Consonants

Carnival for Progressive Christians - First Edition

2008-09-08T17:55:00.005+05:30

I am a little late to the party, but better late than never! The Carnival for (of) progressive Christians is up at A Secret Chord. There are some great submissions, check it out.

H/t belledame222

Travel talk

2008-09-08T06:27:00.005+05:30

I will be travelling all of this week. Going back to India for a while.
Oh dial up internet, here I come :-)

KBCI Kerala-Born Confused Individual

2008-09-07T17:25:00.005+05:30

My non Indian friends may get confused with the place names, languages and Indian culture-specific references. So read at your own risk :-)

Some of you may have heard about ABCDs, American-Born Confused Desis.
I am a Keralite by birth, though I have never felt like a true Malayalee. Maybe it is because I have lived there only for less than a fifth of my life. I have lived in Kerala, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Chennai, Bangalore and New Jersey. Somewhat in that order.

I love Kerala, the smells, the sights and the people. I love our sing song Malayalam language, the rich religious atmosphere, the gorgeous backwaters and the food, oh the food. But I do not like living in Kerala. It is too stifling. How can I live in a place where people go to sleep at 8 pm? How could I live in a place where TV soaps are the primary source of entertainment? How can I live in a place where all women should be inside their house by 6pm or they are automatically considered *loose*? And the hartals? Let us not forget the hartals; Keralites automatically work less than their fellow Indians because they get atleast three days off every month thanks to politicians. There is a lot of political unrest in Kerala and political activist is always getting insulted or killed. Now how do they protest this? Is it by writing in memorium letters in the national papers like we expect a fully literate state to do? No, we declare ourselves a holiday. We stay home from schools and work and vehicles are not allowed on roads. Every state level hartal apparently costs Kerala 4000 crore each time, which is money we do not have. Sorry for going off on a tangent but ask any Keralite about hartals and that is what she would say.

Anyways, getting back to the places I have lived. The next place is Dubai, in the UAE. Most people know Dubai as just a popular shopping destination. I spent the majority of my life there so I obviously I have a different prespective on it. When I first came to Dubai, I remember seeing a lot of tired brown faces-most of them poor Indians and Bangladeshis. It used to be called 'The Gulf' by the poor Malayalees back home, it was a place where they could maybe make some money to send back home to their family. An opportunity for a better life. But by the time I left Dubai, it had changed too much, it was too garish, too money oriented. It was developing like a country on steroids, too fast and probably unhealthy.

The next spot is Abu Dhabi, also in the UAE. My stay in Abu Dhabi was very brief. I think of Abu Dhabi as Dubai's plain big sister. Dubai gets all the attention even though Abu Dhabi is actually the elder sister(leader of the Emirates) and she does feel a little neglected.

Then back to India for a while. I moved to Chennai in search of a job. I hated living in Chennai. I do not know Tamil, so that makes automatically makes me half a person there. And temperatures of 110 °F without air conditioning? No thank you.

After that, a good long stay in Bangalore. I was very comfortable in Bangalore. You can be yourself in Bangalore. I had my first taste of independent life in Bangalore, the place has done more for my development as a person than any other place. On the other hand, Bangalore does has terrible traffic problems and terrible crime rates. And there is no way I could afford to buy a home in Bangalore at the real estate rates there. So I have no plans of settling down there either.

Then I moved to the United States. Or specifically New Jersey. New Jersey has been nice to me but has a way of making me feel out of place. I do not think I will feel comfortable enough to settle down here. It is a great place but it does not feel like home.

So there! Are there similar people out there who do not really know what to call themselves. What are your experiences?

My favourite Daily show guests

2008-09-04T21:00:00.010+05:30

OK, this is going to be my last Jon Stewart post. For a while at least, I promise!
Here are my favourite Daily show guests, please feel free to add your favourite guest in the comments.

5. John McCain
The John McCain of previous years (you know the story) was a reasonable man, a principled man,a nice man. I think that he would have hated the John McCain of today.
Here is an interview where Jon grills Sen McCain after he metamorphosed into the candidate McCain we now know.

Does anybody else feel for McCain here? He seems to be flinching with every question that Jon Stewart asks.

4. Bill Clinton
Say what you will about the man's personal choices, he can speak extremely well. He has charm, personality and intelligence.
Full disclosure: I have always had a crush on the man. But his recent primary season gaffes have kinda cured me of that.

3. Dennis Leary
Jon and Denis are good friends and the two seem to have such good fun together on screen. Yiddish jokes, drunk Irishman jokes, Jew jokes, you get a bit of everything when these two are together. Though sometimes they do get a little carried away and forget that they are on air.

