Obviously this post is a cliche..folks.. but then.. these are some things that seem to me as the best things in the world...

I'll start with the count down then...

10. Getting birthday presents.. !! ( May be because I don't get many of them....  just a Rs.5 Dairy milk neatly wrapped in gift wrapper.. every year.. )

9. It's raining, they declare holiday at school and you realize you get to sleep in early.. ( *sniff* .. miss my school.. )

8. Nature.. flowers, plants.. anywhere cool and green... love them..

7. Packing up and getting ready to go home when you're staying at the hostel... ( *shiver me timbers..*  I never want to relive that again.. the hostel part. I mean... )

6.  Pets.. puppies and kittens... just <3 them....

5.Meeting a best friend after a long time.. especially if it is somewhere unexpected..

 4.  My blue blanket!!! ( can't sleep without it.. )

3. Sitting alone..  reading, painting.. playing keys... sometimes.. I love hanging out all by myself..

2.



1. Getting to sleep in mom's lap after a hectic day...

Sure there are loads of other stuff.. some of which may be even better than the ones I've listed out.. but then.. these are my favorites in my own tiny fish bowl of a world..


P.S  For  those of you who wonder why that gold fish image popped up, well.. I was just too lazy to search for anything better.. apparently  most people don't hang out alone a lot..

P.P.S ... Number 2  on the list... I'll fill in as soon as I figure out something..

FAMILIES- REVISED

   I kind of got a writer's block, but this issue is something I wanted to talk about for a long time. It's a touchy subject and not a very pleasant one for me either. Please bear with me.

   I used to have qualms about being the kid of  a single parent. I won't really explain much, but that created quite a bit of social awkwardness, and sometimes I do think I've missed out a lot in life because of this. Also, I think this accounts for most of my weirdness. It's even more horrifying when I see kids in my situation, it is as if I'm seeing myself growing up. I feel so bad that I don't want anyone to end up in a situation like myself.
  Sadly there are even worse things. I do come across innumerable incidences of domestic abuse. Even though it may not be physical, most often words can also hurt as much. I've come across individuals living in homes where parents constantly quarrel with each other. I feel so terrible about them, and most us would be familiar with the extent to which domestic abuse hurts the kids.  

   These are just the worst case scenarios. Still there's some goodness left here on earth. We are lucky to have peaceful  & happy families, and I think that's one of the most wonderful things in this world anyone could have. I guess our world still survives because of that. Seeing them, I really do wish whole heartedly that there would be more & more families like that. 

   May be I see so many broken homes because of the way I am. For those of us who come from the better side of things, we can't be oblivious to the reality. Reality is that, things are changing. More families are being torn apart. The divorce rates are increasing even if it isn't a dramatic rise. More and more people are afraid of getting married. We are just left speechless, as kids these days end up doing unimaginable things. We play the blame game on mass media, gadgets etc. But what if the core problem lies at the heart of the society? Our families. 

   Today's average student pursues 'sex without strings & marriage without rings.' While this holds true in the western culture today, I don't think it'll be long before some people here start to think like that also. What is going to happen to kids then? I can't even bear to imagine.

 Feels as if we are building floor after floor in the tower of life while we ourselves are destroying the basement. 

   I confess I'm inexperienced to write about these things, but is all these because we have distorted the definition of love? As far as the movies & songs go, it is just a flutter of the heart, a surging emotion you get when you see your 'special someone'. 

 But what if love was something more? 'Love is as much a question of the will as it is of the emotion. And if you will to love somebody, you can'. Isn't that how our culture had survived all these ages? Today 'love' has become one of the most used & misused epithets ever known to mankind. 

   This is the post-modern age where quite a few people have gotten 'enlightened' and yearn to break free from their moral obligations. These situations haven't become apparent in our society very much. But it won't be long until things come out into the bright day light. I wish we'd pause & think about the consequences. Sure you can live as if everything's just relative, and you are free to do whatever you want. But what if the whole world decided to think like that? Can you just murder someone because you just feel like it? Or can you rape someone just like that and escape from the consequences of your actions? We'll just be left with the empty shells of our bodies, despairing each day, seeing no hope for our future. Each day our civilization crumbles into pieces, our hands are guilty with ruining the lives of our future generations. Won't we change?

