Dating and its repercussions

Should parents be easy enough and leave their children to date? Dating is still considered as a taboo in India. A boy and girl going out for a dinner or for a movie is not acceptable. Leave alone dinner, even going for a lunch would evoke a lot of gossip in the community. Why are parents against the idea of dating? Is it because they are scared of what the society will talk about them and their child? Or is it to prevent their kid from falling in love?
In India it is generally considered ok, if two guys roam along. They can hold hands and put ones hand on the others shoulder etc. in public. It is not at all considered bad. So you find most of the guys roaming together with hands on shoulders while walking on the streets.
I don't know how it is for girls, but for boys whoever comes to US, they find it difficult initially to adapt. This is because they are so used to being in contact with another boy in public. But when they do the same thing publicly in US, people will give them a wierd look and think that they are gays. So as time goes guys become very conscious about this. So when they go to India they feel very uncomfortable when some one puts their hand on their shoulders or some thing. But people in India won't understand this, they start thinking he is showing off coming back from US.
Well the main reason for me to post about this topic, that India should encourage girl-boy relationship is because of the alarming increase in homosexuals and the consequences of it. In a recent AIDS conference at Toronto it was reported that there is a high incidence of occurance of HIV due to MSM(Men Sex with Men) in places like Chennai and Mumbai. A government study revealed that there are two million MSM's in the country.

"In India, Pakistan, etc it appears that the epidemic is spiralling out of control. If we don't take action, it could make the epidemic in the gay community look simple. This is growing rapidly," said Kevin Robert Frost, Director, AmFAR(American Foundation for AIDS Research)

MSM is hidden behind the bushes in India and have no access to HIV relates services as homosexual is criminalised under section 377. They also face a great deal of violence from the cops. This brings up another question, Should homosexuality be legalised? This debate is still active in US itself, so I guess India will be taking some time to take a stand on this.
The shocking thing is, that the experts feel that about 10% of the males in India might be MSM's. It was found that 20% are affected in Mumbai and 10% in Chennai and also in Tihar.
Are'nt Indians being hypocrites by saying we are culturally pure when so much is happening?

(Source: NDTV)

Varta...

Friday frustration :( Saturday satisfaction :)

It was a misty friday night in Chicago, I was all excited to go to a tamil movie called Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu. Its been a long time since a tamil movie got released in Chicago and its been more than a year since I saw a tamil movie in a theatre. With all excitement we booked the tickets online for the 7 PM show. In the evening we recieved a email saying the 7 PM show has been cancelled because the theatre still did not get the reels. So our tickets were valid for the 10 PM show.
We reached the theatre at 9 PM so that we could get a nice seat, but when we reached the theatre we were shocked by the news that the reals still didnt reach. Waiting patiently at the theatre door step and making fun of each and every person entering the theatre we whiled away our time. Later we were given the tickets and made to seat inside.
We found a nice place and waited eagerly will lots of zeal for the movie. We waited and waited an waited and it became 11 PM. Suddenly two friends of mine who were outside came running inside saying the box had come and movie will start soon. So we sat back in our place and waited. Again this time we waited waited and waited until midnight and still the movie was not started. Bugged by the Hollywood trivia questions we stepped out of the theatre to know what exactly was happening. When we asked the person incharge he was still telling us the same story that the reals have reached the airport and its on its way. At about 12:10 AM the time for what we waiting so long had arrived, yes the movie was started and Kamalhassan entered kicking through the gate. We all shouted in joy, that alast we got to see Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu which came past all the hurdles not only in Chennai since the inception of the movie but also in Chicago for screening.
Movie went on fine until the interval. Suddenly the movie continued upside down. Wonder what language the upside down characters were talking. For the first few scenes we were not sure if the movie was taken like that or there was some problem for us, but once they started to talk we came to know that the operator had loaded the real upside down. So again after a lot of uproar the operator came and peeped through one of the many projector room holes. That guy, thinking everything was fine (Because he anyway does'nt understand what was being screened) disappeared. Again we shouted on top of our voice and waving at the operator we made him understand what the problem was.
We were said that we will have a brief break of 15 mins to re-roll the real. By this time it was almost 2:30 AM, many people gave up and started to get their refund and headed towards home. In between there were some confusions regarding refund. With hope that the movie will continue, we waited patiently.
Finally our patients was acknowledged(Thats when I realised that Gandhi was right), the movie started in 15 mins as promised and we successfully finished watching the movie by 4:10 AM. We felt a sense of achievement after watching the movie fully after so much test of patience. We went into the theatre in the night and came out in early morning.
To compensated this disturbed watching, I went for the movie again on Saturday and watched it the way its supposed to be watched.
I would like to thank each one of you for your constant support and encouragement you have showered through all my posts. This is my 50th post. Its surely a cherishable milestone for my blog. Without your constant encouragement I doubt if I would have come so far. Zealously running ahead towards many more milestones like this, powered by blogger and driven by readers like you guys.

