Frenzy over sai idol with one eye open..TOI reports

God says - naughty!

Hundreds of people descended on a merchant’s house in Bangalore on Friday to witness what they believe is a miracle - the Shirdi Sai Baba idol is purported to have opened its left eye. ..

O.k, so when god finally decided to show his existence, he chose to open one eye.

The idol had some black mark on its left chin and the couple’s son Dhrupad, who was cleaning the eye, suddenly felt some change in the idol - the eyelash seemed moving. The devotees were astounded and stopped the cleaning work.

If it isn’t naughty Drupad applying soot from an oil lamp on the eye, and having fun, then it’s probably that the sculptor had to deliver an idol with two eyes ‘open’, but had some kind of finishing problems and the patch didn’t work long enough. I say catch the sculptor, demand a partial refund or get his tools and put a side pedestal and worship a hammer and chisel, as a tribute to the art of sculpting.

Christian, the lion who lived in my London living room..

A pet lion bought at an exotic store, that eventually  grew too big and was introduced into the wild far away in Kenya. AN year later, when the owners wanted to see him again, they were advised that it was highly impossible that the lion might remember them. Now, see the video below:

I’ve a story today that some of you might find - not so interesting. But I’ll tell it to you any way. DNA as you know is the building block of life, and this story is that of my DNA. Years ago, when National Geographic announced their Genographic project, I was one of the enthusiasts to provide them with a DNA sample from a buccal swab (buccal is cheek, nothing other than that, OK?) and 120 USD. After months of waiting, they sent me the results with the journey of my ancestors (and most probably some of you, readers).

Genographic

My haplogroup is the same as that of a percentage of people living in China, Indonesia, Taiwan,the Philippines and from regions from northern Italy to Turkey. Some Arabs and Jews also belong to this haplogroup.

50,000 years ago, one of my ancestors was in Africa, 45,000 years ago my ancestors were in Northern Africa and Midlde-east - also called the fertile crescent. 30,000 years ago my ancestors passed through present day Pakistan and the Himalayas to come to India. This is where the Genographic story ends, and one of uncle’s story kicks in.

My surname is a derivative of a dynasty that was once called ‘Khota’ dynasty, which was involved in the Battle of Palnadu, that happened a mere 800 years ago in 1182 A.D. (the in-between 28,000 years of history is yet to be discovered). Now what’s interesting is my uncle told me that our forefather’s came from an area around modern day Rajasthan. Quite close to where Genographic ends their version of the story. It might be sheer co-incidence or  a historical fact, that isn’t too important. Anyway, from Rajasthan to coastal Andhra Pradesh is a 28,000 years of history in itself.

Coming to the present. 5 years ago, I was thousands of miles away, farther than my ancestors traveled in 50-60,000 years. 5 days ago I was 1,200 miles away in Birmingham, Alabama. In one weekend I moved my entire life with me to Boston (apart from a truckload of clothes, cables, laundry baskets and other accumulated stuff that I left back). Memories are stuck and they will fade, like everyone else’s. I don’t know where I will be in the next 20 years, I don’t know where my future generations from the same genealogy will be.

Now, the point is, when I share the same blueprint of my origin with Arabs, Jews, Chinese, Italians, Sicilians, Russians and Indians(of course), and lots more. Is evolution not a resounding proof of the absence of any religious origins or the distinctions that we follow today? Science has the proof, one thing that cannot be changed is that part of the DNA (male chromosome or ‘Y’ chromosome) that was studied for the genographic project. I’ll leave the moral of the story at that, I’m sure you will get it.

It’s also sad that the birth place of human kind is struggling for survival because of human kind itself. Zimbabwe, Somalia and Kenya to name a few. The Palestinian conflict since thousands of years and many more conflicts, wars and man-made tragedies. I’m sure our ancestors did not migrate far enough from each other, just so that one day we may be able to blow up each other with our advanced weaponry.

Probably when we have ruined life on Earth enough, and the nature is sick of it’s own evoluted beings, the final Adam will realize the grave mistakes we have done and shrink smaller in shame and regret into something smaller like amoeba, and slide back into the very ocean water we once came from, probably along the coast of Africa. Regrettably, it will then be a full circle.

