Category: Daily Notes

Between the times we got bogged by the annoying formalities of buying a home, we glimpsed the colorful thriller stories from Athens. And today, the climax of ulitmate event of the human race came to a reverberating end. Way to go Greece. For what was bestowed upon her about a decade ago, Greece did one heck of a job. For this tiny meditteranian country of mere 15 million residents and per-capita income of less than $12,000 peranum, this was the expensive undertaking ever attempted by any country. Add to it the security woes across the globe, It takes more than money and population to pull off the safest olympiad of al times.

It was a moment of great satisfaction, quite apparent on his face, as the mayor of Athens handed over the Olympic Flag to mayor of Beijing, where we will be welcomed for yet another greatest olympics in 2008.

I was told that Beijing is preparing to take the Olympiads to its next level. Only 4 years later will we find what that means to rest of us. But dont under estimate Beijing and the small yellow people my friends, you got to have seen the 110m Mens Hurdles finals to truly believe what chinese are capable of. Of course, we knew the chinese were breeding gymnasts, table tennis players and divers, but it was revelation to know they were silently breeding sprinters as well when Liu Xiang run the sprint of his life to win the 110m hurdles. I cannot believe chinese beating american and europeon sprinters, God damn, they are still 5 feet tall just enough to jump and clear the hurdle.

Liu Xiang, is elated to see himself beating the line ahead of everyone else. His facial expression says something to the effect, “you suckers, believe this, we can do anything to beat the world!. Pity the favourite frenchmen next to him fell in the last hurdle struggling to comprehend a chinese guy beat him!

I also saw the finishing laps of the mens marathon. A 45Km Marathon in approimately 2hours is the jewel of the Olympics events and is a true test of man’s physical abilities. Here luckily I also saw perhaps the only black-mark moment of the Olympics when De Lima of brazil was, in the middle of the race around 20Km spot, was grabbed over and knocked down for no reason by a cracked protester. Poor lima was a good lead then but unfortunately becoz of this stupid incident was pushed back to only win the bronze. But he was so humble, a true mark of most Olmpians of course, when he said it was not a big deal as he is happy he won a medal. Believe me, it matters when you get a bronze when you could have got a Gold for a fault thats none of yours. But thats how great atheletes behave. He was a great guy finishing with all smiles instead of being sober or angry! Later I learnt the attacker was a defrocked priest who was notorious in attacking major events like this for no reason! he was not a terrorist though.

US, as before finished the medals tally at the top, with China running close behind. Looks like China is all set to break the host country medal count record in Beijing four years from now. My beloved nation, India finished…it is easy to say this way…7th from the last. Though we should be proud of that shooter for that face saving Silver, it is a moment of shame that we have had our worst Olympics that can only be forgotten soon.

And for us, next week is going to be a nightmare as the Republican Convention opens up in new york city, just across the river from where we live. With protesters already burning effigys, we could see the smoke coming over the city. Security is beefed up to an extent that we see armed boats with cops roaming around our water front every few minutes. Coming in and driving around here is going to be a mess. Just imagine those who will be going into the city and to the convention area around the Madison Square Garden, its an unwanted pain. While we are all proud of New york city, why dont we accept that it is a freakin small city for anything of this size. And its not a joke to host a convention of this size and with it a quarter million protesters, to prove that the city is ready for everything!…The biggest mess on the face of the earth will be when new york city wins the Olympics 2012 !

If a tiny, athletic, flambouyant and crowd-pulling Jackie Chan can become a local star in nook and corner of India, why not equally powerful and uniquely characteristic, incomparable superstar of Tamil cinema, Rajinikath be a star in Japan. I think whatever comes in goes back!

OSAKA RAJINI FANS Website!!!. I am just totally amazed and awestruck at the amount of activity going on in the website, makes me compare this to the love we have for Jackie Chan. That religious cult following for Jackie when any movie that just has a one scene still of Jackie Chan will run for 50 days. Imainge block busters like police story, Central Theater in Coimbatore will see reckless stampedes. As hard it is to justify chan’s impact in India, equally confusing is Rajini effect in Japan. I guess reiterates the fact that opposite ends attract. More unbelieveable is that the website home page leads to the latest and hot news! “Chennai Tour 2004“...Japanes fans of Rajini touring his house, his hotel and marriage hall !. Hard to believe since we are on this side of the spectrum, just imagine how excited we would be take snap infront of Jackie Chans house in Hong Kong, if we happen to be there.

