Atithi Devo Bhava ???

All over the world we Indians are known for our hospitality. We were taught the golden verse ‘Atithi Devo Bhava’ in our childhood itself. But after hearing certain incidents frequently, I feel it seems our age old principle\value is only applicable for our friends\relatives who is visiting our house. The attacks on our foreign guests, weak minorities made me think about this. Though our Medias are busy condemning, accusing Australian attack on Indians, unfortunately they ignored\sidelined most of the attacks towards the foreign tourists in Goa (a major tourist hub of India) and other parts of India. Last week a 9 year old Russian girl molested by a couple of domestic tourists. It was such a disgusting incident. I just don’t understand what made those creatures to be aroused by a small kid. Last year another case registered against a high profile politician.

It is unfortunate to hear that not only tourists but also foreign NGO activists also assaulted. Many of these foreign NGO activists are in there early twenty’s (one main thing to be noted). When we enjoy our life in pubs, cinemas, with friends, tours or whatever; these people are working on our slums, orphanages, rescue peoples from brothels and child laborers\beggars(when we don’t even bothered about these underprivileged peoples) . Do they deserve something better? Even though we don’t honor them, don’t we have responsibility to offer them a safe life? When we behave like in this manner to our guest, can we expect a better hospitality from there country (Forget about the income we are receiving through tourism).I am against the attack towards Indians in abroad (though there is few reasons behind these attack in Australia which our media dutifully ignoring).But before slamming down, protest against these attacks don’t we have a responsibility to ensure safety and better hospitality for our guests.It is better to pay attention to the plank in our own eye before looking at the speck of sawdust in our neighbor’s eye (verse courtesy – Mathew 7:3).

For Whom , For What

Zera : Bhaiya , Kahan Ja Rahe Hain
Me: hey zera, I’m going out with my friends to watch kurbaan
Zera : Ohh that movie…I hate those kinda movies…I mean Muslims, terrorism, anyways bye bhaiya ,have a nice time.
Me: Bye, see ya tonight

Zera (a smart, bubbly tenth standard student) is my neighbor. Later that night, I met her again with her friend sameer

Zera: bhaiya how was the movie.Sameer he saw kurbaan today
Me:Yeahh it was good
Sameer: I saw the trailer. From the trailer itself I almost understood the plot. It must be stupid one like other movies in similar genre.
Zera :yeahh first it was Fanahh ,then newyork now Kurbaan. Come-on all stupid movies
Sameer: Exactly zera, everyone is portraying us as bad people. As if we are born with a mark on our head that we are terrorists. So frustrating.

I didn’t want to take part in that conversation further, so I just told them bye and walked away. I couldn’t believe that this was the conversation between a 14 year old girl and 17 year old boy. I was surprised how much they were hurt (though they don’t even know what is life and haven’t experienced anything in there life) because of verbal, visual direct/ indirect attack towards a particular community just because of the stupidity of few extremists.
I was not interested in these kinds of topics and I never used to take part in debates, discussions that deals with religions, denominations and politics. But for some reason this incident made me think a lot. Because of the stupidity of few peoples (that too hardly 5 percentages) an entire community is suffering. I still can’t understand what is the aim behind these terrorism and riots and all. Though we are Christians, Hindus or Muslims we inhale same oxygen from same source, we need food and water to survive and also everyone is formed with blood and flesh .For whom we are fighting .I’m told and taught that all the religions teaches to love one another and don’t cause any harm to others. So I will say if anyone fight in the name of god or do harm to his other children’s, then they are not god’s children but devils loyal children.

Trivia: Few times back one of my friend told us a story that made us think and laugh a lot. His job demanded frequent flight journeys. To his surprise he and his baggages were always cross checked by officials (not only in airports but also in railway station).Later he mentioned this to a friend, who is a top official in police. After hearing this he started laughing hysterically and asked him to just shave his French beard. Surprisingly after he shaved his French beard off, not even a single official asked him for extra checking so far(it happened almost two years back) .The point to be noted was, he is a Christian and got a good achayan (Syrian Christian) name .But still, just because of a beard……

