Saturday, November 29, 2008

Eco-Friendly Funeral

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You may choose to be cremated or buried when you die,
but here is a better option you gotta try,
for your friends and family to get rid of your body and say you bye bye.

In Dead Earnest - Lee Hays (sung by Pete Seeger)
If I should die before I wake,
All my bone and sinew take.
Put me in the compost pile,
To decompose me for a while.
Worms, water, sun will have their way,
Returning me to common clay.
All that I am will feed the trees,
And little fishes in the seas.
When radishes and corn you munch,
You may be having me for lunch,
And then excrete me with a grin,
Chortling, "There goes Lee again."
'Twill be my happiest destiny,
To die and live eternally.

Marathi Manoos, Hindustani, or Just a Human on Earth

I stumbled upon an article in NDTV.com which apparently is month old and the issue has cooled down now, but anyway it excellently serves my purpose. Here is the article in original form:

"".... Yes, we all should support Raj Thackeray and take his initiative ahead by doing more...

  1. We should teach our kids that if he is second in class, he shouldn't study harder, just beat up the student coming first and throw him out of the school.
  2. Parliament should have only Delhiites as it is located in Delhi.
  3. Prime Minister, President and all other leaders should only be from Delhi.
  4. No Hindi movie should be made in Mumbai. Only Marathi movies must be made there.
  5. Buses, trains, flights should be stopped at every state border and staff should be changed to local men.
  6. All Maharashtrians working abroad or in other states should be sent back as they are 'snatching' employment from locals.
  7. Lord Shiva, Ganesha and Parvati should not be worshiped in our state as they belong to north (Himalayas).
  8. Visits to Taj Mahal should be restricted to people from Uttar Pradesh (UP) only.
  9. Relief for farmers in Maharashtra should not come from Centre because that is the money collected as tax from whole of India, so why should it be given to someone in Maharashtra?
  10. Let us support Kashmiri militants because they are right in killing and injuring innocent people for the benefit of their state and community.
  11. Let us throw all MNCs out of Maharashtra. Why should they earn from us? We will open our own Maharashtra Microsoft, MH Pepsi and MH Marutis of the world.
  12. Let us stop using cellphones, emails, TV, foreign Movies and dramas. James Bond should also speak Marathi.
  13. We should be ready to die hungry or buy food at 10-times higher price, but should not accept imports from other states.
  14. We should not allow any industry to be set up in Maharashtra because all machinery comes from outside.
  15. We should stop using local trains as trains are not manufactured by Marathi manoos and the Railway Minister is also from Bihar.
  16. Ensure that all our children are born, grow, live and die without ever stepping out of Maharasthra, then they will become true Marathis.
We need to make it clear once and for all, we are Indian first. Mumbai is Mumbai because it is a part of India......""

Source: www.ndtv.com

By this time, you must have been thinking what a great write up it is defining the soul of Indian integrity and that a state is meaningless without the country. True. Indeed it is a great article not just because it provides insight into Raj Thackeray's so-called hate politics or divide and rule politics (doesn't politics itself mean divide and rule). This article also serves as a template to understand another important phenomenon. Now do a small exercise. Re-read the above article again, but whenever you encounter words related to the concept of "Maharashtra," replace it with "India" and replace the concept of "India" with "world." Then, the last line would read as follows:
We need to make it clear once and for all, we are world citizen first. India is India because it is a part of the world.
You may replace India with United States, Pakistan, France, or Somalia. Yet the results are same. But we have never been taught that neither in school nor by the media. Why? Because this kind of thought is called ANTI-NATIONAL. Unfortunately, the common sense is also not that common for us to have our own opinion on such issues. The government of different nations have been doing the same thing what Raj intends to do, divide and rule, but it is given a different name, patriotism. If it is in the best interest of a state to be united with the country, then I believe IT IS IN THE BEST INTEREST OF A COUNTRY TO BE UNITED WITH THE WORLD, ONE WORLD. I know patriotism and nationalism are touchy issues and many questions remain to be answered, but I cannot make this post endlessly long. I welcome questions, comments, and criticism. More information about the concept of one world can be found in www.garrydavis.org.

