aditya kumar's weblog

Meanwhile a bunch of interesting links that I’d like you to visit:

Caferati and livejournal have come up with a new contest. Its flash fiction. And the topic is “journal”. The end date is 7-September. Some of the prizes include serious cash, a chance to get a Livejournal paid account and a chance to see your story in print. I tell you, check this one out. Here.

Shradha visits Golkonda fort and blogs about it here. Picture blogging, this.

Fellow blogger Sneha has this acrylic work. One of the best that I have seen in recent times.

Meanwhile, traveling in the USA, Dilip comes across what they claim to be, “The most honest place in the world”. Turns out, it might as well be. Read it here.

In the three weeks that saw this blog, the writer of this blog and the world’s largest democracy grow an year old there were a few things that we could have done without. To name a few:

1. The bombs in the city were too many and enough to spark a debate, yet again, on how safe we are. A few more days of debates and now we are going back to our comfort zones until the bombs show up again, which will bring us back to square one.

2. The internet doesn’t work at nights. Why? Well, after three successful attempts of stealing the local internet server and numerous unsuccessful ones, the local service engineer had had enough of the robbers. Refusing to take any more chances he decided to do what I thought was strange (if not absurd) but at least safe — he took the internet server offline and shifted it to a safe house every night. That I access internet at night doesn’t matter, of course.

3. My yahoo email spam has increased by more than 10 times. Right, that would be 1000%. I believe this was a “revenge” taken by a website. All I did was unsubscribed their newsletter earlier forced upon me. Now they have forced upon me 10 spam emails everyday. And these are those emails that bypass the spam filter and land in my inbox. Right from “Malasian Lottery” (Not Malaysian) to Microsoft announcing Cash rewards. Whatever it is, it surely exposes Yahoo’s Spamguard’s failure. Yahoo’s yet another failure while trying to get the spammer off its back. One failed attempt worth reading here.

Some more things that I remember(ed) but fail to make the cut now. Too hectic at work these days. I should write more.

Taking an (enforced) break from the world wide web and blogging (and email, youtube…). As the blogposts (to be read) pile up my inbox there was one email (blog posting alert that is) that caught my attention. Subject: Gas Consumption: California vs. China, India. This post from Sepiamutiny.com throws an interesting and probably alarming statistic — That California consumes more Gasoline per year than China or India.

But, at least with transportation fuel, you’d be wrong. California alone uses more gasoline than any country in the world (except the US as a whole, of course). That means California’s 20 billion gallon gasoline and diesel habit is greater than China’s! (Or Russia’s. Or India’s. Or Brazil’s. Or Germany’s.)

This excerpt is from another blog that the sepiamutiny post links to. Read the whole thing here.

Read it.

Barely 250 meters ahead was the U-turn that would enable the rider to be where he wanted to be. 250 meters the side I was on and 250 meters on the other side — A ride of half a kilometer would all that would take him to respect the law.

But yet he kept waiting on the side of the road, the same side as I was. The problem with this section (on this side) is that vehicles come at a higher (than usual) speed and for the pedestrian, it is quite a challenge to cross the road. This is not so, once you are half way through because the other side has an intersection down the road, which prevents the vehicles on that side to speed up.

So while I waited, and I waited approximately 4 minutes to cross the road, this seemingly well educated man on his bike waited too. Engine turned on and quite ready to put his bike on the divider in the middle and then cross over, at the first opportunity.

Needless to say, a 500 meter ride instead would have taken much less time and given a lighter conscience.

As I arrive in the middle and stand on the little space on the divider, so does this man, on his bike. We wait for the traffic on the other side to ease up.

I look at him and ask: “Why are you doing this?”

The guy is expressionless.

He looks down, then looks behind him and gets his bike on the same side he was on. With that little guilt that I saw in his eyes, he rides ahead, on the way, quite literally if I may say, to follow the law.

I stay where I am. I look straight and there is another guy on the other side. I notice he is trying to say something.

With sign language, he asks me if its okay to ride his bike over the divider.

Copyright Declaration line written on the bottom of the cover of a DVD movie:

We, (company name) have made this video film and are owner of the copyright in such work for the territory of all India including Nepal, Bhutan and Sikkim.

Is it only me who finds this (line) strange or is there, indeed, something strange about it?

Comments and thoughts welcome. In fact, required.

How does the state honor the passing away of country’s greatest soldier?

By declaring a state funeral.

Sounds alright. Just that the President of the Indian Republic, The Vice-President, The Prime Minister, The Defence Minister and The Three chiefs of the Armed forces won’t be able to make it.

Carry it on, somebody send someone to represent the absentees, won’t you? Nobody’s noticing.

Oh and in the rare case, if there is hue and cry, we can always sign the condolence book and keep it at India gate. Of course, the Defence Minister and the three chiefs will sign it first!

In my opinion, this was the only profound way to dishonor the passing away of India’s greatest soldier.

Is it worth it afterall, being a soldier in this country, I wonder.

I see this guy, has this Johnny Depp kind of a beard and a physique that could make the strictest of gym goers wonder what could be wrong with their workout regimen. Only later do I realize, because of his continued conversations on the phone, that he is a Muslim. He is called Aslam.

So we rode down to the river where the Victorian ghosts pray
For the curses to be broken
We go underneath the arches where the witches are and they say
There are ghost towns in the ocean
The ocean…

He is not a strict Muslim, that much I can see. For he does not do his prayers on the floor but on the train seat itself, with a pillow on his lap. And it is at that moment that the words are spoken to me, the sound in my head —

Gunners in the houses and gunners in my head
And all the cemeteries in London
I see god come in my garden but I don’t know what he said
For my heart it wasn’t open
Not open…

Suddenly it’s all very clear. That very moment, those few seconds, I cease to see him as Aslam. Instead, I start seeing him as a misunderstood Muslim. And perhaps more importantly, a Muslim that has misunderstood it all. I have not come across many defining moments in my life but I sure know how it is when one happens.

A few days back I read it somewhere and I think it was Bono who said — “Generally, religion gets in the way of God.” I know exactly what Bono meant when he said that. Certainly, this is not about U2 or Coldplay’s latest or Aslam. It’s about identities lost, perceptions — both right and wrong, failures to connect with each other at the human level and a broken hotline with God, to top it all.

Suddenly, it’s all very clear to me.