If I were more than 100 years old, what would I eat?

Recently, I was asked this question at a table topics contest - If I were more than a 100 years old, what would I eat?

For a moment, I was perplexed at the way the toastmaster had worded the simple question. There was a prelude to the question about some news article, but fortunately, I was able to understand the actual question before I could answer... whew!

This was an area level contest (Area 33) on September 25, 2009. I was proud to represent our club and am proud to say that my answer actually won! Looking forward to the Division level contest... Watch for the video. For now, enjoy this video... and of course, COMMENTS are greatly appreciated and NEEDED for me to improve. Please keep them coming.

Embarrassing moment in my life

Me? In a fashion show? The thought itself is embarrassing. Recently, I was asked to share one of my memorable competitions and I shared this experience. You can watch the video better than me describing it... Here goes...

Funny Video

It is a long time since you have seen anything funny on my blog. Here it goes. Please enjoy Maz Jobrani!

Barack Obama's weak hearted plan

Today, President Barack Obama unveiled a plan for making America more green by increasing the fuel efficiency standards for American cars. His plan calls for the auto industry to build vehicles that average 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016. I don't know about you, but I am thinking that this is a plan for the weak hearted! Let me explain why...

I own a Toyota Corolla which averages around 30 mpg. With Barack Obama's plan, every year, Toyota has to strive for improving the standards by less than a mpg to reach the goal by 2016! Even a novice engineer or a non-engineer can figure out how to do this. All you will have to do is to reduce the weight of the car a little bit by either a slight redesign or remove of some non-essential features. Today, Honda and Toyota have cars that can already give upwards of 40 mpg. The latest Prius is said to give 50 mpg. One can only wonder if the Obama administration has any clue about where to focus to improve our lives.

On a slightly different note, the railroad industry has been advertising that they can move a ton of freight 436 miles on a gallon of fuel. The first time I heard this I was astounded. A simple fact check reveals that this is true although their pollution standards are not as high as for automobiles. However, this begs the question, why is our auto industry so archaic? Can't we do better?

James Watt invented steam engines more than 200 years ago. These engines used burning coal to power them. We are still in the same arena. We are burning fuel instead of coal! Can't we think of a better way to power something without burning something? I am sure we can. The real revolution is not when we achieve higher mpg, but it is when we figure out a better way to power our automobiles. I just hope it is in our lifetime.

Do we deserve our heritage?

Our Indian heritage is not only enormous, but also the most advanced in many fields such as art, mathematics, astronomy and medical science. Ellora caves is such a great example of exquisite and unbelievable art that calling them caves is an understatement. I recently had the fortune of visiting these precious caves. The best way to describe Ellora caves are "as temples carved into mountain stone with exquisite detail." These are full size temples and you don't have to crawl in or bend down when you go into them. Once you see them, you will wonder how it is not part of one of the seven wonders of the world. These pictures here do more justice to these caves than my attempt at describing them.

The real question is - Do we deserve our heritage? What are we doing to preserve this heritage?

Indian government has done a lot of things to help promote these caves and preserve it. For example, there is an entry ticket to go into these caves. A beautiful well maintained garden welcomes you into these caves. We even have drinking water available near the caves. Plenty of tour guides are available.

However, what is missing is access to a toilet! If you want to see the caves in full detail, it will take you the major part of your day and at some point every visitor needs to use the toilet. Sure, we have two toilets on the premises, but they are locked! No, there are no working hours for the toilet. They are just plain locked forever! There are signs for toilets everywhere, but only to find them locked when someone follows them! What is the end result of this? People ease themselves next to the toilet in open air. It is understandable when someone does this in such a situation, but it is abhorring when you step into some of these caves and get the stench of urine in many dark regions of the caves! Isn't it disgraceful to desecrate art like this? We should have at least some pride in our ancestral work and heritage so that our kids can be inspired to do greater things. If we don't respect our own heritage, there is no chance others will either.

I hope the management of Ellora caves will at least open up the toilets so that our heritage is not used as toilets. I seriously hope, no matter how bad the call of nature may be, we will have the sense to not desecrate our ancestral heritage.

Baski or Super Brain Yoga?

This is the heights of stealing age old Indian practices! In India, we grew up with this as a form of punishment and called this so called exercise as "Baski." I am sure different parts of the country used to call it with different names, but essentially it was a form of punishment to kids who misbehaved. Watch this video to see how modern science is taking this practice and calling it their own technique! I won't be surprised if this is later patented as their technique.

You want me to change? Why?

Recently, I was asked to give an entertaining speech. I chose to tell a monkey story that not only entertains us, but teaches us a great lesson about our mental road blocks. Hope you enjoy this speech I gave and find it funny. I hope our Indian politicians learn this lesson too. Your feedback is certainly appreciated:

Is there an antidote for moral policing?

Friends,

I am at a loss for words! One month back I wrote about moral policing spreading in India. Today, it has continued its rise and is now spreading to Goa. For someone who may be looking at the India map, you can clearly see how it is spreading fast from its origins in Mangalore. Despite these guys being openly blatant, Indian government is yet to take any action against these people. In fact, they are not even bothered, it seems.

So, now the real question is, is there an antidote to this? What do you suggest should be done to prevent this from spreading? If you have any comments or suggestions on non-violent, ethical, moral and legal means, please post your comments here.

Mahesh

Related link:
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/pubs-beware-sri-ram-sene-to-now-work-in-goa/436141/

What's wrong in voting for Sanjay Dutt?

