The Atheistic Prayers!!!

I had told myself that I will blog when this happens again. The last two times I was disturbed but not disturbed enough to blog, the third time has given me the required push. Let me introduce you to the characters in this story

Mr.Y : My good friend; sworn atheist; reads-practices and advocates Richard Dawkins to everyone
Mrs.Y : Of course my friend's wife, also a sworn atheist, in fact they got married partly because they were impressed by the "atheistic characteristics" of each other.

Not that it matters much, but to set the background, they are both Brahmins, they defied(fought with) their parents and married in (what they thought was) the atheistic style - just signed at the registrars office, exchanged rings and organized a lavish dinner party for friends.

I argued with him a lot to make some concessions for his parents and get married at a temple or at least have a few prayers but he was adamant about upholding his atheistic freedom and argued it was because educated people like him and me give in to pressure from society that 'the myth' of 'organized' religion was getting stronger and 'hurting' so many.

5 years have passed since this argument, He settled in Toronto and we  have had multiple more arguments about religion, vedanta and stuff like that. He has always, always maintained that Dawkins is the smartest and that religion is the root cause of all evil. He even ridiculed me when I talked about prayer and stuff but in spite of all that  we have still remained good friends who agreed to disagree about religion.

Mrs. Y gave birth to a  baby gal recently and Mr.Y sent me an invite for the baby's ayushhomam and punyavachanam. (the prayer for long life of the baby and the naming ceremony respectively) . I 'smiled' and sent them my very best wishes. I would have stopped there and would have not written this blog. But he did a big mistake, one he shouldnt have done - he shared a video of the function with me.

You see , seeing him and his wife pray for the child's good health and long life, seeing them do all the prayers required for the ceremony so diligently, seeing them apply sacred ash on the child got me really disturbed. Normally it wouldn't have mattered cos that's what parents do when they have kids. But this couple who have always maintained that religious people are hypocrites, that religion is evil that there is no God and prayer is stupid and those who denied their parents the joy of having some prayers in their kids wedding - were now all pious when it came to their kid. They paid a good deal of money to fly their mothers to Toronto for the function, hired priests in Canada paying them in dollars for the function but have for years argued with me that spending on religion is foolish and a waste , especially when you can give that money to the poor and needy.

I guess the moral of the story is atheist or theist when people are scared about something( sometimes their kids well being) - they need God(or someone powerful who can support them).

I am not against people being atheistic, in fact in many ways atheism is good(more on that late). But what irks me off(confuses me, astonishes me)  is how people can so strongly, passionately argue about a topic for years and suddenly switch their allegiance overnight. Note: This is the third time so far in my life, when a sworn atheist friend of mine has religious done his kids punyavachanam.

Cheers,
--Badri--

I am extremely ashamed that I am from TamilNadu

"Madras is the best city in the Universe" I used to say whenever people told me it was hot, there was acute water scarcity or that the autowalas were all crooks. I loved the city and was always proud to be from TamilNadu. In spite of the fact that I dont have words to describe it , TamilNadu is just different.

But today after watching this video

http://bit.ly/7W2hvL

Of an injured cop begging for help and being left unattended by "Ministers" of the state, I am convinced my state has gone to the dogs. Any "human" with some amount of "common sense" would have taken the cop to the nearest hospital in his/her car. The ministers could have also used their influence to arrange for immediate and proper care for the injured. But all they did was call for an ambulance 8 min after seeing the victim in pain and arrange for the victim to be carried to the hospital 20min after they reached the site. WORSE: they said thats the best they could do Fing Morons

"http://bit.ly/78HMXM"

The victiom was a cop, he was attacked by criminals, this man was working for the government, the public, trying to make our lives betters and Ministers whom we voted into power did NOTHING to save this man.

If these two morons are not punished for their FELONY , we can safely conclude that TamilNadu has gone to dogs and is one of the most inhospitable places in the universe.

--Badri--

Is this love ???

Disclaimer : Had these flow of thoughts lost night and they sounded good in my head, so wanted to write them down as a story, but as soon as I started writing down the story the thoughts got garbled and this emotional junk alone remained. Read at your own risk!!!

It was surely not love at first sight, I am pretty sure the first time we saw each other we instantly developed a deep hatred for each other. I loathed everything about her , the way she looked the way she treated people, everything.

