Sunday, December 25, 2011

Mysore university Medical College and Moms

It has been always a fact that indian parents give more importance to education than anything else. I remember when I was growing up the a local high school teacher was treated with the most respect than the richest person of the village or town.
I have a friend who studies in A famous Medical College of Mysore which is probably the only college in the world to allow its student's moms to stay with their students in their rooms (with a minimal charge of 120 Rupees per day) to provide a moral support. These moms not just provide them the moral support but also help them with their laundry, cook homemade food for them in the hostel's canteen and make sure their kids are not spending any of their time other than studying. They even bring their handmade food to their kids to their rooms so that they can cut down the time it takes to come down to the canteen and eat. This is really a unique arrangement and it is mostly used by female candidates/students. I was surprised to know that whenever there is the final exam of their term, these girls call their mom to stay with them and help. I spoke to one of the girl and she told me that more than the food or the help with the laundry it is mostly their moral support which relieves the stress and motivates to have someone of their own around other than friends.

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Why Avatar in Hinduism (reincarnation)

I studied in a gurukul (ashram) for 3 years and all those 3 years I use to think I wish I was in a normal convent school dating girls and partying out but since then I have realized that I wish that place was still intact so that I could have sent my kids there in future. If you are a maths professor and design a question paper with very challenging questions then it is very obvious and natural for students to say that the exam was so tough and it is impossible for anyone to score beyond 70% or 80% and the only way to prove them wrong is by you telling your colleague to design a question paper tougher than what you have designed and you solve it with 100% accuracy within the given time. Now you might think Why am I saying this and how is it connected to the title of the post. Please give me 3 more minutes of your valuable time and you will know.

reason 1: If you have children and if you really love them then don't you want to spend your time among them, help them and guide them on the right way or would you stay in a far, unseen place and stay in control of them. Any good parent would choose to stay among his children. A dad who works in a different city comes and visits his children and wife once in a while to make sure his loved ones are fine and most of the times he still comes and sees his children even after knowing that they are fine because as a loving father he would like to meet his children every now and then, even in this internet age of voice chat or video calling and online banking. We are all god's children and god being the greatest loving parent comes every now and then to his beloved children as an avatar and puts them on the right path.

reason 2: Let us say you are an important person in society and 3 people well known to you are sick. Let us say the first praises you and thinks highly of you and you like him too so you call him on his phone and inquire about his health. Let us say that the 2nd one does your work sincerely with acceptable efficiency and thus you send your servant with some flowers and fruits and also call him and wish him a speedy recovery. Let us say the 3rd one is the most loved one by you and he is a righteous person, obeys you, admires you and also a very efficient person who trusts you in every aspect then you will personally go and visit him, make sure the doctors and the hospital are taking care of him properly and you personally see to that all the arrangements are perfect. So based on the person and his relationship with you, you interact with them accordingly. Now Sanathana Dharma (Hinduism) being the most ancient civilization so his many avatars among us only tells us that how much he loves us where he instead of choosing one among us or sending an angel he came down himself in a way that we can understand or see him i.e., an avatar.

When prophet muhammad (pbuh) was influenced by satan, he did say some satanic verses but later he took them back and they are no longer a part of the holy quran. A human being or a chosen one can be influenced by satan but not an avatar of god. If in fact Dr. Zakir naik's theory of, 'if you make a VCR player then you produce a manual to repair it but you do not have to become a VCR' then it puts the blame on god that he made a defective VCR in the first place or a VCR which goes bad. In the same context god can be blamed for choosing someone as weak as the Md. (pbuh) who can be influenced by satan but Md. (pbuh) was on the contrary was not a weak person but a very strong person and a courageous leader. If only the yemeni govt. discloses the the oldest quran found which is dubbed as yemeni quran which is a lot different from the current uthmeni quran we will be able to get more insight into a great religion.