2. Steve Carell
This interview is sheer comedic genius. You should watch it. You need to watch it.

Perfect timing and perfect facial expressions. The former daily show correspondent and his boss putting together this fabulous segment. Writers of the daily show, you have outdone yourselves.

And the honor for the best guest on the daily show goes to....

1. Brian Williams
No doubt about it, these two have chemistry. The giant head of Brian Williams being mean to Jon, it does not get any funnier than that.

Before watching Bri Wi's Daily show interviews I had no idea that he was so funny and cool. I think he is the only guest who can give Jon a run for the funny :-)

And I think an honorable mention needs to be made for President Musharraf. How on earth did the Daily Show manage to get him?

It is tough being a Christian Feminist

2008-09-03T19:59:00.007+05:30

It is tough being a Christian Feminist. Conservative Christians hate you and Atheist Feminists despise you. It has taken me years to realize that I am a feminist Christian because I did not know that such an animal even existed.

The funny thing is that when I lived in Bangalore, I had friends who were Hindu Brahmins, Hindu Nairs, Hindu Ezhava, Sunni Muslim, Shia Muslim, Jain, Sikhs, Atheist, Zorastrian, Buddhist and they all accepted me as a Christian even though they knew that Christian theology says that they were going to be eternally damned. But mention that you are a feminist and suddenly everybody has a serious bone to pick with you. Even the women.

One of the reasons I love the Internet so much is because it introduced me to other Christian Feminists. And Hugo Schwyzer's blog is one of the best. Before I started reading him I did not think it was possible for someone to be both Christian and Feminist. If Hugo's blog has taught me one thing, it is that being ambivalent on certain issues is not necessarily a bad thing.

Shawna R B Atterberry, is another inspirational Christian Feminist. If you do head over to her blog, do take the time to read her career women of the Bible series. You will definitely look at the women of the Bible differently. You may question all the people around you who say that 'true' biblical womanhood is only about being a wife and mother when the Bible also talks of women who were prophets, judges and disciples.

I am sure that there are many more excellent resources for Christian Feminists on the Internet but these two have influenced my thinking more than anybody else. If any Christian Feminist does read this, please put a link to your blog in the comments section.

On a related topic, who do you think Jesus would vote for in the American elections?

Interesting discussion at Possummomma's blog

2008-08-31T02:31:00.008+05:30

There is an blog I read which is written by an atheist mother. I first came to her blog to read a beautiful essay written by her eldest daughter. If you read the essay, be sure to read the comments too. That was 1.5 years ago, and I am still a reader.

Today she asked her theist readers how we could defend the Bible despite its flaws. It is certainly not the first time this question has been asked but it makes for interesting discussion nonetheless. The dialogue is here. I will update this post later based on comments there because I do not want to derail her thread.

Here is what I wrote:

I agree that there are certain passages of the Bible that are cruel, misogynistic and just plain weird. So I understand why some would find it difficult to believe in a 'flawed' book but to me, it does not mean that the entire message of the Bible is wrong.

Every Christian I know picks and chooses the passages they believe in, either consciously or subconsciously. Even the ones who say that they are literal believers.The Bible has been around more or less in its current form for about 2000 years. It has influenced our evolution as a society (especially western society) mostly for the better. I know that unspeakable atrocities have been committed in the name of the Bible but isn't that true of all religious books? When huge masses of people apply themselves to any book, be it the The Bible or Harry Potter or The Origin of Species, there will be some who simply don't *get it*.

I will not say that everyone should respect religion. What will happen if religious people have to prove that religion deserves respect? We would have examine our beliefs, we would have to think and study more and not be complacent. And that is a good thing.

One of the commenter's wrote this

'Scruples, ethics, and simple human courtesy are all attainable without referring to the bible, and no other religion/faith/superstition has any better track record.'

So I replied : I agree with this first part of this statement on principle. It can be argued that morals are mostly innate and the result of social conditioning. But are there any societies which have flourished without any sort of religion? I am not referring to individual people who are atheists in a mostly religious community. But a society as a whole which has never seen the need for religion.

ETA: Berlzebub says

Every society has had a religion. Even those with a secular government, including the U.S., has had a majority of the population that observed one religion or another. So attaining that data might be next to impossible.

The problem seems to be the neighbors. By neighbors I mean neighboring societies such as a neighboring family (or tribe), town, or government. Two groups can get along if neither feels the need to proselytize or convert, but if group A feels that group B has to be of group A's religion that's where problems arise.

I appreciate Berlzebub answering my question even though it digressed slightly from the topic at hand. I wonder if his alias is a take on Beelzebub, another name for Lucifer in the Bible. It is the name of a different God(Baal?) who was worshipped a couple of millenia ago.

