How human are humans?

I got a mail today with the subject "Why the sea turned red in denmark?" It is about the mass killings of whales and dolphins in denmark and how the sea water turns red with the blood from the killings...and about how inhuman humans are, to be doing that...the attached pictures were too gruesome(you can find the pics on google if you want to have a look; youtube has videos too; I have attached a picture too) to be real and so I did what I always do when I get such forwards...I googled to see if the story was true...I stumbled upon the following links....

http://www.startribune.com/templates/Print_This_Story?sid=59783702

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/08/090810-cove-movie-dolphins-ngm.html

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/11/061114-dolphin-hunt.html

I found out that this is practised not only in Denmark but also in Canada and Japan.

But you know what....why talk about only dolphins....hundreds of thousands of other animals are hunted everyday for their meat....exactly the point made somewhere in the article in the first link above....is it that killing of dolphins only is inhuman and killing the other animals is very human??or is it just the visual appeal of water turning red....just look at the drain water coming out of any slaughter house that sells pork or beef and I am sure the colour of the water will not be very different from red....But, what can we do about it? That is the way humans have grown...there is a theory that humans became as intelligent as they are only because they ate meat from the other animals....That is humans became what they are because they are inhuman!!

Backyard Beauty!

Here are some of the pics that I took today with my Canon IXUS 80 IS. I used the macro mode in it. Useful info about macro photography can be found here.

I never realised that my backyard was so beautiful!!



















I had trouble uploading these pics on this page. But I found help on this page. Thanks Julia.

Jaadu ki Jhappi

Today, I saw tears in my dadima’s eyes. This is only the 3^rd time ever that I have seen that happening. The first time was when her mother passed away. Second was when my brother left home for joining college. My brother is closer to her than I am. Sure, she missed me when I left for college but she did not shed tears. And today was the 3^rd time. It was one of those moments of emotional overwhelming when voice chokes and tears appear in the eyes.

She was telling me about a Telugu song called ‘Chinni sisuvu’ (a small child) and that she liked one of the song’s stanzas very much. She was explaining the meaning of the stanza – the child runs to his mother and hugs her tightly. Her voice choked even before she could completely explain the meaning.

She is old now and it has been pretty long since anyone has hugged her. I am sure my dad must have hugged her many, many times when he was a kid. But that does not happen now. My brother and I too must have hugged her a lot of times when we were kids. But that too does not happen now.

She has been pretty unwell lately. From what happened today, I feel she has this feeling of emotional loneliness that is often associated with and is a part of old age. I guess her health will improve a lot if this feeling goes away. So, tomorrow morning, first thing I am going to do is hug her. After all, as we know, Jaadu ki Jhappi is the most powerful medicine!!

The first thought!!

21st August 09
7:20 am

I am in a train. I am travelling from Hyderabad to Durg. The weather is wonderful. The view outside the window, beautiful. Cool air is coming in from the window. It has calmed me down now. But just an hour ago I was terrified. My legs were shaking and I could not stand. I had just kept my luggage under the berth and I was already thinking of going back to Krishna Tatagaru's home.

In the train I saw a man sitting in the same bay as mine. I kept the luggage and went back to the door to see the reservation chart. All the berths in my bay were shown to be unalloted. The man in my bay, I thought, would get down at one of the next 2 or 3 stations. Nothing unusual. But when I went back to my bay the man was gone. But he left behind a small bag under the berth. On witnessing such a thing only one thought can cross the mind of an Indian. And that is what happened! The man is a terrorist!! There must be a bomb in the bag!! Why else would he leave it!! I felt my body freeze with fear. I jumped out of the train to look for a TTE(Travel ticket Examiner) to inform him about the bag. He was there in front of the door. But as is always the case, he was surrounded by passengers trying to bribe him to get seats. To avoid a scene of panic I waited for the passengers to go and while I waited I imagined myself on TV news with "Breaking news: Engineering graduate helps detect a bomb, helps avert a blast" flashing over the TV screen. So when I got a chance I told the TTE about the bag. I was expecting that he would jump into action, make some calls, call the police, do something atleast!! But all he said was 'yeah yeah we will see. wait!'. I did not know what to do. I thought of shouting like crazy - There is a bomb in the train! There is a bomb! But I did not. I just waited there.