Author's note: I realize I'm at risk if being contradicted heavily, and criticized. But if you do so, please be polite. Thank you :)


p.s I'm not generalizing in any way. There are still numerous families made up of wonderful people, there are still people who think values are important in life. The things I've spoken about, may be more apparent in western civilization, but they have started spreading their roots in our soil too and it won't be long before they take hold either. We can't ignore this fact. 

FAMILIES..

   I kind of got a writer's block, but this issue is something I wanted to talk about for a long time. It's a touchy subject and not a very pleasant one for me either. Please bear with me.

   I had a problem when I was a kid. Every time someone asked me about my father, I lied. As I didn't have a fixed excuse, pretty soon I got really confused by the numerous made up excuses. I didn't remember which excuse I made to which person. The whole thing was a mess. 

   My childhood days was when the concept of having a single parent was unheard. People understood if your parent died. But they didn't extend the same understanding when your parents were separated. I was pretty touchy about the fact I guess. 

   Sure there unavoidable reasons for getting divorced, but then, I think kids are more of the hapless victims here. I confess I'm a bit of a weirdo. But still now it is shocking to see kids like me. It's almost as if I'm seeing myself in them. And I sure don't want that to happen to anyone. Really.

   While this is quite depressing, there is one more thing which is still worse. We used to live near a family with three kids. It was a world war 3 everyday there. The father as well as the mother are alcoholics. They used to lock the kids inside a room and beat them up till they screamed. It was pure terror for me listening to them. One day the father decided to hang the youngest kid from the balcony because he suspected that his wife was having an affair. We were all afraid of them, so we couldn't interfere either. 

This is just one of the innumerable instances of domestic abuse, sadly. 
   These are just the worst case scenarios. Still there's some goodness left here on earth and people who do have a peaceful & happy family are indeed blessed. I guess our world still survives because of that. Seeing them, I really do wish whole heartedly there would be more families like that.

   But things are worsening even if insiduously. We are just left speechless, as kids these days end up doing unimaginable things. We play the blame game on mass media, gadgets etc. But what if the core problem lies at the heart of the society? Our families. 

   Today's average student pursues 'sex without strings & marriage without rings.' While this holds true in the western culture today, I don't think it'll be long before it takes hold in our soil too. What is going to happen to kids then? I can't even bear to imagine.

 Feels as if we are building floor after floor in the tower of life while we ourselves are destroying the basement. 

   I confess I'm inexperienced to write about these things, but is all these because we have distorted the definition of love? As far as the movies & songs go, it is just the flutter of the heart, a surging emotion you get when you see your 'special someone'. 

 But what if love was something more? 'Love is as much a question of the will as it is of the emotion. And if you will to love somebody, you can'. Isn't that how our culture had survived all these ages? Today 'love' has become one of the most used & misused epithets ever known to mankind. 

   This is the post-modern age where everyone yearns to break free from their moral obligations. But I wish we'd pause and think about the consequences. Sure you can live as if everything's just relative, and you are free to do whatever you want. But what if the whole world decided to think like that? Can you just murder someone because you just feel like it? Or can you rape someone just like that and escape from the consequences of your actions? We'll just be left with the empty shells of our bodies, despairing each day, seeing no hope for our future. Each day our civilization crumbles into pieces, our hands are guilty with ruining the lives of our future generations. Won't we change?

Author's note: I realize I'm at risk if being contradicted heavily, and criticized. But if you do so, please be polite. Thank you :)

WORST TV SHOWS EVER

 Well, TV shows are just shows I guess. But some shows really got on my nerves and as usual I decided to make a post about them.

 Guess this list might pretty much sum up all that's there on TV, but still..wouldn't hurt to post.

1. Soaps!!

    Besides being a colossal waste of time, the producers themselves don't know which direction the soap is going to take. Honestly, I've made my own survey, and realized in Tamil soaps especially, not a single episode goes by without crying. Why would we want to cry over someone else's fictional tragedies? I somehow don't get their point.

2. Reality contest thingies..

     I personally think they should be banned. Seriously..watching a bunch of people burst into tears at getting rejected? So not funny. Rejection hurts. It's universal. Just because we don't want to go up that stage, doesn't mean we can laugh at their suffering from the comfort of our home. 