Anyways, coming back to his answer, he confirmed that there were no societies that we know of who survived without any form of religion. I have often wondered why it was so. Is it because a need for God is hard-wired into peoples brains? Or is it the fear of the unknown which naturally progresses into religion.

To be fair, just because society needed religion in the past, it does not mean that purely atheist societies are not possible.

Milo Johnson said...

The society of science has flourished without religion.

Science is a discipline, not a society. Yes, scientists belong to a society but they are a part of a larger religious community. So I do not think that it is a valid example.

Every rule, practice, custom, and mandate in the bible is completely contradicted by another part of the bible.

That is an exaggeration. There are verses in the Old Testament that are contradicted by the New Testament. Some of them famously by Jesus himself.

calladus says

If parts of the bible are hurtful, or just wrong, then to me this is evidence of authorship by humans instead of an almighty deity.

I believe that the Bible was authored by humans who were in turn inspired by God. Humans are not about absolutes, we are influenced by our life experiences, our prejudices.

Saint Paul is known as the apostle who had the most misogynistic views in the early church. How much of his writing was his Sadducees and Pharisee upbringing? How much of it was his own reaction to the women in his life? Is it blasphemous to wonder if he hated his mother? Did he hate the woman who spurned his marriage advances? Is the High-Priest's daughter responsible for the whole women as submissive partner aspect of some Christian marriages?

I would love to hear feedback from fellow Christians.

Friday Five: Labor Day

2008-08-30T01:45:00.008+05:30

Shawna has Friday Five meme at her blog. All can play.

1. Tell us about the worst job you ever had.
The worst job I have had is that of a full time homemaker. I suck at it. I am not disparaging homemaking, quite the opposite, I am jealous of women who can keep home brillantly. Looking at you, lady :-)
But it is not my calling in life.

I can not believe that I forgot the 3 months I worked as a Business Analyst. I guess the memories were so horrible that I repressed it completely. The product was horrible and my boss was terrible. I had 12 hour workdays and night-shift without any dinner. I quit after 3 months and even that was too late for me.

2. Tell us about the best job you ever had.
I loved my first job, I was a Software Tester in a Bangalore company. I know that most people hate testing but for me it was fun.

3. Tell us what you would do if you could do absolutely anything (employment related) with no financial or other restrictions.
I would go back to Bangalore and start my own IT company.

4. Did you get a break from labor this summer? If so, what was it and if not, what are you gonna do about it?
This entire year was a break for me. I am only looking forward to go back to work.

5. What will change regarding your work as summer morphs into fall? Are you anticipating or dreading?
A mix of both. I anticipating returning to my work but dreading the fact that I will have to be apart from Hubby for that.

Jon Stewart : Unleavened

2008-08-28T20:52:00.005+05:30

Comedy Central is running a 12 year old stand up comedy by Jon Stewart. He looks so adorable. He is talking about the Iraq war, the election rally, immigration; he is set in his ways, isn't he? :-)
He just said that his first rally was a pro choice rally. Awww, I did not know I could love him more.

The Daily show with Jon Stewart - 08/27

2008-08-28T19:49:00.016+05:30

Yesterday's Daily Show with Jon Stewart had a better than usual segment. Full disclosure - huge fan of Jon Stewart here.
The segment had Samantha Bee and Wyatt Cenac competing to report on the DNC. The gag was that they were acting the role of Sen Clinton and Sen Obama in this election season. Jon told Sam that though she and her husband Jason (role of Bill Clinton) did great work in the past, he was going to go with the newcomer Wyatt for a 'new perspective'. ... Funny stuff.

On a more serious note, does anybody else get a sinking feeling when thinking of Sen Obama chances of winning the election? Yesterday my husband and I were discussing the worst possible outcome of this election. Why? Because we are weird like that.

Here is my worst possible scenario for this country. Sen McCain choses Mike Huckabee as running partner, gets elected and then promptly kicks the bucket (or just seriously ill if you are a kind person). Huckabee becomes the President. In a couple of years, this is reality.
Urrrgh, scary stuff.

Guidelines for cats

2008-08-24T20:43:00.006+05:30

If you are a cat lover, you should check this out.
I knew that these furry creatures had an agenda but nobody believed me. Who's paranoid now?

Hat tip to Shawna.

Ultimate Bible Quiz

2008-08-19T06:15:00.003+05:30

You know the Bible 100%!

Wow! You are awesome! You are a true Biblical scholar, not just a hearer but a personal reader! The books, the characters, the events, the verses - you know it all! You are fantastic!

Ultimate Bible Quiz
Create MySpace Quizzes

And yes, this is on the first try.