We see such small head blocks of US sports and rock stars all the time infront of the check-out counterrs in every stores here. I am excited to see Rajini is those flavours.

As I read this Tamil blog posted by our fellow Tamizh friends visiting Japan, I see some japanese are so manical about Rajini that they have learnt to speak Tamizh better than English!

This tamil text from their website speaks volumes of their naive interests in Thamizh, even though there are some obvious issues with language constructs. But this is Thamizh as versed by a Japanese, pretty good for that isnt it?

Nah Nah, I bet even if 100 more Jackie Chans come and go, not a single soul in India will pick up Chinese! Dont tell me you followed those dialogues on those kungfu movies. All we cared are those stunt sounds and strange noises that gave new meaning to Mimicry!

Alas, India won the first medal today with a silver in shooting. 100 Billion faces can now shed a tint of smile. As America stabilized its medal tally to move up to the top spot, NBC media empire trumpets the American version of the Olympics on every media channel available to people living in this part of the continent. NBC, one of the top media conglomerates has bought virtually rights to all forms of Olympics telecast in the US. The unfortunate consequence of this to people like us, non-americans living here, is to just watch the sports as NBC telecasts it. That means we see only american athletes performances. Unless India qualifies for any quarter or semi or becomes unlikely lucky enough for a final, we wouldnt have the pleasure of watching Indians play. With India losing its first game in Hockey, the hopes are only shattering more. I just saw a brief match of flyweight boxing where Kumar lost comfortably(!) to a french guy. On the other end, China leads the Gold tally. There is so much to learn from China, what best do we need than being a largest neighbour? Can we just tear down all barriers and aim for more collabaration from china for next olympics than just free passes to walk over to beijing acorss the Himalayas?.

Neverthless I am happy to see Olympics on HD (high definition) TV via NBC HD. That saves me from Bob Costas who covers most of the NBC Olympics coverage for the regular NBC channel. During the opening ceremony parade, as some of the low-profile countries with one or two (or less than 10) atheletes participating passed by, it was so pathetic how Bob costas specifically mentioned that ‘This is Djibouti, They have never won a medal in Olympics!’, ‘This is Kyrgystan first time in Olympics”…and then a few seconds later completed the sentence by saying ‘They have never won a medal in Olympics!’. Isnt it, rude? He probably thought he was giving statistical info about every country, but it is not an encouraging note at all. Its no big deal that US has won so many medals, with 450 athelete barging in every olympics, it would be shame otherwise! On HD, it was a treat to watch with crystal clear telecast and much less talking commentry and more than anything else, very few commercials!

On a happy note, it was so good to see a standing ovation from the crowd for Iraq on the opening ceremony I was really feeling good that they were able to participate inspite of all the turmoils going back home. Its hard to imagine for us, living in this wonderful peace to understand their feelings about war/death. As a bonus encouragement, Iraq won their qualifying football game even before the opening ceremony, so they were all in Cloud 9 walking up proud. In all, it was truly THE BEST opening ceremony of all olympics. For so much criticisms pouring from across the globe going into the Olympics, they did a fantastic job. It was truly breathtaking.

I am afraid I am losing my “Identity” as my Thamizh writing skills have deteriorated badly in the last decade. I was trying to write something yesterday but was shocked when I paused wondering which ‘ra’ to use for that word ‘ninaikkiren’. Though I figured it out shortly after that moment of surprise, I realize my Thamizh language instincts is draining badly. With that I am losing a part of my original identify; how can I be proud of claiming Thamizh as my native language if I have to really ‘think’ about the exact letters before writing? God damn it, this is naaaa goooo at all.