Then the train started to move.I got in. but I did not go to my berth. For 10 minutes I waited at the door half-expecting to hear an explosion. While I waited I tried calling my parents. But in vain, thanks to the mobile network. And then I saw the man who had left the bag come back!! Phew!! I wiped sweat off my forehead and went to my berth. I was still shivering. As I write this, the wind has "normalised" me. But what if!! What if there actually was a bomb and the TTE had shown the same inaction that he did!! I guess, my blog would have died with 3 posts in all and so would have I!

Scared as hell!!!

It was just like any other day. I came back from my coaching class, had lunch and then I slept for 2 and a half hour. I woke up at 5 pm and sat down to study with one of my friends. I studied with him for 5 hours with a 1 hour break in between for dinner. This was in Kota where I stayed for 1 year preparing for the IITJEE exam. I stayed in an apartment with 7 other students like me. Mine was a double room but I was the only one staying in it because my roommate had moved into a slightly bigger adjacent room. 

At around 11 pm when I could study no more I decided to go to sleep. I went out into the balcony where my friends were enjoying a cool breeze and chit chatted with them for sometime. Then I came back and closed both the doors of my room(entrance to my room and the exit to the balcony) in the preparation to go to sleep. I set the alarm for 5 am. I shifted all the stuff, the books and the clothes, that were lying on my bed to the study table and the chair that were there between my bed and the other spare bed. I switched off the light and crashed on my bed. The room was still dimly lit by the light coming in from the adjacent room through the ventilator. It used to serve as my night lamp...

I had a dream that night: I am at home, in the kitchen talking to my mom when I hear the sound of metal grinding against a cement wall. I come out of the kitchen to check what is happening and I see a huge man there. He has bicycle drive chain which he is grinding against a wall. He jumps on me, throws the chain around my neck and tries to strangle me. I struggle...I try to shout but he covers my mouth and my voice gets muffled.

Now, as it happens when you have such scary dreams, I started to shout for help while asleep. And because of my own shouts, I woke up!!......... And when I woke up, he was there in my room....he was an old man....he was sitting on my chair....I could not see his face. It was hidden behind the alarm clock that was there on my table. But I could see his shirt and his pants with his legs hanging down from the chair. I could see his white hair shining in the dim light. After the dream that had just woken me up, I could think of nothing except that this old man is going to pull out a knife and kill me.....I was scared as hell....My heart was beating so hard that I thought it is going to come out of my chest and fall on the ground!! I tried to shout for help...But I could not speak...I did not move...I could not move! I was too scared to do anything. I thought the end has come....

 ....So there I was on my bed waiting for him to make a move....but slowly as my eyes adjusted to the poor lighting it started to dawn on me....No one was there in the room except me....the lighting in the room and the way the things were kept on the chair and the table had created such a scene...and my mind did the rest...all the imagining.... what I thought to be the old man's shirt was actually my own that I had put on the chair's back rest before going to sleep and what looked like his pants were also actually mine that I had put on the chair. His shining hair was the fluttering pages of a fat book that I had kept on the table behind the alarm clock...finally when I realised the actual scene, I took a big sigh of relief. I got off the bed and switched on the light. I found myself smiling at all that had happened in a small span of 5 minutes....

 But the thought of an old man actually being there with a knife in his hands still haunts me.....

Beacuse I cannot Sleep....

Place: manipal
Date: 19 september 2008
Time: 4:30 am

I am typing this because I cannot sleep!!I have exams from Monday. I am not prepared. But that is far from what is making me unable to sleep. I cannot sleep because I am afraid. Until a few minutes ago I was awake because I wanted to. But now, now I am afraid and I cannot sleep....

This is what happened...

At around 12:30a.m, I settled into my bed with my laptop and my mobile phone with an intention of going to sleep in half an hour(that did not happen). I thought I would pass some time watching some videos on the laptop and then go to sleep. I started chatting with a friend using the short messaging service(sms). The chat went on till 2:30a.m. Simultaneously I started watching the movie, The Matrix. The last time when I tried watching it, I was 12 years old and I completely failed to understand the movie. What a stupid movie I had thought. But this time I was able to understand it and I started liking it. As I was chatting with my friend and watching the movie at the same time I paused the movie many times to reply to the messages. At 2:30a.m. my friend went off to sleep and I finished the movie without a pause after that. It was 4:05a.m. by the time the movie got over and it had started raining heavily. Anyway I shut down my laptop and finally crashed on my bed. Just a minute or so later I heard a 'meow' from outside the window that was just over my head. It was a cat that had got wet in the rain and was trying to get in to get a shelter. Now this window in my room needs repair and it does not get shut properly!!