I shopped victoriously

2008-07-17T20:28:00.007+05:30

As a Dave Ramsey fan, I wanted to expand my library of DR stuff. But the Dave Ramsey CDs and books from Dave's site are prohibitively expensive. So I thought I would check out ebay for these items. I looked at many bids, patiently ( rather unusual for me!).
Most of the bids ended approx $45, which I just wasn't willing to pay. Fortunately for me, after a lot of waiting and watching and bidding, I was able to get the book and audio library for just $15 + $5shipping. Yup. I'm feeling rather good about myself today.

PZ Myers and wafergate

2008-07-15T04:46:00.008+05:30

Anybody who's anybody must have heard about PZ Myers and the communion wafer brouhaha.
Well, I am a moderate Christian, I've been known to pray and read the Bible regularly and attend communion. So how did I feel about this?

Yes, Myers behaved like a jerk. Yes, Myers went overboard. Yes, he disrespected my beliefs. BUT it is his opinion and he is entitled to it. And even I do not believe that the wafer is the actual body of Christ. I do not worship it as such ( wouldn't it be idolatry?) I will still read his blog and love it. That's how much I hate religious fundamentalist shrills. Bill Donahue, you do not speak for me. Go and stand in the corner with Jerry Falwel, Pat Robertson and James Dobson.

My new best friend

2008-07-15T03:52:00.008+05:30

Hi everyone, let me introduce you to my new best friend. Her name is Vicodine. She's so important to me that sometimes I've felt that I couldn't live without her.

Heh.

No, I'm not a druggie, just a poor woman recovering from two VERY painful rootcanal procedures. For the most part, I have healthy teeth, teeth that have never required any dentistry for 26years. But the last one year has seen me extracting two impacted wisdom teeth, treating a dry socket and getting two root canals. And where does all this take place? Is it in India where I have my own dear dentist cousin who would do all this for free? Or is it in the US where dentistry is most expensive? Its so freaking expensive!! Thank God for company provided dental insurance; but the copay is still a bitch. I don't know which is more painful - the dentist drilling my head or watching my husband paying the copay. :-)

Don't underestimate my capability to withstand pain, I've had my both knee caps dislocated 5 times, 2 ankle fractures, 1 wrist fracture. And more minor accidents than I can even remember. The most pain I've ever endured has got to be when I dislocated my knee cap and then walked 2 miles home because the bloody auto guy decided to quote more seeing my limp. This was Kormangala, Bangalore where it's generally accepted that auto drivers are Satan's children. No really!

Yippeeee!!!

2008-07-06T04:45:00.013+05:30

Last Sunday evening, I was checking if any of the bloggers in my blogroll had posted anything over the weekend and I was pleasantly surprised to see that I had won the giveaway at Chief Family Officer. This is the first time I'm winning anything with just dumb luck so this is a new feeling for me. :-)

D and I are trying to get on the Dave Ramsey bandwagon and we could do with more personal finance books. So here's a big THANK YOU to Cathy and her great blog.

Btw, I know that Dave appears on Faux Business channel but what do you know; I am apparently fiscally conservative. Surprise, surprise!

A $10 giveaway at Adventures in Mommyland

2008-07-06T04:39:00.004+05:30

There is a good giveaway at Adventures in Mommyland. A $10 gc would go a long way in Walgreens so I would be thrilled to get it.

Acne vulgaris - bane of my existence

2008-05-03T02:40:00.004+05:30

Do not call it 'pimples', acne is much more than pimples. It is the itching, the scratching, the white heads, the black heads, the open pores and of course, the painful inflammations, a complete package. My skin started breaking out by the time I turned 12. Now I'm in my late twenties and it is still pretty much the same.

I've always been referred to as the pimply girl। I remember when I was at college, freshman year, a couple of senior boys started a "Clearasil for Deepa" fund as a joke and they went around the college asking students & professors to donate to it. I was able to laugh with them when they came to me with the money but I admit it did hurt just a bit. However, the story doesn't end there. The leader of the gang of boys got chicken pox the following year. And I wasn't the only one needing the Clearasil. Ha!, no wonder they say that karma is a bitch.

It is not that I did not try to get rid of it. Being a Keralite, I was subjected to dozens of home remedies by well- family members especially meddlesome aunts (how will any boy marry you if you look like this?)
My Father recommended Red Sandalwood & honey to be applied on the face overnight & washed off with warm water in the morning। My Mother recommended besan powder & rose water face washes. Not to be outdone, Grandma recommended a honey and lime solution for face wash. The hostel warden recommended pear leaves and tumeric. Another time, a stranger on the street recommended Fair & Lovely(nallatha!)

