Bhagwan Vs. God Vs. Khuda

I love Hindi movies. I have watched so many and watch them so often that I start observing trends that most people would not pay heed too. Here is one simple observation.

Almost any movie out there will have a female character, not Bollywood lead actress cadre but reasonably famous, skilled in melodrama, unconventionally sexy but dressed down to represent someone with virtue and aspirations of joining a convent. Invariably, a scene will come along which gives her an opportunity for an Oscar performance. 50% of the time her marriage got called off due to insufficient dowry (out of these, 75% of the time her father, also the lead actor's dad hangs himself, but I digress...), 20% of the time, her loved one is in serious trouble (e.g. accident, kidnapping etc.), 10% of the time they guy she loves does not know she exists, 10% of the time she is carrying a child out of wedlock and finally 10% of the time she is raped (it's true even if I sound callous). She will invariably find herself at the house of God and subject him to her rant. This scene which is the cornerstone of many a Bollywood flick can go one of three ways.

Movie type 1

Girl enters Temple crying. As she rings the bells (more than the customary once), she looks the idol in the eye and says "Bhagwan akhir yeh kyon huva?, mujse kya galti hui hain jo apne yeh saza di? Bachpan se maine apki puja ki hain. Ab mujhe insaaf chaiye"

A passerby Pujari hears her cry. He will invariably be topless, dressed in a white dhoti and sports a black shane-di (desis will get me). His reply is always as follows. "Beti, Bhagwan pe bharosa rakhon. Bhagwan ke raste hum insaan se alag hote hain. Bhagwan gyani hain, unteryaami hain. Ab rona bandh karo, sab theek ho jayega.

Movie type 2

Girl enters Church crying. She walks up to the front, selects a pew, looks the Lord Jesus in the eye and says "Bhagwan akhir yeh kyon huva?, mujse kya galti hui hain jo apne yeh saza di? Bachpan se maine apki puja ki hain. Ab mujhe insaaf chaiye"

A passerby Priest hears her cry. He will invariably be dressed in typical white vestments and sports a grey goatee . His reply is always as follows. "Beti, God pe bharosa rakhon. God ke raste hum insaan se alag hote hain. God gyani hain, unteryaami hain. Ab rona bandh karo, sab theek ho jayega.

Movie type 3

Girl enters Mosque crying. Girl is somehow dressed appropriately. She finds a comfortable place, genuflects and says "Bhagwan akhir yeh kyon huva?, mujse kya galti hui hain jo apne yeh saza di? Bachpan se maine apki puja ki hain. Ab mujhe insaaf chaiye"

A passerby Mullah hears her cry. He will invariably be dressed in green garments and sports a full white beard. His reply is always as follows. "Beti, Khuda pe bharosa rakhon. Khuda ke raste hum insaan se alag hote hain. Khuda gyani hain, unteryaami hain. Ab rona bandh karo, sab theek ho jayega.

It's always the same advice. Some times I wonder if it's the same actor. Just my two cents.

When Oldest Daughters of First-Born Daughters have Daughters First

The other day I received an email from my buddy ARG1 saying, "D, great news, I just became an Uncle". I immediately hit Reply, typed "Awesome news, congratulations!" and hit Send. As with most of the emails I send (and I send quite a few actually), I got to thinking about my message only after the fact (very helpful, right). Was the news awesome? Why, yes of course. Did ARG1 deserve a congratulations followed by an exclamation point? Well ...

Flashback 1

In the year 1910, Cecilia was married and in 1911 gave birth to Elizabeth who promptly was married away at age 20 in 1931. In 1932 came along Rebecca who married in 1952 and gave birth to Gladys in 1954. Glady's got married in 1975 and two years later in 1977 had Charles. Charles took his time settling down and at a grand-old age of 28 in 2005 got hitched. He is currently expecting his first born.

