’t know anything in your applied mechanics paper.

nostalgia.

A bittersweet longing for things, persons, or situations of the past.

Walking through the countless corridors ,the opens halls and emptily filled classrooms it was like sleep walking into the past .My first observation was that everything looked smaller .It was like someone had drawn a box around place with their mouse and did a 2x zoom-out .Was it that everything had grown smaller or was it that I had grown bigger or was it a little of both ?
For any reason beyond my microscopic intellect I felt like Alice in Wonderland on Magic Mushrooms.
Moving on

The question was why where all the girls who where also visiting dressed in the summer prep line?
All of them flaunting it in their “Mango Addict:” T-shirts. Consumer Nation I tell you.
Not that I’m complaining .
Bohemian Rhapsody playing in my head followed my radiohead’s There There .


Things Change

The More things change ,the more they stay the same. Things have changed so much but in my head there just the same . Same old same old.
It’s typical isn’t it.

Ending where I began ,I went back to school but I came back.

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For all those people who don't know Fiat 118 Ne looks like here's a picture.
This is in relation to the post Cobras in small outdated Italian Cars with Schumacher at the wheel

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BitTorrent taking P2P by Storm

Hello ,from a bruised and battered me.
Had to stay home today and miss out on college and the quiz at Ferguson because of my swollen leg.
So I'm stranded at home all alone as usual,
this really sucks.

I found this awesomely new P2P client called BitTorrent .
Kazaa's days are numbered ,this software is simply to great to be true and did I mention fast.
BitTorrent a brain child of Bram Cohen , better known for CodeVille .
Bittorrent has a very efficient mechanism which gives its edge over Kazaa and it's also very simple to use.
It's works on a process called Swarming where a file is broken up into several parts for easy circulation.
To start sharing a certain file , a .torrent file is created by a user which is spread by the usual method.
Anyway it's just such a great client .
I use the one called Bitspirit.
which can be download at www.lanspirit.com

Note --- I'm so sorry for all these typos

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Cobras in small outdated Italian Cars with Schumacher at the wheel??.


On a personal note , I nearly died today.
This the second or so time in these many weeks.
I was Caught from behind by a Fiat 118 Ne and then was dragged across the gravelly road with my skin run through a sort of paper shredder.
A very FUN experience.
On a happier note I'm alive with no bones broken .
I bet this is a CIA / ISI / KGB / Mossad name the agency ,
sponsored conspiracy against me.
First cobras, then small outdated Italian Cars
What next Cobra's in small outdated Italian Cars with Schumacher at the wheel??.
Actually thats a little two Kill Billish.
I live to survive another day!!

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First Cobras


Most people must have heard of Rudyard Kipling and no I would not pretend to be him just to make my blog more readable.
That would kind of be like my freind H.G Wells who is reachable at H.G Wells Represents.
The only reason I'm reminded of Mr. Kipling is a Book he once wrote.
More speciffically a story from The Jungle Book , Rikki Tikki Tavi.
Why Riki Tikki Tavi ??
A good question, dear reader .For the answer we must jump into a stort incident which happened to me a week before yesterday.
I was driving into the cul de sac I call home, parking at my regualar spot ,right at the end of the dead end by the heap of collected dead foliage.A place not blessed with proper lighting in the night but a place blessed with a silence that comes with darkness.The time, being rather late to be coming back from college as it is ,the excuse drama practice.
I rode in with my headlight blazing easing off the corner accellerating steadily and than breaking till I gently glided to a stop at the end.
Getting off my bike , I stand there face to face with a snake .
No ordinary snake I remind you ,a cobra.
He stood there gawking at me with his magical eyes , time stopped ,my nuerons screeming for a response form my now panicing mind.
Looking at the this beauty of a snake , don't get me wrong I don't particularily adore snakes but just looking at this awesome specimen of nature made a strange feeling of awe overcame me.
And then there was fear,
dude this snake could do serious harm to me , I have seen all the documentaries and the collective national geographic/discovery channel in my head was telling me to
back up , nice and simple... Nice Cobra Nice Cobra and a occasional down boy as he was hissing in a calm and somewhat seductive manner.

So I backed off slowly at first and then I ran , I ran till I reached my gate
Happy to live and tell the tail without the help of any anti-vemon..
Anyway the story isn't over .
Then the next day when I decide to park my scooter on a differrent spot guess who I meet ,a mongoose.A rather large rodent like creature with a long bush tapering tail.

I found this very interesting ,
Forgive me I just a city boy a boy who is not used to wildlife around his own sanctuary, forgive the pun.Thing is nothing has changed I still stay in technically a city of 4 million people , Pune but I still share my yard with a Mongoose and a Cobra and many other nocturnal inhabitants I haven't had a pleasure of meeting (these include bats).
Thus to end and draw a connection , I have my very own Ricki Ticki Tavi ..
But I prefer to call him just Ricki.

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What I feel about Indo-Pak Reunification


What I think on reunification really doesn't really matter. My microscopic thoughts will never make a difference.
But after listening to the sometimes redundant reasoning to 52 different speakers on the topic I'm bound to have a perspective idea on the matter.
Most will dismiss the idea on it's face value, stating mutual distrust , religion and sometimes even hate..
For example when I told one person in my class that ,I was speaking against Indo-Pak Reunification... He was went on an Anti-Pak spree saying.
"Woh Salle Pakistanis" (Those Pakistanis >> where "Salle" is a derogatory word)
I know he did not mean it's just the media in both the countries spread this mutual mistrust.Thus it's almost cool to bash the other country.Degrade them on each others national television ,it's a sort of entertainment,it the perennial coffee table conversation everyday people have , all segments of society.

The thing is people are fickle minded and their thoughts on subjects change like a compass changes direction.

And there is one thing I can say with certainty that things that seem impossible today will become possibilities tomorrow.

The same is the case with the "India - Pakistan" relationship ,these two countries were one in 1947,before partition (for those who don't know the history here's a link
Partition of India)
and hopefully can become one in the future burying their past differences.

Who would have predicted in 1944 that Europe would stand united as the largest bloc of countries going into the 22nd Century?
It would have been just a dream a dream of a few.
A dream they worked on and brought to reality the same is the case with India Pakistan Reunification .
It is just a dream ,but if we work on it CAN become a reality.

Certum est, quia impossibile est

(It is certain because it is impossible)
-Tertullian (c. 160-c. 230)

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