Ramadan month, to me, is always nostalgic , fascinating and heartwarming all at the same time. Nostalgic because I came to Bahrain three years ago just four days before Ramadan month and I had faced obvious and comic challenges with my food. For the uninitiated, In the middle east, restaurants are not open during day day time for the entire Ramadan month. During off days, I neither had access to the office canteen nor did I know how to cook.
Back from digression, this month is fascinating as I try and understand the will it takes to survive a whole month without eating or drinking for more than 12 hours a day. It is also fascinating to see how everyone young, old, male and female follow it religiously. I tried, and really failed at not having water. Heartwarming because Muslims (like all other religions) believe in be good, say good and do good and they implement it wholeheartedly during this month. They are nice to everyone, they pray a lot and indulge in charity.
However, the month ended on a bit of sad note, because of the furore over a mosque being built near ground zero, the site where WTC existed. Pastors burnt/defaced Qurans on EID day which coincided the 9th anniversary of 9/11 attacks. It set me wondering if US government did enough to prevent these events. Compared to this, what was the failure of Indian government in not being able to prevent the Babri Masjid Demolition, where the crowd involved was much larger and the political stakes much higher.
When I Googled how big Islam is in USA, I was surprised to know only 0.6% of population, i.e., 1.6 Crores are Muslims. In contrast the Muslim population in India constitutes 13.43% or 15.5 Crores. Further India was the place of origin for four major religions of the world and cradle for four more religions from first millennium. And then we have innumerable sub beliefs in each of these religions. US speaks one language while India has 22 official languages and innumerable unofficial ones.
Yes, we did have religious clashes since many centuries including first millineum, but look at the number when compared to the number of religions we had. If we take the diversity into account, the relative number of flash points in India is really low when compared to the rest of the world. If we discount politically motivated instances, the number is actually negligible.
It is more of media rhetoric which gives us a feeling that India is divided on religious lines or otherwise. True, politicians are not sparing any efforts to do so, but in general we really are a tolerant community. As Sri Sri Ravishankar said even tolerance is a negative word, it is acceptance of the diverse beleifs and we are good at it.
On Eid day (Ramadan festival day), I was invited for a dinner to friends house, who happens to be a Pakistani Muslim. He invited only Hindus for the evening, because his Muslim friends were either back in Pakistan or were busy with other plans. While we were leaving, the hostess said "I called my mom in Pakistan and said I was inviting so and so, and she was surprised that I was inviting only Hindus. We don't really think like that, we think broader."
In India, it would have been a non event in the sense that Hindus are routinely invited for all Iftar parties and Eids. In fact in villages they celebrate the Hindu festivals with us and we celebrate the Ramadan with them. In fact as mom used to say, in my native village, when the processions of God are taken through village (like nagar sankirthan during gram seva) some of the palanquin bearers and the people breaking coconuts at each house used to be muslims. And no one found it even a weebit odd. It was just a festival for all villagers. This probably is the story across India, as I do not see any reason that my village had to be special.
We really lived together and we really do, excepting for the slight suspicions created by politicians. I find it strange when Europen schools make such a fuss over wearing a scarf, pagdi or other religious symbols to school. I fail to understand how that actually creates any issue, maybe because I have been brought up in such a tolerant country. I owe it to my country for making me a person with such acceptance. I owe it to the world to try and explain how to replicate this acceptance, though I am not really sure where to begin.

Paul the Octopus

There were so many times in my life when I have thought, if only i were someone else. Sometimes it can be a CEO, sometimes it is a sportsman and sometimes it is even a Film Hero. But never in my life I thought I would feel like this about an Octopus!! An octopus which is small enough to be confined to an aquarium. :)

Why would I not feel like this? He has his own wikipedia page, created by others in his honour, he has come in TV shows, and he even has 2.9 Million search results for himself in Google as of date and the number is growing by the second. He is famous, he is a brand today and he even has enemies!!! Looks like he is gathering fame through all his eight tentacles. I am utterly disadvantaged with only two hands to gather mine.

Imagine, when Spain won the football, the first thought that crossed millions of minds is 'Hey! Paul was right'. There were millions of facebook messages, millions of smses and a number of phonecalls just to say this. No one in my colleagues remembered that I also predicted the same. Forget me, most people across the world predicted the same, and yet these remain unsung heros, while Paul has gathered fame along with the molluscs.

And when I heard about the age of Paul, it is depressing. At a little more than 1/10th of my age, his fame is 1 million times more, only compounding my misery by another factor of 10. That lead me to the (soul?) searching question everyone is asking now a days "what exactly is an octopus capable of anyway?"

i was thinking, since its head does not seem to have any shape, he has obviously no brain, a prized possession which is protected by a hard skull in human. To my amazement I found that octopus is very intelligent sea creature. What more, his limbs have their independant brain as well. I was happy to note this, since I unconsciously became a fan of him, more like I do for many famous people. But, a colleague of mine walked to my desk and said, "Oh, then citibank can employ these Octopuses".

That is when the realization struck me how serious a competition this could be. With eight tentacles he can handle four times what I handle and would be very ambidextrous. All they would need is water proof keyboards which can float in aquariums. What more, if psychic is more natural state for them, then they can predict markets, consumer choices better than me. They can manage 'people' better because they know what the other person is thinking, though the 'people' itself may be redefined as Octopuses. I can imagine all the glass cabins at citi replaced with Glass aquariums.

Cost cutting! People will never cut employees anymore. All they need is a feed of mollusc on daily basis. Yes, training cost will increase given their short lifespan, but then there is no HRA, no family allowance, no life insurance and labour laws.

It is time to go with this idea to my bossess, No! directly to the CEO, because all these people would be replaced anyway. See you guys!!