Popped off

The king of pop has popped off. And in doing so, he has, albeit unwittingly, become a text-book example of the exquisitely loony priorities of our age.

The paper and paperless media world-wide dished out article after article on how... people responded to Michael Jackson's death, not really about his death at all. About how Madonna could not stop crying, about how x wailed his heart out, about how y drank his wallet out,... but little about Michael Jackson himself, the iconic weirdo of our times.

Sometimes, the media is the mirror of a society's soul.

Many happy returns of the Date!

Akshitha celebrated her 2nd Birthday on 21st June, 2009. It seems to be such a totally acceptable misnomer, this Birthday thing. For starters, we don't celebrate the Birthday, rather, the Birthdate. Next, it's not even the Birthdate, it's the anniversary of the Birthdate. Most poignantly, we blow out a candle to bring on darkness, rather than light a lamp to welcome the light of life to the celebration.

Either way, she rules the house.

NDE

Such is life. And death. A couple known to Jeet collapsed due to food-poisoning yesterday after having dined at Lotus Garden, a joint frequented by our whole gang. As of yesterday, the young son of 5 passed away. And today, his elder sister of 8. I can't imagine the situation of this family who has lost both children in the space of two days due to food,- something we associate with life rather than death. This has also to be a new dimension in food poisoning, and ironical considering that the Food Inspection Department is pretty strict as per the PR machinery. And to think, we ourselves were always overflowing with heady praise for this eatery.

The close psychological shave is that we were in Praji's brother-in-law's place the same day they dined there, and his house is just a phone's throw from the Lotus Garden. I actually suggested ordering from there, and was eventually voted out by the rest. Had we ordered from there, I don't know if I would be typing this now. A different kind of NDE. Aum Sri Sai Ram!

Living wisdom

Watched an incredible video yesterday at the Mandir. A question posed in the video was: Do you know how to get wisdom? Somehow, that question rattled for long in my mind. It seems perfectly ironic that the moment one stops thinking he knows, wisdom dawns. The same difference between living and live-ing.

Race Attack

For me, America is an expansive country,- in size, shape, thought and intellect.

They have now elected a well-toned black man to the Presidency, while just 100 years back, they were trading these types. It truly goes to show that, while the cancer still exists, the people are fighting it, both in the courts, and in their minds.

I don't know if the same can be said of India. I mean, how many high-caste individuals still feel that others can be equally human, and will eat in their houses? How many SC/STs have actually been elected CMs/PMs? India will have a longer fight against, caste, in addition to that against creed and currency. Obama used no privilege of any quota system. He went to Harvard. However, just as change has taken place in the US, seeds are being sown in the Motherland as well. Our generation, for example, is a lot less tunnel-visioned, and caste seems less of an issue than personal-ities. Albeit, for racism in its most refined form of casteism, our Motherland has to be the Fatherland.

Conviction in(spite of) Wall Street

It has to be America.

I was in Times Square last week, and Times Square is one incredibly big Triangle. You have like only-God-knows-how-many people moving, running, singing, sighing, kissing, staring at the free-falling indices, playing, praying and cursing.

What was most touching was that, in this very Fatherland of capitalism and consumerism, just a short distance form Times Square, and near Wall Street, there was this lady distributing pamphelts on vegetarianism and PETA. Of all things, vegetarianism. It could mean only one thing. America, for all its attributes, is the land of the free spirit. Of conviction. I doubt if that lady could change the concrete mindsets of anybody passing by her. But that didn't stop her. Conviction beyond convenience.

It has to be America.

R/Evolution

While in Boston, I was discussing with a doctor on a very interesting topic. He drew a comparison betwee computers and Medicine, and stressed that Medicine lags by lifetimes in terms of finding cures for diseases, while the computer industry has been incredible in the way they have broken through in technological developments.

Interesting. That, of all engineering disciplines, he chose the only one that is seemingly going through revolution after revolution. In Mechanical Engineering, technological revolutions take decades, while evolutions happen everyday. Like, the automotive industry has been feeding off oil for the last hundred years, while car speeds have increased. Only now do they think of solar and other forms. It could be the same for other traditional disciplines as well.

However, what's most interesting is that, we are comparing man to machine here. Mankind has taken millions of years to evolve to the current level of sickness. So, we can't expect instant breakthroughs. More importantly, in some ways, we are evolving backwards, The phase lag can only lag further.

Garbage-rating

One way of determining the level of ethical progress of your society is by installing my patented garbometer in your brain.

You just look around and count the number of segregations of your garbage bin. If it has got four or more, you can be sure that society is serious about ir/relevant concepts including global warming, Mother Earth, and deforestation.

If you have no segregation, you must be in the Middle East, or in the Sub-continent.

100% Lawsuit guaranteed

It seems the most commonly heard phrase on TV in the US is 100% satisfaction guaranteed. Are they a seriously dissatisfied population? I mean, you have automatic toothpaste vending machines, automatic curtains, automatic coolers, automatic heaters, automatic lighting, instant weight-loss, instant silicon-gain, instant whitening, instant tanning, instant money, instant pain-relief, an instant in an instant,... why do they require ads to always talk of 100% satisfaction guaranteed?

Which means someone has actually started quantifying satisfaction? Which means the lawyer profession in America has just landed on a potential jackpot here.

The Liberty Statute

It's been quite some time since I last visited my epad. Things have been happening inspite of my absence, like my body visited the US for a short period.

It's an interesting world out there. In many ways, the US encapsulates for your understanding, the best and the beyond worst of what civilization has to offer. Interestingly, civilization contains civil, which is probably a scary irony.

The place is the motherland of commercialism, capitalism, im/morality, spirituality, atheism, and, on the same note, of the free spirit. Nowhere else will you find gay couples and pastors preaching in the same park, and with both parties given equal liberty to do so. That probably sums it up. This truly is the land of liberty, with its concomitant (not very pretty) tagalongs.

Interestingly, the motherland of liberty does not seem to offer too much of freedom. Freedom of life is starkly different from freedom of expression. Having said that, freedom of expression is in itself a luxury. Like, for example, how many civil-izations will allow you to question religious practices and still leave you alive?