   All those shows with kids as contestants? Child Labor!! Kids are supposed to enjoy what they do. If I like singing, I should do it because I like it. When I'm forced to sing, pressurized due to the harsh comments & getting audience votes, would I like it as much as before? Probably not. Most of these shows are just a war between parents trying to show off their expectations & kids end up as poor pawns, anyway. Just plain mean.

3. All those live match making shows :

        This is a sheer mockery of love. If falling in love with someone, going through the rest of the thingies, even marrying them, are just going to be in public display for a bunch of people and cameras who don't care an ounce about you..It isn't even mildly nice.. 

4. Talk shows 

     I don't really have a problem with most of the Oprah shows. If a cancer survivor is going to come on the show and talks about their experiences, well and good. But those that are in Tamil channels...Sheesh.. It's as if the people on show become victims of all those gossip mongers  who are there watching it. 

     There was a girl, who came on the show one day. She was telling how she still loved her ex, despite the fact that he ditched her and married another. As it happened, he was a serial heart breaker. The girl accepted this fact, but still was insistent and told " I know my guy. I can change him. Please let me talk to him. I want to live with him. " 

   As for me, I seriously doubted her sanity. Also, people deserve more than this, isn't it? I don't get what's the point in talking about this so openly in front of a bunch of strangers. We do have something called self - dignity, if I'm not mistaken.

5. South Park, The Simpsons

      This is taking sarcasm , irony a bit too much. Here's a guy singing a song about homo sexuality, so openly. And kids watch it. Apparently 9, 10 year olds (American kids ) voted this among the best shows. Is this something I'd want my kid to watch? NO. I'd rather my kid watch Disney Cartoons instead, if at all, they watch TV. Personally, I think it is one of the worst influences coming up on TV.

6. Wrestling??
       It's all fake anyway. Plus getting body slammed in real life isn't really fun. 


  So guess this list virtually excludes most of the TV shows except Discovery, Animal Planet, History Channel &c.. but then..just thinking..

POWER CUT...

   I figured we're all too familiar with this topic, but I suddenly got a bit obsessed about with it today. Finally I decided to make a post about it..

   I'd been trying to read Faust lately.. ( the guy who sold his soul to the devil..familiar? ) Anyway, there was a line which caught my eye..

Wagner : Sirrah, hast thou no coming in?

 Clown  :  And goings out too, as you may see sir

   In simpler terms, the clown is just telling he loses whatever he earns. In case you wondered what Faust and power cuts have in common, here's the thing. 

   Power cuts these days are cruel. My home town doesn't have power supply for more than 12 hours ( 4 in theory ). Here  just 2 hours a day seem like a million years. I just felt like going back in time when mankind hadn't invented electricity. But then, I decided it wouldn't work out like it did in the past. Reasons,

  1. Kerosene is rare these days. Anyway we'll just exhaust fossil fuels sooner, and finally we'll end up using bicycles, bullock carts.. for people like me who don't know how to ride a bicycle..Walking!!

 2. Going farther back in time, when we discovered flint stones and used wood for fire.. I don't think we can afford any more deforestation these days..We'd be just sitting in a big desert seeing mirages of trees. And mirages aren't a big help, right?

   Our Government has promised that these problems will be minimised once the nuclear power plant at Kudankulam starts operating. Fine..Since we haven't invented any economical way of producing power from renewable sources of energy,& I'm not in that field of study, I don't have the right to argue against it. I'll just be one of the many sitting ducks, living near a virtual time bomb. 

   Ok, bringing Faust into the picture now, as long as there are goings out, it makes no point to increase the comings in..isn't it? I know quite a number of people living in my neighbourhood who bribe  TNEB to escape paying electricity bills. They haven't paid their bills in ages..even a decade. And all those meetings of political parties with a zillion lights, cut-outs illuminating the night, speakers blaring way past mid-night..who pays those bills? Most of them tap power illegally from our lines only. May be I can't prove all these, but most of us are witnesses to street lamps glowing to light up the day, right?

   If power is just getting wasted this way, despite all our power saving measures (read : power cuts ), generating more power isn't going to solve this problem much. At least that's what I thought. It will be a temporary solution. Agreed. But for starters, is it wrong to try and correct the unnecessary wastage before thinking of generating more power? I'm pretty sure if we minimised wasting electricity , it would at least partially solve our current deficit. Afterwards, if we generated more power, I think it would be more than sufficient for us. Finally we as a country would have a hope of improving.

