http://restlessprincess.wordpress.com

Hey People....I have officially moved to wordpress...just some stray posts on this blog...most of which are also there on the new one....
You can find me at....
http://restlessprincess.wordpress.com/

Wall E

Finally saw the movie! It was one of those very hyped movies for me and a lot of people told me how wonderful it was…and I guess in this case….expectations reduced joy!
It was very cute….but an entire movie without any major dialogues to watch at home is a little difficult! Whenever I am watching a movie at home I have a tendency to multitask…which was not possible with this movie has you had to concentrate and watch it as there was not much being said!
I personally am not so much of a fan of science fiction movies and books…and WallE was exactly that…fiction on what the earth would be like thousands of years from now…we would have destroyed it so much and there would be so much waste accumulated on earth that there would be no place for human’s to stay. Humans would then go an occupy the space and live in space ships. Humans would become fat and lazy as all the work would be automated and done by robos! And plants would didapper from earth and earth would not be able to sustain life!
Well the human race is getting fat and lazy and technology is doing a lot of our work….we are producing a lot of waste which is a problem and the trees are diminishing from earth…So I guess it was not so far from the truth…
There was another track in the movie….about WallE (a robo) falling in love with Eva..while it was kind of a cute concept…I could not really relate to it..
Over all the message of the movie was….save the earth…recycle waste…and plant trees…

The Land of Five Rivers

This was a book of 19 short stories selected and translated by Khuswant Singh.
The stories were around Punjab/Pakistan /Independence. They were nice to read because of the Indian context and I could somewhere relate to them as I have heard my grandparents version on the partition.

Overall, I think the stories lost their charm in translation. The couplets and the phrases which would have been oh so powerful in Punjabi/Urdu became very drab in English.

Many of the stories did not have a punch/twist in the end which is so typical of a short story by a Jefferay Archer type of an author. ….Some just end with a “and life goes on!” type of scenarios and you are left thinking what did I read this story for!!?

In fact one of the stories in the book “The night of the Full Moon” written by Kartar Singh Duggal, was used in the movie “Dus Kahaniya” and it was my favorite story in the movie. It was somehow better portrayed in the movie than in the book…again I think it has been lost in translation.

Overall a nice easy quick read…despite all its flaws….it was one of those books I picked up and actually finished it in about a week.. I have not been reaching the end of too many books I pick up lately so I guess that speaks for itself!

Wordpress Sucks!

I am trying for the last 15 mins to put up my post on my new blog in wordpress http://restlessprincess.wordpress.com/.....but I am simply unable to open it!!!

And it is not the wordpress service that is down...cuase I can view other blogs on wordpress....just Reflections of a Restless Princess is just refusing to open up and that is making me very restless indeed!!!

I wanted to put up a post before 12 in the night to ensure that I have a post credited for today….but looks like it is not happening! :-(
So I though I will just come to blogger and crib about wordpress!
Ciao…going to try it once again!

I Have Moved!

Hey People I have finally moved....to http://restlessprincess.wordpress.com/

Not to comfortable with wordpress and I am still trying to get the hang of it.
I may continue to post on both sites for sometime...and eventually move completely to wordpress.

So people do check out my new wordpress page…update your links if you have linked this one and tell me if I should move on continue to stay here!

Hope to hear from you’ll and see you on http://restlessprincess.wordpress.com/

Cheers!

Law of Karma and Non Vegetarianism

Read an interesting line on this topic in an unlikely source.."India Unbound” by Gurcharan Das (I am just on chapter 3 in this book and there are 20 more chapter to go…so in case I continue to read the book chances are many more posts would be inspired by the book!)

The author writes very well….It is almost like he is talking to you…the English is simple and you can picture the scenes that he is describing without any effort and I think that is what makes a writer great...

His father was a very spiritual man and as a child he used to tell them that one inherited the karma of the animal that one ate and therefore one regressed into the reincarnation cycle of births and death. The goal of ones life was to break free from this cycle and achieve unity with the Absolute. It did not make sense to eat meat and add to one’s karmic burdens.