Ok, Ok, its alright, atleast I can write well in english. Wait a second…I cannot say that to myself? The truth is my English is not at its best either( I better not call this as my best!). At least I am reading, writing, and conversing a lot in English towards improving it(being in America, whether I like it or not, helps with that), but my beloved Thamizh is losing attention! For my own sanity I should be doing something about this.

Perhaps it was a fault of mine as I never cultured interest in any form of Thamizh literature outside of school curriculam. To help with that, everything about India and Tamilnadu is available in English, so I fell into the obvious trap. The only solace is I am not as bad as some of my friends who suck big time even to read Thamizh fluently, I cannot imagine what their Thamizh writing skills would be.

Thanks to the world of tamil blogs I am recouping my love for Thamizh. Sometimes I envy them so much for being not just creative but also for being a motivation for others to think creatively. I am sure they are also reinventing themselves with this new medium of blogs.

And for me, still miles to go before I reap the full Thamizh or English (one is better than none!) in me.

Loads of articles on diverse topics fills IndiaNest.com. So many people want to write and just want to be read. I wish we have more than 24 hours a day to read of all this. Sometimes the artciles are just too long and boring though they are well written literature. I recently read this article about Indian Classical Music. Its undeniably an ocean and no one can write about its entirety in a few pages, but this was good attempt to introduce it to a westerner.

Finally, India pulled off a thriller to win against Srilanka today. This happens every single time, right when everyone is ready to write the team off, they win, emphatically to go up again only to lose a important match. But then there are so many Gods, even if we hate to admit it, the truth is at last the Gods save the team more often than Sachin or Shewag. Atleast, thats the easiest rationale for some of our spectacular wins and horrific losses!

The flavor of Indian food, especially those of our curries and masalas, is one of its kind. No other world cusine boasts such a huge and equally wide variety of spices and flavors. This variety adds to the complexity of cooking and its duration. The 2 hour or so marathon cooking for a three-course(conservative regular!) meal radiates enough aroma(refrain from saying ‘smell’) to fill an entire house. Truly so, it is a unique aesthetic of India cusine – It invites not just you but also your neighbours to dine!

But when does this aroma become a smell, especially one that is repelling? I would have never thought about this aspect of the Indian food had I been in India, but of late, I have become averse to this issue of curry flavor that sticks to everything around you. Perhaps it doesnt make sense to people living in India, but for most of us living in US, it should be apparent. In fact, we realize it more when we visit others(we get so immersed in our home and the aroma around!). It is the smell on your winter jacket when you take it out from your closet after the long summer? Yeah, that closet across the kitchen and in the walkway infront of your main door! It is the smell on your window drapes(curtains), the same on the couch and the worst is, at times, it sticks to our clothes. While we try as much to keep our clothing as far away from the kitchen as possible, in addition to perfuming it, the smell of curry just beats us over to everything on occasions. The reason for the problm is simple and is quite easily and naturally solved in India.

1. There is absolutely no air flow inside any buildings here in the US. Keeping a window open is not a norm but an exception. All these windows are glassed, meaning getting light is important(?) but not air! To that sin, add cetral and automated Air Conditioning(AC). Rather one shouldnt leave any doors or windows open. Those other types of windows, are not built to allow lot of air flow, most of them are netted to prevent dust/flies/insects and almost all of them are sliding windows meaning only one half opens while the other half is twice sealed!. Keeping your main doors(front and back for those few who have it) is just out of question in the country, i wouldnt be surprised if they say it is against law to leave doors open!(heard of noise pollution, privacy?). With all this, the poor aroma has nowhere to go, but to find solace in couches and closets and under the beds and hoods and wherever we dont often try to move things in/out. The longer it stays, the longer it sticks to things around.

2. Most of the houses here are carpeted. Nothing holds the smell better than carpets. For hard-core indian food families(religiously feast on freshly cooked indian food three times a day!), imagine the carpets tortured with all kinds of flavors over years….unless the house is well aired and carpets are soap cleaned regularly, it will certainly expose what they ate for dinner last night!

3. This is not true in general, but some leave their finished dishes open and also pile up(sometimes for days!) in the wash basin! This is even worse, a strange experiment with smell/decay!

