Few of my recent experiences:

• General population thinks that people in IT industry earn unnecessary money, and they should pay to anyone who ask for money even without a cause
• If you have a car, then you have too much money, which you don’t need
• Helping others in need, doesn’t necessarily means you can avoid trouble from distant relatives of the victim, who are more interested in your money
• Police will try to make money, even if you are not guilty
• Judicial courts is not really a good place to spend an evening
• In front of law, everyone is equal – both criminals & innocents are treated same way. If you are an innocent, be prepared to be treated like a seasoned criminal.
• Your friends are the only one on whom you can rely in tough times

Last week I was waiting on a traffic signal, where people usually don’t stop even if the light is red. An old man crossed in front of my car and stood beside. When the light turned green, I started moving at the same time an auto-rickshaw cut too close to the old man which resulted in the guy falling in front of my car. Luckily I was moving too slow. When they old man did not stood up for a minute, I got down from my car, only to find out that he had broken his leg. So as a responsible citizen & looking at his age, I took this guy to hospital, got him first aid and then took him home. His son requested me to drop him to a nearby hospital, for which I agreed. All health care and medical facilities were free for this guy there, as the hospital and his employer has the tie-up.

On reaching the hospital, there were his distant relatives waiting, not for the injured old man but for me. They wanted money. This pissed me off… Why should I pay the money, was my question. But who cares… you works in IT, drive a car, seems to be an outsider, then surely must be having trunks of money is the general belief.

I refused to pay the money, and approached the police. Spent whole evening at police station (PS), troubled many of my friends, and ruined mine & their day. An FIR was registered against me for negligence driving, under section 338 IPC. What a day!

If that was not enough, I had to get a bail next day from court, which was an experience in itself. The judge (magistrate) is treated like a God, of course he is, since my life at that moment depended on his decision to grant me bail or not… So the second day was ruined, too!!

Advocate charges fee for each time I meet him. Police asks for money for doing their job, and I get sleepless nights…

At the end, I only realized that even if I would have hit and ran that day, I could have avoided all this trouble. I m guilty of being a responsible citizen!

Nature finds its own way, and it finds it through most unlikely scenarios. We can find bird nests on house windows but rarely will you find a bird nest in a scooter. Recently, I found this scooter parked in my office parking, with a bird nest. The height was that the bird has laid 3 eggs in it.

Cleopatra – this name is the synonym of love, lust, power, seduction, mystery, and beauty. Many of them are myths. The fact that her tomb is still not found increases the mystery surrounding her.

Cleopatra died pretty young, 2039 years ago in 30 BC at the age of 39. Of these 39 years she ruled Egypt for 17 years from 51 BC till the time of her death. She was 17 when she became the Queen, possibly the youngest ever. Cleopatra is the original seductress and for power and country she slept with two of the most powerful men of her age – Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. In 48 BC she married Julius Caesar and after his death in 44 BC, she married again with Mark Antony in 37 BC. But before getting married with Caesar she married both her brothers to rule Egypt, mostly alone, which is essentially as a female king. She had a child with Caesar and three from Antony.

2^nd September, 31 BC Antony & Cleopatra’s armies attacked Octavian but were defeated. They both fled battle fields and after a year on 1 Aug, 30 BC Antony committed suicide. 10 days after Antony’s death on 12^th Aug, 30 BC Cleopatra also committed suicide, as popularly believed.

Zahi Hawasss, Director of Egypt’s Antiquities, is leading the effort to find Cleopatra’s tomb. According to him “if we find Cleopatra’s tomb we may well be able to solve the mystery of her death.” If her tomb is found then we may well be able to find if she committed suicide or was in fact murdered, or whether she died from a serpent’s bite or ingested a deadly dose of poison.

There are different views about her beauty & sexuality. Many historians believe that she was not all that beautiful based on her picture on the coin. As Margaret Atwood has written of Jezebel, “The amount of sexual baggage that has accumulated around her is astounding, since she doesn’t do any thing remotely sexual, except put on makeup.” The sheer absence of truth has made it a legend. If a tomb is found, probably this is the greatest mystery to be solved. Point to ponder over is if she was not so beautiful than why did the two most powerful men of her time fall for her? It is know that se had a velvety voice, knew many languages, and her conversation stimulating, adding to it were excellent persuasion powers.

We will only know all this if we ever find her tomb.

This is pure work of fiction based on scientific discovery and mythology…

Hominids walking on the face of earth has been established to more than 3.5 million years ago. In 1978, Mary Leakey & team found footprints frozen in ash some 25 miles southwest of Olduvai Gorge. These footprints were formed by a fleeing family through the rainy aftermath of eruption of Sadiman volcano.

It took almost tens of thousands of years to become humans from hominids and start making stone tools & fire. During those thousands of years something happened that forced the evolution. I wonder what it was! Was it some external influence?

In mostly all religions there are mythological characters who have imparted knowledge that has helped us to become what we are today. It is also true that there were many similarities in these mythological characters across religions. Who were these and where did they came from?

Possibly they were friendly neighbours from a nearby planet who were more advanced then the new life on earth. They choose hominids for passing there knowledge which led to the evolution of mankind.

Somewhere in India there was city, where people from all over the country come to work and earn there living. In that city was an apartment complex where people from all religion and different parts live together. They celebrated all festivals together, party & play together, to an extent that they used to fight together for a cause. They had a common mail group where everyone cribbed about the builder, share their thoughts, and ask for advice. Everyone had loads of fun on all festivals.