Flashback 2

In the year 1910, Bonaventure was 12. He got married at age 32 in 1930 and had Harry (his fourth child) in the year 1942. Harry got married in 1973 and had a beautiful son Siddharth in 1979. Sid got hitched in 2005 which brings us back to present day...

Bonaventure (from flashback 2) was Cecilia's (from flashback 1) younger brother and also my grandfather. He became an Uncle at the tender age of 13 to Elizabeth. By the time my father came into existence he was already an Uncle to Rebecca. In fact by age 10, he was a Grand-uncle to Glady's. So faithful readers of my blog, as you see, I was a grand-uncle at birth (in 1979) to Charles (and many others, from the family tree) who was in attendance at my wedding. In fact, any day now, I fully anticipate receiving an email with the news of becoming a Great-Grand-Uncle to Charles' first born.

So ARG1, if google-mail made good on their promise of rescinding emails after one has hit send, I would take back my congratulations and my exclamation point.

Cows Give Milk!

Ajay-Kumar Tannirkulam Mudambi, henceforth referred to as ATM is one of my closest friends. He was also my room-mate for six months in the year 2004. ATM is by far the most highly educated, highly travelled, highly published, highly accomplished yet highly unassuming of all my buddies. Yet ATM had one flaw. Whenever my room-mates and I got into a conversation (and we had many of those), ATM's responses or comments were never quite understood by us. It is not like he used alien parlance or cryptic coded metaphors, just simple statements that perfectly made sense by themselves but had no relevance to the existing conversation. For example (and I speak anecdotally, yet without exaggeration), if asked, "ATM, what are your views on homosexuality?", one might expect an answer like "D, I think Indian politics needs a paradigm shift" or "ATM, are we out of sugar?" would yield something along the lines of "D, I think phirang women prefer men with hairy chests". For a few weeks I thought I was just plain dumb. ATM was a smart man and I was not equipped to understand his statements. Fortunately, I found out that the other room-mates were dumbfounded too and so we set up a support group. We reasoned that people who are excessively intelligent cannot be bothered with our menial conversations, instead are continuosly thinking more important things. Thus when asked a question, we should not expect an answer but a comment on the lines of where we broke their thought process. But, this was not helping our situation and conversations (did I mention we had many of these) with ATM were getting increasingly exasperating. We wanted respite, we wanted revenge! To give him a dose of his own medicine, my room-mates and I coined the phrase "Cows give milk" as a statement we would put out there if we noticed he was, well, being himself. It served two purposes namely therapy for us and a way to signal to him that we were confused (we tried just telling him we were confused to know avail). Till date, ATM occasionally slips into cows give milk (since changed to "Soy-beans give Soy" as ATM is a vegan now) mode but I have made peace with the fact that I will never understand the ways of the exceedingly intelligent.

The Indian IT Guy Cliché

Vik Dawane was the man, at least that's what I thought. If ever I was in need of IT services, technical assistance or simply had a computer question, Vik was my go-to guy. He was always a simple phone call away and eager to help. I am told that most people have a nightmare dealing with IT related issues at work and that is further compounded by the new cost-cutting, streamlining automated help-desk's that most companies have swicthed too. You see, most problems that people experience can rarely be classified by one of the standardized options that help-desk's or phone menu's give you and so everyone ultimately needs a go-to guy. So far, at work, Vik was always able to provide me with the necessary services to get my job done in the least obstructive way. In fact, in the four years that I have been working, he has solved all my issues and requests by phone or remotely connecting to my computer. What a guy!

My job designation is Senior Research Engineer - Advanced Automotive Applications and even though I use a computer a lot, I am as far removed from the IT industry as can be possible. But, I am an Indian, and so If I meet some one for the first time, I am usually asked the following question: Which software firm do you work for? or if the person is an Indian, Which software platform do you work in? That just drives me nuts! Now let me start by saying, I have nothing against the IT industry, software programmers or consultants. I just do not subscribe to the idea that every Indian works in the software field. Sure, I graduated at a time in India where irrespective of what you studied, you inevitably took up a job in IT but that was because those type of jobs were (still are) rife and high paying (compared to others). In any case, you cannot blame some one who studied micro-biology or sociology in college and makes a switch to IT as long as they put in a honest days work. After all they are working in an ever-changing, challenging environment and are pushing the frontiers of technology.

