Of Latitudes and Attidudes

Today is "Kali Chaudas", ie Black 14th day -- sounds serious, but really it means that the moon has almost waned and this day is the dark day before tomorrow's Deepavali , Festival of Lights sets in. These few days are some of the most important ones in Hinduism. Briefly, they are: a) Dhan Teras : Money's day of 13th: On this day one worships money -- literally!! A few coins, representative of family capital, are bathed in milk and yogurt and cleaned with water. Business folks close their books of the previous year (I think)...and seek blessings of Goddess Lakshmi to help them in the material world, so they may carry out the spiritual tasks for the soul...or so is my wishful interpretation. It could just mean that we are a bunch of materialistic people, though, other aspects of this festival do not bear this thought out completely. b) Kali Chaudas : Supposedly (as my dad informs me), tonight Bhagawan Shiv will stay in a Smashan , ie graveyard, and scare away a...

This is an extract from an interview of Naresh Chandra, former Ambassador to the US. The interview was conducted by India Abroad in Nov. 2002 and deals largely with how he and his staff coped with repairing relations with the US post-Pokhran (nuclear tests by India). I love this answer -- read on. Q. During Jaswant Singh's tenure as External Affairs Minister, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Congress alleged that American influence was more visible in India than before, American diplomats are now openly going to Kashmir to talk to separatist leaders. How do you view that perception? A. I am worried about the level of apprehension in India. We give long lectures to Americans about talking to Iran. On Iraq we express different views. On CTBT we were along and still shouting at the U.S. So what's the problem? How many Americans are coming here [to India]? I feel more should come. If we have just ten Americans here we start feeling apprehensive. We have ten thousand India...

"I do not believe in a God or religion which cannot wipe tears of a widow or bring bread to the mouth of an orphan" -Swami Vivekananda Talk by Dr Mahesh Mehta on Dharma in our life - Religion is not important, what is more important is Dharma. It encompasses religion. We often talk about dharma in our daily life, but where are our rights?! Ancient Indian literature doesn't quite account for rights and the reason is very simple. Dharma of each individual gurantees rights of others. Thus, when I follow my Dharma as a son, my father's rights are established. My dharma as a husband ensures rights of my wife, and vice-versa. One may lead to a conclusion that neglecting dharma amounts to taking away someone else's rights. So, dharmic principles may never be allowed to flounder. Succinctly, one may outline 5 major principles of dharma, and they are given below: a) Everything is God - tree, snake, you, I. There is Unity in all. That's why various object...

Sampras and Agassi met, probably for the last time in a grand-slam final, at the US Open final yesterday. Watched the show 2nd set onwards and I'm glad I started late - my man Agassi was being brutally killed the first two sets. However, Andre brought the level of the game up a notch in the third set to send Sampras on a ball-hunt. For the entire match Sampras scored 33 aces while Agassi had ~6, which alone demonstrates where the match was really lost. Set 3 was taken by Agassi when he eventually broke Sampras' serve in his game 6. It was a remarkable event and even the crowd seems very partial in egging Agassi to work harder at it. I was quite disappointed to see Agassi not take the fourth set and hence lose the match. Yet, what hurt most was Sampras' acceptance speech where he seemed to lose all modesty and simply said that he knew he was in a 'zone and once I realized that I was playing well, it was obvious that I would win' -- I wanted to go right thru' ...

Sat night was fun. After several unsuccessful attempts (either it was the wrong saturday or the weather was too bad), I got to do some star gazing at the Lawrence Hall of Science. I went up there with several friends and I think all of us enjoyed the night tremendously! (After that it was movie time w/ 'Tao of Steve' -- a commentary on merging the powerful insights of the Buddha with low end materialistic matters such as getting 'laid'...plenty of aphorisms were strewn throughout the movie and one could watch it again just for the knowledge, however, I would not be that 'one') LHS has several volunteers who set up 10 and 12 inch telescopes for sky gazing. It is hard-work, getting these old beasts to point at just the right steradian. But then, the most patient among us mortals dare to become astronomers. Most of my ilk find it easy to look at beautiful (even artificially colored) images of new discoveries. Seriously, finding a new comet or meteor is highly over-...

This being my first weblog, I should start off by promising (myself and the odd reader) nothing. This disclaimer is necessary particularly because I tend to slack off once my initial enthusiasm wears off. While I do have high hopes for this e-diary, my only qualm is its inability to allow expression of thoughts or ideas in a language other than English. Sometimes, during intense conversations with friends, I've realized that I tend to forget sources for little facts known only to myself. Now, in polite company people may simply attribute to this forgetful nature to work, stress, what not, however, others may tend to eventually view everything I say with suspicion. Hence, this area will also be a place where I can write down things I have heard on the radio, read in books, surfed on on-line newspapers, and ofcourse, add my own comments for completion. Tall order, but like I said earlier, I promise nothing.