The world is not fair and nice to almost all of us and sometimes in life it is very natural to feel that we cannot do this or we cannot go through life like this and defeat the evil among us and make the world a better place. Any one who believes in god also believes that this world with so many obstacles are the tests by the God Almighty and whenever we feel that it is impossible to pass these obstacles every now and then he sets an example by proving that yes these obstacles can be passed with the given abilities of a normal human being. We have many examples like Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela or Even Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates or Dennis Ritchie (the inventor of C language which is the mother of all modern computing technology) have long proved that breaking barriers is more than possible by ordinary human beings but still every now and then we are doubtful that sometimes in life the obstacles are their to quash us like a fly but not overcome them. When humanity as a whole starts to feel more and more like this then god takes an avatar (reincarnates) among us to set an example and passes the greatest obstacles and defeats the evil to let his children know that they can do it too if only they could have tried a little more by believing in a greater force.

In hinduism we have many avatar's of god such as krsna, rama, budha and hanuman just to name a few and finally I would like to end my thought on this subject with a small arabic poem by the Prophet Mohammad's
uncle Umar-Bin-E-Hassham
Kafavomal fikra min ulumin Tab asayru
Kaluwan amataul Hawa was Tajakhru
We Tajakhayroba udan Kalalwade-E Liboawa
Walukayanay jatally, hay Yauma Tab asayru
Wa Abalolha ajabu armeeman MAHADEVA
Manojail ilamuddin minhum wa sayattaru
Wa Sahabi Kay-yam feema-Kamil MINDAY Yauman
Wa Yakulum no latabahan foeennak Tawjjaru
Massayaray akhalakan hasanan Kullahum
Najumum aja- at Summa gabul HINDU


which translates as:

The man who may spend his life in sin
and irreligion or waste it in lechery and wrath
If at least he relent and return to
righteousness can he be saved?
If but once he worship Mahadeva with a pure
heart, he will attain the ultimate in spirituality.
Oh Lord Shiva exchange my entire life for but
a day's sojourn in India where one attains salvation.
But one pilgrimage there secures for one all
merit and company of the truly great.


सर्वे जनाः सुखिनो भवन्थु

Fraudulant Airtel's new unlawful way to make money

Airtel is probably the 2nd biggest mobile network service provider in india after BSNL (Both Side No Listening=Bharath Sanchar Nigam Ltd) and it seems in their recent attempt to expand outside india and raise money for the same they have gone down to a level where they are crossing the law to make money.
My dad is one of those Zero tech guy who does not know how to use a phone and all its features. He do not know how to save a contact in the phone thus he carries a diary with phone numbers and dial it in his mobile phone. He do not even know how to read, send or delete the messages in his inbox and every now and then he takes the help of people like us to do it for him. It seems airtel is activating value added services without the user requesting for it by just sending a message which basically reads like "we have activated a service on your phone and if you do not want this service call us and cancel it" or "We have activated a service on your phone and you have XX amount of time to call us and cancel it.". My dad does not know how to read or write messages so he neglects such messages but he realized that whenever he charged his prepaid mobile phone with more than 100Rs the money was spent almost instantaneously. We only realized it when my elder brother read the messages from airtel in his inbox. I inquired few of my friends and relatives to dig on this and it was seriously a shocking revelation. Airtel seems to know (they might have their SIM programmed to do so) whether a user reads his messages are not and they already have the data of how many messages a user sends per month. My dad sends or reads zero messages hence they can easily make a database of users like my dad who do not see, read, write messages (sms services) and conclude that these users are either not that literate or will not go to court and sue them hence they can activate such plans and take money from the user. My dad was losing his money every now and then per month without knowing about such draconian methods by airtel. Even if a user goes to consumer court airtel will pay the fine of 1000Rs and it will still continue to do the same to millions of other users (most of the rural, semi urban users like my dad or not that illiterate to read and understand every english text message) and they make millions. Indians especially hindus are insanely tolerant people and they do everything to stay away from courts out of fear and other factors and these corporations know that out of these millions no one will file a case on them in the civil court (not the consumer court) and even if they do no TV Channel or Newspaper reports it because they will lose a top advertiser for their TV Channel or news paper so end of the day irrespective of the cases or complaints airtel will continue to make money unlawfully from the poor and illiterate since they are always a soft target.

Corrective or vengeful reciprocation

 Over years, I have become convinced about "corrective reciprocation" being the safest moral principle that an individual or a gro...