Then there are those who dont give a damn about any of this, what can I say? It all depends on what you think? or should I say what you smell?

There is another aspect of the similar problem that happens to some of us. It is the joy of Indian food during Lunch at workplace. When one poor fellow Indian soul, somewhere in the other corner of the building, opens up his or her lunch box, Ah! Wah re Wah! the food’s distinct flavors that fill the entire floor…Hmm..pretty sure, 9 out of 10 other Indians out on the floor can guess what the food is. Tomato rice, Curd rice and chicken curma top the list. I am no exception, as much as I make fun of it, I opened by Rajma this afternoon stalking few cubes around if not the whole floor! I never dare to ask my other fellow American colleagues about what they feel about this? Perhaps, they were thinking about their tuna fish or left over chinese food that they had today! Trust me, it stinks so bad you would stop eating yours!

Every thought is a cause…
I sow a thought, I reap an action.
I sow that action, to reap a habit.
I sow by repeating that habit, I reap a character.
I sow by shaping that character, I reach my destiny.
It all starts with that one thought…

Not all thoughts end in a destiny.
Some thoughts die at the root
Some thoughts, we love them so much, never leave us.
Some, the more we hate them, sadly never leave us too.
Some, we never realize them, but still stay to define our destiny.

It is all in a thought. Every thought matters.

I have never been as much delighted to see someone as president as when I knew Dr.Abdul Kalam will be the next president of India. Perhaps only now I have “grown” enough to appreciate an individual as President of India. It could be that I was happy to see a non-hindu president, an ultimate answer to doubts about India’s secularism. And to see a multi-talented president from Tamilnadu is even a unexplainable honour than pleasure. In all, for the first time, I was proud of our political gamers to have agreed on one thing, at least outwardly. I am certain in his hands the country has nowhere but upwards to grow.

His integrity in unquestionable. Besides, he reflects the voices and ambitions of the children, especially those deprived of basic needs, better than any other popular leader of present and past. To read his ‘Wings of Fire’ was like listening him talk graciously infront of us. Though some debate if it was more of a luck than his skills, the excellence he garnered in career and the international recognition he brought to Indian Space Industry is etched with diamonds in the Indian history.

Learning from Kalam

A documentary with Kalam’s story as background to motivate children from staying in schools(without dropping out for jobs) emphasizes the need for strong primary education and uses kalams much-written struggles during those ages. To know that writer-director P Dhanapal of Coimbatore has taken it on his shoulders to do this service is laudable. He is also getting support from Asha for Education, as they both worked together in making this a successful short film. Not just poor young children but everyone citizen will be highly inspired.

PSG College of Technology one of the premeire institutions in the country, (proud to say I studied BSc Applied Science there!) created a innovation think-tank in 1984, named STEP(Science & Technology Entrepreneurs Park), under the auspices of National Science & Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board (NSTEDB). Minveli, a product of STEP, is a multimedia software company, primarily focusing on tamil media. P Dhanapal is CEO of ‘Minveli’.

Even among Indians and foreigners, the face of India is not that beautiful as we all may think. There are more gripes than appreciations. Atleast that is the perception when you read our mainstream newspapers, where politics, naturally though, tops the news. Everything else, exciting ones and sad, is deep hidden beneath the surface. Good news India, a once one-man website, concieved and still successfully managed by Mr.D.V.Sridharan, is entirely dedicated to trumpetting the good, positive and indeed truthful things happening all over India.

GoodNewsIndia.com Taking an affectionate look at India !

Likely you wont hear a lot about these news elsewhere in media; its not as gossipy and chewy as politics or sports or movies, but they are news worthy by all means. Things that I promise we relish that we knew. Things that will bring hope for scores of Indians like living abroad wondering when I would take my last flight to home. Rediff profiled Mr.Sridharan in May 2003 that mentions he travelled 30,000 km just within India. Just to search for only worthy good news about India and Indians. Amazing and thought provoking.

Naturally, they dont have an army of journalists writing reams of stories every day. So news is hard to come by, but when it comes, its worth every second you spend reading it. When there is will, there is certainly so many ways!

