Never Been Kissed

Ought to listen to....

Artist/Band: Austin Sherrie
Lyrics for Song: Never Been Kissed
Lyrics for Album: Love In The Real World

If I show up ten minutes early baby
You can bet that you'll be running behind
But it when it comes to loving me now baby
I have to say you're right on time and

I've never been kissed, never been kissed
Never been kissed like this, no, no, no
I've never been touched, never been touched baby
'Til I felt your touch
Oh your love's going to my head so fast
Just like the bubbles in a champagne glass
Now I know what I've been missing
I've never been kissed, like this
Ooh like this

Well you're a fool for wild-eyed-poetry baby
I only like the kind that rhymes
And your a little rough around the edges now baby
But your kind of edges suit me just fine and

I've never been kissed, never been kissed
Never been kissed like this, no, no, no
I've never been touched, never been touched baby
'Til I felt your touch
Oh your love's going to my head so fast
Just like the bubbles in a champagne glass
Now I know what I've been missing
I've never been kissed
Ooh like this

This is more than temporary madness baby
This is more than hearts just doing time
If love weren't so serious we could laugh about it baby
Yeah we could laugh until we cried and

I've never been kissed, never been kissed
Never been kissed like this, no, no, no
I've never been touched, never been touched baby
'Til I felt your touch
Oh your love's going to my head so fast
Just like the bubbles in a champagne glass
Now I know what I've been missing
I've never been kissed, like this
Ooh like this

Ooh like this
I've never been kissed
No I've never been kissed

A kind of Lozenge

I posted a question a few days earlier on this blog. The question was....

"If you take a rod two inches in diameter and cut it[in half] by drilling a two inch hole through it. what is the shape of the metal that is removed ?"

The answer :
The object has a round profile from the top, a round profile from one side and a square profile from the other.

Dont scare the daylights !!

The festival of Lights has returned again. I along with my bro and parents happened to go around the city quite a lot this diwali. And one thing that we all noticed is the relative decrease in the amount of crackers that were being burst this time around. And thankfully this time more people seem to have realised its a festival of lights and not exactly a festival to scare the daylights.

My memory of Diwali of the yester years is not a pleasant one. I think I was around 10 or 12 years old. It was the morning after Diwali. A house was being built in the neighbouring compound. One of the labourers stayed in this house under construction doubling up as a watchman. He had a huge family consisting of his wife and around 7 or 8 children. The older kids worked as labourers. But there were also these tiny tots, around 4 or 5 years old who played amidst all the construction work. Not the ideal place for kids to grow up but that was the reality of developing India.

The morning after Diwali, these kids went around the neigbouring streets collecting the half burnt, unburnt crackers from the streets. They collected all the chemicals in these crackers into a coconut shell and lit it hoping it would be a nice cracker. Little did these kids realise that their cracker was going to burst immediately and right in their face. The loud burst and the wailing of these kids brought us all outside immediately. We saw these kids running and hugging their mother. The poor mom not realising the gravity of the scene, used her dirt ridden sari to wipe the face of her children. The severely burnt skin on their faces just came off !!!

The scene when we saw it was these two kids who have dark colored skin, now had pink faces. Their faces with no skin and the flesh showing was one of the most gory scenes of my childhood. The very thought brings back images of those wailing kids. A truly horrible scene. Since then, I have never ever wanted to light a cracker.

This year too, the newspaper reports say that close to 100 people have been injured due to crackers. Infact many of the victims these time were innocent bystanders. I did meet a small kid who was walking along with his parents in Commercial Street when some kids burst some crackers on Commercial street and one of the crackers burst and some fragments hit the poor kid burning his shirt, neck and hair. I can only imagine the trauma the kid must have undergone.

I hope and pray not many have to watch such heart rending scenes, and that too on the occasion of a festival.

Happy Diwali !!!!

Rule of Law ? or Whims of a few?

A Delhi court recently pronounced Afsal Guroo, one of the main accused in the attack on the Indian Parliament on December 13, 2001 as guilty. And the punishment .... "To be hanged until death".

Some truths....
1. We all love to hate our politicians. Most of us consider them as the bane to this country. And wish .... at almost every traffic signal that somebody should bomb all these politicians out of the country.
2. But, the Indian Parliament however is considered as the home of the Indian Democratic system and a powerful symbol of modern India. An attack on a such an important symbol is unpardonable in the eyes of (almost) all Indians.
3. The lower courts were not very sure of the legitimacy of the case against Afzal Guroo and others and suspected foul play by the investigating agencies.
4. The people arguing on behalf of Afzal Guroo claim that he was not given a chance to prove his innocence, that he has been falsely implicated.
5. The people of Jammu & Kashmir have been having a horrid time for a while now. Life in the valley is under the constant shadow of the Gun. And is struggling to limp back to normalcy.