Varta...

The lost temples of India

This is an awesome video about the temples that lost its identity and importance over the period of time. The video primarily concentrates on the Great King Raja Raja Cholan and the Big temple of Thanjavur (or) Tanjor.
The video discusses about some interesting facts of how the Big temple was built thousands of years ago. The facts include how the huge stones were transported from the granary, How the hardest stones in the World, granite stones were broken down to the required sizes with premature tools, How a 40 ft large stone was hoisted on top of the big temple's kopuram.
The video also explains why the temples in the south are not as famous as the tombs and shrines in the northern part of India amoung the western tourist who visit India. It seems only about 10% of the people who visit India visit the temples in the south.
The video is about 52 mins in length, but surely worth watching. The video will be very educative for young children to know about the history of southern India. It is also our duty to increase the popularity of the temples in south India which lost its glory long time ago.

Have a great weekend

Varta...

Nirali

Nirali is an Indian origin, 18 month old girl. She is in need of a matching bone marrow donor. For more details on the drives organised across US, please check Nirali's site or Shankari's blog.

Leisure

I was quite amazed when I found that I could remember something that I studied in my 6th or 7th standard. I came across this poem on Chennai MetroBlogging. Though I could not remember word by word, I could remember the snap shots that appeared in my mind while studying this poem. Here you go.

Leisure By William Henry Davies

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

Generally, I am not that much of a poem person, only recently after I started reading blogs, I have started to enjoy reading poems. But seems like I can call this poem as one of my favourite poems because even after so many years, this poem still persists in my mind.

I know that I like leisure but never knew that I like everything that deals with leisure.

Varta...

Back to back

Back to back taging by Priya. This tag is aimed at giving an insight about me.
I am thinking about:
Picturising the song Newyork Nagaram of Sillendru Oru Kaadhal(SOK).

I said:
To myself, move out of your bed, it's way past 1PM.

I want to:
Have a full meals like the way we get in marraiges.

I Wish:
I had some device that will type based on what I think.

I regret:
becoming one of the millions of software professionals in this world.

I hear:
Jillinu oru kaadhal...oooo...jillinu oru kaadhal...meow...

I am:
KK, a tamilian, a Chennaite, a male, 6ft 2in tall, educated, a sports freak, a movie freak, activity freak. What else? Rest you guys can ask an I will say if am or not.

I Dance:
When I am in a group. Else If I am alone at home. Dancing is a lot of fun and a good way to burn some extra calories. Dance free's the mind. I havent learnt any dance but in the past 4-5 years I have danced on a stage on quite frequently. Inspite of being a bad dancer I end up dancing on the stage, poor spectators. Biggest nightmarish dance was dancing bharathiya naatiyam for the song "Kanodu kaanbathellam" from the movie Jeans in an organizational level dance competetion.

I Sing:
I sing very well, at least that's what I think, I am sure not a single soul on this earth will agree with me on that. Again I sing loud only when I am alone.

I Cry:
not even in my dreams. Men dont cry! I don't like people around me to cry also. So I will do anything to make the person happy. Does'nt matter even if I have to become a clown to achieve it.

I am not:
a complex person. I like to keep things easy and simple. To me life is like game, every game is different, so I think about only one game at a time.

I make with my hands:
everything that I make. Is there any other way we can make anything? everything includes vendakka Sambar, pepper rasam, Chicken Gravy, Pongal, Veg/Chiken Kurma, Fried rice, Kara kozhambu, Upma, Dal Spinach, Fish fry, Fish Kozhambu, Shrimp gravy and that completes the list of things that I can cook.

I write:
only in my blog. The blog has created a interest in me to write. Earlier to this the only thing that I used to write was exams and programs(coding).

I confuse:
only when some one confuses me.

I need:
to visit all your blogs and comment on what ever I feel about the topic written by you.

That brings the curtain down on this tag, so whom should I tag this time? Blog readers choice, so people, please vote on whom do you think should continue with this tag. The person who gets the maximum votes should take up the tag.

