April 19th 2008

A normal Saturday morning, Rina and I are in the bed. I as usual up little early 8am (early by Saturday standards) and i am just moving from side to side and knowing touching her, asking her some random, illogical, stupid questions over and again in a bid to wake her up. And she as
usual is covering herself with the blanket and tucking it under her as if i am going to steal it from her. Finally after some time i manage to wake her up. Then i started asking her, lets go out for a walk. But it was rainy a bit so thought of going to Gym.
She has been telling me for past 2-3 days that her breasts are a bit tender. As she was waking up, i was online and having my daily staple of Indian taaza khabar (daily news). I kind of knew what may be the reason for her breast tenderness but was not sure, so i asked Google Singh for his esteemed opinion on this. And it confirmed that... Man...You have hit the bulls eye. I said to Rina, you are pregnant and immediatly she became a little tense. All her sleep which usually ends when she has rolled in bed for another half an hour after waking up.. was all gone. And only thing she wanted to do then was to go to nearest pharmacy and get one of those quick pregnancy test devices. Since it was raining, we drove to Bartell drugs, close to our home and came back with the test device.My hunch came out to be true, and it was +ve. Even before she tried the test, i had the phone ready in my hand to call mummy papa to give them the news.
It was already 11am here in Seattle, so it was 11.30pm in India. Mummy papa were sleeping and papa picked up the phone. After all the pleasantaries, i asked him to pass the phone to mummy, as i wanted to tell mummy first. Mummy was in deep sleep and was sleep talking to us on phone. I said, mummy... you are about to become grandma again.. She said.. achaa.. good news. Then we asked her to pass the phone to baapu ji and he was very happy to hear about it. In the mean time mummy came out of her sleep induced daze and was very very excited about this new happening. Mummy later told us that Papa didnt sleep for quite some time after we put down the phone. For unavailability of a traditional sweet at home at that time, he just had a piece of Jaggery and slipped one little one into Mummy mouth too.
Then we tried calling Germany to tell Rina's Dady and mummy. They were in Train and going home from Temple. I talked to Dady and asked him to pass phone to Mummy and then told her that she is becoming Nani or Grandma again. She couldn't hear properly and thought that i was just kidding. She didn't want to believe even when i told her repeatedly and said that she will call back once they get to their home. Then, they were very excited too. And as out of habit, she said...Beyo!! after we gave her this news. Then i joked that isn't it enough.. Even if we
want we can not have another kid before 18months. Rina was little confused and understandably a little dull. We were actually planning to have baby towards the mid of next year. But then, some things, just happen. She was also little confused about her period. So she wanted to go see a doctor to confirm the deal. Luckily there was a Dr available for a 1.30pm appointment. She took her urine test and told us that Rina is 100% pregnant. I was very happy. I immediatly called Kaka and Ashu. Kaka was very happy and Ashu started with a barrage of "good words". They were very excited too. Then i woke Munni up around 5pm and it was pretty early in India. She was very very happy to hear about it and excited and wanted to give all
the tips to Rina right there and then.
Today is May 5th 2008. It is exciting time for both of us. Now we have already seen 1st ultrasounds of the baby. At the time of ultrasound, baby seems to be almost 6 weeks old. And the doctor said, the delivery date would be 25th of December.. The Christmas day. So i was joking with Rina that if it is a boy i would call him Jesus and if its a girl i will call her Jesusa. We both are reading online on DOs and Donts and what to eat kind of stuff online. Rina has reluctantly started having milk.. sometimes two times a day. Which is a big deal by itself. But then, Things are changing and they will change further. She is quite careful these days... and happy.
These times are exciting and i want us to relish every moment of this wonderful journey. Just to mark this year, i am planning to STP- Seattle to Portland (200miles) bike ride.
Let the fun get started now!!

Yesterday calling today’s Mrs G

A very good article, another depiction of our corrupt polity, whose only goal is grabbing power. Kudos to Indian Express and Shekhar Gupta for this honest and lucid representation of the facts. Its the high time that we all realize how rotton our poltiticians are and stop playing into their hands for their good and nation's misfortune.
Yesterday calling today’s Mrs G

Virginia Tech madness - still YES on gun rights?