Smart Idiots

At one side, a born gifted artist who is famous for creating publicity stunts and controversies for promoting his movies and on the other side a prominent author who claim “He has made Indians read never like before”.
When I heard about all this controversy (3 idiots and five point), initially I was surprised. First of all Bollywood is an industry which is famous for cut-copy, Xerox copy, stealing, inspiration, plagiarism, etc (not only story, plot but also songs). And here in this case at least they brought all the rights from him and already acknowledged the plot is based on his book (and also producer of the movie stated that “in the agreement between the producer and Bhagat, it was clearly mentioned that the author’s name would be put in the closing credits”. Anyways after seeing the movie, again I got confused that, why chetan made such a big scene (he claimed that movie was 70% of the book). But I felt that they lifted just the characters and also few incidents (that to not a straight lift).I enjoyed the book and the movie properly. Because of this controversy both chetan and producers where equally benefited. The movie is already one of the biggest blockbusters in the history of Bollywood and according to the leading bookstores there is almost 35 percent increase in this book’s sales after the movie release. Few days back one of my friend (she is a big movie buff and haven’t read even a single book in her lifetime) whether I have got the ‘five point someone….’ and she also asked me whether I have got his other books also. We can imagine like her how many people would have brought this book just to kill the curiosity and after they heard about chetan (which is obliviously coz of the success of 3 idiots and all these controversy) .And also many of those who read the book also would have gone the movie to check, how the book got shaped up as a movie. So it is damn sure both side were equally benefited. After all (because of this controversy or not) chetan, vidhu vinod chopra are already laughing all the way to the bank. I guess if all this was not for a publicity stunt, then they all could have sit together for few hours and resolved all those confusions ,complaints in a decent manner rather than spicing up everything before the public. After all media and public got a ‘hot’ topic to gossip for few days. So at the end of the day I think everyone is equally happy about all these

P.S: I’m neither against the movie or book and also I’m against plagiarism. But I felt here things are a little different and wanted to write my views about the same (especially after seeing Vidhu chopra’s statement about the end credits).As I said earlier, I properly enjoyed the book and the movie

Focus On Your Blessings

I received this forward some time back and thought of sharing it here.

Maria and Natty were two young mothers who lived across the street from each other. From their living room windows, each woman was able to observe the activities of the other woman’s family.

One day, Maria confessed that she’d been watching what went on in Natty’s front garden and that she envied her. I don’t know what you mean, Natty said with puzzled look on her face.

Well, I often see your husband out in the front mowing your lawn, and I wish my husband would do the same thing, Maria said. Your garden is beautiful!

Natty laughed and then made her confession. I have been doing the same thing, Joan, she said. I watch your husband in your front garden – and I have envied you! Maria shook her head with disbelief. What on earth do you mean she asked?

Natty replied, I see your husband playing ball with your toddler so nicely. How I wish Keith, my husband, would do the same thing! He never wants our boys in the way when he mows. Be honest Joan. Would you rather have your husband play with your son than have a well-manicured lawn?

I had not thought of that before, but you’re right Natty. I may have tall grass, but Eric, my husband is right about playing with little Johnny, Maria concluded.

My dad said to me once, “there is not a thing called ‘settling’ in life. At every point of life, we always need something like, money, job that u love, position, good health, satisfaction, love etc. Live your life to fullest (off course keep trying to achieve things you(feel) are lacking in life but stop worrying about that)”.Always enjoy what u have. Appreciate and thank god for every small blessings in your life instead of wailing and complaining. Very often we are blind to our own blessings that are so obvious to others. Let us cultivate the habit of concentrating on our several blessings rather than brooding over what we perceive as curses. Have a nice week folks

Moral or immoral ?????????

If a male and female stay in a house \room\office for few hours together. Then is that considered as immoral traffic? If it is yes then many of us can’t even count how many times we did this ‘immoral’. The recent controversy\hot news at Kerala prompts me to think about this. Though the police arrested them(AICC member raj mohan unnithan and the lady, who is a Seva Dal worker) under the charges of immoral trafficking, even after almost two weeks neither the medical report nor the officials confirm they did it. Past few days, some newspapers and channels were literally ‘celebrating’ this ‘hot news’ and flashing the snaps and videos of accused frequently. Some media even didn’t show the basic decency for blurring the accused lady’s image, before showing it out to public. I’m neither a supporter of Rajmohan Unnithan nor trying to support him or trying to glorify immoral trafficking. But my question is if they come out with a clean chit later, who will pay for the mental trauma they faced. Will these so called Medias restore the honour of that lady??? .I don’t know. It is a sad fact that, for the sake of TRP’s and cheap publicity our Medias are mindlessly and ‘creatively’ deforming the news. Yesterday I read an article that cpm made him a scapegoat for curbing the rising popularity of congress in Kerala (anyways that is a big joke).So my question is in the court if they admit that they had consensual sex, then what is going to happen? (As both of them are not minors, I guess court will send them free).Such a wastage of time and energy. These so called Medias could have used that time for airing something better. I’m against all sex tourism\trade, sex trafficking, high tech prostitution and all. Yeah for forming a good culture, better society it is the duty of media(not only media but also officials , civilians etc) to expose it and curb it from the root .But that doesn’t mean to go after some silly cheap news and deform it and feed them with unnecessary masalas and wasting there precious time .Don’t know what to say