But slowly things changed , I guess the more you interact with a person the more you start liking them. Its not a liking that comes because you find their traits good, in sync with your expectation but because you know them well enough to ADJUST. I guess thats the magic word, I learnt to ADJUST with her and our relationship improved.

The more time I spent with her, the more I learnt. Nah , she wasnt pedantic, I mean not always, but she had her own unique way of teaching me stuff and I loved it. I loved it cos I was learning and I loved it because I found her form of teaching absorbing.

A few years of association and then cupid's arrows struck. I dont know how it happened. Whenever someone inquired about our relationship I maintained that I just liked hanging out with her and it was nothing serious and I had no plans of settling down. But something changed , I dont know what, but I knew this, that the more time I spent with her the more I started falling for her.

There were others like her who were more beautiful, they even treated me better. They were nicer to me and let me go the way I wanted . She on the other hand used to tease me, irritate me a lot, confuse me, leave me stranded, in spite of all this I loved her. Perhaps I loved her because of all this, I dont know and I dont want to know, the fact is I was in love after a long long time and I was enjoying the feeling. But I was scared.

The previous time I was in love felt great too but sadly it dint last, we are still good friends and it sucks. So I was afraid this one would have an abrupt ending too and we will end up becoming "good friends". Also the last relationship I had ended around the same time I started telling everyone about it without asking her where she was in our relationship. So this time I was silent about my feelings. I dint want anything to disturb the peace I felt, I had only once been in a relationship and I knew fully well that being in love feels way better than being committed.So I wanted to let this feeling linger as long as it could.

Three years ran by and the feeling lingered, I never went past "I loved her" and she never said anything. Also all this while, I never tried to find out how she felt about me, but I presumed she liked me, she got more friendly, she cared more, she showed her frustration when I did things she dint like and I loved that I could frustrate her, her frustrations were beautiful too.

But this time, fate had different plans, even though I maintained silence we got separated, partly because I got attracted, to someone else I thought would be a better match and partly because it wasn't meant to be. Even though I tried to "move on" I rued everyday that I wasn't with her. Slowly the sorrow vanished and was replaced by a void that dint feel anything, dint know what the initial feelings were it just occupied a place in my heart and made me uncomfortable.

9 months after my separation fate arranged for a meeting between us, It was sudden and it was amazing. The moment my eyes saw her, I jumped in joy like a small kid who just received a fire truck(boy kid) as a gift, she just smiled , her most frequently used reaction and the one which I feared the most, for it hid lot more than it revealed. We spent 2 great days together and this time separating ways was easy or so I thought. So we said our good bye, we decided to remain friends and parted ways.

10 hrs after parting ways with her my heartaches, I cant stop thinking about her, I cant stop thinking how happy I felt in her presence, how at peace i was.....


--Badri--

Dont you dare gripe again!!!

In the last one week, in spite of the several assignments that needed completion, the resume building and the job applications and yada yada yada there have been things that have cheered me up and made me feel good. The chief among those is that several of my classmates are stopping by to say

"hey you are looking different" ?
"whats new have u put on weight" :-(
"whats up u are looking good man, new hair do or what" :-)
"hey badri looking smart yaar, putting on weight but looks good" :-)

The best part of it is that a few of those classmates who complimented my new looks are gals :-)

Anyways here is my analysis on why perhaps I am looking "good" ;-)

i) I used to sport a beard for a long long time but recently decided to do away with it
ii) I havent had a hair cut but i started combing my hair (yes i attended classes for 6 months without combing hair and with a beard)
iii) I have been wearing formals, business casuals the last few days cos of some meeting or the other.
iv) and finally this is what I would like to believe , there is an old tamil proverb that goes "agatthin azhagu mugaththil theriyum" (the state of the mind is reflected in the face).
Recently i made a decision to be free from all worries, I decided that irrespective of where i land up and where i am headed i wont gripe, I decided that I will follow the "happy go lucky" strategy. Why this sudden awakening, i was going through my blogs and realized i have griped a lot over the last 6 months(I am sorry u guys had to put up with it :-) ) and that all this griping is bringing me down and making me depressed.

Anyways bottomline i would like to believe that the change in attitude and the positive energy is reflecting on my face and making me look good.