A university is a place for learning, a production floor of a factory producing careers, and yesterday many bright young men and women had their careers cut short by a maddening event. My heart goes out to the parents, brothers and sisters and friends who lost their dear ones. Why did it happen? Why did it happen to them? and how can we prevent further horrific acts like these? -are the questions in front of everyone of us.
In America, the society at large has been little too concerned about the lives and health of their family members and their pets. Just few weeks back, only news on CNN was, the discovery of some plastic component in pet food. There is a good reason for that, the lives here are so comfortable and safe, that its termination for any reason other than natural, sends vibrations through out the nation. Where as outside America, so many people die daily because of lack of basic amenities like food, clean water, health care, that daily health concerns like flu, cold and pet foods just do not cross the line of being considered important enough. However, what sounds rather strange to me, about American society and their representatives at white house, is their unwillingness to try and resolve issues, which lead to widespread massacres like in Columbine and Virginia Tech. The Gay rights, Abortion, Dog food among other nuisance concerns, are at the top of agenda here, but not gun control. Why there is no debate on Gun Control?
John McCain, was invoking Second Amendment, to claim the "right to bear guns". But what about the whole constitution, whose existance in the 1st place is to just guarantee the safety of the citizens, where people will not need to wear bulletproof vests to go to a classroom. Isn't there any amendment whether 1st, 3rd, 4th.... 100th, which seeks to provide safe environment to the citizens of this country? What is the need to bear weapons? Is personal safety the reason? Yes; There is no other country as prosperous as USA; and if police of this nation, can not assure citizen's safety then its a shame. And if No, then Why do we need guns? Just because the people who wrote, 2nd amendment, i do not know how many years back, thought it was necessary at that time to have guns. Along with 2nd amendment there is something more in the Constitution, that says that elected representatives should be answerable to the people who elect them and not to the Gun lobbies. How are you protecting that general public who elected you to do that? By defending.. rights to have weapons? What is the place of weapons in a civil and safe society.
Try telling this 2nd amendment thing to a parents who have just lost their young kids to these 2nd amendment compliant guns.
There was a documentary on PBS on Gun control. The fact presented was that 70 times more people die in USA (approx 11000) due to gun shots than in Canada (approx 160), just 140 miles north of where i live or just 5-600 miles north of Virginia tech. Why is it like that? Does anybody care about this huge difference? They speak same language, eat almost the same food, look almost same and even watch same hollywood movies. So what is the difference? Canada has strict gun control laws. There you can not just walk into a Walmart and buy a gun of your choice. Even in India, where i come from, which has problems with militancy, separatism and a hostile neighboring country; you can not just go and buy a gun from neighborhood gun store. There is a detailed licensing process, which you need to go through and you need to give enough proof that your immediate security is at risk. I can not imagine what might have happened, had there been even half of the same the security risks here in USA, as faced by India. I will not be surprised if gun lobby fed politicians would even have defended having Anti-aircraft guns on individual roof tops.
As i understand it, the government is elected to make decisions which are for greater good of the citizens of the nation, and when they start making decisions which are for greater good of certain interest groups, it is around the time that public show them what they voted them to do and what they are doing. There are many psychos roaming the streets of American and other countries too, but the difference being that, only in America these deranged fellows, have access to a weapon of choice to kill and die. I am 99% sure that these politicians who do not miss any opportunity to express there self vividly on every nonsensical issue on the face of the earth; none of them will be human enough to go on TV and say, that we had enough, no more of this madness and no more brutal endings of beautiful lives, no more guns at neighborhood stores.
My deepest condolences to the families who lost their hopes and dreams in this madness on April the 16th.

