rahul's blog

At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves learning-disabled children, the father of one of the students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he offered a question: "When not interfered with by outside influences, everything nature does is done with perfection. Yet my son, Shay, cannot learn things as other children do. He cannot understand things as other children do. Where is the natural order of things in my son?"

The audience was stilled by the query.

A forward from Jaago Re! One Billion Votes

Dear Rahul,

Make the Jaago Re! One Billion Votes movement stronger

A few days back, Jaago Re! One Billion Votes movement hit a milestone of 300,000 online voter registrations. Is this a significant number? You decide:

* In the recent 2008 Rajasthan state assembly elections, a candidate lost by 1 vote
* In 2004 general elections, the lowest margin of victory was 74 votes

The 10th day ceremony will be held on 14th February, 2009. You are invited to attend it to pay your homage to my grandfather.

Here is a letter by Richard Dawkins to his daughter, when she turned ten, about evidence, belief, tradition, rationalism, authority and revelation. It is slightly long but is definitely worth reading.

Dear Juliet,

From a mail forward I had received ...

Government of India has developed an 'Online Grievance Forum' at http://pgportal.gov.in/. Can you imagine this is happening in INDIA?

The govt. wants people to use this tool to highlight the problems they faced while dealing with Government officials or departments like Passport Office, Electricity board, BSNL/MTNL, Railways etc. Many of us say that these things don't work in India.

Here is an interesting conversation between Ramu and Shamu. Shamu is apathetic towards politics and Ramu is actively involved in spreading awareness related to it. In the below chat, Ramu tries to answer some of the basic and most important queries related to elections put forth by Shamu.

Shamu: Hi Ramu, how are you?
Ramu: Hi Shamu, I'm fine. How are you?

Shamu: I'm fine. So what's up?
Ramu: Nothing much. Just looking up some information related to the 2009 elections.

1. Lorenz's Law of Mechanical Repair
   After your hands become coated with grease, your nose will begin to itch.
2. Anthony's Law of the Workshop
   Any tool, when dropped, will roll to the least accessible corner.
3. Kovac's Conundrum
   When you dial a wrong number, you never get an engaged one.
4. Cannon's Karmic Law
   If you tell the boss you were late for work because you had a flat tyre, the next morning you will have a flat tyre.
5. O'brien's Variation Law
   

Good news for all Heroes Fans. Heroes Season 3 is going to be aired in India on Star World starting Dec 23, 2008. Be sure to catch the heroes in action!

This is actually quite a silly post and I wouldn't be writing this if not for I having a similar experience twice within a single week.

The first case was when I wanted to get a key duplicated. I visited a shop and he told me it would cost me Rs.125. I felt it was costly and tried to bargain it for Rs.80. He initially refused but as I was coming out he agreed for it. Anyway, there was another store beside it offering the same service and upon enquiring he told me that the key duplication would cost me only Rs.65.

Recently two women spoke the words in which I firmly believe.

The first was by my friend Veena. Her brother (my very close buddy) and her parents had been on the lookout for a suitable alliance for her. While she initially seemed fine with it, very soon she got very confused about the kind of life partner she was looking for. A couple of weeks back she called up her brother and told him that she would want some time for herself to know more about herself and think about what it was that she would like to have in her life partner. Needless to say, my friend (her brother) happily agreed.