I did visit dermatologists, I remember the first doctor I went to. 5mins into the appointment, he asked if he could present me as a before/after case in his office lobby. He said that I was the biggest challenge he had come up against. Unfortunately, the treatment didn't work as well as he hoped. My skin peeled off and I couldn't go out in the sun for even short periods of time. So I stopped it.

Currently I'm using Neutrogena's acne solution to control it but people keep telling me to switch to Proactive. But there are lots of mixed reviews out there and I'm still undecided.

Culture Wars - I

2008-04-16T19:03:00.012+05:30

Dear readers of the blog, yes both of you, which is worse in your opinion; a transgender wo/man having a baby and garnering false publicity? Or a polygamist community using religion to engage in child abuse?

I say false publicity because the transgender person has female biological organs and so its really not so much a "miracle". It is just something that is unusual but is biologically possible. And people being people are milking it for all the fame & publicity they can.
Here's a site I read often Biblical Womanhood. It is a site promoting a very narrow view of Christianity. I feel that they follow the letter of the Bible without understanding the spirit and complete beauty of the gospel. Well, each one to their own. I am not going to criticise their view, after all, there are many rooms in our father's house. What I do find objectionable are posts like this. There are about 80+ comments on this post. Most of the commenters say almost the same thing over and over again even using the same sentences. But some of them and even the blog author blame feminism (how original!) for this event and that my friends, is a lie. They try to use feminism as a scapegoat for all the ills in this society and it is sad that so many people have been fed that point of view.

And then there is this story . Now, I am a live & let live kind of person. To me polygamy is not inherently bad, if all the people involved are adults and are 100% for it. But forcing 13 y.o into "spiritual marriage" with 50 year olds, that's pedophilia. To make matters worse, they do it in the name of religion.

So conservative women, where is the moral outrage over this story? I mean, how can any sane person think that feminism & other social reforms are worse than "traditional customs" like child marriage & forced pregnancy? I saw angry posts regarding the transgendered wo/man on many conservative blogs but there was absolutely no mention of the real tragedy in their midst.

I am so happy that I live in a day & age where most people are angry about the second story & mostly ambivalent about the first one. But fundamentalists are different in that aspect, they seem to have a distorted sense of morality IMHO, and they do it in the name of Jesus Christ. The irony would be delicious if it weren't so sad.

Expelled!

2008-04-15T02:43:00.015+05:30

Expelled

Google Adsense has placed an ad for Ben Stein's Expelled on my blog, probably because of this post . I don't want that ad over here because I am almost sure that the movie is pure nonsense. All the reviews about the movie say that it is very poorly made and has very little substance. Also PZ Myers was asked to get out of the screening of the movie for no apparent reason so I'm not feeling the love.

Maybe I'm biased, I think creationism & ID do not belong in schools or colleges. It should not be taught along with evolution. I guess its because I come from a secular country, I can't imagine creationism being taught in my class where we had Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Atheists, Sikhs and everything in between. Science is science and faith is faith. Twisting science to fit faith is dishonest, to say the least.

After coming to the US six months ago, I started hearing more about creationism and that how somehow christians were supposed to believe in it. My faith is perfectly compatible with evolution, thank you very much. The idiots who promote creationism give other Christians a bad name. The Bible uses metaphorical language people.

Now repeat after me.
We don't need to believe the six day creation account for us to be good christians. We don't need to believe that the universe literally revolves around the earth. We don't need to believe that the earth is six thousand years old.

God is bigger than that.

Btw, I know that the link is actually to Expelled Exposed. Orders of PZ Myers :-)

Expelled

Garage sales are soooooo coool!

2008-04-14T17:36:00.002+05:30

We were looking to furnish our house but didn't want to spend a lot of money because we are not planning on settling in this country. The other day we went to a garage sale & drove away with a used Dining table & 4 chairs for $30. We were able to bring it home in 10mins in the car itself. I'm sure the set would have cost atleast $100 had we got it through Craigslist.
Some other good finds were a knife set that costs $125 on Amazon for $5 and it still looks new. And the best yet(for me), 4 books for $1!!!

LOR on TNT

2008-04-13T03:32:00.010+05:30

I'm watching The Return of the King for what seems to be the 165th time. What's it about this film that compels me to watch again & again?

I'm a major fan of the books so when the film came out, I thought that it would be a disappointment. No director can live up to a fan's imagination, right? But after reading some reviews, I decided to watch & I am glad I did. Peter Jackson did a hell of a good job though there are a couple of instances where he strayed too far from the books. Faramir's character is an example. In the books, Faramir is shown as wise unlike his brother Boromir. And he bonds with Frodo because of their fondness for Gandalf. But in the movie, Faramir is a typical of the race of men, unable to resist the call of the ring.

