Na Mein Dharmi

(Please excuse my mistakes in Hindi)

Na mein dharmi na adharmi mein to bharatvasi hoon

duniya bhar  mein  bharat desh ko unchi sthan mein dekhta  hoon  || na mein ||

Shaala kaalej se le kar aaj tak mein aise hi rahta hoon

Desh ki abhiman dil mein rakhte khote sikke chalaata hoon           || na mein ||

Mandir mein bhagvan ko rishwat shraddhaa se  mein  chadhataa hoon

Kaam kaaj mein jo bhi milta IT se usko  chipaata hoon                     || na mein ||

Bharat Maata ki Jai bolte mahilaa per atyaachaar sahta hoon

Daridra Narayan ko poojte garib logon se door rahta hoon            || na mein ||

Anna Hazare-ji  ko maante Tiharvasiyon ko vote daalta hoon

Sanskriti parampara samarthan karte videsh mein chaakri dhoondta hoon   || na mein ||

The starting words are taken from a Kabir doha.

Looking Busy

Smart or not

Saw this research data in ET today. Can only laugh!

Hyper-loop

Find a billionaire to float an idea and it will feature in every paper and TV show and blog and website in hours!
Travelling in impossibly packed Bombay locals in 1988 I had written a piece on how the future of transport would involve moving people in tubes like capsules stacked in a bundle much like electrons or photons flow in a cable. That is pretty much the Hyperloop. And guess what,  with five inch touch screens and bluetooth, Wifi and google glass the passengers won't need much elbow room either. No centrespread to unfurl in your neighbour's face you see!

Those annoying ads in Y!Mail, GMail and webpages

I have been sick of the sudden burst of ads in my desktop Yahoo Mail, Gmail and Internet pages.
So I decided to do something about it.
Here is what I did:
1. Went to Yahoo Mail options and selected Opt Out for "Interest-based Ads". See below:

Then I went to Google Chrome Store and installed the two applications below:

Now it looks like I have got rid of all my ads! ( I have blacked out areas of my email details)

INDIAN INSTITUTE OF IDLI

Stop Press August 15, 2013

The President of India is pleased to promulgate an ordinance today to create a series of elite institutions under the name Indian Institute of Idli (III). These institutions will become the driving force behind India's march to world dominance in the next 1000 years. Obviously III's will far surpass the name and fame of the erstwhile IIT's, which were created to manufacture a number of bright engineering graduates to migrate to the United States and other countries to earn a lot of money and send their parents and grand parents monthly maintenance so that they could eat their idlis with full satisfaction back home knowing that their children and grand children viz. the IIT star alumni would be eating Idlis in their respective countries in all kinds of weather like snow, sleet, sun, and so on. 

World renowned economists, scientists, movie stars and popular writers like Chetan Bhagat have hailed the government's move with whole-hearted appreciation for the wonderful development plan of the UPA government. The BJP under NaMo has welcomed the move stating that this idea was mooted by Vajapayee in 2002 as the only way for India to claim its past glory of the Vedic age by going back to its roots and encouraging people to switch from modern western junk foods to wholesome pristine Idlis. NaMo has also commented that Mahatma Gandhi, Gujarat's gift to India, was an ardent believer in Idli as it was the only cuisine which upheld the timeless values of Truth and Non-violence. 

Buddha, Mahaveera, Hanuman and Rama have been mentioned in Indian scriptures as being very fond of Idlis. On the other hand, among rakshasas and asuras, 'Idli' was a pejorative term since they equated Idli to weak, ineffectual and indecisive men whose lives were filled with zeroes (Indian ancients were equally familiar with Idli and Zero, you see).

Jairam Ramesh, an IIT alumnus himself, has stated that III is a masterly idea under the leadership of Sonia Gandhi. She has stated that Idli has been documented even in Roman civilization as an import from India.

