Chinki Ghissus

Seems like Korea also has a Kota and Bansal of its own! Click here to read about how Korea stretches the limits of ghissuism.

Weird Statues

http://www.toroller.com/2008/01/03/amazing-weired-statues-manuments-sculptures-of-the-world/

Humans and Environment

Being a regular user of Stumble Upon, I come across a lot of sites discussing about the future of our planet. Sure there is a realization, at least in the west, about the dangers of living the excessive lives that we have started to live. However, most of the sites, I think, are fundamentally wrong. The following cartoon brings out this point, and I do hope we see our actions in this perspective and the environmentalists also understand that it is no charity they are doing:

http://ryanpagelow.com/2007/12/08/2007-12-08/

Just Amazing!

Thanks to stumble for this amazing video I got to see:

http://www.last.fm/music/The+Bastard+Fairies/+videos/2962609

The girl has a point!

Freedom

The freedom fighters fought for the freedom of India for almost 100 years and I never understood the necessity. I mean, had we got independence a couple of decades later, probably we would have been much more developed, Hong Kong and Singapore are living testimonies to this fact. What then inspired a whole generation of youth to give up the possibility of comfortable lives for this seemingly abstract concept of freedom?

Contrary to what people say, I do not think that it was the wish to see their country being ruled by their own people that inspired them. It was rather about the freedom to think about that possibility. It was about being able to choose what they wanted to do, whom they wanted to work for, and most importantly, think the way they wanted to. These thoughts sometimes cloud my mind and I often wonder if in this race to beat the world am I (and for that matter many people) beating myself by compromising on that one thing for which millions of people gave their lives.

Pseudo – Intelligensia

Panel: So tell me something about yourself

Me: (Don’t you read resumes before recruitment? Bloody free riders) Blah, blah, blah (=> me is the best, was born for your company, for this job, hehe)

Panel: You seem to have good academics. Tell us something about non-academic things you do.

Me: (You don’t want to know the truth, do you? I sleep!) Sir, I read sci-fi, play lawn tennis…..

Panel: So you read science fiction? Which is the latest one you read?

Me: (Gotcha!) Neuromancer. (I talked about the book). I’ve also read Brave new world, Calcutta Chromosomes, Frankenstein…

Panel: (Looking confused) Hmmm…. Don’t you read Asimov?

Me: (Bloody, I hate him. And for all the intelligence you claim, don’t you know anything about proper science fiction? Hell, and you claim to be a sci-fi buff!) Sir, I read a book from the foundation series but did not like it much.

….

That was just a snippet of what I faced in a job interview. Such shallowness of knowledge is not uncommon amongst the managers. They can talk about various things for hours, and probably this impresses their clients. But any person who is a master in the area will shred him to pieces. In fact, you don’t even need to be a master to do that. I, who is just a student, could spot the consult (from a reputed firm) who came to recruit at our place claiming glory for what somebody had already published in the Harvard Business Review! (Obviously the rest of the students were negligent of the fact as they come to b-school only for that 6 figure salary and never read something that is not directly related to it, even if that thing is HBR)

The Importance of Rituals

I was always fascinated by the rituals of marriage. I mean, didn’t they make the bride and the groom look rather stupid, walking around fire seven times and what not. Another ritual, which one of my professors found rather depressing, was the so called “ragging” of the juniors. In fact, our lives are so full of rituals that I sometimes wonder if the notion of culture has more to do with the creation of experiences and memories through the use of these rituals!

I was hit rather strongly with this realization  recently when the seniors in our college organized a symbolic puja before the most dreaded examination here. This was to be followed by a fresher’s party in a couple of days. These events, in isolation, do not really mean much. However, to a new student, these can actually create the difference. In fact, I think that rituals are solely responsible for the initiation of a person into something new, be it student life in college for a student during the ritual of ragging or be it the ritual of marriage initiating a boy/girl into the realm of manhood/womanhood. In this perspective, I think that rituals help clear the chaos that might otherwise result in such transitions. Hence, contrary to the popular beliefs, I think that rituals are a source of order rather than of chaos.