Last weekend, when my parents came to Bangalore, we visited 3 temples. The temples that we went were huge. Those temples were awe-inspiring architectural marvels. Most of the Gods’ statues were decorated with Gold, diamonds and other valuable stones.
Nevertheless they didn’t give us a divine feeling. Getting tickets to see the Gods’ statues sooner and at close quarters gave me a sense of false faith. Are the poor not allowed to see the shrine at close quarters just because they don’t have money?
You lose the feeling of the divinity and tranquility associated with temples when you see various shops and eatables within the temple premises. What would a child who comes to visit the temple think? It might think that temple is yet another shopping mall.
In another temple they had kept miniature models of Gods and their avatars that move with the help of motors and microprocessors. As we had expected tickets were collected to see these things. Selling books, gold coins, lamps, etc adds to these. How much more can one commercialise things!
The money, which is gained in such a way, is purportedly used to support a charity school. In this case the temple authorities could very well spend the entire money used to build the temple for the cause of charity. The gold, diamonds and other valuable stones used for decorating the statues and gopura would be worth lakhs and they could have rather been used to serve the poor and the downtrodden.
I do donate to one charity school. I visit the school in regular intervals and have some fun with those children. What could give you more happiness than seeing a poor child getting new clothes during a festival? Give some money to the poor whenever you can and see their happy faces. That will give you more peace and satisfaction than visiting thousand such temples.
All that said I maintain that I am not an atheist. I do believe in God. According to me temple is a place where there is peace and you can meditate and pray. Temple is a place where there is no difference between rich and the poor. For me God is not a statue decorated with valuable stones. God is Love.
I would like to quote a few lines from a song in my favourite movie “Anbe Sivam”:
யார் யார் சிவம்
நீ நான் சிவம்
வாழ்வே தவம்
அன்பே சிவம்
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Bad Way to Know People’s Needs (KPN)
Last Sunday night I had a horrible experience with KPN bus service. GG's friend (girl) was supposed to leave on that night in KPN bus to her hometown from Bangalore. She had booked a Sleeper bus that was supposed to leave at 11 p.m. She had reached the place at 10 p.m. itself.
The other buses came and went but her bus never came. Finally at 12.30 a.m. the KPN guys had told that the bus has met with an accident and they don’t have spare buses. They just offered to refund the money. They told the stranded passengers to find their own way out. When GG’s friend had asked the KPN guy how could they be so irresponsible, that guy responded rudely, “We are like this only”.
The passengers got agitated and fought with the KPN guys. At one point one of the passengers who is a lawyer went on to slap the KPN guy. Then the KPN guys took steel rod and the situation seemed very precarious.
GG’s friend panicked and called GG and I went to that spot at 1.30. By the time I went Police had reached. One of the passengers called up the Police and the Police intervened at the right time.
The Police, however, were only able to stop any violence from happening. The KPN manager came at around 1.30. He said that since it’s Sunday they didn’t have any spare buses. He told that he has called up Vellore KPN guys and they are sending a bus. That bus will come only by 4 a.m. The Police couldn’t help much when the manager told like this.
The Police told the passengers to take a call. After all the drama most of the passengers didn’t want to stay anymore in that office that didn’t even have a toilet. Almost all passengers got just the refund of the ticket cost and left.
The sheer irresponsibility of the KPN guys was shocking. How can they keep the passengers in waiting at late night when they knew their bus had met with an accident? How can they be so rude to their passengers without whom they can’t run their business?
KPN refunded just the ticket cost without even the tax amount. Compare this with an airline; in Europe if your flight gets postponed by a day the airlines have to give each passenger 500 Euros per day as compensation.
It’s more appalling to know that a well-established bus service like KPN lacks even spare buses. How do these guys operate such a mammoth bus service when they don’t even have a spare bus?
It was a sorry sight to see women among the passengers. They were horrified after seeing all the verbal and physical fight. By the time we collected the refund and left the place it was 2 a.m. Leaving the passengers helpless in the night was a terrible thing.
The most ironical thing was KPN stands for Knowing People’s Needs. If this were their way to know people’s needs they have a long way to go indeed.
The other buses came and went but her bus never came. Finally at 12.30 a.m. the KPN guys had told that the bus has met with an accident and they don’t have spare buses. They just offered to refund the money. They told the stranded passengers to find their own way out. When GG’s friend had asked the KPN guy how could they be so irresponsible, that guy responded rudely, “We are like this only”.