  This is democracy, where the filthy rich and the poor get richer, and the average middle class Indians get poorer..I am as helpless as anyone else sadly. May be I don't know much of the technical stuff regarding this issue..May be I'm wrong about the whole thing..But then, I just think this view point is something we can all consider.

  Have a good day. :)

  

AN IN BETWEENER - WORDS..

 The previous post was a pure rant.. I admit it..my own rant. I'll do a sort of in between addition now. 
    I am pretty much shallow most of the times, but I do get thoughtful occasionally. This is one such thing. I'll try and keep it as light hearted as possible. Please bear with me.
   'Sticks & stones may break bones, but words will never hurt me'. We might be familiar with the above mentioned quote. Or not. In any case, most of us can agree it isn't true. For me, both are equally worse.
   Getting scolded by a teacher was enough to get me to rant this much as you would have seen in the previous post. But, I pause to think how many times, I'm guilty of the same thing. 
   I've had my share of 'foot in mouth' situations. But speaking the first thing that pops into your mind is not necessarily a wise thing to do in all situations. If it is injustice, you need to speak out, fine, go ahead, do it. But then, if it concerns your loved one, or someone who is your sub ordinate, please think again..
   People are precious. Relationships are precious. We are supposed to love people and use things. Sadly, nowadays, we love things and use people. I'm not being specific, but, people who are younger than us, or those who are under us..they look up to us, whether we like it or not. We look up to people older than us, our seniors, don't we? Why can't we show a little bit of love & kindness when it is our turn...Our parents, our brothers and sisters, our loved ones..they are part of our lives. And just because our parents wouldn't leave us, doesn't mean that we can take them for granted thinking we can say anything we want. 
   As for me, I'm guilty. I messed up big time. There are  words which I wish I hadn't said, past regrets, memories, lost moments. There are people I have hurt, knowingly or unknowingly. Apologizing does some good, but some things are never the same again..old wounds still shed tears. 
  I hadn't planned on soppy posts like these, but guess I've been the perpetrator or the victim at some point or another in my life..I've said nothing new, still, it wouldn't do any harm to give this issue another thought, I suppose. 
  Have a good day.. :) 

TEACHERS..

  Guess the previous post was too long..I do hope this one isn't like that. Well..these are just my view points. So it's not like these are universal truths..Hope you understand. 
  I was in 6th grade. It was my quarterly examination. I was feeling pretty nervous. The first paper was Tamil.  
  We were seated at the exam hall with 8th grade students. A teacher had come for supervision. She told the 6th grade students to get up for giving the question paper.To my surprise, everyone got the question papers except me. I was left standing alone. So I asked her in the politest way possible, "Ma'am, can I please have my question paper?" 
   She looked at me over the top of her glasses, and simply told " You didn't get up. So I skipped you". I was totally shocked but still managed to choke out, "Sorry ma'am, but I was standing." 
   That did it for her. She blasted out and went, " How can you be so arrogant! Talking to a teacher like that..Who do you think you are? What have they taught you at home? I don't think they brought you up properly..Who are your parents? They must be the worst people ever..I won't give you the question paper.." 
   Now, I was a straight 'A' student. I rarely lost the first rank. I was almost a perfectionist. This was a total shock to me as I'd been accused of something I wasn't guilty about and humiliated in front of everyone. I burst into tears promptly. ( A part of my brain wanted to walk out, but I ruled it out.) 
   Finally she threw the question paper down after 15 minutes. I picked it up and started writing, half crying till the end. 
   I couldn't finish the paper on time. I just got 90% which was more than enough, I guess. 
  We were at loggerheads ( Yay! an idiom ) since that day. She became my class teacher at 10 grade.. but that's another story.
   The thing is that, call me sensitive, but somehow I still don't think I deserved all that blasting that day. Dragging my parents into it? That was not nice at all. 
   All of us aren't the same. We have different IQs. An old example, but kids are like moulding clay. And next to parents, teachers have the greatest potential to taint the beautiful sculptures the kids are going to become. Somehow I wish some teachers do realize the potential they have. After all, there could be another Dr.Abdul Kalam in their class rooms right now, isn't it?