PS: The statement "Men don't cry!" is just a mere quoting of the famous statement, intended to be funny. Please take it in lighter vein. I don't mean to offend or hurt anyone. If I have hurt anyone, I am sorry, didnt mean to do so.

Varta...

Tag on something that I seldom use

Yet another Tag, this time its a books tag. I should confess that I am a very bad reader. The number of fingers in my hand will be more than the number of books I have read. Lets see how this tag goes.

One book that changed my life:
Well its not one but three books that changed my life. Any guesses? most of you might have read that book during your school days. Well its the Math, Physics and Chemistry books of Class 12. If I did'nt read these books then I would not be here like this. So these are the books that changed my life.

The book you have read more than once:
Does this mean full book?? Not sure, but the book that I have read many times is Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Since this book is so big, halfway I loose track and start reading from the start again.

One book you would want on dessert island:
How did someone come up with this question??? Reading on a dessert Island?? Tough ask. I dont think I will read anything there. Instead I will find my way to some place where I will get some food to eat.

One book that made you laugh:
Dilbert: The Joy of Work by Scott Adams. This book is awesome to have a nice laugh especially if you like office comedy. Its fund when you think of your manager to be the manager shown in the book. The book also has some nice games to play using your manager. Another book that makes me laugh is Calvin and Hobbes. Its simply brilliant.

One book that made me cry:
Never thought that books can make people cry. Well If I think in that angle, one book that made me sleepless all night is my first year engineering, Chemistry book (Jain & Jain).

One book you wish you had written:
Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, If I wrote that book, I would have become a millionaire by now.

One book that you wish had never been written:
Its a free World, let everyone write whatever they want.

One book you are currently reading:
Advanced .Net Programming

One book you have been meaning to read:
Kite runner is one book I wish I can read sometime, hopefully. Everyone who have read this book have liked it.

I was tagged by Priya who wonders What happens if she doesnt blog.
Time to tag people, I request Syam (since you are due for a post for long), Barath and Gils to take up this tag.

Varta...

A/S/L?

Hope many of you might have heard of the term "Online Predators". If not then its high time to know about it. Online predators has become the buzz word in the online world. A/S/L is one of the starting messages of online predators, which means Age/Sex/Location .There have been many instances where children have been abused by some online predator. Its also becoming a growing threat for the children and parents. Children in the adolescence are the prime target for the online predators.
Children are victimized by the conversations that take place in chat rooms or via email or by showing sexually explicit information and material. Most of the adolescent children are curious about sexuality and sexually explicit material and adolescence is the age when children try to move away from the total control of parents and start seeking to establish new relationships outside their family. For these reasons, some older children and adolescents actively seek out sexually explicit materials and strangers with a particular interest in them; and sex offenders who target children will exploit these tendencies. Young teens may also be attracted to and lured by online offenders who are close to their age. Although these people are not technically pedophiles, they may still be dangerous.
The general characteristics of an online predator are:
Online predators are usually:
1. Male
2. Seductive
3. Introverted
4. Sadistic
5. Sexually indiscriminate
Some online predators gradually seduce their targets through the use of attention, affection, kindness, and even gifts. They are often willing to devote considerable amounts of time, money, and energy to this process. They will be aware of the latest music and hobbies likely to interest kids, and will listen to and sympathize with kids' problems. They also try to lower young people's inhibitions by gradually introducing sexual content into their conversations.
Other predators are faster workers: they engage in sexually explicit conversations with children immediately. This more direct approach may include harassment or stalking. Predators may also be evaluating the kids they meet online for future face-to-face contact.
Some of the ways how parents can curb online predations of their children are:
1. Talk to the children about sexual predators and potential online dangers.
2. Abstain young children from using online chat sessions and if children participate in chat rooms, then parents should make it point to know the chat rooms that their children as visiting.
3. Keep the computer with internet access in a common area in the house.
4. Young children should be made to share the family email address.
5. Teach children not to reply to any instant messaging or emails from strangers.
6. If all precautions fail and your kids do encounter an online predator, remember that they're not to blame in any way. The offender always bears the complete responsibility for his actions.
The symptoms to find if a kid is being targeted for online predating are as follows:
1. If the child spends too much time on the internet. Parents should keep a watch on how much time and in what activities children spend online.
2. If you find pornography on the computer, because most of the online predators use pornography to sexually victimize children.
3. If a child or teen receives phone calls from people you don't know or makes calls to numbers you don't recognize.
4. If a child or teen receives mail, gifts, or packages from someone you don't know.
5. If a child or teen becomes withdrawn from family and friends or quickly turns the computer monitor off or changes the screen if an adult comes into the room.
The sad part is that India is still ignorant about this kind of cyber crimes and hence the Indian Judicial system does not have any law against cyber crimes as far as I know. If anyone has any information on this please do throw some light on it.