Despite that, I think all the LOR films are good unlike the Harry Potter films; the 1st one (HP & Sorcerer's stone) was TERRIBLE. But it got better from there. Now I am trying to get my hands on the 5th film(Order of the Phoenix). People say that its the best one yet.

Indoor plants

2008-04-13T00:50:00.018+05:30

Over the last 3 months, I've managed to acquire four African Violets, one miniature rose & one foliage plant in 4" pots. As most people know, African Violets are beautiful flowering plants which are comparatively easy to look after. The fact that these plants still live is a testimony to the above statement because my treatment of them has been less than optimum. :-P
In fact, I did manage to kill off a one foot Norfolk Island pine recently. In my defense, it had an insect infestation which did too much damage before I was able to fix it.

The windows in my house face to the north; rather unfortunate because its the worst possible w.r.t direct sunlight. I'm thinking of investing in some fluorescent lights. Yes, there are grow bulbs available, I know that. But they are at $60 a single bulb and I am not willing to dole out so much for the upkeep of $4 plants :-)

Actually, they are not even $1; they were priced at ShopRite 3 months ago for $1.25 for the plant & pot and 29c for the plastic cups. But the cashier scanned the plastic cups & so I got all four of them for the price of the plastic cups. I found out the mistake later when I was entering the bill amount in our budgeting software about 2-3 days later. I was debating on going back (don't be so quick to judge me, the store is rather far from where I live) when I realized that they had overcharged me $3.50 for the fish. So I guess it kinda evens out.

A religion rant

2008-03-11T01:08:00.018+05:30

One of the blogs I read frequently is written by a Christian young woman. She writes from a fundamentalist point of view. I used to read all her posts including the ones on her view of religion, but after a couple of months, I started skipping over them because I couldn't digest what i thought was mutilation of my religion. As a Christian, I believe in the words of Jesus Christ. I love Him & His teachings. I do not believe that women are secondary beings whose only calling is to marry & serve their husbands. God made me an intelligent woman, I am smart & can keep my head in a crisis. Sometimes, I am more rational & level-headed than my husband. Its absurd to expect one person to lead all the time in a family.

I do NOT believe that the Bible is inerrant & can be used to decide every single thing I do on this earth. If it were so, it would be OK to have slaves. It would be OK for a man to have concubines & many wives. And it would be shameful for a woman to cut her hair!!

IMHO, the Gospel according to Jesus Christ is one of the most radical teachings of all time. He was born as the son of a humble carpenter & ordinary housewife but become THE most influential person in the history of the world. Fundamentalists who demand a return to the olden days would do to remember that our saviour was considered a dangerous radical in his time.

Atheists on TV - Updated

2008-03-08T06:24:00.016+05:30

PZ Myers on Pharyngula has an interesting post http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/01/the_limited_representation_of.php on how atheists are portrayed negatively on TV shows.

I agree with him some degree. The good & happy guy characters are usually not atheists. However, there are good atheists on TV. The best example is Hugh Laurie as Dr Gregory House. Sure, he is portrayed as brilliant, surly & manipulative but he's definitely lovable. I know I love him!

But I think the real question is; would Dr James Wilson be played as an atheist? I think not. He's not 'complicated' enough and is so non-threatening; not atheist material.

I recall one particular episode in which the Dr House challenges God to a contest. I wanted to see how they would end the episode but I guess the producers chickened out & the score at the end was a tie. Everybody wins :-)

Dr Temperance Brennan on the show Bones is another outspoken atheist. She is shown to be a maladjusted genius. She is portrayed as cold, distant & willingly childless. But again, she is the good guy, working for the FBI to hunt down murderers. So we can call her a good atheist after all.

Update: I just remembered that Dr Cameron on House is also an atheist & she is as non threatening & nice as possible. Hmm... must remember to think my thoughts through before clicking Publish.

The Simpsons

2008-03-08T02:50:00.026+05:30

I love The Simpsons. My favourite character in this sitcom is Lisa Simpson. She's intelligent, sassy & a die-hard liberal. So what's not to love? :-)

The episode in which Homer job gets outsourced to Bangalore is especially hilarious. And the last bit which had them breaking out into a song a la Bollywood, simply inspired.

Image Copyright: 20th Century Fox

2008-03-07T19:57:00.004+05:30

Sometimes, life is just so hard. I never expected it to be this way.
Of course, my problems are probably frivolous compared to the really unfortunate people in this world. I mean, I'm young, healthy, educated & living in one of the most developed countries in the world. All members of my family are fairly healthy and we all can afford houses, cars, laptops... But my problems are my problems & they affect me nonetheless.