p.s  As it turned out, I wasn't alone. This is just my first encounter. What followed and what I came to know after this is a whole another tale.. Thank you for reading.. Have a great day.. ! :)

MY BEST/ WORST VACATION EVER

  First off, this post is not about my real nice experiences sight-seeing where something bad happened and I learned a lesson kind..you get the drift, right?  
  It was the month of August, 2009. I was in second year. It had been a couple of months since I went home & home sickness was in full swing. I had booked tickets to go home during independence day holidays. I was pretty much excited about it.
  A few days before I could go home, I developed fever. I just took some medicines, but the fever wasn't responding much. 
  I had to almost drag my aching self to catch the train and I curled up to one of the berths. My fellow passengers were giving me suspicious looks, wondering if I was afflicted with swine flu. To top it all off, I ran out of fever medicines.Which meant that I had to travel for 14 hours feeling like I was inside the deep freezer. I was pretty sure I wouldn't make it till tomorrow morning.
  Mom wasn't too happy with me seeing my sick self and decided to take me to the hospital. Let's call it hospital X.
  Like I told, as stupid and lazy I was, I was ready to do anything if it extended my vacation. I was staggering like a drunkard by that time we reached there, they took me in a wheel-chair and I got admitted to a waiting room. I spent the night sleepless, listening to quite a few loud snores, and staring at the i.v fluid needle stuck into my arm. 
 The next two days were mostly injections and blood tests. My fever was responding. The nurses were dutifully giving me a dozen tablets, mostly multi vitamins assuring me that they were treating my fever ( Who are you kidding? I study medicine, you know ) 
  The doctors came for rounds. The tests had turned up normal ( I found out that they had lost my blood sample, so they switched it ) 
My fever was almost gone. But I developed a sudden distaste for food. I couldn't even imagine chicken in my mind. I told the doctors this, but since the tests were normal, they just thought it was a viral fever and I was discharged. 
   Well, nausea worsened over the next few days. Finally mom saw me one day when I was standing outside in the sun, she was shocked to find that my eyes were yellow!!
  I got admitted to another hospital for the second time. My lab results were highly abnormal. I had hepatitis A infection..That was responsible for my jaundice ! 
 I couldn't eat anything, or even drink water due to my nausea.They had to change my i.v lines often as my veins were very thin. My arms were full of plasters from blood tests and i.v lines. One Sunday morning, they forgot to start the fluids and my blood sugar levels dropped so low. I was feeling all giddy, started imagining weird things. The preacher near by was speaking that Sunday on the topic of 'Prepare to meet thy God'. Somehow I confirmed  I was dying..Everyone were almost mourning for me..Sheesh..
  I finally went home. As it happened, lots of people offered suggestions on how to take care of me. Since I had jaundice, I wasn't supposed to eat any kind of meat, turmeric, oil, or drink tea/ coffee for 3 months. But through all this, I was happy..I sound weird, but I really was. After all, I didn't have to go back to the hostel so soon right? So I  didn't bother arguing with my family about all those superstitions. I lazed out at home, celebrated my birthday, finally went back after a month or so.


Points I wanted to make : 
 1. . Mom called the hospital X doctors after diagnosing me. They were so casual about it and told "Sorry, we missed it as the lab reports were normal. "  Jaundice is something basic we medical students are not supposed to miss. My fault..I guess. But no one was ready to listen to me either. And mom was sort of angry at me too..


2.  Somehow the bill at the other hospital came to a whopping Rs.20,000 which included loads of medicines we didn't even buy. We weren't in the mood for arguing so we just paid them and left.




3. My stupidity. I deserved all of it. I was in a medical college and capable of diagnosing myself. But what if me and my mother were from a non-medical background? I wonder...What I had wasn't dangerous, but what if it was?


4. The doctor who gave me the antibiotic was the same one who diagnosed my grandfather's pneumonia as Tuberculosis. Grandpa got treated for TB and died a few days later as his pneumonia worsened. I don't have a grudge against him or anything...but mom still feels pretty hurt. They didn't take her opinions in that hospital both regarding me and my grandfather when we were there. So..she has a thing against him. Being single and if it's your own kid's life on the line ...not a nice situation to think rationally and diagnose. 