So here is my new moto "Dont u dare gripe again"

Cheers,
--Badri--

P.S: I have put on weight , 2kgs of excess fat thanks to Pizzas with extra cheese

A blog post a month!!!

The 4th term was kinda slow and a bit boring too. The zealous participated in several competitions and won several "spikes"(spike - a line you need in ur resume to get good placements). Sloths like me slept our way through since no subject other than INVA(investment analysis) had any subject matter in it there was really no need to study so things were cool and contrary to popular belief a few of ISB had loads of time to rest at ISB.

GSBC(government, society and business .. wateva) turned out to be the worst exam i have taken in my life time, truck load of totally useless info to mug and all you got was 25 marks (thats if u remembered all you mugged). The syllabus was sadistic and the exam was a mockery of MBA but who said its all going to be 5 on 5 , there are a few 3 on 5s and hence the avg rating of 4 on 5 for term 4.

The study group from core term(the first 4 terms) submitted its last assignment , yet again S skipped the study group meeting, I was depressed , not being too emotional but felt it wud have been good to finish as a group. But again thats how study groups work. Its a mini world there among the 5, there is competition amongst us, we dont like each other, we hide key info abt studies from each other and pretend we never knew, we gripe about each other to folks outside the grp, nobody works more than 40% but yet everyone thinks they did the most work, but yet we smile when we meet, giggle and praise each other :-) nah not all study groups are this bad some are worse. ;-)

Blew about 1500 INR on darden innovation challenge, learnt one valuable lesson though you cant innovate when people want to get things over with and give up saying "I dont have an idea you come up with one else we key in something"(the lesson only cost me a day of my holidays and rs.1500)

Evaluated about 30 application for prospects of class of 2010, felt good and nostalgic. Glad i only faffed in such a way that i got thru, many of the 30 had faffed so blatantly that even i could figure them out. Learnt a lot from looking at all those applications, no jokes here, for one thing i learnt how much potential there is in india, many of the applicants were well accomplished and with diverse accomplishments.

well now u shud have kind got some idea on why i blog only once a month, nothing much happened in the last one month to make for good posts.

cheers,
--Badri--

Depression Dancing!!!

disclaimer : gripe

"Red carpet" thats the theme of the party thats currently rocking ISB. gentlemen and ladies from the class of 2009 dressed in their finery, shaking a leg along with the faculty.

But somehow the party made me feel depressed. I went around the dance floor a couple of times and walked back to my room, Its been a long long time since i went into a state of depression so in an ironic way i am enjoying this depression. But what is it that has been preventing me from dancing in the last 3 parties , what is it that has lead to a severe loss of confidence, what is it that is affecting my focus and performance, what is it that is bringing down my energy levels? Several questions but one answer. ;-) Anyways partying dint seem to be the right thing to do when one has so many questions to hunt answer(s) for.

Something else happened today for the first time in a few months, someone walked up to me and said be humble man , you are outgrowing your boots. I have made a conscious effort to stay humble the last couple of years after i received a similar comment a few years back. I was surprised that i have still not succeeded after so much practice and of course i felt very upset. But yes this incident lead to the depression although it was the tipping point.

Our mid terms are scheduled this week, in about 4 -5 days from now , so the folks partying out there are making sure they unwind as much as possible, sad though that i am not able to loosen up :-( :-(

--Badri--

Of Rat Race and Preterms at ISB!!!

April 24 - Day 13 at ISB inauspicious you could say . It has been in a way, I am running low on enthu, something crept into me that says ISB is just another "Indian" school. Nah i dont mean to insult India or ISB by any means, but its just a thought , mebbe when i pass out if you cross me i will give u a totally different opinion.

Some how everything i see the folks (the majority) doing seems to be gearing towards the rat race , acting "smart" in class, asking utterly useless doubts (neither contributing to class or themselves), PR building to run for presidents of various clubs and activities, getting into cliques and working secret "strategies of combat" and above all wanting to go to consulting and especially mckinsey.

I was hoping i will discover my strengths and weaknesses, realize whats my passion and here i will see a class that has wide variety of interests. But then cant blame them either its our schooling and the way we are brought up. And yesit must be noted that i am a part of the system too and i behave much the same way.