Many of my young friends are big fans of Sanjay Dutt, especially those who are too young to know about Sanjay Dutt's checkered history. Therefore, recently, when I read in the Times of India, an article by Ram Jethmalani who represented Sanjay Dutt in the court case against him more than a decade back, I thought it is worthy enough to share with all my friends. This also serves as a grim reminder of what our country has been through due to Sanjay Dutt and other people like him.

Ram Jethmalani is a dear friend of the late Sunil Dutt, father of Sanjay Dutt. Therefore, it must have really taken a lot of mental courage to write such an article. I believe that those of us who truly understand his words and predicament will come to the right conclusion that we cannot accept Sanjay Dutt in our political arena.

Just because a lot of time has passed since the crimes committed by Sanjay Dutt (proven in the court of law) does not mean that he is eligible to run for elections. I call upon every responsible citizen of the country to first of all denounce his nomination to the party, but also vehemently oppose voting for him even if he stands for elections. In a country filled with corruption, he may still get to stand for elections, but it is our security and future at risk if we vote for him. They are not something that can be put at risk. This is what is wrong if we vote for Sanjay Dutt. If we had been more prudent over the years, Mumbai would not have seen this many bomb blasts and terror attacks. At least now, let's make the right choice.

Related links:
Sanjay Dutt does not deserve to be an MP: Jethmalani

9 Jan 2009, 2124 hrs IST, TNN

Why we should not vote for Sanjay
1 Feb 2009, 0058 hrs IST, Ram Jethmalani

Moral police infection spreads in India

The so-called moral policing is now spreading farther and wider across India, but unfortunately, we see that the media is already moving away from the subject. Today, there is a small report in "The Hindu," but the majority of the Indian newspapers have ignored this today.

By now, some of you may have heard that there was another attack in Haryana where a girl was beat up, but this time by a police officer!!!! The police officer's name is "Moola RAM." You can read the full story and also see a video of the incident here.

I would think that if everyone who has Ram in their names start thinking they are the moral police, Lord Ram himself has to come and save us from this onslaught. However, fortunately, we have some creative individuals like Nisha Susan battling the situation by sending pink underwear to Ram Sena. (Read full story by NPR here). Thanks to Nisha for reducing some of the workload and heartburn for Lord Ram!

We all know that the moral police are neither moral nor police! If anything they are far from being moral. Our father of India, Gandhi has taught us that the best way to fight people in power is with defiance and non-violent non-cooperation, much like what Nisha is doing. If we resort to these methods, I am sure that even a behemoth can be tamed and brought to its knees. In this case, Sri Ram Sena and others like them, may not actually be in power, but they seem to be backed by the government's inaction against their violence. So, let's keep our cool and use Gandhi's principles to fight this injustice. Ultimately, we will prevail.

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The rise of Indiban - Taliban equivalent in India?

This morning I was reading the Indian Express online and found the disturbing headlines in the newspaper:

Moral policing: Girl commits suicide in Mangalore
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/moral-policing-girl-commits-suicide-in-mangalore/422628/

Words cannot describe the horror that many Indian youth are going through right now. We are in the 21st century for god's sake and we have these kinds of atrocities going on in India! I am sure that many youth in India have their blood boiling at this.

For those of you who are not entirely familiar about this, recently, a religious group called the "Sri Ram Sene" went into a pub and beat up some girls and guys dancing just because they don't approve of girls dancing or drinking! Come on! What age are we living in? It is the right of every human being to have fun. Sure, I am a teetotaler myself, but that doesn't mean that I would like to curtail the rights of others. Who is this Ram sene to dictate what we should or should not do?

Regardless of what Ram sene does, the more disturbing part is that the Indian government is not doing anything about it. This inaction only bolsters these kinds of people. After the pub incident, when the government did not do anything to arrest these attackers, they started issuing warnings to anyone who would celebrate Valentine's day! When the government still did not do anything, they publicly issued a threat stating that they will beat up anyone who celebrates Valentine's day! The Government is still sleeping.

Valentine's day is not yet here, but you can already see other groups starting to harass girls and guys just for meeting! Unfortunately, now a girl has committed suicide after this. The father of the girl instead of blaming the fundamentalists, has registered a case against the person with whom the girl went to talk to. He alleges rape. Whether there really was rape or not, we may never know, but it is unfortunate that the girl had to die. I am sure there will be no investigation just like nothing has been done about Ram sene's threats so far, and I am sure that our society will continue to blame innocent young people who defy the norms of our society.

The only way to reverse this is to rebel against this and start demanding open mindedness not only from our own families, but also the government. As long as we vote based on religious ideals, we will never be able to change the system. These kinds of acts are only another way of building walls in our society and religions. Since when did a Hindu girl talking to a Muslim boy become a crime? Wake up fellow citizens! It is time to act and demand our government to open its eyes. Otherwise, we can only blame ourselves for the rise of Indiban (Indian Taliban.)

Any ideas

Guys,
If any of you have any ideas for making this blog more interesting, feel free to let me know by commenting here.

Here is a link to a great video I saw recently... Hope you guys enjoy this.
Lesson learnt: Hardwork pays off. Seems very obvious, but not so obvious when you look at the big picture and trends. It is very easy to get confused and go off in different directions trying to find out the secret of success.

http://www.tomorrowstrends.com/2008/12/what-separates-extraordinary-and-average-people.html

Starting a new chapter

I finally got tired of thinking about having my own blog and just went ahead and did it. Thanks to blogspot. I hope to write about various fields of my interest. Currently, I am interested in Indian politics, American Businesses and World Economy. As a child, I grew up with great interest in astronomy, psychology, biology and physics. So, don't be surprised, if ever I mention a few things about these fields :)