The passengers got agitated and fought with the KPN guys. At one point one of the passengers who is a lawyer went on to slap the KPN guy. Then the KPN guys took steel rod and the situation seemed very precarious.
GG’s friend panicked and called GG and I went to that spot at 1.30. By the time I went Police had reached. One of the passengers called up the Police and the Police intervened at the right time.
The Police, however, were only able to stop any violence from happening. The KPN manager came at around 1.30. He said that since it’s Sunday they didn’t have any spare buses. He told that he has called up Vellore KPN guys and they are sending a bus. That bus will come only by 4 a.m. The Police couldn’t help much when the manager told like this.
The Police told the passengers to take a call. After all the drama most of the passengers didn’t want to stay anymore in that office that didn’t even have a toilet. Almost all passengers got just the refund of the ticket cost and left.
The sheer irresponsibility of the KPN guys was shocking. How can they keep the passengers in waiting at late night when they knew their bus had met with an accident? How can they be so rude to their passengers without whom they can’t run their business?
KPN refunded just the ticket cost without even the tax amount. Compare this with an airline; in Europe if your flight gets postponed by a day the airlines have to give each passenger 500 Euros per day as compensation.
It’s more appalling to know that a well-established bus service like KPN lacks even spare buses. How do these guys operate such a mammoth bus service when they don’t even have a spare bus?
It was a sorry sight to see women among the passengers. They were horrified after seeing all the verbal and physical fight. By the time we collected the refund and left the place it was 2 a.m. Leaving the passengers helpless in the night was a terrible thing.
The most ironical thing was KPN stands for Knowing People’s Needs. If this were their way to know people’s needs they have a long way to go indeed.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Art of cooking
Not long ago I used to think that cooking was a very big deal. I used to wonder how my mother toils in the kitchen. When our batch girls started to cook and boast the next day, “we cooked sambar yesterday. We tried rasam day before”, I used to be jealous thinking how healthy these people are eating and what a great deal of work they do after going home. Only after we started cooking we came to know how simple it is.
Thanks to Pachai we cook anything and everything these days. Before Pachai became our roomie we used to cook only non-rice food like dosas, chappatis, omelettes, upma, idly etc. These days we often cook full meals - rice with sambar, rasam, curd (ofcourse we buy curd), poriyal (sometimes 2 poriyals) and appalam. Man it’s so easy. Some of the pics we took are ample testimonial to this (Iam posting these so that you won’t have any doubts in our cooking). You can see the sambar decorated with coriander and cut tomato (this is what is called heights!). And the best part is we don't use any podis and we add so much vegetables.
Earlier we used to compromise the taste. In the very early days we used to think, “we have eaten Anna University hostel food itself. We can simply eat anything. We will survive even if we were put in some other planet”. If we put less salt some day we used to tell “if salt is less it’s good for health”. Even if salt is more we won’t lose heart. We used to say the dialogue “if the salt is too much then we will get more anger (romba uppu sethu kitta romba rosham vanthurum)”. One other day when carrot hadn’t boiled properly we told ourselves “partially cooked food is better than fully cooked food! (samaikkatha unave sathulla unavu)”
These days we don’t have to resort to such consoling words. Pachai has become a master cook and we the master cutters and choppers.
The other day when Sorna and GG came to my home for dinner they were so much enticed by the taste that they ate more than what we thought they would eat for the entire week! They gorged so full that they simply couldn’t walk home and I had to literally drop them at their doorstep.
Well Pachai says he’s not able to eat outside properly these days since he is so fond of his own cooking. So much so that he told his mom that she isn’t upto the high standards he set with his own cooking
We started cooking on New Year’s Day of 2007. It’s been more than a year and we like it more and more as every day passes by.
Thanks to Pachai we cook anything and everything these days. Before Pachai became our roomie we used to cook only non-rice food like dosas, chappatis, omelettes, upma, idly etc. These days we often cook full meals - rice with sambar, rasam, curd (ofcourse we buy curd), poriyal (sometimes 2 poriyals) and appalam. Man it’s so easy. Some of the pics we took are ample testimonial to this (Iam posting these so that you won’t have any doubts in our cooking). You can see the sambar decorated with coriander and cut tomato (this is what is called heights!). And the best part is we don't use any podis and we add so much vegetables.