(Source:Media Awareness Network)

Varta...

Personality conciousness

I agree in the statement "Beauty lies in the beholder's eyes" but at the same time isn't it better to take care of ourselves? There is an adage in tamil "Aal paathi aadai paathi" which translates to Person counts to half and dress counts to the other half of how a person appears. But most of the time we take so much care about the dress and seldom do we care about our personality which includes the body posture, kind of dressing, presenting yourself in the dress, way we look(thin or fat) and lot more things.
Initially USA had a lot of people with obesity, but slowly people are becoming concious and have changed their lifestyle and food inorder to eradicate obesity. The calorie chart is being printed behind every comercially available food product. This surely helps the people to decide on what to eat and what not to eat. Food is not the only factor that causes obesity, lack of activity also is a prime contributer to this disease. While US is the most obese nation on earth, Australia is not too far behind. But projections predict that in 5 years every third child is expected to be obese. If that comes true then Australia will surpass US.
Well don't be happy that India is not in the top position like how we are leading in population. There is an alarming increase in the condition of obesity in India and other South Asian countries in the past few years. Thanks to all the fast food joints. At survery's done at schools in Indian cities show that 30% of adolescents from India's higher economic groups are overweight. And a Sri Lankan study has shown that 14% of the urban school children are overweight, two thirds of them are from families with high income.
More and more children are being affected by obesity because of the rapid change of lifestyle, more easily available fast food and reduced activity such as excercise or playing outdoor games. Now a days most of the children spend their leisure time surfing net, watching TV, playing indoor games and video games such as Gameboy, playstation etc.
In many asian populations abdominal and central obesity (measured by the ratio of waist to hip circumference) is found to be more common than obesity defined by BMI. Study in India revealed that 20% of adults who are not obese by BMT definition still had abdominal obesity. Professions such as software engineer and call center personnel also contribute significantly to increase in obesity amoung young adults.
Obesity increases the risk of developing Coronary Artery disease, Diabetes, Hyper tension, high blood pressure, Cancers (breast cancers in women and prostrate cancer in men), osteoarthritis, liver disease, reduced fertility and sleep apnoea.
Though obesity is reaching alarming heights in India, obesity has been in the blind spot for long because the government is still fighting under-nutrition. Hence the onus lies on each one of us to take care of us and our children to avoid obesity. In order to avoid obesity eat healthy food with a good mixture of proteins, carbohydrates and fluids and indulge in some physical activity such as sports, exercise, adventure activity etc. We need to be concious about the amount of calories intake that we take during each meal.

(Ref: Hindu Business Line, BMJ Journals)

Varta...

Welcome to Entopia Universe

Tagged again, it's a very different and creative tag than the usual tags. This is a story tag. A story was started by Da Gal and she tagged a few people who had to continue the story. Though the story has a single starting point, it is being branched into different versions of the stories. Since Arpita could'nt care less, she tagged me and I had to continue with the 5th chapter. So before reading Chapter 5 read the preluding chapters at the following links

- Chapter 1
- Chapter 2
- Chapter 3
- Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Suddenly the door behind me opens. I turn for a second to look at the opening door and turn back to find every single person except me were missing in the room. Suddenly a bright light came out of the opening door, the light was so bright that it was powerful enough to blind me for about 4-5 secs.
Once I got back my vision, I found myself in a totally different place. I was in a huge lounge something similar to the one that I saw in the movie, Titanic, when Jack Dawson gets invited for a dinner at the first class deck. I was wondering how did I come here. Suddenly I noticed a man coming through a near by door. The man resembled Adolf Hitler. The man comes near me and introduces himself as Adolf Hitler and I too introduce myself to him but wondering what am I seeing. I was terribly confused on where I was.
Though I was excited to see Hitler, I was a bit scared to talk to him, I have read a lot about Hitler on lot of books, he was a very strict person, suddenly I felt as if someone conked me on the face, I came back to my senses.
I gathered the confidence and asked Hitler "Could you please tell me where I am?". Hitlet gave a grin and told me to relax and take a seat at the near by couch.
After sitting Hitler started talking "You are in Entopia Universe." Immediately I asked him "Entopia Universe? Where is this place and how did I come here?"
"Let me tell you a something, you are no more alive." said Hitler.
"Not alive?? What do you mean? I asked.
Hitler got up from his seat and started talking while walking, having his hands locked behind "You died while crossing the road. You were run over by a car while crossing the road."
"I was hit by a car? impossible. I remember the car screeching its brake and stopping close to me and later I saw some scientists and suited people." I argued.
"Those are the images we ran in your mind to keep your brain cells alive after you died, during this time, using biophotonics we transfered the electric signals from your brain cells to our server"
"Entopia Universe is a virtual universe and all people here are created using metamaterials, all the people you saw in this room before I came and including me, this couch, this lounge are all formed using metamaterials. We can exist in the regular world just like any other humans who live there. Only difference is that we will be formed using electromagnetic waves." explained Hitler.
"But why me?" I asked.
"We needed someone who was very strong at breaking firewalls of different networks in the least possible time, we realised that you have the potential to do that and hence we brought you here. We are an army fighting to correct this world and make this place a better place to live. All humans have become greedy for money and they are destrying the world. Our target in this project is eradicate all the anti-social elements of this world and make this world a better place to live. Welcome to the mission."