Crime against humanity in Lebanon

Its been 14 days since Israel started pounding Lebanon with heavy munitions and has lead to hundreds of civilian deaths and caused a massive destruction of infrastructure. And all Americans and other powerful nations have done is watch daily mayhem on TV and not get ashamed of their inability to protect the innocent civilians. The world leaders other than US politicians have become impotent, and this includes China, Russia, EU and all other countries. The problem with USA is of lack of will combined with selective ideas of freedom, terrorism and repression. American leaders have been breaking new grounds in being indifferent to the pain of those who are suffering the wounds created by war machines supplied by them and at hands of their closest friend and ally.
All rhetoric of freedom, terrorism doesn't apply here because the oppressor here is Israel and victim is Lebanon, which hardly interests USA in any way. It looks like that pain caused to Israelis and Americans and for that matter any westerner is pain and an "attack on the freedom" where as pain caused to rest of the world is our right to defend ourselves to protect freedom. Who are we selling this crap to?
Firstly, to start with Hezbollah's actions, they once again portrayed that they do not like peace and will never live or want peace. And every country should make sure that such militant organizations are not given any respite anywhere in any corner of the world. And the nations which support these organizations, should realize that the fire which they lighting to burn other's homes can and will come back to burn their houses too. Alas, world is full of so many evil and corrupted minds, that these things will go on.
And on the other hand, Israel was right to attack Hezbollah positions. No country worth its salt, will allow its soldier to be kidnapped by such militant organizations and then used to trade in to get release of prisoners. But the dis-proportionate use of force on civilians in Lebanon has and will have a negative impact. A clinical use of force against Hezbollah should have been the response. How Israelis and their American friends can defend destroying highways, airports, homes and schools as fight against Hezbollah. According to an estimate, country has been pushed back 10 years atleast in terms of infrastructure damage. So many innocent lives have been lost, homes have been destroyed, families divided. What you think it will lead to? Will anyone there forget this inability of others and blatant support of Americans when their lives were being played with? Then people ask, why do people outside USA hate us? Isn't it clear why they do so?
I am no Ivy league bureaucrat, but when I can see what's wrong here why can't those who are working for state department, pentagon and white house. They must have brains much more developed than me or you for that matter, why can't they see the problem here? Why don't they get hurt by the oppression of a so called democratic and free country on an another democratic and free country. Is it only because, Israel is 51st state of USA and Lebanon doesn't have anything that interests us and of course doesn't even has oil reserves? Bush started many so called, "initiatives to win minds and hearts" of people in the outside world, this is where you need to concentrate Mr Bush. In today's information age world, you can not be just immune to pain of others when it actually can be relieved, when their lives can be made better. Because the pain we are causing to others, will for sure haunt us in future.
To add to this, this was America's chance to actually "win hearts and minds", if they had acted in a fair , moral, humanitarian and unbiased manner, after the Iraq fiasco. But by shirking from uttering even a word against the atrocities, they have actually set new standards in double speak, immorality, shameless-ness and lack of concern. It is an irony that in today's time when terrorism is so prevalent and crisis against humanity are so rife and when world needs a strong, honest, fair and moral leadership, we have a biased and selfish world leader, who's actions hardly generate any confidance or trust. I am so much pained by inaction and indifference of the people and the governments around the world. History will remember us as spineless, inhuman people of so called civilized world.

Reservations, the Indian way

After the last wave of reservations, i thought that politicians of our nation would never come up with a ill-advised policy like that ever again. Guess what.. i was naive to under-estimate the foolhardiness of our great great political leadership. Our politicians have again and again come up with such poorly thought out, retrogressive plans over and over, with an alarming alacrity to defy all imagination. As if there is a competition among them to see, who comes up with a policy most damaging to the future of our own country.
Reservations-II, this time for OBCs (Other Backward Classes/Castes), is one of these gems, which Mr Arjun singh has enveiled to the nation. What this means is that, if you are from an OBC, even though you are well to do, you just need to score 10% in an entrance exam or even better, in some cases, just appear for the exam and you get into one of the premier institutes of our country. Institutes targetted are IITs and IIMS, which are appreciated all over the world for their excellance in academics.

The reason for reservations, as presented by many Pro-reservation activists is that, for centuries some castes in Indian society have been socially exploited and they needs to be given a chance to enjoy the best our nation has to offer. I totally agree that the caste system is probably the worst part of our social heritage. And people who have been left behind needs to be uplifted, so that they can join the mainstream. But, are reservations the only way to do that? Is the criteria of castes is a right one for reservations? By basing the reservations on caste, wouldn't after 30-40 years we would need to provide reservations to the castes which are excluded from such a reservation package this time around? Are we committing another injustice just to undo past injustices? Aren't we making the same mistakes which our forefathers made by favouring certains castes over others?

I was reading an article in "The Indian Express" by Mr Sachin pilot, an MP of Lok Sabha. He had mentioned few good points in the article. One that appealed me the most was that, the Reservations should be in a time-bound manner so that they are not taken advantage of for generations to come. But the problem is that the package that our government of which he is a part, is pushing wouldn't have both of these clauses in it. Since the last push for reservations, many people who benefitted and are now well to do, but still their children are getting quota under the same garb of upliftment of backward classes. Do you think they are still backward? And those who really need reservations, still dont get it. And did any of our politicians across different parties had courage to raise this issue... even though they know its clearly a mis-use of the system. Did anyone raise this issue??