Now I am not propagating Vegetarianism here…although I am by and large a vegetarian myself…I taste non-vegetarian exotic dishes occasionally… the most exotic non veg dish I have tasted is Szechwan Frog legs in Singapore and it was quite nice. Only once have I ventured to eat a complete chicken burger and I could feel the little chicken jumping in my stomach, maybe it was psychological…maybe it was just to heavy to digest..but that was the end of my ‘eating-eating’ non veg …but I am still open to tasting because I believe in trying out almost everything new that comes my way!

Now there is a significant difference between eating and tasting…and I know what it is for myself but it is difficult to explain…so everything I tell my friends I am a vegetarian…I get sniggers with sarcastic smiles and some ya rite it you say so type of comments…So not I call myself a “pseudo vegetarian” with a tag line of I taste non veg but don’t eat it!

Those are my culinary preferences..now back to the funda that made me want to write this post!
“One inherited the karma of the animal that one eats and so It did not make sense to eat meat and add to one’s karmic burdens”

I think it is interesting though….and it does make some sense…you are killing an animal to eat..and you are preventing him from completing his life and fulfilling the karma that he had come to complete…since you are digesting and assimilating (inheriting) the body and preventing it from completing its cycle….you might as well inherit the Karma also!

The counter argument to this can be..maybe it is the karma/fate of the animal that he was to be killed and become food for someone to eat. It is the animals karmic debt that had to be paid off by being eaten!

I don’t know the answers…the complexities of the “Law Of Karma” are many…the only thing that I am absolutely sure of is that the Law of Karma exsits!

PS- I have written another post few months back on the. The Law Of... Karma. Check it out!

Use Blogging as a Lifeline and not a Deadline!

I was tired and not in a mood to write now…but I have been writing regularly(read everyday) for the last few days so I did not want to have a break in the posts.

It is not that I did not have anything to write, My days are quite interesting, I manage to meet interesting people.. have some interesting conversations....read some interesting books..and I
always have an opinion and a though on everything that happened in the course of the day! So if I sit back and think about the day I would always have atleast 3 things I can write about! I normally write about one…and so I have a back log which if it is very interesting, It comes in one of the subsequent days as a post…..if not if just falls through the cracks.

So bottom line...there is always something to write about ..only if you think!

I was just being lazy and did not feel like writing so I asked a friend I was chatting with if I could skip today and he said…ya you can and this is what he told me as advice..,,

“Use blogging as a lifeline..not as a deadline!”

And that is when I decided…this is what I am going to write on just now!

So what is better?

1. Have a deadline and write a post on regular intervals? (The regular is defined by yourself can be every week/every month/every day)

Or

2. To use it as a “Lifeline” and write whenever inspiration strikes you? And write only when you truly truly feel about something?

Well as usual everything has its pros and cons…

In my current state of mind I would be a propagator of make blogging a deadline…and decide for yourself (you have a choice) the interval you want to write a post and stick to it.

What would be the advantages of having a deadline?

1. It is a small thing but it inculcates disciple within yourself when you keep a promise that you have made to yourself (I wish I could sustain this for other things like exercising/praying/meditating etc!) Osho says..start with small easy things and build up/excersie you will power and this will help you when you need determination for difficut pursits in life )
2. Someone who comes to your blog expecting an update (at an interval specified by you) is disappointed to see the same old post
3. Writing every post is an experience and a learning. It helps to structure your thoughts and you learn something about yourself in the process
4. People say that if you have a deadline the quality of your post may not be very good…well that may be true…but there is no guarantee that even if you write when inspiration strikes you that you will come up with a master piece! Also even if you write a post which is not the best because you have a deadline...chances are that it will give you practice to structure your thoughts and put them down and when inspiration does strike…you would have had enough practice!

So all you blogger out there….I agree in principal to the fact that you should write only when you are inspired…but I would also say…keep an internal deadline for yourself…and write at least something before that deadline…

Bottom Line : Don’t wait for inspiration to strike before you start writing..just start writing and inspiration will strike you while you are writing!

Happy Blogging...! Hope to see regular post from many more people!

