Religious Propaganda Demystified

Christianity, with all its flavours and different sects/branches is the most widely practised religion on the planet. They have a reasonable growth rate of followers too, courtesy of some interesting phenomenon that I shall highlight in the following lines.

On a very intriguing note, the high growth rates of Islam, Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism has been ascribed to the high population growth rate in the Indian subcontinent. The high growth rate of Scientology, similarly has been attributed to watching too many Tom Cruise movies. Atheism can be thankful to the IT industry and some other minor religious practises to watching TV shows like CSI and Poor Man's Bikini Beach.

Coming back to how Christianity has spread far and wide, I think I finally have been able to solve the puzzle as to why it has spread so far and wide in all of Bangalore city. Its a simple divide and conquer policy, the likes of which has been seen before, but not experienced on such a magnitude.

If one pays close attention to the road signs in most places in Bangalore, there is something new that shall come to notice immediately. Right next to the names of areas/major roads on those characteristic blue signboards erected by the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA), one can see a lot of 'Jesus' stickers plastered all over the place.

Closer scrutiny goes to show that the way ahead leads to a lot of Jesii (plural for Jesus), depending on which direction you're headed. There's the 'Koramangala Jesus', 'Madiwala Jesus', 'JP Nagar Jesus' , 'MG Road Jesus' and 'Cox Town Jesus' to name a few. I wish Bangalore had an area named Nazareth, so we could have had a Nazareth Jesus or rather, Jesus of Nazareth, who would be the true and authentic one!

Now, these various 'Jesii' take up initiatives in their respective areas to spread the word of the Lord, and the one that gets the most followers gets a promotion. Its sort of based on the Amway model, or maybe the Amway model is based on this. Doesn't really matter any which way!

Go forth, spread the word, recruit more and then go back to square one and recommence the process again is the modus operandi of such a model. Quite efficient, one might reckon!

I was watching 'The Life of Brian' the other day, and there was this parody of a stoning that was to take place in Jerusalem, because some old guy had said the name of the lord - 'Jehovah'. Uttering the name of the Lord is probably a very sacred thing to do, and its sort of ironic that someone could get punished for doing it. That probably explains why the name is simply called 'the name' or is referred to as YHWH to remove the vowels and make it very esoteric and representative, in the same breath.

The hue and cry raised over the pictoral representation of Prophet Muhammed is past, but once again, it raises questions on WHY it is that some rules have been put into place which make the representation of someone held in such high regard a blasphemy. For those that can't have an imagination vivid enough to use their mind's eye, some solace has to be provided.

Ours not to reason why, ours merely to question.

My religion, Hinduism, is totally liberal in comparision with others, so far as certain parameters are concerned. Restrictions on food for people of different pedigrees does not count among one of them. However, we can worship idols of all the deities we choose to, utter their names, have their pictures adorning any surface we desire and do a lot of other things that other religions might find blasphemous.

No specific prayer days or times, no strict observances. The best part is the fact that things are so optional and one can imbibe whatever aspects of respect/worship that one finds convenient and leave the rest, literally and figuratively to God.

Religion is very close to one's heart, and this post is meant to be taken with a pinch of salt for those it might possibly offend. Vandalism is another thing in a long list of things to be poked fun at. I am sure you'd understand, O potential fanatic!

God bless.

Of Rocket Science and Shampoo

Catch phrases and cliches seem to be thrown around in the air in the IT industry, very much like confetti at parades in most Australian cities, once in four years, everytime those guys win the World Cup and come back riding on a tableau.

I think we should have a World Cup without the Australians, so that they understand that they need to lose a few games to be part of the whole cricketing circuit. With no downs, the bunch of people from down under will get complacent. India is so well balanced that way, losing to Bangladesh, Kenya, Scotland, Botswana, Mexico, Mongolia, Maldives, Surinam, Monaco and Luxembourg. (Time machines rock!!!) 'Team India' surely keeps the spirit of the game alive.