My first food post

2008-03-03T06:09:00.016+05:30

This is a tried & tested recipe dreamed up by yours truly.

You will need

1 packet rice noodles
yellow onion chopped - 1 cup
garlic - 4 cloves
chicken broth - 1 cup
white wine - 1 tbsp (optional)
chopped mushrooms - 1 cup
Prawns, thoroughly cleaned & deveined - 10
chopped chicken - 1 cup
scrambled egg - 2
Soy sauce - 1 tbsp
Pepper powder - 1 tsp
Tumeric powder - 1/2 tsp
Coriander powder - 1 tsp
Salt - to taste
chopped spring onions - 1/2 cup
Olive oil - 3 tbsp

Cook the noodles in boiling water. Make sure that it does not overcook. My recommendation is to cook it to about 80%. Drain the water. Pour 1 tsp olive oil into the noodles & mix well. This is so that the noodles don’t stick together.
Cook the chopped chicken in a saucepan adding the turmeric, coriander & pepper powders. After it is cooked well, keep aside.
Pour the olive oil into a saucepan. Sauté the chopped onions and garlic for 5 mins.
Add the chopped spring onions and sauté for 1 mins.
Now add the mushrooms & cook it thoroughly (about 15mins). Now add the chicken broth & reduce for 5 mins. Then add the prawns. Cook for about 3 mins, if you're using white prawns, it will have turned pink in color (be sure NOT to overcook, prawns will taste like rubber if it’s overcooked :-)).
Add the cooked chicken & mix well. Pour the white wine & cook for 1 min so that the alcohol can evaporate. (Yeah, we don’t need the alcohol only the flavor)
Now mix it with the noodles, add some soysauce & top it with the scrambled eggs. Cook till the noodles are done, & your dish is ready.

You can add vegetables also; capsicum, carrots, peas, I think they would go well with this dish.

Frugality - back in vogue?

2008-02-27T05:32:00.010+05:30

I read a lot of blogs written by the American religious christian right, mostly women who are full time home makers. They home school their children, praise their husbands & practice 'frugality'.

Why the scary quotes? Frugality is such an ugly concept in India, its considered cheap, especially in the metros. I'm usually economical, not exactly frugal though :-(

I've never had a credit card debt, touch wood, & am more used to lending money than borrowing it. At the work place, I used to have a lot of friends who couldnt manage money at all. One of my best friends for example, he's always in debt, he has no idea where it all goes. I guess binge drinking on weekends tend to thin out your wallet.

In the last 4 yrs, I saved up about 40% of my income, while living on my own; impressive I know. Now I'm unemployed, living on my husbands money. Its not easy for me, independent as I am. Unfortunately, he's working for an Indian company which does not pay a lot. And so, we have to make every dollar count. Thats where frugality comes into the picture.

2.5yrs later

2008-02-26T20:41:00.003+05:30

My life has changed so much in the last 2.5yrs. When I wrote the previous post, I was single, living in bangalore & working for a MNC. Now I'm married, living in the US & a full time homemaker. I'm hoping to change the last bit of the previous sentence. I'm applying for a H1 visa here, keep your fingers crossed people.

Less than perfect

2005-11-10T14:29:00.002+05:30

It’s a bright and sunny Sunday afternoon. There’s nothing good on TV, I’m not in the mood for a book so feminine logic dictates that I go shopping. I decide to go to Forum; I’ve not been there in a while. I like the place because I feel comfortable even when I’m shopping alone. Most places in my locality are still not very single-woman friendly.

I decide to start at the Westside store, the displays look good. But just as I step in, the detector goes off. Confused, I wait for someone to come and do something. A couple of store-employees casually look in my direction but don’t react. So I assume the detector is malfunctioning and walk in. The store is quite crowded which isn’t surprising for a Sunday. I look at some scented candles and potpourri but nothing really catches my fancy. I start walking out of the store without purchasing anything.

As expected, the detector rings again. This time, the store manager comes running. She quickly reaches where I’m standing and stops me from going any further by holding on to my bag. To avoid making a scene, I allow her to take it from me. She opens the bag and starts inspecting its contents. I look around but none of the employees come forward.

Looks like my defense is up to me,

“The same thing happened” I start stupidly. Collecting my thoughts, I try again “I mean, when I entered...”

“Just a minute, madam”, she snaps

Oh well, at least she still calls me madam.

She takes out things from the handbag and places them on the table beside the entrance. My face wash, hair-band, compact, credit card slips, company id & tag, tissue paper, comb, lipstick and purse out in the open. Not nice. I’ve always thought of myself as reasonably confident but I feel my cheeks burning. I feel humiliated, violated and angry.