Still, I told myself, "there are other jobs that need to be done in this world and Indians are surely upto that task". That is the fundamental reason, I am opposed to the widely accepted duality that "If you are an Indian professional you are working in the IT field" or "If you work in the IT field, you are most certainly Indian". Of course, a simple call to any form of IT help-desk would almost always connect you to a Puttan Pureil Krishnan Iyer who goes by Pat or a Balavenkatapathy Adiadu Raju who goes by Tom (go figure) or the like, just making it even harder for me to get my point across. The fact that my wife, most of my Indian friends and acquaintances, almost eveyone I went to school with (who wasn't independently wealthy) is in the IT-field does not help either. I kept looking for a glimmer of hope, for a sign, something to help me overcome the Indian IT guy cliché but to no avail.

I confided in my wife one day after dinner and she joked back saying "You are a closet programmer, you just don't know it yet". I smirked as if to say, "poor joke", but my heart was beating faster. "May be it wasn't a joke, may be I was a closet programmer? Oh no", I thought to myself, "I am thirty and I have so much catching up to do, I will obviously have to start at the bottom rung. My business card will say Mr. Ess Dee, Sub-Junior Programmer Intern and all the other young Indian kids, fresh out of college would be my peers. Oh no, I will have to send multiple text messages, put up a myspace page, update my facebook profile, send 20 tweets and all from my cell-phone, whose QWERTY number pad I can barely read and all during a trip to the restroom. Oh no". "Switch off the TV and go to sleep", I heard my wife say and only then did I realize I was thinking to myself for the last two hours. "In a minute, after I send this email", I said, but my laptop would not start. In four years that has never happened. Fortunately, I was going to the headquarters the next day and I could stop by Vik's desk for help. That would give me an excuse to finally meet the guy in person. "Wait a minute, Vik is the exception, Vik is the exception", I said to myself. "In mathematics, if you find an exception to a rule then in fails to be a theorem". Vik was my exception, he had helped me debunk the duality I almost succumbed to. I was victorious. I was free. I would not be forced to Tweet. I went to sleep happy.

The next day, I woke up bright and early, drove to work and headed straight to Vik's side of the office (The IT department). The admin lady pointed to the general area of his cube and on reaching there, I could not find Vik. I was disappointed and asked a kind looking, older Indian gentleman if he knew if Vik was in and was shocked when he told me I was looking at him. I kept my frustration under-wraps as Vik worked magic on my computer and in 15 minutes I was good to go. I asked him politely what his real name was he said with a smile Vikas Dawane (pronounced Dhav-ne).

Ladies and gentlemen (who will never read my blog), Vik Dawane is still the man, and I am still confused as hell.

They were all Fooled

One of the things I beat myself silly over is the fact that I am terrible at identifying (not so obvious) similarities between children and parents. Whenever someone shows a picture of a new born to their friends, one can be absolutely sure to hear (even if there is no truth to it) "Oh she looks like her mother", "He has his father's eyes" etc. But, not always from me. Unless, absolutely obvious, you will only get a "He/She looks cute" or "Great picture". Apparently, that does not go down well with people (my wife included) who time and again have ridiculed me on my inability to identify these basic (according to them) similarities. I could just start pretending and say something trivial like, "Hey, he has your forehead", or "Wow, he has black eyes like you", but the scientist in me somehow refuses to just make stuff up or cave in. The more I think of it, I feel its a looney ballooney scam that someone came up with several eons ago and it has stuck through the ages. According to me, a loose statement like, "She has your features", always holds true in one way or another without adding any value to the conversation you are having. I am sure, there a few not so gifted individuals as myself out there or at least I hope so.