Space Scientists have taken time off from India's Mars Lander mission to list the technological benefits of Idlis:

1. Idli is the most efficiently cooked food article in the world.
2. The soaking, grinding, fermenting and subsequent batch steaming makes the carbon footprint of Idli the least in the world as the different steps increase efficiency.
3. India's surplus rice and lentil production, 30% of which is being lost in poor storage and transportation methods, can be better leveraged via the Aadhar scheme by transferring the required grains to citizens directly with minimum wastage and by efficient packaging of requisite quantities.
4. CFTRI Mysore has developed techniques to prepare good Idlis with even lower quality rice and dal. 
5. Marwari traders have reported that good Idlis can be made even with 10% adulteration with stones since the grinding stone will take care of pulverization.
6. III's will teach technology, science, art, history and geography of Idlis to all the students, enrolled through an open policy of admissions with no caste, creed o gender bias.
7. The education cycle of 16 years will be reduced to eight years, according to the plan proposed by NaMo.
8. III's will create new methods of preparing Idlis using efficient solar cookers.
9. The Idli batter grinders will use geothermal engines and reduce the carbon footprint further.
10. India's (especially Gujarat's) malnutrition problem will go away since ONLY NINE well-made Idlis of good composition and texture will meet all the daily nutritional needs of Individual adult males and females.
11. Idlis will not be served plain but with a variety of accompaniments like chutneys and pickles which will be supplied directly via Aadhar scheme from mass-production factories which will also employ alternative forms of energy.
12. Idlis will replace costly and unhealthy items like sweets and chocolates during festivals like Diwali and Christmas.

Please read the Idli suprabhata (https://rsachi.blogspot.com/2010/10/idli-suprabhata.html)

Making Kids More Creative

We all complain that our kids spend too much time watching TV, having scraps (between siblings) and generally spending time in an uncreative way. We also see that parents and grandparents ply the children with a constant flow of gifts and toys and eats and treats so much that we are redefining the conspicuous consumption culture. Witness the  explosion of kids shops all around Bangalore.

It is not rare that a modest birthday bash would set back the parents about 20K Rs. these days.

Well, I am all for birthday parties and cakes and gifts. Nothing wrong about making a kid feel special!!

Here is something a grandmother did when she took her grandkids to their cousins' birthday bash recently. She made-of course,  with the active participation of her grandkids- a biscuit, cake and gems train! They brought it over to the party and I wonder how those kids resisted the temptation to vandalise it and eat it themselves on the way!  That creation was appropriately placed between the birthday cakes.

That worthy lady's effort is what I call creativity. And children's creativity being nurtured.

More power to creative parents and grandparents, because that will encourage kids to become more creative too!!!!!

Rupee in Trouble

This morning, I was aghast looking at the headlined story in The Economic Times about Chidambaram's antics in reviving the Indian economy. I was not aghast at his antics, but at the graphic accompanying it. It showed a progressively ageing and shrinking Mahatma Gandhi. It might have been a clever idea of a photoshopper wrongly employed in the ET art department. But it was cheap and unforgivable to feature the Father of the Nation in a situation we have inherited by steadily abandoning all the virtues he extolled from the time he wrote his seminal work Hind Swaraj.

Gandhi wrote Hind Swaraj long back while on a ship to South Africa, writing frenzily so he would not miss recording his various ideas on uplifting the poor. The only clever thing our politicians and economists have done in this area is to revise the PowerPoint slides and graphs about the Indian BPL figures.

Well, if this ET thing was bad, let me tell you something else which was worse. I once met a big Sardarji tycoon in Chandigarh. He was running a large number of schools and colleges, and he had become stinkingly rich. When the subject of corruption came up in our conversation, he said that he was all for it. He said that if there was anyone to blame for corruption, it was Mahatma Gandhi. You see, he is constantly smiling at you from the Indian currency notes, reminding you that money is the most important thing in life and morals be damned!!!! And being the Father of the Nation, he deserves all our respect to be paid by accepting bribes.

I also recently read that Pakistan's secret printing presses that are busy in counterfeiting Indian currency notes are getting some Pak. governmental support nowadays because the counterfeit Indian rupees do not profit them enough any more, also givens their rising printing and circulating costs. That is because of the poor exchange rate they get for the free-falling Indian rupee. They say they no longer print 500 INR notes but only 1000 INR notes.

I just heard an Osho joke about Mulla Nasruddin. Mulla buys a lottery ticket, and wins a fortune. When he goes to claim his sum, the shopkeeper gives him a big wad of notes. Mulla starts counting and examining each note carefully. The shopkeeper is angry and asks, 'what Mulla, do you suspect my notes to be counterfeit?' Mulla apologizes, 'no friend, I just want to make sure I am not getting back any of MY notes that I bought the lottery ticket with'. Those notes he had brought from Pakistan.

We are a whole society pursuing counterfeit values.