Things I never did or used before my “Coming to America”. Not that these things are not possible or available in India, it is squarely because of my economic status and non-cosmopolitan coimbatore lifestyle and of course, in same cases, my attitude!. Positively in no specific order!

Never used a body spray or a perfume. That doesnt mean I used to stink, but hard to believe now, but I used to talcom powder! yep, for under arms as well !
Never flew in a plane
Never used a automatic revolving/sliding door
Never used a vending machine
Never drove a car ( except for the short fake stint to get a international driving license which of no use absolutely, contrary to what people back home say )
Never used an automatic flushing toilet
Never used a paper towel
Never had to ask ‘Water with no ice please’ in a restaurant
Never had a cusine other than chinese-Indian
Never had to tuck in my shirts
Never cared to match my shrits with trousers ( call it pants! )
Never knew how to do a tie ( and still don’t ! )
Never ever imagined I would wear a suit
Never used a blue swimming pool or green tennis court
Never saw white flakes or snow
Never skated, skied, ride in a boat
Never heard of the word ‘tornadoe’
Never saw a building taller than 14 floors

As I think about it, there is so many small and silly things I didnt know before. Thanks to the oppurtunities I had here, I know so many small things. Life (&) style in India has changed so much in such short time, anyone living in Metro cities could laugh at me.

Wool of the man
Covering heart and mind
Hard to let it out
But soul permeates beyond anything
Wool fails to be of any use

After a hectic visit in Washington DC past weekend, we are all set to leave to Columbus tonight for yet another vacation weekend. This time we should be ok, as columbus doesnt have much to see besides we have a wedding to attend to. We will stay put most of the time.

The july 4th firewords at DC was just splendid. Though we were drenched waiting in the rain for more than four hours, it was all worth it. To add to the excitement, I was wearing an orange outlaw T-Shirt that read ‘Parole Violator’. What do you think? I was serious? I better not, it was just for fun.

You can imagine what kind of security would be around the white house and capitol hill. With my skin color and freaking hair style, Folks with me were warning me against provoking the cops to question me. Except for a cop, who shouted alound ‘Hey, Look at the Parole violator there!’, Nobody gives a damn to what you are wearing, much less, whats written on your t-shirt. Infact it was so hot and humid, especially after the rain, a lot of poeple chose to wear the least! Of course, I knew that cop was just pulling my legs. This is America! This is exactly what it means to have Freedom!

Cassini is the spacecraft that just reached saturn, meaning it has just fallen into the atmosphere of saturn gaining access to its gravity. It just chills my brain when I say that. Why? Coz Saturn is just 3000000000 kilometers from Earth. Yes, No kidding – 3 Billion kms. It is so astonishing because it zipped through that distance in just a mere 7 years after it was launched. I still cannot comprehend fully this human marvel. The mission is a phenomenal success beause it has started doing what it was exactly sent for : Capture snapshots and study the rings, moons and atmosphere. This is one of the very first images. This is real and not a digital art.

Caroline Park, the lead scientist who spent the last 15 years working hard to realize this dream, spoke to the press today introducing the pictures. It was moving when she said, with tears and a shivering voice, that she never expected that the space craft would successfully go so close to take such amazing pictures. She said it took her a few hours to verify and believe that her colleagues weren’t teasing her with unreal pictures. I can understand how close this must have been to her heart when she said she felt like she had another baby when she saw the first picture. Of course, failing missions are much more common and acceptable in space science, so no wonder she was unbelievably excited.

Tighten your seatbelts, This is just day one! Cassini will hang around saturn for four full months.

PS:At Jet Propulsion Lab from where scientists control the craft, during those tense moments when the craft cross the saturns atmosphere, apparently, they pass along a jar of peanuts to everyone around the control room with everyone grabbing a chunk of it and gulping it to tone down their anxiety. And it seem to work! After a series of failed missions a peanut-passing tradition started in 1962, kick-started the mission to moon! Cant believe it? Hear it from the guys in JPL. A peanut writes the fate of a trillion dollar mission! So as long as there is a reason to believe, Americans believe in any crap!