Today, I read in the news that some 56 years ago, two girls born at this hospital in Oregon on the same day were mixed up. Both sets of parents (and relatives) were apparently oblivious to the switch and were none the wiser until some key revelations and DNA testing proved it to be the case after almost 6 decades. Now, I am no shrink and I don't know the emotional fallout or psycho-socialogical repurcussions of this information. I don't want to insensitive to those affected (fortunately, no one reads my blog). I don't know who stands to blame in a court of law, who should be sued etc. But if it were up to me, on behalf of the ungifted,I would say, blame the extended family members and friends who probably stood around the new born babies and said, "wow, she looks so much like you", "the resemblence is unmistakable", "she has her father's brow" etc. etc.

Gimme Shelter

"Of all my best friends, I like _ _ _ the best" is something I often said as a child. In similar style, of all my favorite songs, I like the Rolling Stones hit, Gimme Shelter, the most. While there are several posts out there (Rolling Stones archives, Wiki etc.) that are tributes to the song summarizing break down of the lyics, motivation of the band, timing of the release, praise for the vocals (especially the backing vocals) etc. this post is only about how I came to find this song. Growing up in Bombay, in a non-digital age, I wasn't exposed to most of the Rock N' Roll hits that had captivated most of the western world. Elvis was just a name, Rolling stones were something that gathered no moss. Beatles was the misspelled plural of the bug called Beetle. In fact, we were at the mercy of the album selectors at the local music stores. For that reason, Bryan Adams was my idea of the greatest rock-star that ever lived. Yuuuuuccccckkkk!!! Anyway, enough complaining for now (more may follow later) and back to how I found the song.

The Movie - Layer Cake

The Scene - Daniel Craig is in his room, fixing himself a drink, as the sultry Sienna Miller makes her way there. He takes a sip, and hears a knock on the door. After he opens the door, there is a brief and customary pause and then they start to make out passionately while undressing each other at the same time. The rest of the scene is quite funny actually and while half the world would be drooling on Sienna's taut derriere and the other half on Daniel's toned abs, all I could think of was ...

"What was that awesome song playing in the back ground all this while?"

I checked several sites, made several failed google searches (you have matched 9876543210 document, gee thanks) but found no details of the song. As luck would have it, a few days later ...

The Movie - The Departed

The Scene - The movie has barely started and Jack Nicholson is doing what he does best, i.e. deleiver strong monologues when the same song starts to play ...

I wait for his speech (and the song) to end, switch the DVD off and run to my computer. Fortunately for me, there are a gazzilion (big number) Scorsese fans out there that are dissecting his movies on sites the world over. One simple google search and I had found my song.

I watched all possible videos of "Gimme Shelter" on YouTube for the next two days, downloaded the song from ITunes and burnt it 16 times on a CD (so that I never have to hit the back button). I think the mania lasted for a whole week!

I still get chills when I randomly hear it on any playlist I may have created in the past. What a song!

Double Sorrow - When Joy turns to Sorrow

In Mathematics,

1 - 0 = 1, but
1 - (-1) = 2.

In prose, I have read, It is worse to have had (material goods) and lost than to never have had at all. That is why Americans are hurting so much more from this recession than (say) third world country denizens. Similarly, I was wondering if human's react the same to something non-material like joy and sorrow.

A family that was close to me (growing up), was about to have a double celebration. The two older sons were betrothed to two young women from a city 400 miles away. The extended family was sent ahead for the wedding on two large buses. The two grooms, their father, uncle and cousin were to join the rest of the group by car. Alas, they never made it. About half way through on the highway they were hit (almost head-on) by a truck. Three died on the scene, the other two a few days later in the ICU. What a tragedy!

I still weep sometimes when I think of that day but have always wondered if the tragedy would be less severe had it not occured in the presence of what would have been a joyous occasion. Is there something known as double sorrow?

What was he thinking!