Needless to say, she doesn’t find anything that belongs to the store. Undaunted, she calls her colleague and states

“I looked everywhere, but can’t find it”

That’s because there is nothing to find. She doesn’t say “I looked everywhere, but there is nothing here”. This lady seems sure that I’ve flicked something. Maybe she hasn’t heard that all are innocent till proved guilty.

“Did you look in all the compartments?” her friend asks

“Yeah, I did” she replies

She starts feeling the lining of the bag.

I suddenly realize what happened.

“I think the purse set off the alarm….” I say

Before I can complete the sentence, she takes my purse from the table. It’s obviously not new enough to be the store’s property. She puts it through the detector. And it goes off again. I had bought the purse from LandMark 9 months back but some-how the magnetic strip embedded in the purse got activated again. My friends who are regular LandMark customers always complain that LandMark doesn’t deactivate the magnetic strip properly. I must remember to speak to LandMark about this.

She puts the bag minus the purse through the machine and it’s silent.

“Did the detector go off when you entered?”

NOW she asks me.

“Yes it did” I reply “That’s what I have been trying to tell you”

“Oh! Ok then. Sorry for the inconvenience”

And she stuffs my things into the bag. She didn’t look apologetic, just a tad irritated. I’m willing to bet that she recites the ‘sorry for the inconvenience’ litany at least 10 times a day. She would have to, being as bad at her job as she is.

Some shoppers look at me with curious eyes and smug expressions. Wonder if they know what really happened. Some others look sympathetic. Others couldn’t care less. I take my bag and start walking out of the store. My eyes are getting wet with tears. I was raised by middle-class parents who have firm views on stealing. Even the implication that I shop-lifted is quite upsetting.

I should probably tell you how I looked that day. I had on shabby jeans and an old top. I had worn no makeup and had a non-branded handbag in hand; my looks are purely south-Indian. I don’t have model looks; nor am I even remotely fashionable. Being 10kgs over my ideal weight probably doesn’t help my image either.

Is there a connection between how I looked that day and the incident? Before you decide, read on.

On the Oprah show aired last Sunday (I think episodes are aired here 2 months after it’s shown in US), Oprah discussed what happened to her at the Hermès boutique in Paris.

An employee of the Hermès store turned away Oprah stating that the shop was in the process of being shut down. But Oprah thinks that it had to do with the fact that she looked like a poor black woman on that day having had no entourage or make-up. For more details, you can go to (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/09/21/entertainment/main871083.shtml)

Here’s what Oprah said about the incident

"Everybody who's ever been snubbed because you were not chic enough or the right class or the right color or whatever — I don't know what it was — you know that that is very humiliating and that is exactly what happened to me."

Now, I know I am not Oprah and people can give me lots of flak for drawing a parallel between the two incidents. But isn’t that the moral here? Shouldn’t someone who is less than glamorous looking get the same kind of treatment as her beautiful, rich and sophisticated sister? I can understand if the distinction is made on the ramp or a beauty pageant but in a FREAKING CLOTHING STORE?

I would be lying if I said that this incident hasn’t affected me. I’ve realized that I am not as secure as I thought I was. I avoid Westside like the plague, but that really isn’t a loss because I’ve never really liked their stuff. And I get slightly anxious whenever I walk through the detector at any store. And that’s not easy when you are addicted to shopping.

Now the question(s) is;

Would the store manager have treated me differently had I looked prettier, richer and more elegantly dressed?

Did she know that I was an easy target looking at my simple pony-tail & Bata shoes?

Would she have given me a benefit of a doubt had she seen designer brands on my person?

And, would the employee at Hermès have admitted a celebrity like Barbara Streisand or Jennifer Aniston in the same situation?

Wasn’t Oprah turned away because they didn’t recognize her and thought she couldn’t afford Hermès’ in any case?

The answer unfortunately is a resounding YES.

Today's theory

2005-04-06T13:38:00.001+05:30

I think there are a LOT of IITians and IIMs out here in blogland. RECs too. Blogging seems to be such an important pastime for these people with some posting three or four items a single day. I would have thought that they would be too busy thinking of new ways to beat the stock market and patenting new device drivers or something…

Intro

2005-03-12T14:57:00.000+05:30

I didn’t mean to start a blog. I'm not particularly good with words and am worse with sentences but writing down stuff has a good feel to it and its FREE :) So why not?

Here’s to an experiment! Will it change my life for the better (like in Readers Digest’s articles) or for the worse or will I just drop the idea after a while? The last course is the most likely one but I'll just have to wait and see.