Clearly, the issues involved are totally different and cannot be mentioned in the same breath. Local politicians however see this as an opportunity to rise in stature in the heady mix of state politics. In the days following the SC verdict, narrow minded (terrorists under the garb of) political leaders mixed the issues involved, raised a hue and cry, whipping public sentiment to a feverish frenzy and caused unrest in the valley. They demanded clemency for Afzal, a failure of which they claimed would lead to Kashmir "burning".

Yaseen Malik, the leader of the JKLF(on the Indian side) claims that he himself "was one of the products of the last hanging of a Kashmiri". He seems to issue veiled threats of a "burning" Kashmir. Infact even the ex-Cheif Minister of J&K Dr Abdullah seemed to echo his words. Even the Central Government too tried to maintain a sturdy silence rather than supporting the verdict of the court. Is this really a belief that Afzal Guroo is not guilty or just an oppotunity to score the brownie points of Indian politics.

An attack on the heart of the Indian Democratic system is an unpardonable crime. And the people guilty of it must be given the severe most punishment by the law of the land. The Indian Penal code provides the death penalty as a punishment under the rarest of rare cases. And this attack on the Indian Parliament can be considered as a case under the rarest of rare cases. And so the guilty must be "hanged unto death". Yes, there is a demand from a few quarters for abolishing the "death penalty". But once again, that is a different issue and should not be mixed with the main debate of clemency for Afzal Guroo.

When the Supreme Court of India pronounced that Afzal Guroo was guilty and meted out the death penalty, it was fully aware of the element of doubt observed by the lower courts. The SC must then have been fully convinced beyond doubt that indeed Afzal was guilty. And hence must have meted him the harshest of punishments. If however, there still exists sufficient evidence to prove that he is not guilty, or that he was not given a fair hearing, the demand of these leaders must be for a free & fair trial and not clemency on the basis of a "burning" Kashmir.

As Solee Sorabjee, the ex Chief Justice of India rightly pointed out, what if tommorrow, when the verdict of the Gujarat riots case is announced and the guilty is given the death penalty. And if the political leaders of Gujarat seek clemency on the basis of a "burning" Gujarat. Should they too be pardoned ? Will these same leaders then seek clemency once again?

We live in a modern society where we live by the law of the land. Not by the whims of a few who probably have vested intrests in seeking clemency for Afzal. If Afzal Guroo is indeed guilty of the heinous crime of the attack on the Indian Parliament, then he must be meted out the severest punishment by the law of the land. And if the law of the land provides capital punishment as the severest form of punishment. Then so be it.

Imagine.......

Here's a wonderful exercise to stretch your imagination -

If you take a rod two inches in diameter and cut it[in half] by drilling a two inch hole through it. what is the shape of the metal that is removed ?

This was part of a question, once posed by a few engineers in General Electric to Steinmetz, the inventor of electrical generators, transformers. [excerpt from "Sparks of Genius"]

To most people[including me], this would be an extremely difficult exercise. I infact did take some while to be able to imagine the object. Imagination or Imaging is something that I dig a lot. Even an extremely difficult concept can be assimilated and recollected with ease at a later stage, if during assimilation of the concept, we are able to imagine each and every participating charachter/force in the concept to the minutest details.

Thanks to the East India Company.

I was watching "Path to 9/11", a wonderful documentary. The documentary portrayed life in Afghanistan. The Afghans and their cheiftains have no unity and are at constant loggerheads with each other. They have no modern governments. They have no unity, whether it was in fighting the Russians or the Taliban or the Americans.

And thats when my thoughts were drawn to my own homeland. I wondered how life would have been had it not been for the "East India Company". The company that came to trade in India and started a factory in Gujarat, defeated the Nawab of Bengal (thanks to Siraj-ud-daula) and slowly gained power over the whole country. Never in history has it happened that so few have ruled over so many for such a long time(I believe it was a ratio of 1 Britisher for every 4000 Indians.). The East India Company ruled over a country of millions for more than 100 years till its dissolution in 1858.

