Blog Mela winner for April

This month’s winner by a large margin is another of our “resident” libertarians, Gaurav Sabnis, for his funny posts desi onion-ishtyle!

Congratulations, Gaurav! Drop me a line for the gift certificate.

Life or something like that...

My in-laws flew in from India yesterday, so expect my lazy self to get even lazier about blogging. The baby’s EDD was May 31st, but the doctor estimated he was about 7.5lb right now (amazing considering I put on only 12lb so far in my pregnancy), so they might try to pop him out a couple weeks early so I can avoid the dreaded c-section (no, it isn’t the scars I am afraid of - just the side-effects for me and the baby). All in all, I am living in interesting times. I hope everything turns out for the best in the end.

Verbal terrorist strikes again

Can Arundhati Roy sink any lower in her support for all things scummy, horrible and cruel in the world? Not, says JK in this post - varnam: Brutal Silence. This woman is beyond disgusting and I am ashamed to have her pretend to speak up for my country and people atleast as far as foreign media is concerned. Someone shut her up, please!

Jekyll & Hyde Mavs

Basketball monsters on the homecourt and NBDL pussycats on the road - that has been pretty much the story with my Mavericks all season long this time. They beat LA in LA after 13 years and got swept by Atlanta Hawks. They have the best homecourt record in the NBA for the season, but don’t have homecourt advantage in any of the playoff rounds owing to a fifth seed for which they barely beat out Memphis Grizzlies making their first playoff appearance ever. They have the tallest player in the league, but are famous for their “small ball”.

They sucked bad enough in the first two games of the first round playoffs in Sacramento that people started talking about a sweep - and then they come home for the third game and play like they deserve the championship. Offense? the Mavs always had it. Defense? What do you call 19 steals, 26 TOs forced and holding the Kings down to a scoring average about 20+ points less than their season average. What a rollercoaster ride it is to be a fan of this team - Whew!

I am lost

Ok, read the comment on this post - Dancing with Dogs: Lakers talking to Jenny Jones? - who am I supposed to be now?

April's Blog Mela

I apologize first for bringing this a few days late - The Apprentice finale and the start of the NBA playoff season didn’t do much to help my already crunched time status :) Let’s dive in -

1. Vinod Vallopillil, our resident commentator on all things non-resident Indian, wonders of the Indian diaspora in the US are the new Jews…

2. Bhavya Khanna has a few glimses of life’s moments during birthdays (March 31) and celebratory gambling (March 17) after the end of exams…

3. Om Malik has a very interesting post about the India growing to be the most exciting cell phone market in the world today and how cell phones are pervading all walks of life there.

4. Nandan has an informative business blog about P&G slashing the price of washing powder where he offers some good clues to FMCG about the Indian consumers.

5. JK lays the smackdown on John Laxmi, an American “journalist” who doesn’t seem to let facts get in the way of a good ideological argument against India.

6. Aadisht Khanna describes an extremely funny interview he had to get into IIMC and a funny but insightful take on the “Youth Initiative for Peace”.

7. Gotta commend Gaurav for coming up with “The Daily SomeAchaar”, a desi “Onion”. We need more humor in here. This post talks about Mayawati’s TV channel.

Voting will be up sometime tomorrow - till then enjoy reading the wonderful posts.

Voting is up by popular demand (well, one cartel member can be counted as all of them, right?).

I must be famous

If you thought it was just Yuvraj Singh I had a direct line to, check this out - Dancing with Dogs: A view from Pakistan. Seems like I know Pakistan’s General Musharraf too. Who knew!

Love is all around!

THURSDAY, April 15 (HealthDayNews) — Love can be good for your heart — and not just the heart you read about in poems and Valentine’s Day cards. New research suggests close relationships help protect heart attack survivors against future cardiovascular problems.

Prayer for Maverick fans

Dear God,

I haven’t asked you for much over the years, but I come to you today to ask a special favor.

I know that the favors you grant are few and far between, so up till now I’ve been content to let you do your work without my input. And you have been kind over the years.

You gave us Mark Aguirre, Rolando Blackman, and Derek Harper. You gave us Roy Tarpley (for a while anyway, before you took him away). That cast made it to Game Seven of the Western Conference Finals. I wanted to ask you for a win that day, but I assumed you had already chosen the Lakers’ side.

