Special grant to madrasas to celebrate Independence Day

Rediff reports that according to the 11th five year plan, madrasas will be given special grants to celebrate Independence day and Republic day. WTF??

Dialogue

Location: A completely and totally deserted Science A building in University of Calgary
Actors: Yours truly and random, dressed to threaten man

YT is watching talk by Vandana Shiva on Bigpicture.tv. RDDTM is walking by the area and suddenly decides to accost YT.

RDTTM: Grrrr... hmmmm.. As-Salamu Alaykum
YT: (taken by surprise) hmmmm.. what?
RDTTM: Can't you understand? As-Salamu Alaykum.. Blah blah blah blah blah (says something in an unknown language)
YT: Sorry. I cannot understand your langauge.
RDTTM: (With a total sense of disbelief) Oh!! Where are you from
YT: (Giving him a stare and pausing for a few brief seconds) Heaven
RDTTM: What??? Which country are you from? Pakistan?
YT: No
RDTTM: Iran
YT: No. (Pausing again for a few seconds) Hmmm... India
RDTTM: Ohhhh.... (With a super scornful voice and look) oh... India..

and then RDTTM walks away.

I have been accosted by random people in such a not so comfortable manner in India but this is the first time in Canada. Was fun!!

Meri Maa

This song from 'Taare Zameen Par' absolutely kills. Anyone who has seriously experienced depression due to loneliness can relate to this so well. Stories of loneliness, stories of depression are'nt helpful to relate. First hand experience of loneliness, first hand experience of seeing so many faces around but none to talk, first hand experience of a desperation inside for some stranger to talk to you and enquire about you is needed. If you have that, you certainly can relate to this.

Tips to avoid procrastination in grad school

• Setup your favorite browsers homepage to your supervisors web page

• Get a photo of your supervisor and put it on your desktop

• Change the alias of all your friends on your instant messenger to your supervisors name.

• Get your friends to threaten you that you will be washing chopsticks in some restaurant if you don't work.
  

Unless you are extremely inventive in identifying means to procrastinate, this will help a great deal. :D

Money

50hrs a week we spend
on work with no useful end
work which only enables us to spend
pointless to do that till life's end

We call ourselves mankind
sadly most of us are not kind
lifetimes go waste in search of richness
causing paucity of time and energy for kindness

Food we eat when hungry
but money we search even when not needy
food we stock for its lifetime
money we stock for our lifetime
the more food we eat, the less we need
the more money we earn, the more we need

Consciously getting out of this madness
shifting ones consciousness from richness
and placing it on kindness
will cull mankind's sadness

Wish I could open up to my blindness
my blindness to my greediness
wish I could cull my madness
and chip in my two cents for the common happiness

It rained cats

An interesting tidbit that a friend alerted me to my mail - Operation Cat drop. This event so beautifully explains the interconnectedness of everything and how badly a incomplete view of nature can screw up things.

Unbroken continuum

Sense it
the unbroken continuum
that pervades and
that which is omnipresent
that which is between every pair of objects
visible and invisible

Between you and the tree out there
the tree and the bird above it
the bird and the sky above it
the sky and the sun above it
and between you and the sun too

Its right here
the continuum
right now
and its always been here
and will always be
can you sense it?

Gujarat CM roots for extra-constitutional killings!!!

Modi owns up Sohrab killing

Can Indian politics stoop lower? Is there a theoretical lower bound on how low they could go? So spookily reminds one of Hitler saying 'If the Jews didn't exist, we would have to invent them'.