--End of Chapter 5--

Her comes the difficult part of the tagging exercise. I would like to tag everyone in my blogroll. But inorder to make sure someone continues with the story let me take the pleasure of naming a few people - Prithz, S0ulasylum, Ganesh, Karthik, Keshi, Sat and Pavithra. Others please tag yourself and continue the story with some interesting twist and turns.

Varta...

Madonna joins the bandwagon

First it was Bill & Melinda Gates then Bono of U2 fame followed by Angelina Jolie to serve the people of Africa. Now its the turn of another celebrity to take notice of an African place called Malawi. Malawi is a country in southeast Africa. The country has abundance of AIDS, malaria, drought and Tobacco (its major crop).
Madonna has commited to raise about $3 million to fund programs especially orphan children. Out of the 12 million population of Malawi one million are orphans.

Ground has just been broken on an orphan care center, which aims to feed and educate as many as 1,000 children a day. She has also formed a partnership with developing-world economic guru Jeffrey Sachs on programs to improve the health, agriculture and economy of a village nearby. She's financing—to the tune of about $1 million—a documentary about the plight of children there. And she has met with Bill Clinton to see if they can work together to bring low-cost medicines to the area, as well as partnering with several aid organizations.
"For the last few years—now that I have children and now that I have what I consider to be a better perspective on life—I have felt responsible for the children of the world," says Madonna

I happened to see a program called Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN a few days back. In that program Cooper reports about the poor state of infants and children due to starvation. It was very disheartening to watch the way people live. In the report Cooper mainly shows three kids Aminu, Rashidu(2yrs) and Habu(10 months). The program affected me so much that I could not forget the following lines which were said during the program

The next morning when we return, the arrivals' tent is once again filled, children getting weighed and measured. Some immediately receive milk.
Inside intensive care, Aminu (ph) is still asleep. Rashidu (ph) is awake, and Habu (ph) is alive. His breathing shallow and quick, but the nurses say he's stable.
This is the last time we'll see him. When we return later in the day, Habu's (ph) bed is empty.
(on camera): It's shocking how quickly things can change here, how in the blink of an eye a child can simply vanish. And when we came in this morning, the three kids we met yesterday were doing OK. At least they made it through the night, they were still alive.
Well, now it's the evening, several hours later, and things have changed. Aminu (ph) is OK, and his mom is pretty confident. But Rashidu (ph) is in septic shock. And Habu (ph) -- well, Habu (ph) died several hours ago. He was just 10 months old.
(voice-over): On the bed, Habu's (ph) cup and bowl are all that remain. His mother lives more than 100 miles away and is already returning home. She left Habu (ph) behind, buried in an unmarked grave somewhere on the outskirts of town.
(on camera): Do you get used to seeing this?

I was able to find the whole transcripts of the Anderson Cooper's program, if interested click here to read more. I have not put any pictures related to Cooper's report because it is very depressing to see it.
I salute Bill & Melinda, Bono, Angelina Jolie and many more people who are fighting the odds to make this World a better place to live.

(Sources: Time, CNN)

Varta...

Why buildings?

An interesting question was asked by my 4 year old nephew during my previous visit to my sister's place. The Question is
Why are only tall buildings called buildings and not for smaller houses?
Only then we realized that it was a difficult question to answer. I some how managed to answer something to him at that moment. Does anyone know the answer for this?

Varta...