PS : I may be going on a vacation next week..so may not be able to put a post everyday unless I manage to put advance posts to be published at regular intervals!

Visitor from Pakistan!

I had my first visitor from Pakistan today (on my blog not home...!) and this is what they were looking for

“In VADA PAV make some more improvements"

They reached my post on Beggars… because it had the word ‘Vada Pav’ on it! I am sure she would have been disappointed cause it did not give any inputs on how to make better vada pav’s!. (Gender biases so I am assuming it was a she who came looking for how to make Vada Pav’s better!)

So what do I know about my visitor from Pakistan
1. She/He is from Karachi
2. Uses Cyber Internet Services (pvt.) Ltd as the Internet Service Provider
3. Uses the Firefox 3.0 Browser and Windows XP operating system
4. I have the IP address (but I think I should not put it up)
5. This is the first time this visitor came to my site!

6. They reached my page from a search string in google.pk

All this from the Stat Counter that I have put up on my site!
It gives me a whole lot of info..so who are the people coming to read this blog…?

Looks like they are from the following countires!

1. India
2. United States
3. Romania
4. United Kingdom
5. Canada
6. Europe
7. Sweden
8. United Arab Emirates
9. Oman
10. Japan
11. Hong Kong
12. Pakistan

India and US obviously topping the list, but the surprise element here is Romania! Some one from Bucharest using the Firefox 2.0 browser has come numerous times on this blog!
My friend form Romania …do write a comment…It would be nice to read!

And for all you bloggers who don’t have a stat counter on their site yet….go on an put one…just click on http://statcounter.com/! It is good fun to see the statistics and you know what…it is really really easy to do…if I can do it..anybody can!

For all the people who have reached this blog by hook or by crook…..do leave a comment…especially if you have come from some exotic location like Romania/Sweeden/Japan!

Cheers!

A Session on Rural Healthcare

Went for an interesting discussion organized by Tata Memorial Hospital in their Khargar Campus on “Technology with Poverty related Health Problems in Rural India” ..

Beautiful place…very much out of the way…but very beautiful…

I met some interesting people… was a nice crowrd with all scientists, researchers…IIT professors..oncologits…basically a very highly intellectual crowd talking about rural healthcare!

I learnt some interesting things….but too tired to write about it now…..

Met and spoke to Dr Abhay Bang…very interesting man….with an interesting story….he is someone who has done a lot of good work in the field of rural healthcare…he and his wife have even been profiled in the Time Magazine..Read the article…worth reading!

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1124299,00.html

Good Night!

“India Unbound” - Gurcharan Das

I just started reading it a book called “India Unbound” by Gurcharan Das It is suppose to be about India’s journey from Independence to the Global Information age.

Reading books of this genre on our economic liberalization or the Information Reveolution (The world is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman) makes me feel like I have lived though history…It is like world changing events have happened around me and I have been a part and parcel of it! (Don’t know if I am able to communicate…but the feeling is like I am reading ‘history’ which I have lived through and can relate with.)

A good part about the “The World is Flat” and “India Unbound” (although I have just strated reading the book ) is the style of writing and since they are both written by journalists/authors and not hard core economists, they are very easy to read…

I always feel…I read something nice and then I forgot about it! And the best way to remember is to write about it and talk about it! By doing that you not only remember it longer for yourself but also sharing it with others!

So here is something interesting I read today in India Unbound!

Six things that went wrong with India’s economy
1. Took up an inward looking import substituting path rather than an outward looking export promoting route thus denying it self the prosperity that came with post war trade.

2. It set up a massive, inefficient and monopolistic public sector to which it denied the autonomy of working.

3. It over regulated private enterprises with the worst control in the world. This was popularly know as the “License Raj”.

4. It discouraged foreign capital and denied itself the benefits of technology and world class competition.
My ex boss was someone who brought one of the 4 big consulting firms to India and set up their operations here. He used to tell me stories on how they used to do road shows in the US and Europe in the 80’s and the entire talk would be around how to work around the ‘license’ requirements.