Sitting in the cafeteria, eating lunch, I overheard this conversation from table next to me. Apparently, this guy who was recently divorced (wife cheated on him), went into work one day to find out he was being let go after 20 years of service. He heads home, opens a can of pop, puts on the TV to see that a levy close-by had broken and his house was in the path of the flood. Authorities were asking people to evacuate immediately. He gets into his car and starts to drive away as the flood waters encroach on his home. Driving aimlessly, he soon runs out of gas and has to stop in the middle of nowhere. His cell phone shows zero bars and he no option but to walk. As he is walking along, hoping to hitch hike a ride, he wanders into a Native American reservation (with casino), where he grabs a quick meal, tries his hand at the slot machines and hits the jackpot for $500,000!

As I was driving back from lunch, I could not help but wonder what was going through this man's mind that made him try his hand at the slots. "My wife left me for another man, I am jobless, homeless, with no means of transport and incommunicado from the rest of the world....I guess I am feeling lucky today!"

Locker Room - Where Probability Theory fails me, repeatedly!

I work out at a 24/7 fitness club where I have the time of my life. However, each time, without fail, I experience a certain situation that got me thinking numbers. Having failed to figure out the math, I write this for two reasons.

1. Others with similar experiences can empathize with me

2. Some one can check my math and make sure I am thinking correct

Each time I get to my (previously chosen) locker after my workout, there is someone currently using the locker either directly above (or below), or to the left (or right) of me. If I reach the locker and find no one there, I can be assured that within seconds, some one wants to access the lockers in the spots mentioned above. To make things more interesting, the above mentioned individual is either (I say this with absolutely no bias in my heart)

a. A senior citizen

b. A super buffed dude ( > 6 pack)

c. A person who shops at a big & tall and not because he is tall

This phenomenon has stood the test of time (2+ years) and is starting to bother me. Apart from the obvious reasons of, someone is invading my bubble, or changing clothes takes much longer, what bothers me is that the math just does not add up!

So I did some recon work and here are the numbers. The club has 12000 members and on any given day 6000 people show up to workout. There are 5 peak hours, 5-7 AM, 12-1 PM and 6-8 PM (my chosen window), during which 5000 workout. Thus on an average, during peak hours, 1000 people are in the club. Lets say 80% avail of the locker room, half of whom are men. This suggests that 400 lockers are in use during the peak hours. There are 420 lockers in the mens room which would suggest that one can always find an empty locker. This has been my experience so far. Assuming the average workout lasts for an hour, out of which 10 minutes is spent at the locker, the random nature of that occurence means that at a given time not all 400 people are in the locker room using their lockers. Once again, I can confirm this. Infact, each time I walk in there are about (0.166*400 = approx 66 people) in the locker room. The probability of two lockers side-by-side in use is even smaller. Furthermore, assuming 1 in 3 is a senior citizen, 1 in 12 is buffed and 1 in 4 is overweight, and these are independent events, the probabilities do not add up to unity.

Then why me?

So I asked my buddies if they have similar experiences and they laughed at me. One by the name of Pee-Ell actually thought I was bluffing, so I asked him to join me in the experience. First, we randomly chose a locker, put my stuff in and then went off to play squash. About an hour later, we finished playing, showered and headed back to my locker. No one was around and I thought the curse was finally broken. I unlocked the locker and barely opened it to hear a polite "excuse me" coming from behind me. It had happened again! Pee-Ell and me exchanged glances, held back our smiles and as the towel automatically fell off the (not so) slender waist of the polite 320 pounder, Pee-Ell said to me with a sigh, "Buddy, you have stacked up some extraordinary odds in your favor, you should buy the lottery"

Pun (Source: Unknown)

One hundred years ago, if you asked the question, "Can the United States of America have a Black President?", people would say, Yes! the day "Pigs can fly".

Interestingly, on President Barack Obama's one hundreth day in office, the topic on everyone's mind was " SWINE FLU"