Stephen Covey* and John Grisham** revisit paatti vada sutta kadhai

The way it was:
The paatti was making hot delectable vada under the tree. The crow stole the vada and just when he was about to eat it, there came the fox with his own plans of eating the vada. Since the crow was on top of the tree and out of reach, the fox decided to be mean. the crow had the vada in his beak. The fox told the crow that he had a wonderful voice and would he sing a song for him? Flattered, the crow opened his mouth to sing and lo, the vada slipped down. The fox caught it in mid air and off he went with his tasty lunch!

Bringing on the paradigm:
Irreversible and un-pardonable.. The 'paatty' should be given a total paradigm view of the events that followed her unthoughtful action of open-fire cooking of the vada.
Gravely important events that were caused/could have been caused:

1. By making the vada in the open space, she endangered the surrounding trees from a forest fire! She chaffed the whole grass area with her firewood anyway. She would be sued by the Friends of Green Trust
2. The crow stole the vada. This could have been tactically avoided if paatty had thought through her strategy before sending everybody concerned into a downward spiral. This case needs a new paradigm: The paatty had put the crow in the way of unsolicited temptation, the crow was the victim of the situation.
3. The fox not only humiliated the crow with his ill intentions, but put the crow in a situation where he had to face his insecurities
4. The crow went into depression, fell into bad company and started taking party drugs to dance through the night and to get over the emotional trauma. He had to be checked in to rehab by 'Mrs.Crow' - Who in the first place had not cared enough to make lunch for Mr.Crow and indirectly caused him to steal the vada. This is what happens when you do not love and care for your family. Always give care for your loved ones, Make this your nineth habit.

Last I heard, the crow was going to sue the paatti for punitive damages.

Reference:
*Stephen Covey - author of self help books like 7 habits of highly effective people
**John Grisham - author of several legal dramas (fiction)

Sneha

The guilty generation

• Punishing yourself for no apparent reason.
• Living a loser's life by letting go what could be yours if you had focussed and worked towards it,
• Wanting to have no interest in people, work and the things around you...

In other words,

• Penance,
• Sacrifice,
• Denial of worldly pleasures..

Sometimes we are a confused lot. What should ideally be considered as a psychiatric condition that should be cured is considered as righteousness and spirituality. If a person loses interest in everything around him, inflicts pain on himself, runs away from happiness like its a plague, shouldnt we take him to a doctor and get his head examined? Much worse, what if he starts preaching these things to other people and calls it religion?

Should we acknowledge and agree that we should feel guilty for happiness or should we just tell him to shut up and get lost?

The sour grape sob

Well, somebody stole my DSLR camera, the one which I got after years of yearning and saving :(
Ever since, I have been consoling myself with facts and stories. Here is the latest one, I call it the the sour grape sob-

You know...actually its ok that I do not have a DSLR. A camera is a camera, A point and shoot camera takes pictures too! And thats basically the purpose, to take pictures.

Have you checked the prices of DSLRs? I am appalled by the amount of money that one has to pay for each and every added feature in the DSLR. Live view on the screen adds atleast 10 K to 15 K. Capturing video easily costs about 30 K more. I would get all these features and more in a P&S, and I wont have to pay a fortune.

And the weight of that thing?? I could carry the P&S camera in the pocket, but the DSLR equipment actually needs a big bag! Who wants to carry an exclusive bag just for the camera?

The pictures come out nice, of course, but its expensive, it needs care, its heavy, besides... that grape is so sour! for folks who are wondering what the connection is, kindly refer to the story of the fox and the grape to understand the emotions involved..
Sneha

A gay day

Inching to number one in various area, in population growth, in software production, in tea exports..would like to be first in so many other areas, but 118th position in accepting change. I read in a daily that 117 countries had legalised and acknowledged the freedom of a homosexual individual's sexual preference as a natural right before an Indian high court could take a change of stand about it, 2 days ago.

Still not without opposition, religious 'leaders', self proclaimed moral polices and all and sundry rising the cry of violating the order of nature, India finally, but not totally willingly opens an eye to what its majority considers a stigma. On a landmark day, a landmark judgement was made and now love is legal for a special minority. Indian judiciary does not consider homosexuality a criminal offense anymore. The judgement was passed in the high court, yes, media people are debating the fact that there still could be cranky straight people who cannot accept this judgement and might appeal in the supreme court. That possibility is not entirely closed.