I am afraid that it will get into my room....I can still hear a faint meow from the outside as I type this... I cannot sleep...

Insects in the hostel, Frogs, Rats and Cats at home!!!

All of us MITians staying in Manipal consider ourselves to be very strong and tough. We have the famous ‘Mighty Mighty MIT’ which nearly has the status of a proverb in Manipal. We think we have answers and solutions to each and every thing under the sky. But we must admit one thing, and I am sure, most if not all of our seniors and super seniors will agree with me, that one problem to which we have no solution, no answer is the problem of pests and insects in our hostels. All those who have stayed in the ‘valley side rooms’ would very well know that. Students have been incessantly and insidiously been pestered by these creepy, slimy, dangerous-looking creatures since the first day of MIT itself.

And trust me, they do not only look dangerous but they can also inflict unbearable pain with all the stings and poisons the nature has empowered them with. The famous MIT bug is not unknown to anyone who has ever studied or is studying in MIT. No one has ever seen it though. But almost everyone has seen its awful stings and some poor fellows have even sustained them on their hands, legs, stomach, back and in the worst cases, on their faces. The dark blue, almost black spot on the skin from where the skins itself comes off in some days is a horrible and a terrifying sight.

After tackling and fighting with these bloody creatures for a whole semester, I was travelling back to my home expecting no such problems at my home. I was correct, partially. There were no insects here....I had rodents and living animals to face!!

The day I reached home, it had rained quite a bit and I was happy that the weather had turned pleasant and so were all the other living beings and I think they had decided to come out of their homes and explore the surrounding territories. That day I was supposed to sleep in the hall on the divan. I was watching a music video starring a super hot female on MTV when I heard some strange sound. But the model on the TV was too hot for me to get distracted by the sound. After a minute or so I heard the same sound again. But the model was still there and my eyes were fixed on the TV screen. After another minute and now the chick was gone from the TV screen, again came the same annoying sound and this time I decided to find out the source of the sound. After a few minutes of intent listening I figured out that it was an unexpected guest sitting under my divan .It was a frog...but where the hell did a frog come from into my home...I still wonder!!! Anyway, so he was sitting deep under my divan, well out of my reach. I set myself on the job of trying to send out the unexpected guest. But the guest was adamant and did not want to go. With a broomstick, some kerosene, a torch and a lot of help from my younger brother whom I had to wake up in the middle of the night, I finally bid farewell to Uncle Frog, 20 minutes after I ‘discovered’ him. I thought Manipal itself was better. There I would have immediately killed the insect with a smack of my hawaai chappal and would have got back to my business. Anyway I went to sleep feeling like a winner!

The next night again I was watching TV (no super hot female was there this time) when I was again startled by a strange noise very different from the previous night’s. Again some intent listening revealed that it was a rat. I thought of doing the same thing as the previous night but this time my brother did not get up and surely my level of agility would have proved to be completely worthless for any satisfactory result. So I plugged my ears with some cotton and went to sleep. That day, on the dinner table I had promised my mother that I would accompany her for a MORNING WALK. So the next morning my mother tried to wake me up at around 5. But being the sleep lover I am, I did not get up. A few minutes later, I felt someone tickling my feet with what felt like a soft brush. I thought it was my mother trying a new way out to get me off the cosy winter morning bed. So I opened my eyes to plead for another 5 minutes of sleep. But mummy was nowhere in sight and to my utter surprise the tickling had not stopped. Shocked and surprised, I immediately sprung up from the bed and got onto my feet and I saw a cat come out from beneath the mattress and disappear through the half open window. I was dumbstruck; all my drowsiness vanished. Cursing the cat, I went to my mother in the kitchen and told her what happened, only to find out that she was very happy with all this and she was actually blessing the cat for waking me up. Again, again I thought Manipal was better. There my friends would have at least sympathised with me on listening to my troubles and would have added a curse or two.

And that is why I had longed to go back to Manipal during the last holidays. Even this time, I am very, very eager to go back although due to completely different reasons. But we will talk about it some other time...........