  This post is not meant for blaming anyone except me I guess..I was too lazy to go back to college and that was it..things just got twisted to my advantage..
  And this is the tale of the worst/ best vacation I ever had. 


It was already too long. I left out some in betweeners. Any queries, please comment or inbox me at Facebook.. Have a good day :)

FACEBOOK TOP 10

Well, hope this one makes up for the soppy post earlier..


Facebook :  
 Girl : I went shopping! ( Gets 1000 likes )
 Boy: I won the Nobel Prize ! ( Gets just 1 like )


We are quite familiar with the above mentioned joke..which is  true for the most part. But this post is about my astute observations and conclusions listing out things that get the most likes on Facebook.


1. Baby Pictures !!!
  I don't have anything against babies. I really don't. If the baby is your own, you are free to post a million pictures of your kid on Facebook. But all those Photoshopped pictures of kids many people end up sharing, I just think, "What's the matter with them? All babies are cute!" Sadly, girls do this most of the time . It gets so many likes and the rest of the girls just go 'Awwww!! Isn't it cute..?'
The worst thing is that these end up as profile pictures sometimes and you get so confused when you get a friend request from them. You can't see anything in their profile, and you're pretty sure they aren't the baby in their profile picture either..What are you supposed to do?? It just pains me so much, seeing such pictures getting so many comments and likes. Period.
p.s A note to people who post their own kids' pictures. Please think before you post something. Your kids do grow up eventually & no one likes seeing a half-naked picture of themselves running around the lawn becoming public. I'm serious.


2. Virtually anything if the person is popular enough
  We are all too familiar with that, aren't we? So annoying sometimes..




 3. Shared photos from other Facebook pages.
  Facebook is full of those pages which post lots of funny pictures ranging from the most obscene to the ones that make you think.
My conclusion : Most of us are way too busy/lazy to click links, or listen to songs anyway. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words right? Reason for the likes and shares. Most of them deserve it too I guess


4. Apps!!
  I tried one of them once and it almost drove me mad.. It's like you need a certain item ( e.g energy ) to continue playing, if your friend has already gotten it, it's posted in their wall. Click it, you'll get it..p.s Don't forget to like it afterwards...


5. Like it if you are human statuses..
  All these statuses, 50 likes - you don't love food, 1000000 likes- you do love food.. Those are just blackmail kind of threats!! Seriously..I love food. In fact, believe it or not, I need it to survive. And getting 10000 likes for the picture I post is not really a way to prove it..


6. Inspirational Quotes
 Nice, as long as you're not seeing them in your wall for the 100th time. 


7. Food!!
 Not nice if you're on a diet or if it is the 5 star hotel kind of dessert, or if you're stuck with hostel food. Otherwise, fine..


8. Pets..
  Cute..but isn't it getting a tad too much?.. all the photoshopped ones especially.. Chicken and Kittens? Come on, people..


9. Wisecracks..
 If the person has enough friends on his friend list to understand them.


10. Cricket updates??
  Any doubts ??


 The above are in no specific order except for the first two. Sad news is that people do share nice links, like good music, newspaper articles, articles about important issues etc. They just get lost in the midst of these over whelming top 10 . If you are too busy to read them, fine. But if you aren't, Facebook is a waste of time anyway, can't you at least boost up your knowledge with it in the least way possible? 


I didn't include 'Why this kolaveri?' song since I'm almost sick of it now. But, post any version of it, even if a donkey sings (brays ) it'll get a lot of likes, I guess.. That's Facebook... *sigh*
Disclaimer: The above post is in no way, a promotional for my blog.

CROCODILE FOOD..

 Well..my brain has finally started working now. It was feeling sort of super high with all random thoughts buzzing inside, thanks to 2 days of sleep deprivation. Now it's finally settled down and I'm posting about an age old issue which might not be so old after all.

 I realize that medical drama is not so appealing, but I'll get to the 'Alligator food' part eventually. So please bear with me.

  We were having labour ward postings last year where we got to observe babies being born. We read so much stuff about how the birth of a new life is a wonderful thing and all.  I agree, but things sound so much better on paper. What I saw for real, resembled more of a Nazi concentration camp rather than a  place filled with bundles of little joy.

