Noble Thoughts

To make an exhaustive list of all the great words that have produced a very great impact would be impossible given that everyday I am influenced by a number of things and people around me. Also it would prove futile for the very cause for writing them. I am gonna list some selected ones that remain with me even today( selected in terms of personal best and interms of my memory)....The order of arrangement is not indicative of preference.
1. The movie Gandhi has left a big impact particularly the funeral scene and the commentary which summarises everything
"The objective of this massive tribute...... died as he has always lived......a private man without wealth without property.....Mahatma Gandhi was not a commander of armies nor a ruler of vast lands ....... He could not boast of any scientific achievement or artistic gift... yet men, govt dignitaries from all over the world have joined hands to pay homage to this little brown man in the loin cloth who led his country to freedom".
2."Be the change you want to see in the world"- Mahatma Gandhi
3."Examinations should test one's knowledge not one's ignorance"- My friend Vivishek when we were faced with an examination or something like that and were spell bound as none of us knew what most questions actually meant.
4."When one is faced with lots of troubles, one should always hold faith in oneself cause no matter what the magnitude be,it will hit you, but will definitely leave you and is not there to stay"- My Cultural Education Sir
5."Within every block of stone there lies a statue waiting to be liberated by the touch of a sculptor"- Michealangelo saying which my friend Rijo keeps reiterating evry now and then
6."Never use the same tongue with which you say "RAM RAM" for using foul language"-
My grand mother( Saraswathi kovilamma) who was everything and everything for me.
7."God is Love and Love is God"- Sai Baba
8." Is it possible to concentrate at infinity?? thats why we use idols"- When I asked my grand father the Late Ganghadharan Nedungadi for why we worship idols.
9."God has been very kind to me and whatever I am is the manifistation of the presence of that power" - Me

Funerals and Lessons

This is the month of April perhaps a dreaded time for most college going students because it marks the end of the even semester with all important events interspersed within the month making it the the busiest time of the sem. Mini projects( as is the case from 3rd sem) still remain abstractless with submission time going to come in hardly a weeks time. I guess that would be an eye opener for the lab exams and the end sem exams as well. Inspite of all this, I found time today to serve some food for thought as this month also remindes me of a great loss last year. This was none other than my grand father. Memories of him still remain with me. Though he was a tough stone to crack yet he had a great heart. I wish I had many of his qualities. One of the greatest time keeper, I have never seen a person who could close both eyes and still could find that small pin he bought last week. He still remains a great moral inspiration and will remain to do so ( meaning I will never change.......).
Anyway I was virtually taken by surprise when at 6 am a few days ago my dad broke the news of another grand father of mine passing away. This took me by total surprise as I had met him a few weeks back and he seemed more than healthy then.( God what is with April and all this!!!!). Now the funeral was to take place at Calicut which is a five hour travel from Palakkad. I hit the KSRTC bus depot early 6:30 and all through the journey I would ponder about all these things when some strange thoughts began to emerge. The thoughts that people who have earned and earned throughout their lifetime who could never take them. Also people who cry foul throughout their lifetime about caste discrimination and later have to leave the world the same way as is the case with all the other people. We human beings always find ourselves dignified when we say " See someone has died so we shall forget all the differences we have whether race, colour, language, caste or anyother and shed a tear for him/her". God please tell these people how we could have made life so much more easier if we thought of this when he/she was alive. When Mumbai was burning media would call it the unity of the "Mumbaikars". But the next day you could find atleast one harijan being a victim of the social discrimination or one rich man exploiting the poor. But hey we die not enjoying anything that we earned ( whether economic or a social privilage). So come out of the seeds of hatred and misconception we have created for ourselves. Come live like a HUMAN, show dignity and love.