Someone suggested building a temple in the complex. Thought there were few who didn’t like the idea of having a temple but didn’t spoke thinking it will hurt others feelings. There was a grand celebration when the temple was constructed. Things were going on smoothly, until one day one old man installed two loudspeakers on the temple and started playing loud bhajans in early morning and evening. This was disturbing for many residents living close to temple and while many thought that it was refreshing in the morning.

Many people over the week requested to keep the volume low but no one listened, until one day few people came forward with a suggestion that the loudspeakers should be removed. There was a huge argument on why the loudspeakers should be there. People getting disturbed were outnumbered by people from all over the complex. Different people had different reason for the loudspeaker to be there.

1. Someone said it is the ritual in the state – is God deft?
2. Someone said it is refreshing in the morning to listen to bhajans – then why not play in you home
3. Someone said that people from one community played dhol in one of there festivals so loudspeaker has to be there
4. The extreme was when someone said that people who want to remove the loudspeakers have a hidden agenda… Agenda? ISI? Manybe?

Well, there were many more arguments as well but that issue was left unresolved. Once a peaceful and harmonious place to live was now divided between stupid and logical people.

So what is the moral of the story?

When it comes to religion, people can become irrational & stupid!

“Road indicates culture of the nation” – So true… During my recent road trip from Hyderabad to Bangalore (Bengaluru) I found this sign board at many places. Ironically, at all the places I found this sign board road were in bad condition.

I am sure that was not the intention of National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), because the complete 4 lane highway is rebuilt. And believe me I am not being sarcastic. GOI is investing a lot of money on improving the road network, just look at these facts:

National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is mandated to implement National Highways Development Project (NHDP) which is

• India ’s Largest ever highways project
• World class roads with uninterrupted traffic flow

The National Highways have a total length of 66,590 km (41377 miles) to serve as the arterial network of the country. The development of National Highways is the responsibility of the Government of India. The Government of India has launched major initiatives to upgrade and strengthen National Highways through various phases of National Highways Development project (NHDP), which are briefly as under:

• NHDP Phase I : NHDP Phase I was approved by Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) in December 2000 at an estimated cost of Rs.30,000 crore (approx. $6000 Million) comprises mostly of GQ (5,846 km) and NS-EW Corridor (981km), port connectivity (356 km) and others (315 km).
• NHDP Phase II : NHDP Phase II was approved by CCEA in December 2003 at an estimated cost of Rs.34,339 crore (approx. $6868 Millions) (2002 prices) comprises mostly NS-EW Corridor (6,161 km) and other National Highways of 486 km length, the total length being 6,647 km. The total length of Phase II is 6,647 km.
• NHDP Phase-III: Government approved on 5.3.2005 upgradation and 4 laning of 4,035 km of National Highways on BOT basis at an estimated cost of Rs. 22,207 crores (approx. $4441 Millions) (2004 prices). Government approved in April 2007 upgradation and 4 laning at 8074 km at an estimated cost of Rs. 54,339 crore (approx $10867 Millions).
• NHDP Phase IV: CCEA has approved on 5.10.2006 six laning of 6,500 km of existing 4 lane highways under NHDP Phase V (on DBFO basis). Six laning of 6,500 km includes 5,700 km of GQ and other stretches.
• NHDP Phase V: CCEA has approved on November 2006 for 1000 km of expressways at an estimated cost of Rs. 16680 crore (approx. $3336 Millions).
• NHDP Phase VI: CCEA has approved on December 2007 for 700 km of Ring Roads, Bypasses and flyovers and selected stretches at an estimated cost of Rs. 16680 crores (approx. $3336 Millions).

To be continued…

To start with I am not talking about your computer mouse… I am talking about the rat in the house… Even these guys are getting smarter… Well this is what I have concluded after a couple of drinks with a friend.

I remember as a child in our old house there used to lot of rats and we used to put mouse traps in night, with some bread to tempt them. Initial few attempts were successful, but as the time passed the success ratio came down. Rats were no longer interested in breads; they wanted something more, probably dry fruits. With the change in menu, the success ratio again came up but the success was short lived. So, I think, we changed the trap. That was a nice move, but how long can someone fool an evolving species… Later we realized that food from the trap was disappearing and we were not having our prized catch in the mornings. Rats were becoming smarter with each passing generations… They were transferring their knowledge from one generation to another pretty effectively.

Well time has passed and many new things have come since then to catch rats… In my old office building they were keeping stick pads with some cookies, but I never found a mouse stuck to it. So knowledge transfer has not stopped and so has the evolution of mouse… If they continue at this rate, the time is not far when they will be more intelligent than humans!!! That reminds me of Frankie and Benjy mouse from “The Hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy“, working on a super computer simulation!!

Well the label says it all – myths cannot be real and politicians cannot be honest. Time and again many of our respected politicians keep proving how shallow they are, without any principles & ethics. The recent example was shown by Kalyan Singh, ex-Chief Minister of UP when he left BJP to join SP. The man who was responsible for what happened in Ayodhya cannot now just wash off his hands by just saying sorry. If he has believed in something in 1991 then he should have stood by it today, but that is not the case. Our politicians are so hungry for power and money that they can change their principles and morals to satisfy their hunger.

There’s an old saying in hindi ‘be pendi ka lota’… Kalyan Singh has hopped from one plate to another (BJP to BSP, then back to BJP, and now to SP) without sticking to his principles and he should be abandoned!