  Kids are nice, and baby photos get so many likes in Facebook, but my friend and I were rather deterred from the idea of having babies ourselves. It was in this situation where my friend made an interesting observation. Most of the times, the mothers aren't happy if the baby is a girl. It is almost as if the mother thinks "I went through all this trouble just for this?" :(   

   I concede that  mothers do love the baby irrespective of the gender. But the thought of  disappointing the family members, the struggles they have to go through raising girls, getting them married &c. accounts for their exasperated faces in this situation. 

  In addition to this, we have heard quite a few stories from patients about how their girl babies went missing just like that or accidentally fell into tiny puddles and died.

  The more reasonable way to explain the above things would be that  these people come from lower socio-economic groups and are illiterate for the most part.

  Now, get this.. a particular someone got married to a guy. She was going to have a baby soon after the wedding. That guy didn't like it at all and gave her all sorts of troubles. That included attempted poisoning, physical abuse, verbal abuse and whatnots. 

 Reason : A baby in the family equals more expenses and a dead government spouse meant a job on compassion grounds. 

 Luckily/unluckily the baby survived all this and got to see the world. The guy got real sad. But he thought of an idea -this picture says it all. And his baby girl would also make good crocodile food. All his problems would be solved.!! To cut the story short, the baby literally lived through three months of starvation, escaped quite a few murder attempts, till the guy decided leave his wife & kid to move somewhere else. 

 The guy married another woman and has two kids - girls!. The baby is still alive, I guess.
  

Author's note: I was too obvious, wasn't I?  But then, if you got bored, all I can say is that this is one of the things I'd been wanting to rant on for quite a while. My apologies for being explicit. For all those who had the patience to read till this, "Just give it a thought. World without girls isn't too nice, right?" 

For more info: click this link.

 Thank you for reading. Please do comment. Have a great week.. :)
p.s  I think Ganges has Gharials- a variety of crocs.. 

Derp??? n Derpina!!!

 I figured most of us would be fairly familiar with 'Le Derp & Le Derpina' courtesy Facebook.  I did find some of them funny. But the rest were just hitting way below the belt. Here are some of them and my own comments that popped into my head as I read them.


1. Guy : Hey, I just bought a pc with ( *says a zillion specifications* ) 
    Girl : I just got a Pink pc !!!! 
Most of the real girls won't be so dumb unless they're Paris Hilton.  People!!. Girls who do have a computer, know it well enough to get their daily work done. If you are so dumb to get a gadget just because it is Pink, you probably don't know how to use it anyway.why need it?


2. Guy : Before haircut - Looks like Tom Hanks in Cast away
                After haircut - Looks like Brad Pitt
    Girl:  Looks the same before & after but pays a $50 bill.
Girls do need a haircuts, and unfortunately we become the victim of the 'What have you done to your hair!!' thingy from time to time.


3. Guy : Owns 2 pairs of shoes and says, 'I have plenty to wear'
    Girl :  Has tons of shoes and says, ' I don't have anything to wear today evening'


 Unless you're a  really really  rich spoiled brat's daughter or a movie star, you have a lesser probability of owning more than two dozen shoes at a time. You can't obviously wear stilettos for a stroll along the beach, neither do flip-flops work for a formal meet. That's just awkward. It's like asking a guy to wear a tuxedo for a beach party. 
 Girls do have  priorities in life other than deciding what color of shoes to wear today, I guess..for the most part.


4. All those gags about how wrestling is totally cool & how boring soaps are..?


I'm not a soap fan myself, but soaps don't differ much from wrestling.. People wear more clothes..that's all.


I really wanted to include the pictures too that went along with the jokes..but couldn't find them easily..Sorry guys..


 All the above points were mostly in favor of girls..Agreed. But it makes fun of guys too, and it isn't so nice. For the most part, guys are portrayed as just a race addicted to games, cars and the like. Worst of all, most of the gags are aimed at 'Le Derps' getting heart broken by ''Le Derpinas', ending up 'Left forever alone'.  
How many gags portray guys as having an actual 'Life' which most of us do have, either work or studies..? Virtually none I suppose. So, it isn't too pleasant to stereotype guys with a 'Devdas' like picture. 