5. Pampered organized labor(Unions) to the point where we have extremely low productivity.

6. Ignored education especially of the girls.

There is an old idea in economics which says that If the rich and the poor countries are linked by trade their standard of living would converge in the end. Well this makes sense logically…because the standard of living depends on productivity and productivity depends on technology and when the rich and poor countries are linked, the poor countires can simply adopt the technological innovations without having to reinvent the wheel and grow much faster and eventually catch up!

Since it is so logical….then why has this not happened so far??

Two Harvard scholars did Jeffery Scachs and Andrew Warner did a study and concluded that only 13/87 third world counties were open to world trade between 1970 to 1990 and they grow 6 times faster!

India was part of the group which was closed to trade…the Singapore and Hongkongs of the world were in the group that were open to world trade…and the results are for the world to see.

Post 1991…India has changed…someone coined it as our “Economic Freedom”. I think we should celebrate the day 1991 as much as we celebrate 15th august 1947! But the irony is I don’t even know if there is a particular date that we can coin. I think maybe the ‘day’ that the economic reforms were announced should be celebrated as our “Economic Independence Day”
I personally think we are doing very well in the first 5 pointes mentioned here….but still have a long way to go on the education front…

The students who are educated and have degrees are very often not employable.Our Education system leaves so much room for improvement.
Someone in a toast masters meeting had given a speech called “Operation Black Board”. She called it “Operation Blackboard” so that it sounds like an urgent military operation which it should be. A very nice analogy in her speech was that our education system is like filling a pot with information till it is full what we need is an education system which is like lighting a lamp in the darkness.

We need to train students to think analyze apply and enjoy studying… I will do something in this area someday!

Policeman!

I had to get to a meeting and was standing at the station trying to get a cab and since it was a short distance the cabs were not to happy to go. Suddenly a policeman came to my rescue and said… in marati..“kothe jaye cha aahe..?” “Where do you want to go?” and I told him my destination
He very sweetly (unlike a policeman) asked the cab who refused to go..the reason he was not willing to go. The cabbie had some explanation and the policeman let him go without giving him a hard time and then he ensured he got me another cab!

Well here was a policeman…who came to help out of the blue without being asked and was not even rude and unreasonable to the poor cab driver!

I have wanted to write about policemen for a very long time….and this small incident finally inspired me to actually do so…

I think our poor police men have a very thankless job…especially the traffic police…they stand all day in the hot sun or the rain with those yellow raincoats in the middle of the chaotic traffic and every time we see them….inevitably we curse them…and think… oh the chaos is because the signal is not working and the police is directing the traffic manually! Or we think “ Ah he is standing there to make some money”

Well there are some policemen who would be wicked…and actually put on the signal on a turning which is normally a free turn just to make a quick buck!

But overall kudos to the traffic police force…I think they have a very tough and strenuous job…and if they do want a bribe from us once in a while when they catch us doing something wrong…what the hell…they deserve it!

A Wednesday..

Brilliant movie..! Short Crisp fast paced and with a very interesting twist which makes the movie special!
Almost everyone who had seen the movie told me it was brilliant…and I had very high expectations of the movie…'expectations normally reduce joy' and a movie that is praised by so many people can be disappointing ..but 'A Wednesday' was an exception!
I will not want to say anything about the movie in terms of the story etc, because it would spoil the fun.
I some how don’t even remember seeing promo’s of the movie….the first time I heard of the movie was on Rajiv Masand’s review on CNN…!
Bottom line…must watch…Kudos to the team who made the movie…the story..the twist…the editing..the background sound track …the acting…all is brilliant…!

Beggars…

Should we be giving money/food to beggars? Is it a good thing to do or is it encouraging a wrong practice?

There are a set of people who are absolutely against begging and on the other side there are people who feel the need to give something to every beggar who asks!

I have personally been on both ends of the spectrum and I am currently somewhere in between….not sure which side is right…( WTF! Looks like here is another that I am confused about!!)

This is something I have been thinking about for a very long time, but what instigated me to write about it today is something that happened with us today when we went to eat Dosas(Indian Pan cakes) at a Thele wala(road side cart seller) close to home.