Though things look nice and pink on paper, few more decades may have to pass before Indians stop looking at homosexuality as a stigma. What is very worrying is the level of ignorance among people about this. Many still think that homosexuality is a choice of the individual. We have spent so much of time designing and refining our 'orders of nature' that it is not going to be easy for us to realise that our design is not actually perfect.

A sunset a day

Yes! I was there! on the cleanest beach that i had ever seen. Now you would say 'thats not saying much!'. Thats precisely why I uploaded the photo. check out the different shades of blue on the waters. While some blues are caused by cloud shadows, most shades are caused due to difference in the depth.

The purpose of boasting about the crystal clear waters, the pristine beach and the sunset is not just to get you jealous. Its to get you jealous over the fact that I was there, not on vacation, but on work!! Yes, I am evil again >:D

And well, i have photos of almost every sunset of the 2 weeks that I had (!) to be there. But then you see, it will use up my blog space. So I am gonna spare you for now. Bay of Nacala in Mozambique, south east coast of Africa. Jokes apart.. the place is really beautiful.

The voting face

An image by Times of India, no mention of the photographer. The photo is reported to be taken in a village near Hyderabad called Pargi.


This is a photograph that shows the faces of the majority of the voting population of the nation. The 'aam' aadhmi.

Though educated, though drilled down with all the civics that the education system could afford to provide, its people like me who dont go to their home towns, leaving the jobs/family/etc., to cast their vote. I am not proud of not doing it..

Anyway..with TATA tea doing the public service advertisements and the movie stars endorsing and recommending voting to all the citizens, if the netizens do decide to take some pain and vote, I think the BJP will almost win these elections - considering just the fact that the prime ministerial candidate has been spending money like water on internet advertisements. People spending time on websites are sure to start thinking that L K Advani is 'a leader with a difference'. Thats not to say I like the party coming to power, thats like one of the country's nightmare coming true. Was just wondering how the BJP/Mr.Advani have so much of funds for spending for all this net presence..
Besides those ads are great stress busters. gives me a good laugh.

Well, my point is..that was some great photography.

Not so great scanning though..sorry folks

Move over pink chaddi, its Shoe time!

The new icon of human emotions, the one piece of human belonging that effectively exhibits human wrath - shoes. The pink chaddi's days of glory are over, shoes are now enjoying the mantel of the ultimate insult. Starting with George Bush Junior, world over, politicians are getting the brunt in the form of the new ambassador for brunts, the shoe.

The home minister Mr.P Chidambaram looked more amused than shocked when an emotionally challanged journalist hurled (but missed) a shoe at him during a press conference. this sikh aint great at aiming i understand. The minister had refused to argue with the journalist on whether the CBI is right about the 1984 anti-sikh riot report submitted to the court, this caused the journalist to 'protest' and hence the hurling.

and since the journalist was let off without any charge, I have been thinking.. We all must probably visit the shoe stores around the time of discount sales. What with the elections round the corner, you never know when you run into politicians. Well, for that matter, why stop with politicians? Anger is anger, where is that stupid neighbour of mine who parked his bike in my parking slot? and that friend of mine who...well actually i forgot what he did, but he is also getting a shoe for sure!

You see, this is meant to happen. We are a civilization, we need to progress, and where is the use if the progress is only in the area of technology? There should be emotional progress, bring on the shoes!

Jokes apart, the truth of the matter is that, some people just dont take their feet seriously, how will they walk after flinging one of their shoes at someone? I am quite positive that the home minister did not return the journalist's shoe. Thats quite rude of him actually.

By the way, if you are planning a shoe attack, carry an extra pair. For better emotional satisfaction, plan a twin shoe attack, why throw just one shoe and be left with its pair? Actually, if you have enough attacks planned, you can get a good quote from a shoe seller, maybe you can think of buying them wholesale. Cutting costs will help, now being recession time and all..So, as I said, we can think of more options, we are a thinking lot, arent we? civilised lot to be more precise.