 So, finally, yeah, yeah, they were just jokes, they weren't meant to hurt anybody, just to make us 'LOL' in Facebook lingo, and so on and so forth.. but I was feeling pretty much jobless and these were just my random thoughts. 

 I will post blogs on more serious topics, subsequently..just wanted a light hearted one... Catch you later.. ^_^ 

If everyone cared...or didn't?

   I was talking to my friend the other day (he's an engineer), and I expressed my concern regarding the way patients are treated at our hospitals.Sometimes, believe me, a lab mouse is better off than the patients. He just got bored and said, "Why do you worry about irrelevant things that don't affect you?"  Yet, I find it difficult to turn a blind eye to things going on around me.


   I guess it is easy to adopt the 'Whatever, I don't care' attitude, as long as you are comfortable and nothing personally affects you much. Even I've said, 'What's the point?, it's not like I'm going to make a difference or anything'. But now I realize it matters. Everything matters. A few people wanting to make a difference may not seem much significant. But our whole country, even our world is just 'a lot of few people'.


   The title for this blog was based on Nickelback's song, 'If everyone cared'. Ideally speaking, our world would be a utopia if everybody did care. But then, on another note, what would happen if no one cared? 


  What if people like us- your average middle class Indian, just put on rosy tinted glasses and took a stroll along the park singing 'What a wonderful world', oblivious to all that has been happening these days.


  For starters, there wouldn't be an Army to protect us ( I'm talking about just the good variety here ) or police because no one would even bother to join. Finally our world would come to resemble something made of a cross between 'The Godfather' movie, and 'Kill Bill'. Our comfort zones would be shattered to splinters and no one will be there for us. We'll be left wondering what was our purpose on this planet in the first place.


  I'm just one of the many unheard voices, in this world of noise. May be I'm just a drop of ink in an ocean. Still, I do feel like speaking out. One of our text books described negligence as 'An act of omission, or an act of commission' in other words, it is, 'Doing something which you are not supposed to do, or not doing something which you are supposed to do'


 I guess the definition just about sums it up. It'd really be nice if people would ask themselves 'Am I being negligent'.


  Thank you all for reading. Catch you later.. :-) 

The beginning..

  Well, I thought I'd tell a bit about myself in this blog. First of all, I'm not a good writer, so please bear with the writing style in the subsequent blogs. I do love to read, but where I come from, English was just another subject to memorize, and I was a science geek anyway.

 Lately, I got to see the world around me as it is, and how all its ramifications weren't insignificant in my life after all.

 Have a good time reading.. :-) Hope you like my blog 

A few weird things..

 I went to my home town this February for vacation. One of my relatives had come to our home and they were searching for a bride for their son. Here's what I learnt from them about the match making business.

  First of all you're supposed to get enrolled in a match making agency or get introduced to the 'Aunties' who go prowling with eagle eyes looking for a girl/boy of the marrying age.

 These agencies demand a fee for enrolment. Also if their matches do end up in weddings, both sides have to pay a whopping 10% of the wedding expenses!!! ( They'd be millionaires !) 

    1. They shouldn't be the only child in the family- Only child implies obligations (is it wrong if some people  were concerned about our population problems? )

    2. There should be at least a 2 year difference between their ages ( effectively excludes all people of your age whom you study or work with )

    3. The girl should be quiet, timid and stuff. You know, the classical stereotype. ( what happens to the normal ones who don't behave like soap stars?)

    4. The girl has to look tall, thin and fair ( Is it a crime to look normal & not like an anorexic runway model?)

    5. The girl's family has to give around 100 Sovereigns of gold to the groom along with properties, a sedan ( no hatchbacks ) & meet all the wedding expenses. (Is he marrying a girl or a kilo of gold?)

    6. I even met few people who were looking for a 'foreign groom' and were trying to marry their girl off to a guy who was a virtual stranger to them simply because of the 'foreign' tag that came with this guy. 

Conclusion:

   Seriously..even a job placement needs an interview. They don't just select people simply by looking at your resume. So, how can you just tell someone to get married to a person who has a nice photograph and a good resume?       ( Ever seen most of the Facebook profiles? There's something called Photoshop, you know..) 

  P.S I am not saying that we should totally ban arranged marriages. But if we started looking at marriages as a lifetime thing rather than a business transaction, may be things would improve.