An Eye For An Eye

Recently, I came across this very bitter or rather an unfortunate sequence of event that unfolded in Iran. A Lady by the name of Ameneh Bahrami was blinded by her college mate, Movahedi for refusing to accept his proposal to get married to him. Well this sounds like the old tale of rejection leading to revenge sort of male insanity. The pouring of a bucket of sulphuric acid through the victims head let her so devastatingly disfurged that I virtually began shivering and had a few drops of tears whelming in my eyes. My mind would keep reiterating and praying that such an incident never happens and no man even get thoughts of this sort. However, this story would then shift to another scene where justice is to be delivered ........ A court room. Apparently, the lady felt so emotionally and mentally destroyed that she would use a powerful clause in Islamic laws that is applicable to that part of the world which could enable the victim to retribute for a crime. This action is quite justified for many people who reason out that it would be apt and appropriate given the scale of injury done and the victims loss. However, for a person like me to actually accept or even assimilate these words seemed near impossible. I believe that an institution like the judiciary is just when it ensures justice in a manner that it doesnt call for a violation of human rights. This seemed more barbaric and no man even of the like of Hitler should be subject to such a treatment. This is when I remembered a talk given by Justice VR Krishna Iyer in one of his interviews to Asianet to justify his view to remove death penality :
"No man made Institution( referring to the judicial system in particular) can give life to anything so it has got no right to take life from anyone no matter what the crime be"
I guess these lines serve the right sort of explanation to what I wanted to convey. However, at all points I sympathise with the victim even empathise with her. But as far as the trial and the result is concerned, my intellect is a pole apart. To read more you could very well google this story or log on to
http://www.iranian.com/main/2009/feb/ameneh-bahrami

MY TAKE ON MTV'S " ROADIES"

Inspired by my friend to watch a programme that he was so interested in , I took his word into consent and well waited for "MTV ROADIES" and believe me I was virtually dumbstruck cause I got a glimpse of the so called auditions they carried out and the hundreds of teens and young indians who are enticed by the alluring prospectus the show holds for their future which I have absolutely no idea about. Yet, I am expressing my views on a public portal like this to express the state of degeneration of the entertainment industry and I wish to clarify that my intentions are not to degrade their image (if they have one) and I am not paid to do so also. I will try to substantiate my claims with genuine examples I feel about these shows.
1. The entertainment industry claims that they represent the "Indian" in the complete sense of the word but my take on that is that with shows of the above mentioned genre ,all that is intended is to feed the viewers with lot of crap and junk that the western media have successfully ventured into. Here the attempt is to potray negativity and how we as viewers love to rejoice people being fired on TV(The sort of intense interviews which these people call auditions.).Here I just wish to add that while Bollywood which is the popular tag for the Hindi film industry , considers itself being considered as secondary and an involuntary follower of the biggy Hollywood when the term Bollywood is used and often the film actors point out this debatable point in all possible interviews. However they should also realise that many a stories are just unofficially copied from Hollywood with plagirism being unquestioned. Bet that!!!
2.Illigitimate use of derogatory, unparlimentary and insane language many a times. I mean to air a show that is seen by millions of people in a country as ours with the use of such dirty and cheap language ( ofcourse with the old American way of silencing the censor board with the beeps), I see no logical explanation for such things. In a country as ours where people have long told " Youth is the time when providence should place before itself one aim and that aim is to work hard and be a part of an india that is developed", I see that such shows aim to do the exact opposite by promoting misconduct and misguidance among the youth. No wonder we had atleast a hundred students booked for being in a rave party in Mumbai a couple of weeks back with the majority having consumed drugs(including girls).
3. The show calls for courageous acts and sometimes as stupid as having a guy handcuffed and drowing to free himself within a stipulated time or even extremely cheap as having to consume dead locust or frogs. I dont know which lunatic gets such ideas but one thing is for sure many a people are attracted to such things I find no reason as to why..........
If I where given a choice to be a "Roadie" I would rather be a BEGGAR than to loose the principles I have gained over the years. My urge to these show makers is that sometimes they should forget western media and money mindedness in everything. If there are shows that take these so called people to the ground reality of our country like to help many of the hundreds living in the so called slums or be a part of the true development of the country, many of the cultured people living here would have atleast a few reasons to show the maturity of the Indian media.