Earlier we used to compromise the taste. In the very early days we used to think, “we have eaten Anna University hostel food itself. We can simply eat anything. We will survive even if we were put in some other planet”. If we put less salt some day we used to tell “if salt is less it’s good for health”. Even if salt is more we won’t lose heart. We used to say the dialogue “if the salt is too much then we will get more anger (romba uppu sethu kitta romba rosham vanthurum)”. One other day when carrot hadn’t boiled properly we told ourselves “partially cooked food is better than fully cooked food! (samaikkatha unave sathulla unavu)”
These days we don’t have to resort to such consoling words. Pachai has become a master cook and we the master cutters and choppers.
The other day when Sorna and GG came to my home for dinner they were so much enticed by the taste that they ate more than what we thought they would eat for the entire week! They gorged so full that they simply couldn’t walk home and I had to literally drop them at their doorstep.
Well Pachai says he’s not able to eat outside properly these days since he is so fond of his own cooking. So much so that he told his mom that she isn’t upto the high standards he set with his own cooking
We started cooking on New Year’s Day of 2007. It’s been more than a year and we like it more and more as every day passes by.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Phishing in dirty waters
One of my friends got a phishing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/email/phishing.mspx?ifs=0
http://www.antiphishing.org/consumer_recs.html
mail purportedly sent from customer-service@hdfcbank.com. It told the account holder to review her one-year account transactions. It was followed by a suspicious link, which on clicking resembled the HDFC page but the site’s address was not that of HDFC. My unsuspecting friend had clicked the link and that brought her world crashing down. A huge sum from her account had been transferred to an unknown HDFC account in Surat.
On contacting the Bank officials we came to know that the guy had withdrawn the money quickly. The official also added that my friend was not the only one to be affected. 4 other transactions have happened within half an hour towards that account and that guy had withdrawn the entire amount.
People who use netbanking ought to be aware of such things. HDFC officials send cautionary mails to their customers regarding phishing. In their mail they tell customers not to reveal the passwords to anyone including Bank officials. They also specify that the Bank will never ask for account no or password from their customers simply because they already know it. Unfortunately some mail clients identifies these warning mails as spam.
We see many such phishing cases in newspapers. Being caught unawares in such a nasty scam can be painful. I happened to accompany my friend to the Cyber crime police station this Friday after she fell prey for such a scam. The police traced the IP address of the sender to be from Bulgaria. The guy has obviously used Proxy address making it difficult for the police to nab him.
In the police station I happened to see another one guy who had lost an unbelievable Rs.10 lakhs to some fake company claiming to get him work permit in UK. As long as there are gullible people there will be people to deceive them as well.
We know how hard we work to earn every paisa. We should know how to safeguard such hard-earned money. As my dad used to say it’s harder to safeguard the money you earned than to actually earn that money.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/email/phishing.mspx?ifs=0
http://www.antiphishing.org/consumer_recs.html
mail purportedly sent from customer-service@hdfcbank.com. It told the account holder to review her one-year account transactions. It was followed by a suspicious link, which on clicking resembled the HDFC page but the site’s address was not that of HDFC. My unsuspecting friend had clicked the link and that brought her world crashing down. A huge sum from her account had been transferred to an unknown HDFC account in Surat.
On contacting the Bank officials we came to know that the guy had withdrawn the money quickly. The official also added that my friend was not the only one to be affected. 4 other transactions have happened within half an hour towards that account and that guy had withdrawn the entire amount.
People who use netbanking ought to be aware of such things. HDFC officials send cautionary mails to their customers regarding phishing. In their mail they tell customers not to reveal the passwords to anyone including Bank officials. They also specify that the Bank will never ask for account no or password from their customers simply because they already know it. Unfortunately some mail clients identifies these warning mails as spam.
We see many such phishing cases in newspapers. Being caught unawares in such a nasty scam can be painful. I happened to accompany my friend to the Cyber crime police station this Friday after she fell prey for such a scam. The police traced the IP address of the sender to be from Bulgaria. The guy has obviously used Proxy address making it difficult for the police to nab him.
In the police station I happened to see another one guy who had lost an unbelievable Rs.10 lakhs to some fake company claiming to get him work permit in UK. As long as there are gullible people there will be people to deceive them as well.
We know how hard we work to earn every paisa. We should know how to safeguard such hard-earned money. As my dad used to say it’s harder to safeguard the money you earned than to actually earn that money.
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