Another point that i have is, why lower the bar of competition? Instead of requiring a student from reserved classes to just show up for an entrance exam to get a seat in engg or medical college, why dont we give them money and support them, so that they can get proper coaching. This way they will be on the same level as other students and compete "fairly" with them to get into any institution. Isnt it a better approach, not only for those students but also for the nation? Wouldn't we be producing better enggs and doctors this way than our existing system? I will give an example here, Suppose our government wants to buy 100 heart pacemaker devices. Suppose there are 4 companies bidding for that contract, 3 are private firms with their product scoring 90, 91, 92 marks out of 100 on quality. And the 4th one is a government enterprise, and has a poor product with only 25 marks out of 100. But Government wants to help this govt enterprise to be a world competitor. Would the better approach be to help this company with funds so that they improve their product and then compete with other companies or just buy its product even though it doesnt meet the
mark, because you want to help or uplift this company? It shouldnt be hard to make a decision in this case. Is it? Everyone, no matter educated or not, from any strata of society should be able to make this decision very easily.

Alas, esteemed politicians of our nation are too scared of opening their mouth on any issue which can hurt their vote bank. You know it, i know it, everyone knows it.. isnt it? Dont you think there can be better aproaches to uplift the backward classes of our country than what Arjun singh or VP singh are doing or have done? Our nation expects and deserves a better deal than this. Isn't it?

American abortion saga..

Let me make it clear, the following are my views and you are free to disagree with me.
I find these anti-abortion protests and their rhetoric, religiously motivated, attracting undue attention and hypocritical. I think everyone should have a right to family planning. Of course abortion, after certain period of pregnancy can not be allowed. This is the way it is done in Europe, Asia, for that matter every where else. From my point of view, having a baby for which you are not physically and mentally ready, is unfair for the baby, society and the mother who bears it. Not allowing a 13-14 years old pregnant girl to choose between having or not having a baby is spoiling two lives atleast in many cases. The pregnancy can be due to ignorance, rape or can be an unplanned one. In all of these cases, not allowing the girl the right to choose is against the fundamental right of choice.
Anti abortionists claim that, it amounts to killing a child. Oh..Come on, give us a break, Americans shouldn't talk about this. Look what is happening in Iraq and elsewhere. If they really think taking a life is against God's will, does that apply only for American lives? Doesn't an Iraqi or Afghan child killed in American bombings a crime? What do these anti-abortionists think about those lost lives? I was reading about Iran, Americans and other European countries, watched in silence, as Saddam Hussein sprayed poisonous gases over thousands of Iranians in Iran-Iraq war in mid 80s. Didn't it concern all of us then that scores of innocent lives were being terminated? Why didn't anyone raise a voice even? Where were these Pro-lifers then?
At home front too, Why doesn't anyone protest against more than 150 executions every year in America? That also is terminating a life how so ever bad it may be. You may say that God creates life, only God can destroy it. Those criminals were also created by God, don't we choose that when they be executed? No one raises a voice against that.
Hypocrites!!
I believe in "live and let live". Governments should provide guidelines, it should enforce those, but shouldn't be ruled by the whims of a religious lobby. All those Pro-lifers, why don't they protest against the degradation of the lives of those poor hungry people. Doesn't protecting and serving a life already in this world amount to saving a life?

Munni's Munni

My sister Munni had a baby on 9th Oct. We are calling her Munni's Munni. I saw her pictures today, she is so cute and very active for her age (2 days). We all are so happy. She is 1st baby in our family since 1984. There are so many babies born everyday, but i just can't explain the special feelings i have for her.
My father is very excited and he keeps checking on Munni's Munni every hour to see what this little angel is up to. My mother is being mother all over again and can share with Munni, the pains and delights of having a baby more than any of us. She is really enjoying her newly found Grandma status.
Everyone loves to be raised up a level and this little teddy came and pushed all of us one level up. We all got promoted as Uncles, Aunties or grandparents. My father loves predictions and his prediction is that she will be naughty and will rule over all of us.
Sanjay has become father and can't hide his excitement, though he is losing most of those sleeping hours. Munni's Munni will be much more active by the time we reach India in December. I can feel it... it will be lot of fun this time in India.