Research focusing on the unknown, and protesters claiming that a resultant blackhole ON earth will gobble it up.

Science, such fun!  Link

A book that was first published in 1812, and a replica of which I’m holding right now, with awe and admiration of some of the ‘greatest medical minds’ of the early 18th century, starts of with a quote in Latin that I would love to share with you…

‘Homo, Naturae minister et interpres, tantum facil et intelligit quantum de Natura ordine, re vel mente observaverit, nec amplius scit au potest.’ - Francis Bacon.

Which translates to (link)

“Man, the minister & interpreter of nature can act & understand just in proportion to his experience & observation of the order of nature nor can he know or do any thing further.” - Francis Bacon.

And I’m forced to ask myself - how far have we come? Is this really history, it looks like yesterday and today. And possibly tomorrow, we should be telling the same thing to ourselves, again.

Steve jobs on Life

An excellent speech by Steve Jobs that I came across while looking for something unrelated, successes, failures, life, death, love… connecting the dots.

Irrespective of whether you are there or not, please, help me from going insane. I promise I’ll not move again anytime soon and I won’t buy a 100 shirts or T-shirts because they are cheap/they felt good/because I am an absolute idiot.

I won’t buy 4 pairs of sneakers without throwing the old ones (once I feel they are old), I’ll never keep books that I’ll never read, like- Bedford’s introduction to literature, that’s the size of a telephone directory, or Homer’s Iliad, which I read the first page 3 times and couldn’t understand a bit of it (hey, I tried!). I will never buy a home theater system that you can attach to a COMPUTER, and requires seven speakers + a sub-woofer AND seven speaker stands. I’ll never buy cheap wall paintings from WAL*MART to impress girls. I’ll never buy book stands, shoe stands and dumb looking lamp shades from garage sales that will give me the feeling of being an antique collector, when I’m collecting pure junk. I’ll throw away all the cups I get as freebies from job fairs/seminars or dumb ass meetings (from next time onwards), I’ll shred my mail from next month, I’ll label DVDs and CDs from next time onwards. I’ll clean up junk/duplicate files and silly e-mail attachments from my work laptop regularly, next time onwards. I’ll start packing early next time onwards. I’ll probably pray (next time onwards) in a temple, I might even bribe you with a coconut, for now I will bribe myself with a Kendall Jackson. But just this once, if you are there, restore my faith, do a miracle, let someone else pack up my stuff in the way I would want it. Please, God, please. I hope you do what you can, while I sleep.

Try watching it in High Quality on you tube….14 months and 42 countres. 4.5 million youtube hits AND a selection from Tagore’s Gitanjali, Stream of Life, beautifully rendered in the background score. This is the first time I have come across Tagore’s masterpiece.

Source: cnn.com

Former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt has been rescued, the country’s defense minister Juan Manuel Santos said Wednesday. cnn.com

She was kidnapped by a militant group in Colombia known as FARC in 2002, when she went to a FARC stronghold area for her presdential campaigning.

I’m a big fan of Ingrid’s struggle in Colombia that qualifies her as a real hero and a true leader. I had blogged about her nearly two years ago, here expressing the hope that she is brought out of captivity somehow.

After 6 years of captivity, Ingrid is finally back among her people and I hope she remains the fighter she is, recovers back to full health and jumps right into Colombian politics.

Atta boy! What a movie. I’m telling you, if you read any review that has a spoiler, may the reviewer be condemned to watch a Rakhi sawant reality show for eternity. Do not, do not, do NOT, commit the mistake of getting to know any spoiler about this movie.

This Hancock may not be a governor-elect of a state, but he is American and is unconventional, if not a revolutionary. The beauty of the movie is how WELL they packaged the trailers not to give away a major twist in the movie. It’s a humorous drama, a little action and some science fiction. I would say, I liked it better than Iron man. Definitely.

If u get a chance, GO WATCH IT.

4/5 or more. This baby, is the only spoiler for the movie.