Rang De Basanti

Kya awesome movie banaya hai baap !! Hilaa diya !!

Ink Pot

I was watching 'Chashme Baddhoor' again and I was reminded of the time when I used to have an ink-pot and had to religiously fill ink into my pens. Hands stained with ink. I wonder if school kids still use Ink pens :) I still write a lot, most of it is rough work like parts of an algo or stuff. Well actually I do make notes in a 'fair notebook' about the design I am understanding :))

Is religion inevitable ??

Sun Jun  4 10:53:37 CDT 2006
When external forces drive this wedge between members of different groups(religions/classes/castes) how will people get back to
normal after the storm blows over. The feeling always lurks in your mind where you find yourself different from the other group.
You have forgive the other group from the bottom of your heart (not just in word, but from your sub-concious). It is inevitable
to have clashes between groups. I cannot see clashes not happening between groups of humans ever. Though cause and effect
keeps changing though. It should be part of primary education to teach people how to forgive others and realize that the worst
actions of the other group were perpetrated in their weakest moments. By perpetrating on the same acts you will just help
them rationalize their acts. Is religion the medium for spreading this realization ? Can something like the socratic method
work at young ages ? I say it has to work at young ages because, once you grow older you inevitably have a yellowed vision.

The human brain HAS to BELIEVE in certain facts to be able to generate an action. My minuscule reading on this topic ,
influenced primarily by Dr.V.S Ramachandran has given me the impression that the brain is like a state machine, which has to
generate an ouput based on whatever partial input it is given. It tries to use history to fill in values for the rest of the
inputs. When it goes into invalid states because it cannot possibly handle the inputs, we call it a mentally unstable condition.

Given this, does it not make education based on faith ineviatble ??

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Official Home Page of Taslima Nasrin

Official Home Page of Taslima Nasrin

'If any religion allows the persecution of the people of different faiths, if any religion keeps women in slavery, if any religion keeps people in ignorance, then I can't accept that religion.'

Ursrpache

I got home after trying to relax at this coffee shop with "Lajja (Taslima Nasrin's)" to my aid at around 900pm. As usual I grabbed the remote to assert my authority on the one thing which has been my most obedient companion since I gained consciousness, my TV.  ABC is showing Katherine Close, a 13 year old from Jersey facing the judges in the final round of the Scripps spelling bee contest. The commentators build the thrill. Not many girls have won in the recent years. I could see Indian parents with their kids who couldn't make it to the last round. This, in a game where Indian winners are very prominent. The word in the final round was Ursprache. You should check out the pronunciation of this word.

The point of this is not to reminisce about the ennui of my evenings. I wonder if the sudden popularity of events like the spelling bee contest are an acknowledgement of the fact that the "knowledge-economy" is upon us. Are books lilke 'The world is Flat' and constant surveys comparing the college graduates in the US to the those in India and China, finally setting the ball rolling. Is the common man of this country perceiving the power of specialized skill ? Movies show spelling bee contests as a way for kids from poor societies to move upwards.

I abruptly since I need to be somewhere :)