Somewhere on the Web I found these tips on Writing, that I thought I would capture on my site for my own handy reminder and reference. Glad if it helps you.

1) Improve your writing, but it will require work and time. Even a small effort toward improvement can have positive results. It’s up to you!

2) Care about your writing. Take it seriously. Good writing is important.

3) Most writing can stand some improvement.

4) Read. Anything. Daily. The more familiar you are with a language, the more comfortable you are with it. Distinguishing between proper and improper word choice, grammar, and so on will become easier.

5) Improve your vocabulary. Learn a few new words every week, month, or year. A wide vocabulary gives you a better command of a language; bigger word menu provides you with more selection, more possibilities of expression when conveying ideas to others

6) Practice writing. Write letters. Write in a journal. Write whenever you can. Write about anything. You’ll become more comfortable with the act of writing.

7) Buy books about writing style, and read them. Even a few pages every month can be helpful.

8) Revise your writing. Revise. Revise. Why Revise?

A. Simplicity

B. Clarity

C. Readability

9) Make friends with a dictionary and a thesaurus, If you encounter an unfamiliar word, LOOK IT UP! If you use the same word repeatedly, FIND A NEW ONE! Take control of your language; don’t let it control you.

10) Read your writing out loud. Your ears can tell you a lot about your writing. For example, are you out of breath or confused at the end of a sentence that you’ve just read aloud? Does every sentence sound the same?

11) Simplify your writing. Eliminate the unnecessaries.

12) Think clearly when you are writing. Don’t let fuzzy thoughts become fuzzy words. And if thinking fuzzily helps you get started, return to that initially fuzzy first draft, and revise it for clarity! Don’t let rough draft fuzziness become final draft fuzziness.

I used to hate Saif Ali Khan so much. That ended with Dil Chahtha Hai. His +ses : Sense of humour and the body language on comic scenes; the way he delivers the dialogues; perhaps everyone’s favourite so far, his blushing. I liked him in Kal Ho Na Ho too. He was so funny with that damn-everything-and-everybody attitude. Saif’s role in Hum-Tum is not so much different from KHNH. Again he tries to run away from his hearthrob but falling in more love the farther he runs! The Mars-Venus conflicts only adds to it another dimension of fun and love. I love the scenes when he begs everyone to believe his Tom Cruise ‘looks’ haircut. Its a movie you would love watch with your wife or girl friend. However, It is not a $8 or Rs.150 (theater) movie for sure, but definitely worth a Video movie if not a DVD.

Of course, we do. How can anyone from India not remember it? Either we have one? Or its the only car a majority of the billion can claim to have had a ride in? It was and in purity is still the exclusive Indian Car. A symbol of Indian Automobile legacy.

Can you imagine Ambassador in the midst of BMWs, Benzs, Porches and Lambarginis? Yes, We can. Tobias Moss, a born-again hippy imported some ambassodors from India(wonder how much it would have cost?) and rechristened them as ‘Exotic, old-fashioned, Luxurious and bejewelled Ride’ around London. And the name of the service – ‘Karma Kars’ 🙂

Tobias Moss’s Karma Kars

And someone has captured an informal interview with Tobias as well. I wouldnt be surprised if this already happens or comes soon to Las Vegas or New York City?

Btw, Views Unplugged is a nice little amateur literary e-zine with majority Indian writers.

One of the greatest virtues of American Society is Innovation. The wheel of innovation has grown so humungous and furious that I dont think it can be controlled anymore. The developments in stem cell research is an example, its virtually impossible to stop from moving into the next level : Human Clones.

What is critical is the basic resources like money, knowledge library, technical know-how, technolgy labs, encouragement from parents & teachers, peer support and oppurtunities for growth are all more easily available than in the east.

Such factors are slowly emerging in India. Even more critical is to impart creative thinking, innovation and risk taking at the young ages, when fear of failure is least. The internet has only made this transformation for India much easier and more possible. Websites like this Innovation, creativity and brainstorming resources from InnovationTools are not open and freely available to everyone around the world. Creative entusiasts like Charles Cave and Creativity Web are collecting simple stuff that will be of immense help to people across the globe, where access to free information is still not close enough to reach the masses.

