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!!!

Neither here nor there...floating in between !!!

Few days back was watching a TV program on a local channel about rebirth wherein the host who is a researcher hypnotizes the person and questions about the previous life of the person. Though a great topic the way it has been conducted does not create an interest among the viewers…no wonder it is a late night show. But the theme made me think of the space in between worlds where the wayward souls roam as ghosts trying to fulfill their unfinished dreams. I am not a believer of rebirth or the trapped souls but then I have heard some accounts first hand (I mean from the horse’s mouth as it is told) which are stranger than fiction. 

The first incident took place in the year 1981 at Baghdad, Iraq where I had gone as an Engineer to a company contracted to build a township at Al Baaya district of Baghdad. The construction area had a high ground water table and to avoid infusion of water the company was trenching the periphery of the site to draw out the water and pump it beyond the site boundary. The excavator operator John was assigned to cut the trench during the night since we were operating the project on a tight schedule and as usual we expected certain output by the time day shift operator is on duty to continue it further. But then we found that hardly any progress being done by the night operator. 

On enquiry we were told a strange story by the operator that as he was bringing down the excavator bucket to dig the trench he found a beautiful woman in an Abaya( for those who are not about Abaya it is as dress worn by Muslim women to cover their body)standing below the bucket and she is beckoning him to come out of the glazed cabin. During those days Iraq was at war with Iran and many of the Iraqi women did not have any men folks at their homes, were known to take lovers from the Indian workers. Our operator John was under the impression that the woman in front of the excavator was one of those women… and he was pleased. So he shuts down the machine and prepares to come out of the cabin to meet her… it is at this point of time that he notices that this woman’s feet is not on the ground ….but is floating just above the ground. Being a devote Christian he immediately understood that it is a ghost and he locked himself within the cabin. All subsequent attempts to excavate proved futile since each time the bucket was being lowered this woman used be beneath the same and laughing out loudly preventing him to complete the operation.

We did not accept the story since we were under the impression that the operator had too much to drink prior to his duty and was hallucinating. After a warning he was asked to continue the same work the next night but then similar thing happened and the next day operator stated that he is not willing to work anymore and wants to go back to India. We were joking and discussing this incident at the site office where we had few Iraqi engineers and office staff and they said that it is not a laughing matter as they do believe that Jinn (Ghost in Arabic) exists in this universe and it is quite possible that very Jinn has been interred in the ancient burial grounds that was adjoining the project site. 

While narrating this incident in a family gathering, my father said that a woman in white dress would float down and sit on his cycle carrier behind him when he cycled to his college and the way he narrated the story presumably of a ghost made our hairs stand up!!! I still cannot be sure whether the story is true or he was just pulling our legs.

The next I heard of a Jinn was from my colleague who insisted that his flat was occupied by one. He used to tell that there would be noises from the cub board and laughter from the other room and so forth. We used to make fun of him saying that he is hallucinating and yet he used to never waver from his belief that a Jinn resides in his flat.

The above post is no way demeaning the persons who believe in life after death or ghosts or Jinn but a recount of interesting incidents in my life!!!

Childhood Nostalgia

I have so much free time these days that I let my mind wander through its labyrinth of memories and I pen down some of those experiences here. My memories are quite hazy for all these happened nearly four decades back and each day I try to go back in times of sands and relive my childhood days. Forgive me for the gaps in the post since I have just broached on few incidents of my childhood which are not connected

 

“Sunday means I have to be careful”

Between the years 1967 and 1969 I have had numerous falls and accidents while playing and most of them have taken place on a Sunday. Those days at Bangalore the doctors and the clinics would be closed on a Sunday thereby I had to withstand the pain or discomfort till the next day’s visit to the doctor. I have had dog biting me, cut opening my scalp after a fall from slide in the part and lots of bruises and cuts on a Sunday. One of the major fall I had caused a compound fracture in my left arm and I still recollect that moment even today when my mother ran here and there to so many doctors houses requesting for a first aid towing a wailing me along. We were fortunate to find one orthopedic doctor in the locality and she took me there. The doctor straightened the arm by cracking the bone in two places and used two wooden rulers (scales) as splint and put a temporary cotton bandage and asked us to come to the hospital the next day morning for taking x-ray and plaster cast. The whole night I was in intense pain and I did not allow my parents to sleep at all. Next day morning at Victoria Hospital the bones were reset properly under anesthesia and the arm was cast in plaster of Paris….for a period of 3 months. This was the final straw in the patience of my parent and every Sunday was a taboo and I was subject to lots of restrictions that particular day for nearly 2 years after the incident.

“Cemetery trips for hunting birds”

Being a Brahmin it is taboo to enter a burial ground and yet I used to go with my friends almost twice or thrice a week into huge wooded cemetery adjacent to our house to hunt birds using catapult. For those of you who are not familiar with the catapult, it’s a hand held weapon and it has a V or Y handle with rubber slings and a patch of leather for holding the pebble or stone. The stone held in the patch is drawn back thereby stretching the rubber sling and when released the stone would travel quite fast to its target. I was pretty good with the catapult and during the hunts we would surely fell down at least two pigeons which would be taken by my accompanying friends for their dinner since I never used to have non veg food. There are times that my mom used to find about these trips and I would be forced to have a bath to cleanse myself. I had never been frightened by the ghost stories told by so many of my friends when they learn of my visits to the cemetery.

“My first love …an one sided one “

It was the year 1969 and we were playing cricket in my friend’s house compound and suddenly while fielding I saw a cute looking girl of my age smiling and glancing coyly. She was quite a looker and I was pleased that I was singled out among my friends by her. By the time we finished playing I could not find any trace of this girl in and around our place and I was walking around Wilson Gardens, Bangalore trying to locate her. After couple of days I was able to find out the house where this girl resided. Then on almost every evening I used to follow this girl singing the famous song of the time from the movie Aradhana …”Mere Sapano ki Rani kab aayegi tu “ and thinking back now it seems quite funny that at the age of 12 without any knowledge of sex I have been trying to woo the girl. Maybe the thought of having a girl friend stemmed from seeing my friends elder sisters and the romantic movies of those times. Well this ended within 2 months of start when I was confronted and warned by the girl and her friend of dire consequences and all the smiles and coy remarks by her was just for fun…..there went my first Love down the drains

A Quote which is quite apt to the experience comes to my mind and it is “First love is only a little foolishness and lots of curiosity”…