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Showing posts from January, 2007

Places I Visited so far in my life

A website is taking opinion poll across the world to decide on Seven wonders of of the world. I became curious to check if how many of these nomnated sites, I have been to. To my surprise, I am still far from seeing all that in the list. Italy and Petra are still eluding me . Austria Vienna Bahrain Bahrain Belgium Brussels China Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing Combodia Phenm- Penh, Siem Prep Cyprus Limmasol France Paris, Nice Egypt Cairo, Alexandria France Paris Nice Germany Hamburg, Frankfurt, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Frieberg, Lubeck Greece Athens Iran Tehran India Mumbai, Pune, Nasik, Nagpur, Aurangabad, Sangli, Miraj Kolhapur,Alibag, Khandala, Lonavala, Goa, Chennnai, Pondicherry, Cochin, Kolkatta, Rourkela, Puri, Bhuvaneshwar, Hyderabad, Tirupati, Bangalore, Mysore, Uti, Hubli, Belgaum, Jabalpur, Bhopal, Indore, Gwalior, Bhilai, Durg, Raipur, Jamshedpur, Mount Abu, Baroda, Surat, Ahmedabad, Nadiad, Gandhi Nagar, Jaipur, Agra, Lucknow, New Delhi, Udaipur, Shimla, Manali, Ri

But Why Mommy ?

When I grew up, I was never given a choice or permission to ask Why. The word ‘why’ was considered as an act of impudence, challenge to the authority. This practise continued from home, school and slowly it has imbued in my system to accept whatever has been told by elders and teachers to be the absolute fact and the truth. Now the world has changed, George Bush policy of advocating democraracy and freedom of speech may or may not reach Arab world, but it is seeping through young generation of Indians and they have started asking ‘ But why mommy’ without any inhibition. I am sure today's parents and teachers must be grappling with answers that can satiate childrens curiosity of ‘why’. Indians living out of India, carried the essence of Indian spirit, culture and tradition and ensure that this has transcended through generations. http://hindumommy.wordpress.com/ is one such blog that neatly compiles answers to many ‘why’ for some of questions pertaining to Hindu rituals. Here are s

Johannesburg : Ugly side of HIV and Gun culture

I never thought that the subjects of higher learning would be taught so early in the life. I remember my 7th standard science class – when students eagerly awaited the last chapter of the book that had ‘reproductive organs’. Lady teacher, despite doing this exercise year after year gingerly escaped her predicament by leaving that chapter almost till the end, only to go through it cursory manner. For me, that chapter was the most well read chapter in that year and yet I always wondered why Kidney’s – bean shaped organs - are located at the back when mine are between the legs. I mistook testicles for Kidney!!! So with the advent of HIV in South Africa, imparting sex education at early age didn’t surprise me. But what jolted me was they do at pre –primary level. Are south Africans sexually active at the age of 4 – 5 yrs? When I realized that this was to protect innocent cherubs from sexual abuse, it made sense. With incidents of Nithari and others in India, uncovering sordid and ugly fac

Laghu Rudra Pooja

Today, my mother is doing Laghu Rudra Pooja. Ignorant as I am with significance of Hindu philosophy and its rituals, I decided to read about this and stumbled upon the website of http://www.celextel.org/ . Here is excerpt from this site Introduction Vedas are believed to be birth less and the term originates from the word “vid” meaning knowledge. Initially, the Vedas were not written down and the composers simply taught them to their disciples along with pronunciation. This was necessary because the language in which it was composed relied upon compound words, which, if pronounced or split differently gave rise to different meanings. Among the oldest books ever composed by Man are the Vedas-the sacred books of Hindus. The word Hindu is the modern term coined by those from foreign land, to denote the followers of Vedas, who preferred to term themselves as those following Sanathana Dharma (literally the birth less and deathless perennial thought process). The great Veda Vyasa is suppos