Another note worthy thing was the discipline part, we are divided into sections and although it would be impossible to switch sections during core terms during pre terms it is possible and very easy too , since there is no attendance marked. So people switch sections at their will, making it a tad inconvenient for others to find seats also several attend the preterms without having paid the preterm fee (atleast thats what i hear several griping ;-) ). now that begs a question at ISB one of the leading schools arent folks expected to be more disciplined or ethical ? well u might want to pose the question as, is doing this unethical ? ..... hmm so lets just agree its a thing of perception .

Also from another angle, while we are at preterms I really cant understand why ISB cant make the preterms free.

--Badri--

P.S : did u notice the change in the title

Gals, Sponsorship, Dumb Guys etc

I am sure you have come across this not so great looking gal to whom at least 4 different guys have proposed so far. That wonderful babe around the corner who has an exquisite collection of teddy bears, perfumes, pens and watches from different guys.

It amazing how just being a gal and being socially active can be wonderfully beneficial(sorry i had to chose this word for the lack of knowledge of better english -corrections appreciated)

I have never been able to fathom why, why does a pretty babe get so many gifts from so many guys all of whom know that they dont stand a chance at getting married to her. I mean these guys are just "good friends of her" who think its ok to spend Rs.7000 on a swatch watch for " just a friend" for no reason what so ever.

I have never come across scenarios where guys gifted other guys such expensive gifts unless of course they were thick friends and it was someone birthday or anniversary or some such occasion.

Now that makes me wonder if what Harry says in "When Harry met Sally" is true "men and women can't be friends because the sex part always gets in the way. ". May be what varies between various relationships between men and women is the degree of impact of this 'sex part' . I can understand when guys and gals are rakhi bros and sis or related in some way , like friends wife, distant cousin etc, now the relationship has a name and the 'sex part' is diffused a bit (degree of diffusion directly proportional to the degree of respect of the relationship)

Again from when Harry met sally -

"Yes, that's right, they can't be friends. Unless both of them are involved with other people, then they can... This is an amendment to the earlier rule. If the two people are in relationships, the pressure of possible involvement is lifted... That doesn't work either, because what happens then is, the person you're involved with can't understand why you need to be friends with the person you're just friends with. Like it means something is missing from the relationship and why do you have to go outside to get it? And when you say "No, no, no it's not true, nothing is missing from the relationship," the person you're involved with then accuses you of being secretly attracted to the person you're just friends with, which you probably are. I mean, come on, who the hell are we kidding, let's face it. Which brings us back to the earlier rule before the amendment, which is men and women can't be friends. "


Now back to my doubt - do gals get all these gifts and proposals cos

i) guys are desperate
ii) the sex part is out there somewhere
iii) she is a gal and any gal always attracts some men thats the rule of nature.

And why why why am i griping about all this , god how i wish i achieved the thoughtless state.

--Badri--

4 years since the tragedy !!!

Aug 21 2003 , slightly intimated by things that were in store and still recovering from a recent illness I set foot in my first IT(software) job . A small step for me , a giant turnaround for my life. Yday I completed 4 years in IT and when I look back at all that has happened, although there were mixed emotions the one that seems to dominate is a sense of tragedy. :) .

No jokes, well there is lot of money, too much comfort, some thinking to do and all that, but at the end of a day when u take life as a whole its so much beyond what one can do in an IT job. There is no feeling of having grown, nah promotions and change in title are trivial, meaningless things, like toys to kids, they can be fun for a while but in the long wrong they really arent signs of growth. Growth in salary is always good but if rs.1k increase means u are growing then when do u decide u have fully grown. Then there is responsibility growth but after 4yrs in IT and coming to place where i manage some small projects i am always left wondering how thats responsible. Sure there are people dying out there, children who are homeless and hungry and me writing java code or monitoring 10 people writing java code that monitors phone calls is responsible. I dont mean to sound caring and all that , I am perhaps the most selfish guy u will come across. My point is that there is no feeling of accomplishment in IT.

May be its me , may be its the works i have done, may be its just the fate that was aligned that way. Wateva it may be i am left feeling its been 4 yrs of tragedy and a life full of potential is being forced to run in directions it shudnt be and speeds much slower than it can. :) :) :) :) :)

unnum puriyalaya confused me tooo ;-)


cheers,
--Badri--

P.S: I celebrated yday with headache, bad health and moodiness .