Through your infinite Wisdom, you forced us to suffer through the 1990’s. Though we didn’t know it at the time, we needed that experience. We needed to strengthen our commitment to the team, to fully appreciate the forgiveness and humility required of true fans.

You saw that we had suffered long enough, and then you granted us the Three J’s. In our foolishness and ungratefulness, we sinned against you. Intoxicated by our newfound richness, we became arrogant and unappreciative. We were undeserving of such a gift, and so you took the Three J’s away and punished us again.

You could have banished us from basketball heaven for good, but through deep love and grace you delivered us our savior: Michael Finley. You granted us an unproven point guard from Canada, and he flourished here. You sent a seven-foot marksman from Germany to assist in the cause. You showered us with the riches of Mark Cuban.

You watched your children grow, and you helped them out along the way. You gave Calvin Booth a miracle. You granted Nick Van Exel game-breaking ability for a few short weeks. You guided us once again to the Promised Land that is the Western Conference Finals.

When the big German injured his ankle against the Spurs, we turned our backs against you. We felt that you had let us down. And so you saddled us with Antoine Walker.

You could have made it even worse, but in your infinite grace you still protected your children. You gave us Josh Howard and Marquis Daniels. You gave us Small Ball. You gave us a chance.

Thank you so much, Dear God, for the gifts you have given. And now, may I ask of you a favor. Will you please be with the Spurs and Kings tonight? Will you please grant them the strength they need to defeat their enemies? Please, Dear God, if you could just grant this one little wish. If you could just do this one little thing for us.

Because I want to BEAT THE LAKERS’ ASS in the playoffs!!!

Amen.

From: chumdawg@d-m.com To: God@God.com
Subject: my prayer from yesterday

God,

Thanks for nothing. I’ve long suspected that you were a Lakers fan.

Chumdawg

P.S. Your Lakers can run, but they cannot hide.

From: God@God.com
To: chumdawg@d-m.com
Subject: re: my prayer from yesterday

I forgive you, my son, for you know not what you ask…

The path of the righteous team is beset on all sides
By the inequities of playoff seeding and the tyranny of home court advantage.
Blessed is he who shepherds the Mavs through the Western Conference
For he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of Marquis Daniels.
And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger
Those who attempt to defeat and eliminate my Mavericks.
And you will know my name is the Lord
When I lay Small Ball upon thee.

We are not nerds...

…we are just “gifted”!

Some people probably suspected the math whiz from grade school wasn’t in his right mind. Apparently he wasn’t—he was in his right and his left mind.

A recent study of adolescents with above-average math abilities found the right and left halves of their brains are apparently better able to interact and share information than the brains of average students.

“Giftedness in math, music or art may be the by-product of a brain that has functionally organized itself in a different way,” said Michael O’Boyle, psychologist at the University of Melbourne and one of the study’s co-authors.

Wow!

I am in awe! I don’t know if I would do that if I got into the kind of situation described below. Now, that is what being a real mother is, I think.

LONDON (Reuters) - A pregnant woman in Mexico gave birth to a healthy baby boy after performing a caesarean section on herself with a kitchen knife, doctors said on Tuesday.

(Link via Dean’s World)

If this is true...

Hmmm… if this report is to be believed - Chocolate in pregnancy keeps baby happy - my baby is going to be born a hippie. I am eating enough chocolate to keep him in happy, fun Lalaland for decades ;)

Kalyan, now you know why I eat all that chocolate every day - it is all for the baby™!

(link via Dean’s World)

Ewww!

I don’t know what to say about this really. It is just gross!

REGULAR doses of worms really do rid people of inflammatory bowel disease. The first trials of the treatment have been a success, and a drinkable concoction containing thousands of pig whipworm eggs could soon be launched in Europe.

Why apologize?

I really don’t get the title of this piece in Forbes magazine - Forbes.com: Rice plans no apology in 9/11 testimony. Why should Condoleezza Rice apologize for 9/11? As far as I remember, she was not the one who drove the planes into the buildings or incited the people who did. I think this is ridiculous to expect either the Clinton admin or the Bush admin to apologize for 9/11, since I don’t believe either of them caused this or are responsible for it.