Nevertheless, going back to this whole catch-phrase thing, my latest pet peeve to rant on about seems to be the term 'rocket science'. I've been at the same company for almost three years, despite appearing for eighty interviews in various other tech firms and being unanimously rejected on grounds of lack of relevant skills (even when I applied as watchman for some leading tech firm on one occasion), and as a result of being at the same place, I am unsure but mostly certain about the fact that this trend might just be possibly extrapolated to other honourable companies as well.

On the rejection front, for all the odds and ends jobs that I applied to as well, none of those sorry fools ever told me that I was over-qualified. Maybe they were under-qualified to take my interview. Despicable dimwits!

Back to 'rocket science', its probably a phrase some top management guy saw in a Dale Carnegie/Shiv Khera/Paulo Cohelo level book and chose to use it with his subordinates, and this whole catch phrase usage has subsequently percolated down to the lower people on the tech totem-pole.

Now you have every other random donkey, wanting to impress people with his lack of knowledge in 'rocket science' throwing that phrase around with gay abandon as a standard format expression.

"We're asking you to write a simple program, its not rocket science!" is how it all starts off. Next you have the rookie techie scolding an auto-driver in broken English with "I aksed you to take auto to Jayanagar 4th block, its not rocket science!" or "I am getting engaged, its a simple family affair, its not rocket science!"

Imagine what people at NASA would use, to bring about such contrasts instead. Space agencies, presumably don't have people spewing managerial bullshit would be oblivious to such statements. However, just for pure kicks, assuming such a thing were possible, their motivational talks would be somwehat similar to the ones us mere lowly mortals would have to undergo.

The only difference would be the fact that 'rocket science' would be cheap and upper end comparisions would be something super complex, such as psychohistory or something to that effect. The poor rocket scientists would hear motivational speeches - "Its not something as complex as psychohistory, by Galaxy!! Its only rocket science!"

One man's C-program is another man's rocket science. Horseshit unplugged.

As if life weren't complicated enough with all this unnecessary bullshit and arbit analogies, there had to be this added dimension that had to go hand in hand with something as simple as growing hair, and resisting the urge to tear it out, while reading the crap seen above.

One wonders how people managed to grow and maintain their hair, as seen in Ramanand Sagar's Ramayana and other epic TV series, with their flowing long hair and perfect teeth and flawless skin. Tyler Durden's nightmares come true, that would be.

Until a few years back, even shampoo was not something used frequently for my hair, but now, with increasing hair length, Goldilocks-like, and being bombarded from all corners by the damages that pollution and stress cause to one's hair, through various adverts, paranoia has set in, and how!

There's so many hundreds of haircare products out there, that soon we'd have a specialization purely dedicated to this part of our person, very similar to dentistry, but with a substantially lower incubation period for potential trichologists to hit the market.

Trichology is your word for the day, you weasel. Go knock yourself out!

Lastly, you know you're growing old when you end up toasting with your pals over a drink of beer, not to visiting the Playboy Mansion in summer, but to stuff like not growing a paunch or having a receeding hairline. Father Time makes his presence felt, with a big bang.

May you stay forever young. Very Dylan-esque, but true. May you also pick a good bottle of shampoo.

PS - Ad sense. Click. Please! Dabboo wanted. There isn't enough of it, no matter what.

In My Own Write

Sometimes, I get this overwhelming urge to write stuff. Usually that urge is accompanied by some vague idea in its embryonic phase, based on which I am able to pen down my thoughts and come up with a really arbit blog post.

However, today, something is amiss. I have the urge, but the content aspect is still nebulous in my mind. Some ideas have germinated, but the precise structure or thought flow has not yet made itself evident, and will do so, hopefully as this post runs its course.

The title of this post has been inspired by what I thought was a very profound title of this book written by John Lennon - 'In His Own Write', the first ever solo Beatles effort since the creation of the band.