Terror Attack, Reactions, and Questions on Reactions

Mumbai struck by terrorists, 150 dead, army flushing out terrorists, media busy covering the events, politicians busy calculating which punch lines would turn in most votes, whole Indian population hooked to their television sets (many thanks to TN govt which distributed many of those sets), some of them SMS-ing TV channels (at Rs 2 per SMS a big part of which goes to the channel itself) things like "we stand united against the terrorists , we are not afraid, etc.," and you are reading this. Thats it pretty much. I could not stop myself from looking for updates ever now and then neither could most TV-watching/internet-surfing Indians could. In such a scenario, various questions are popping up and I thought it might be a prudent idea to key them down for public review. Questions to the authority/government/politicians: Our politicians have such a strong network of intelligence that they could find out within minutes who is behind such terrorizing acts even though intelligence inputs never come before the catastrophe and it takes half a day to deploy experts in handling such situation (here NSG). The question is if the government has known, with confidence, who is behind the miseries of Indians for 2 decades now, then why no action has been taken? Are we sort of brave army men or money to carry out actions to ensure security of our countrymen? Or it is that we are so tolerant and peaceful that we prefer our citizen being killed rather than retaliate? BJP says "its India's 9/11" as if it is graceful to have an 9/11. Congress jumps to compete and says "Its an attack on India" and we are incapable of doing anything. Questions to the media: The media, especially television, has been covering this bloody affair ferociously, 24/7. This news seems to be of such great importance to them that they feel nothing else requires to be told to the viewers. But doesn't 100 people dead by drawning in Tamil Nadu make news? How about hundreds more who will die due to water born diseases since medicines hardly costing Rs 10 is not available in govt hospitals, due to unavailability of drinking water, due to cold since they have lost their homes, or due to hunger since there is no work in fields. Oh! I just missed the point about TRP ratings. Questions to the masses: Lot of people are SMS-ing to TV channels, blogging, etc., their views. Few such views and my questions to the owners of those views are as follows: View: Enough is enough. My Question: What are you going to do, sit in front of the TV, blow few hot opinions in smoke of cigarette with colleagues, send a few forwarded SMS and emails, or at the most burn a few candles benefiting candle manufacturers (don't forget to remind the environmentalist how much pollution so many candles would cause). V: Lets stand united against terrorism. We are not afraid of this terrorist act. We will teach them a lesson and fight till finish them. I salute those brave soldiers those who sacrificed their lives for the country. MQ: Are you ready to join anti-terrorism squad and fight those terrorists or prefer the safety of air-conditioned office and endless keyboarding with no risk of getting even a scratch. V: We should not show any mercy towards the terrorists and they should be punished through fast track court and capital punishment should be given to them so that they should think 100 times before doing such acts. MQ: What made you think that terrorists will be afraid of death or capital punishment? Isn't their act anything less than suicide? V: Indian govt should make more stringent laws. MQ: Does the present laws allow terrorism? And by the way, do you really follow all the laws of the land? The only sensible comment I could see was "Find root cause. Why they are attacking? Reason of their dissatisfaction.." These idiotic comments equally from masses and authorities seem more terrorizing to the mind than the terrorist act itself. Please someone stop them from misusing their freedom of expression.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Megani Trek and Maravanthe Beach

Click on any photo in slideshow to reach Picasa album. This trek was organized by YHAI Udupi unit near Kollur, Udupi Dist, Karnataka in November 2008. The trek route is as follows: Day 1: Mavinkar>Bavudi>Thearthabare Falls>Bavudi>Megani (base camp). (15 km) Day 2: Megani>Galigudda>Haddubare>Devakunda>Megani. (10 km) Day 3: Megani>Hullukudike (6 km) Mavinkar is 5 km from Kollur bus stand from where the trek started. The whole trek was made easy by the fact that the trek route was through thick forest and hence devoid of harsh sun rays and also abundance of water. Some part of Bavudi to Megani route on day 1 was little steep, but manageable. Not only the selection of trek route was excellent but also management of arrangement was simply superb by YHAI. These jungles seemed to be fairly untouched by commercial activities or even by trekkers, but later on we came to know that though tree felling was not a concern here (probably trees were of poor commercial value), but poaching was rampant. One needs to get permission for trek in this region by Kundapur forest department which is not everybody's "glass of coffee" because of supposed Naxal menace. After Valedictory function on day 3, we left towards Kundapur where from we had to board bus for Bangalore, but en route we got down at Maravanthe beach and could witness the magnificent drama of sun and clouds unfold. The experience could not be captured in pictures nor it could be described in words.

Friday, November 7, 2008

Charmadi Ghat Trek

Click on any photo in slideshow to reach Picasa album. Charmadi Ghat trek was organized by YHAI Mangalore branch in October 2008. In this 3-day trek, we covered the following hills: Kumbhakallu, Minchukallu, Kodekallu, Baalebetta, Jenukallu, Bidirutala village, and Yerikallu (Hulidana Bande).