Mela Noms

You know the drill by now, people! Send in your noms for April’s Mela - posts should be made by Indians or about India and dated March 15th - April 14th. Email them to me or just leave a comment. Remember that we cannot let the Anarchist/Capitalist/Libertarians take the Mela over again ;)

Vultures

Every place where there is a dead body, you will find vultures circling the dead. Kathryn Cramer is one such despicable person, who is trying really hard to smear one of the four dead contractors whose bodies were mutilated in Fallujah, by trying to link his name to a neo-Nazi…based on what evidence you say? Oh, they share the same name! It doesn’t matter that they look different , have different wives, different kids and a little research shows that the dead man was in the Army when the neo-Nazi was upto all kinds of nonsense in Idaho! Nope, what matters is that this woman thinks she is on to something and will not relinquish it, dead people be damned!

Michele smacks her down a lot better than I can ever hope to - A Small Victory: paranoia, paranoia, everybody’s coming to get me.

Are people really this stupid?

I am serious! Look at some of the comments posted to this blog entry - Dancing with Dogs: Indian cricket finally getting some. How on earth do people think they can contact Yuvraj Singh via this entry, I have no idea. Why do they think I am somehow affiliated to him from this? Are there people really this dumb in the gene pool?

The evil within...

I went to bed pretty depressed last night - I woke up about 3:00 in the morning and just could not fall asleep, I was so disturbed by the images of what was done at Fallujah. There are a few incidents that have disturbed me similarly through out my life -

- The stories of India-Pakistan partition, tales of massacred families. One book made me cry so hard for so long that my mom hid it fromm me for about three days.
- The Holocaust - especially the Diary of Anne Frank. In a creepy coincidence, I share my birthday with Anne Frank. I read the book in the Spring of the year in which I was due to turn 16, whioch was when she wrote the diary and died just before she could turn 16.
- The Lynching of the Israelis at Ramallah - I could not wipe away from my mind the glee with which people were showing off their blood-stained hands to the mobs.
- The Rape of Nanking - again, another situation where people forgot that the other side were people too and treated killing, raping and torturing them as a sport.
- Fallujah, where little kids danced around and poked burnt corpses as if they were nothing but rag dolls meant for play.

What was it about the most of these situations that really made me ashamed to call myself human? It was the pure joy and sadistic delight with which these sub-bestial beings acted and the way in which they treated their fellow human beings. It is the pleasure they took at the cruelty they inflicted on fellow human beings. I call it sub-bestial because animals wouldn’t do that. They wouldn’t kill another of their species to make a point or to just show how much superior they are to another of their own.

I used to buy into the thought that we human beings are somehow a much evolved species in the entire world and so deserve to lord it over all others. Now, when I see all this I am not so sure. It feels like evil is lurking in the heart of every human, simmering very close to the surface just waiting for a chance or an excuse to be unleashed. I maybe getting melodramatic here, but I really don’t seehow we can call ourselves any better than animals when we act like this.

It is just so easy to lose hope for humanity when things like this happen. It is easy for us to believe that humanity is a lost cause and humans are going to be evil regardless of how much they evolve - some just manage to control the evil within a little better than otherrs because they probably have a bigger incentive to control it. If you were out in the wild, you can be sure you can be killed by a “hungry” animal. In the human jungle, you don’t have to watch out for hungry humans, just a psychopath who finds happiness in carving you up slowly.

I keep thinking is this really the kind of world I am bringing my newborn into…then I realize he is human too as am I. Someday he is going to grow up and make his own decisions. He is going to touch some lives directly or indirectly. He is going to affect them in ways he might not even understand. Maybe if this one person can be a good and safe person to be around, maybe I will have done a little more towards pushing the evil side back down a bit…

What up with me...

Hey all, I know I have been pretty bad about posting regularly these days. Things have gotten a little hectic since I started working again. My new employers monitor every bit of internet access and as a contractor I don’t get much lee way using it. Once I get home I am so exhausted carrying not just me but also my (fast-growing) baby around that I don’t have much energy to do anything but eat and go to sleep. That is pretty much my boring life so far.

Of course, it couldn’t be a boring life when you are pregnant, right? I have a bunch of “desi” moms at work who have made it their life’s mission to teach me what it is to be pregnant and keep lecturing me on the do’s and don’t s of pregnancy till they are blue in the face and I am ready to drop off out of sheer boredom and irritation. Seriously, why can’t some people just mind their own business? I can only console myself with the fact that it is only 8 more weeks at the most…