This post, I feel, shall turn out to be one that is very centered around the very act of writing. This morning, I travelled by bus from Mysore to Bangalore, and the journey was so comfortable that I managed to sleep soundly for almost three straight hours, awakened only in the middle by the bus having stopped for the passengers to have a loo break.

The place on highway where I get off to reach my office arrives much before Bangalore city does, and hence I am among the first people to disembark from the bus. The drivers are usually reluctant to stop at this place, because its a nice straight piece of road, and any stoppage will result in loss of momentum (or some such equally absurd reason) and delay them by a couple of minutes. In any case, this is not among the scheduled stops and its sometimes difficult to cajole the bus drivers into stopping.

However, after that wonderful three hours of sleep, which was as good as me sleeping on my own bed back at home, I was in for another pleasant surprise, when the driver, whose name is Prakash, was more than willing to stop the vehicle. In the process of making casual conversation with him, I remarked to him about how I hadn't slept so soundly in any bus for a really long time, and told him that he drove so well that one couldn't notice he was on a bus.

While going through with this entire discussion, I had only one other thought in my head - 'I need to write about this'!

After alighting, I had to cross the busy Mysore Road highway and head towards my office, and I could spot the fact that it had rained the day before. The light breeze that blew had that much less dust in the air, and one could make out the soil was a bit wet and the roads had tell-tale signs of mud caused by soil erosion on them.

The scent of freshly wet earth was absent, because it had been a few hours since it rained, but it seemed like a welcome change from the extreme heat that was plaguing us for the better part of two months, and while all this was being absorbed by me, I had only one other thought in my head - 'I need to write about this'!

I was involved in an auto accident last december, and once the impact of the entire mishap sunk in, as I was standing within that auto, which had turned and fallen on its side, thankful to God that I was safe and unharmed, save for a few minor cuts and bruises, I had this overwhelming urge to want to write about that experience.

Life has so much to offer, so much to give, so many things to throw my way. I have my memory to rely on it, and to relive all those moments when the opportune moment arises. The blog posts that I write, however, serve as my pensieve, where I can deposit threads of thought and snippets from my memory, for my revisitation at the apt times.

Fortunately or otherwise, some of what I write serves as a source of amusement for the other people that stumble upon this blog, more often than not after having sent them the link atleast ten times, following which they check the site out only to avoid being continually pestered by me, but its a huge step that I feel I've taken towards an effective catharsis and towards gaining that extra small ounce of self-satifaction that can be so often mistaken for being smug.

The heightened period of dormancy in blogging has been because of extreme laziness. I've noticed that when I am not given much work at the office, all other arenas that I want to address end up suffering as well, for some strange reason. Its almost as if I want it all, all the time.

I am under the impression that things will get very hectic for me in the next few days to come, and hopefully that will once again ensure that my blogging shall come to the fore. I have been updating my livejournal with greater consistency, however.

Keep visiting my blog, and read up on the archives, if you're a new visitor.

In other news, I've signed up for adsense finally. Please click on the ads on the left side, below my sitemeter, and I can pay for buying you lunch if you click away enough number of times. I thank you in advance.

P.S - I am the Bangalore Correspondent for RSJ (Rock Street Journal). The correspondents' list on the website is yet to be updated, though the print edition of the mag has details and articles penned down by yours truly :-).

Erection Officer

While on the arbit pic posting spree, here's another one I clicked on Fashion Street in Mumbai, when I had been there last month.

In case you're wondering, the relevant portion you need to look out for is "Office of the Deputy Engineer, Erection (South)."

Go on, let your imagination run wild.

I miss Mumbai. *sigh*

Long Leave!

(picture courtesy my colleague Sathish)

Long Leave my blog, I say!!

Help.

This is one of my shortest posts ever.

Please check this out and also read this.

Spread the word, react.

Any assistance in this regard is greatly appreciated.

Thanks.