My Introspection

Well to be absolutely truthful , life has taken such a toll in all of us that none of us know what has happened. I am not 60 to be bluntly speaking out philosophy but I guess a 19 year old lost in the thoughts of the past during a long summer afternoon in the middle of a lazy vacation is forgiven. Now, I will go into the details. We had a small group(V group: Venugopal prasanth, Vipin , Vineeth Sukumar, hehe now get the pseudonym of the group) in our class 12 ,who quite wrongly, considered ourselves as some great gang of friends for life. Most of our important decisions would be taken together and infact we shared the same desk and had a reputation for ourselves in school. My god, I still remember carrying Modern's ABC of Physics and Chemistry with the front page reading something like this " This belongs to the most dynamic and energetic group with the succesors of Einstein , Ramanujam and Hardy" ( This is Vineeth's idea not mine, hehe). It has been three years since I left school and how much do I know them now. Well, I virtually lost contact, neither do they tend to bother. Except on some bluemoon, none of us even have time to relish those long gone days. We were friends beyond doubt, our friendship sailed through good times and equally bad times and we made sure we would serve a great shoulder for each other. But boundaries in terms of distance and time was good enough to add a full stop. Whom should I blame???..................

To say good bye to dad and mom:

Dad your curd rice is beyond doubt better than any lunch I take...........

Mom, I miss your chappathi and kadala curry...........

Ah, I miss these ...... But hey human beings are hypocritic this is mine.

FREEDOM OF INDEPENDENCE

"CROSSROADS" ........ Well this is the apt title for the farewell ceremony that is held every year and I was present for the one that was held last year. Well what this phase represented was a transition from a student to a working engineer. But more understandably, its the end of the phase when all the nurture that we got from all souces around ends..... When the age old dialogue " Stand on one's own legs" becomes true........ But hey life as I see it terminates at one point with 2 routes >>>>>>>>>> Good or Bad........
But whats Good or whats Bad .... Well again this is a fundamental question and thinking in a very logical point of view you would conclude that these are relative. As Beauty lies in eye of the beholder , Same case here. Things which seem good in my eyes may not be with others......
Since I am equally diplomatic let me add that there is nothing good or bad... However by means of several experimentation our ancestors have given us a moral code of conduct ...... A social framework or legislation to restrict our behaviour as responsible people should do. And any activity which doesnt belong to this domain where correctly and morally judged as being BAD.........
But then with the exposure .... the thirst for knowledge ...... The feeling of youth( I know I am one too and at all points I am talking about myself too)...... Is a 23 year old earning 30k per month in Blore able to handle himself within this code.........
I dont know ..... Is it the youth at blame or is it the society at large to blame... But one thing is for sure my generation was spoilt by my older Generation and the same pattern continues .....

The Classification Of Teachers In Animal Kingdom

While the following passage is intended for me to post the feelings that lay hidden in me and for my grey matter to start the thinking process. No punditry is intended and research on the topic remains in my head yet the following document is protected by law. Now I shall be using an extension of Bionomial Nomenclature called Polynomial Nomenclature with the four words in them describing the genus, species, subspecies, specific subspecies.

1. Homo sapiens academia supremex

The characteristics of this specific sub species is that the young members belong to a category of shirt inserted, gentlemen. While their brain shines with the power of 13 suns put together. More of this kind when subject to a contest under ideal conditions may even go to the extent of killing one another. However under controlled conditions there is a vast difference in the inference such that the whole thing could be restricted to the more superior being trying to mark its territory and minimal damage to the less superior being(inferior beings dont exist in this subspecies). The females of this category are characterised by ugliness( conforming to the popular law that Beauty*Brains=A constant). Many subspecies have also survived for long , characterised by white hairs all over and have lost some genuine qualities like shirts tucked in, though they have retained their knowledge factor.

2. Homa sapiens academia domesticus

The characteristic of this sub species is that the knowledge they have gained through years have made them arrogant. They are quick to respond to problems happening in campus and intend to be in the limelight. While the quest for acceptance among people of academia have made them quite infamous among students. They enjoy the fact very much too. A few members of this sub species due to environmental conditions have evolved to the first category in the passage of time. Though the proces is extremely slow and restricted to iit's a sort of trickling down effect is being spotted in recent days in other universities too.

3. Homo sapiens academia virginianus

This is the largest sub species. Males of this category show extreme dominance when in company with a Female. However their knowledge transcends gender and equally they belong to the sort of category that fails to distinguish the teacher from the students. While some members do accept their ignorance while some take category 2 as their source of inspiration and may get elated to their status in due couse of time. Most belong to the young, fresh minds of the country and can be easily categorised as married or unmarried.