Any place in Bombay which has Thele Walas selling food always has a group of regular beggars around. This ‘Khao Gali’ (Food Street) also had their set of beggars and a group decided to target us with their sad faces and very smart dialogues!

So a group of three kids…two girls of about 7-8 years with a 6-7 month baby were all around our car while we were eating inside. The girls had runny noses and were teary eyed. The baby was stark naked and was crying as if on cue.
“Didi…app log itna kha rahe hai…hume bhi kuch de do”(“You’ll are eating so much..please give us something to eat also”) and may more such learned sad dialogues which although I knew were learned they still touched me somewhere..

So I told the kids…come with me…tell me what you want to eat! Everybody else in the car was like…stop it don’t encourage them etc etc…but I was like come on..they want to eat…what have I got to loose!

The kids realized…here is one more “bakara” for the day and they were like we want to eat vada pav…which we get near the temple ahead. I was like there is a sandwich wala here…come I will buy you sandwich…and the kids were like..no the sandwich is spicy..so please give us money!

In the meanwhile there were 5 other little boys and girls who realize there is a potential ‘bakara’ here and came an surrounded the car and everyone wanted money for vada pav!

The others in the car fired me and told me to get the hell into the car and get out of there! But since I promised the child I will give here something…I gave her a Rs 5 coin. The kiddo got into a negotiation with me on how and why I should give her 10 bucks!

It was honestly a little irritating but yet quite cute….the kids were all out to make a “bakara” out of me…I realize it…but yet I feel bad and play along sometimes….It is really so sad that people have to live in such pitiable conditions…We are so fortunate to have everything that we do!

So what should we do..? Give alms to beggars...or avoid...? I am sure everyone in India atleast would have asked themselves this question and come up with come rationale either ways…here is my though process…

Why give the beggars?
· We are fortunate and are definitely are in a better position then them today.
· We could very easily have been in their shoes had we not been born in the family that we were. If they were fortunate enough to be born in conducive circumstances like ours, they may have done much better than us
· Begging can be hard work…they are out there in the sun/rain cold all day, walking the streets. I am sure it must be very difficult.
· If you give…chances are you will accumulate good karma and get someone’s good wishes and chances are you will get much more in return

Why we should not give Beggars?
· It encourages begging and they do not use their time to do productive work. They are like parasites in the economy.
· It is an organized racket and they do it for a living. Check out this interesting article I came across.(Millionaire Beggars in India’s Financial Capital)
· They give the city and county a bad name especially when they hound foreigners


Well overall looks like the points supporting our giving beggars are more than points against giving beggars.

What we can do is take care of the following things while giving alms to beggars
· Give food instead of money- there was a time I would keep small biscuit packets in my car to give it away to beggars who would come and ask at signals.
· Avoid giving alms to able grown up beggars

PS-I came across this very nice article on beggars in different cultures http://www.roadjunky.com/article/958/beggars-karma-india-japan-iran

May Those Who Help The Most Win!

Came accross this intersting contest by Google called Project 10100 (pronounced "Project 10 to the 100th") ...I think it is a brilliant concept...! It is a is a call for ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible!

I only wish I had a nice idea to put in! I dont...atleast not as of now...maybe I will think of something my 20th... Check out this link

http://www.project10tothe100.com/how_it_works.html

Here's how to join in.
1. Send google your idea by October 20th.Simply fill out the submission form giving us the gist of your idea. You can supplement your proposal with a 30-second video.

2. Voting on ideas begins on January 27th.Google will post a selection of one hundred ideas and ask you, the public, to choose twenty semi-finalists. Then an advisory board will select up to five final ideas. (Now I personally feel that is a long time they are going to take to short list the ideas!...But I am really looking forward to see this list!)

3.Google will help bring these ideas to life.They are committing $10 million to implement these projects, and our goal is to help as many people as possible. So remember, money may provide a jumpstart, but the idea is the thing.

Good luck, and may those who help the most win.

And If by any chance any of you'll get to know of the project from this post and go on an participate....do leave a comment for me and let me know!

All the best!