The East India Company and later the British Monarchy, systematically exploited our country and rendered us utterly helpless and inequipped. But then I think we must also thank them. Thanks to the East India Company and the British rule, the people of numerous different states(kingdoms), religions and ethnicities, united to once again seek control of our motherland. What followed was a long struggle, a never-seen before "satyagraha" a non-violent fight for freedom, division of our land, loss of millions of people (to the struggle and to the division). We paid a hefty price for staying divided.

But here we are just 50 odd years later, forgetting our tumultous past, having a state wide bundh fighting over state borders. Yes, kannada is important and protecting our land is important to us. There is no doubt about that. But what I question is, the means. A state wide bundh hurts nobody else other than the intrests of our own state. For heaven's sake dont turn our beloved state into another Kerala where strikes is the norm of the day and industries fear to tread. The youth of Kerala are forced to seek opportunites in far-off Gulf or other cities of India. We, the people of karnataka dont need to turn our state into a Kerala. We need to seek better ways. We are after all people from the same state as the illustrious Sir M Vishveshwaraiah. We can seek better methods than the age old strikes to demonstrate our feelings.

Strikes in the days of the british meant hurting the coffers of the British Empire. But does hurting the coffers of the Karnatataka State help us ?I may not know the intricacies of the problem, but I realise that this "strike" is only hurting my state and its denizens. Yes, we may have an issue at hand, that a part of our state is being questioned, but in order to save that part, dont seek a solution that though has sought so many sacrifices will not provide a solution. Yes, we are united against the problem. Let us seek a solution that gets rid of the problem. Not one which will only incite sentiments, raise a rheoteric, and not get rid of our problem.

What hurt me most this day, was a local leader proclaiming on TV that if the intrests of kannada are not looked after, that we would seek a new country called "Karnataka". Have we forgotten our history ? Is this all leading to another opportunity for yet another company .... may be a Pepsi or Coke... to one day rule our country ? Can we risk it ? I wonder what would have been, had the East India Company not come to India. Another Afghanistan ?

PS: I may be getting paranoid but I fear the path we take.

One, Two, I Love You (3:07)
- Clay Walker

Kindergarten, five years old
You and me and mother goose
Learning lines to nursery rhymes
Thats when I feel in love with you

Back when it was
One, two buckle my shoe
Three four shut the door
Five six pick up sticks
Even then my heart was yours

College days miles apart
So afraid youd forgot
Writing letters every day
And ending every one like this

One two I miss you
Three four I walk the floor
Five six come back quick
I dont wanna miss you no more

A little girl and little boy
Playing on a swing in the yard
As we watch I hold your hand
And youre still holding onto my heart

And now its
One two I love you
Three four lets have one more
Five six I wouldnt miss
A day of this for all the treasure on the ocean floor

One two I love you
Three four lets shut the door
Five six, kiss after kiss
I cant wait to hold you once more

Boring Boring Boring ....... Ramblings ....

Its a long weekend, thanks to Ayudha Pooja and Gandhiji. Its been the long weekend that I have been always waiting for. Time to just relax and recharge my batteries. Its been a while since I got a weekend to myself. Now that it has arrived.... I am lost... what do I do..... ??? What exactly do I do ? The thought of just sitting around, watching the idiot box, sleeping the whole day, gorging on all the sweets of the festival is not somehow inviting this time around. This was that weekend I was waiting for all the time. And now that it is here, I find myself inequipped to handle the spare time. I dont know what to do.

I always thought I had a lot of friends. I wonder why I am feeling this lonely suddenly. Guess its the time. The festive season being around, all the ones married, are at home completing their formalities. And the ones who have found someone, did not want to be disturbed. So... where all the singles ??? hmmm... come to think of it... there are just a few of us left, holding on to the bastion called bachelor.

Well... thanks to the blog sites, for helping me kill time reading all the time pass stuff that all the really creative people churn out. I wish I was like these amazing people who churn out sentences making amazing use of words still managing to convey what they mean in such simple ways that I keep thinking ... "Its so bloody simple.... why could I not think of it earlier" Hmm... well ... for one .... I guess you need to be smart.. Secondly... confidence and finally the perseverance to continue writing and develop a skill. These are the times when I curse myself for not listening to my dad and writing anything worthwhile in my younger days.

Well... I hope I make writing a habit atleast now. Need a plan !!! :) (here comes the software designer) I guess I should allot a few minutes to pen down a few things everyday. I am sure I can spare atleast sometime everyday to improve a skill that I really wish I have.

Wish me luck. And if you have any tips... i am all ears....