The National Game is all set to revive its pride. After all, India is still the best performing hockey team in the Olympics having won the Gold more than half a dozen times. We have to admit India won it before 1980 when the game’s standards were largely same across the globe, east and west. But in the past two decades, west has taken over at lightening speed with astro turfs and high-tech training. But Indian Hockey players still command the respect of being one among worlds best quality players with unparalleled technique.

I remember those days back when I played for the school team in sub-urban high school in coimbatore. I was a RightX (Shorter version for Right Extreme spot in the team play arrangement) and used to run less faster than others and was always the one to be blamed for those lost scoring oppurtunities.

Large percentage of Hockey teams in India still play the game in hard grounds (the most unprepared and unsafe version of the ground for any sport). When you get hurt on your knees and elbows and lips on these grounds, it gets really nasty. Only at the level of state teams, a player can expect to play in prepared grass turfs. And not until you play for the national teams ( there is National A, B and other divisions at All-India level ) you get a chance to feel the astro turf (The last I heard there were less than 5 astro grounds in the entire country). Of course, our country is not rich enough to have such grounds for every school, but unfortunately to our bad luck, almost every internation tourney is played in astro turf these days. In fact, our team should be appreciated for their world-class performances inspite of our infrastructure constraints.

The game itself is a joy to watch. It has only become more pleasure to watch in astro and with the teams like Australia, Germany playing such wonderful coordinated plays. Unfortunately this form of game is not so popular in US so we dont get to watch tournaments lately. (Btw, the term ‘Hockey’ refers to Ice Hockey in US and our regular Hockey is called ‘Field Hockey’!).

Lastly, I was reading about the Indian Hockey team’s training in Arizona for the Olympics. Indian hockey team in the Arizona, US. I was so excited to see the IHF(Indian Hockey Federation that governs the game and its players in India) has given them such a wonderful oppurtunity. We can also see that the enthusiasm and spirit of the players is high and they are working with nutriionists, sports phycologists, strength trainers and german coaches to take the spirit further up. With Dhanraj Pillay, one of the best hockey players in the recent past, back in the team, the team is roaring with confidence. Perhaps another Gold medal in the making.

With such a great team and history behind us, we have all the reason to dream for a Gold. Go for Gold, Indian Hockey.

I own an account at Mybookmarks.com, where I could store all my bookmarks online in one place and access it from anywhere. Nothing great right? But I dont use it everyday. I still use my browser favourites to store my likes. But once every year, I update my online account and clean up my local favourites list(I have it, its just keeps growing, besides the online version has search within my favourites which I cannot do in IE).

That background story aside, I was scavenging thru my online bookmarks to see if there is any interesting site that I havent visited in a long time.

I found Cool Site. It is indeed cool because it introduces and reviews a one new, interesting and cool art/design related web site everyday. Besides, it is non-commercial meaning it will be amateur work. Enjoy.

A distinguished science professor writes this observations on if God ever existed? Is it provable? Did God really design the universe? Is darwins theory still true?

Is There Scientific Evidence for the Existence of God? How the Recent Discoveries Support a Designed Universe

Long ago I read the book ‘A Brief History of Time’ by Stephen Hawking. I could only read half of what he had to say (it was so exhaustive and dry!) but that was enough to say how brilliant he was. Let aside his brilliance, the interesting aspect of the book is its hero. And you want to know who it is? Its God. Origins.org has another interesting article on this book, on stpehen and of course on God.

FYI: Stephen is only building up on what Einstien has already left back for us. Just imagine, how brilliant Einstien would have been? Stephen safely and righteously argues that no one can really understand the space time relationship as Einstien did. Start from here if you want to try : There is no concept of time, Time is just an illusion, there is no such thing as 1 second, 1 minute or 1 hour….we wont go too far in that path :). Today, Stephen is the Professor of Maths at Cambridge, a honour once held by none other than the Sir Isaac Newton. Such is Stephen’s greatness and brilliance never undermined by his physical handicap – He has been confined to a wheelchair all his life due to a neurological disorder.