Random clicks -01

One day when i was watching out of my window i saw a group of labourers getting ready for their work for that day to concrete a second floor of  the house about 50 meters away and without thinking just clicked few pictures of the same.

Concrete bucket lift being assembled using scaffolding rods

Women labourers carrying concrete for pour

From morning to evening the gang completed the pouring of concrete of the second floor with just a break of 30 minutes for lunch.

Made to order baby????

Recently a Chennai couple looking to start their family has placed an online advertisement looking for sperm donors for artificial insemination but with specific conditions. Before I go into the advertisement placed by them I would like to touch upon a little background on the artificial insemination process. Every parent would aspire that their child should be intelligent and good looking but then nature and genetics take precedence in this process. If a couple is not able to conceive naturally for any reason then artificial insemination is the process is undertaken if the couple wishes to have a child. Mankind has been fascinated by the process of pregnancy and has experimented extensively to perfect the insemination process so as to bring a bundle of joy to the childless couples.

But then there have been experiments by few doctors in this field to conceive a super human being by using sperms or eggs of the intelligent, brave, handsome and beautiful people living during those eras. It is well documented that Dr Karl Clauberg and his assistant Johannas Golbel of Germany, during the Second World War were conducting many experiments of artificial insemination on the imprisoned Jewish woman so as to perfect the process so that a untainted Aryan race could be born. This reminds me of the old joke involving the chat between George Bernard Shaw and Marilyn Monroe, wherein Marilyn tells that a child between two of them would have her beauty and GBS’s brains and his response was “what if the child has my beauty and your brains”. There is no recorded evidence of the child being born by artificial insemination being progeny even though the donor had been endowed with very high IQ. It clearly proves that even if you tweak the process, the nature and genetics would take its course and decide the final characteristic of the child that is born.

Coming back to the recent online advert, the conditions imposed by the couple were that “the donor should be an IIT student, healthy, no bad habits, tall and fair if possible” and the compensation offered is Rs 20,000.00 which is a lively sum for students in college. This advertisement has given rise to lots of resentment among the students of IIT Chennai and also the general public who has come across this bit of news because of the conditions imposed.  Some of the comments were “This is insane. How can sperm from an IITian make any difference? Intelligence cannot be measured. You can only identify intelligence in a person, but one cannot measure intelligence by the institution he comes from,” said a second year student” & “This advertisement is ridiculous. I think IIT brand name is taken out of context here. May be genetics do play some role, but hard work makes a man intelligent. If they were right, Albert Einstein’s relatives should be the brightest of all in the world. Excellence is mostly hard work,” another student said.

It is quite surprising that an educated couple is bench marking only students in IIT to be intelligent, tall, and fair, for I personally know few IITians who have struggled to complete the course even though they fared well in the entrance exams. Few Childless couples wanting to have babies through artificial insemination think that they can determine the characteristics of their baby by deciding the donor….similar to ordering the toppings while order the pizza from Pizza hut or Dominos, but then they have to understand that nature and genetics has a major role in this matter otherwise I am sure each child in the society may have been a Newton, Einstein, John McEnroe or a Mohammad Ali

Your take on this bit of news please!!!!

Today's Special Menu - AuMd (Gold plated Dosa)

Gold has been a valuable and highly sought out precious metals Jewels, coinage and art long before the beginning of recorded history. Due to its malleability, electric conductivity, resistance to acids and chemical reaction Gold has other practical uses in addition to jewelry such as in dentistry, Electronics, electrical wiring, colored glass productions and finally eating.

Now you must be wondering that I must be mad…..but hey Read here about the Gold plated Dosa at Bangalore. People are queuing to eat the gold plated dosa at a cost of Rs 1011.00 each which does not have any medicinal value but just a show of opulence.  After reading the article I googled about gold plating on eatable and I was surprised to see that this is not a new fad and in fact has been used in world over in form of flakes or powder to add a perception of luxury and high value. They are used in various desserts and confectioneries in Asian countries similar to silver foils used on mithai in India. From the 16^th century Europe has used gold leaf in liquors such as Goldstrike from Amsterdam, Schwabach from Germany and Danziger Goldwasser of Poland. 

Since metallic gold is inert to all body chemistry, has no taste and no nutrition value it would leave the body unaltered and am sure that someone even more enterprising at Bangalore would start a process for separating this precious metals from the human refuse …thought of it is quite sickening .aaaaaghh

Food for your thoughts !!!!!!

Six months off ....a sad state of affairs

Newspaper today carried a story about the number of Holidays in Government offices in Tamilnadu and other states of India.Based on this news most government offices in India except for Revenue, Police, Health, Transport departments work just about six months a year. Additionally the time wasted by the employees taking long tea/lunch breaks, gossiping and procrastinating cuts down the effective working hours of the office to 5-6 hours per working day .There is absolutely no accountability for delays in governance and the cost overrun thereof .This certainly takes its toll on the efficiency and there is no mechanism or a system to measure the productivity of the Government sector. 

General public is aware of the delays and pitfalls they encounter in a government office and to avoid these they are prone to grease the palms of the government official to speed up the processing of their papers ... an indirect catalyst to bribery. Lok Pal bills if passed would only be a tool to curtail the bribery but it does not address the root cause of the problem... inefficiency and accountability. There needs to be an immediate change in the way the Government operates, should India aspire to become a fully developed nation in the near future. Why not follow the rules and regulations being used in Private sector where an employee need to work for nearly 10 hours a day 6 days a week for over 280 days a year since deadline and targets are sacrosanct and stiff penalties are levied for non performance. 

I know that this is a very difficult task to be undertaken as there would be lots of objections and  protests from the government sector employee unions and other bodies who are used to easy life and easy money. 

Hope there is a change for good in the coming years.

Figament of Imagination !!!

A link posted by my cousin on face book about a bar being tended by Buddhist monks where the bartender lends his sympathetic ear to your worries and sob stories. They would patiently listen to all you have said and finally would give their counsel and advice should you care to follow it. Here is the link to that story.Buddhist Bar at Japan

What if a similar theme catches up in India?? I let my imagination to soar to a Hindu bar and I visualized that.….we would have bars being tended by half naked poojari’s or the priests, walls of the bar adorned by photographs of all deities instead of scantily clad women or of drinks and background chants of Vedic mantras and religious songs in place of fast remix numbers. New cocktails like the ancient drinks Somras, Sura would become the rage of the drinking public. However a subtle difference in case of such bars in India would be that the bartenders would not be sympathetic compared to the Buddhist monks. Further I am sure they would give counsels involving some pooja to be conducted by them during their free time to ward of worries and pains in one’s life.

Just imagine a normal Indian telling his wife that he is not feeling good and he needs to go to a bar and have a chat with the priest about the current happenings and what the stars foretell for the future…plus couple of drinks . Hahahaha sounds funny.

This post no way demeans any persons or religions but just a figment of my  Imagination!!!