Things I believed when I was a child...

• I thought babies could be bought. In fact, when I wanted a sibling, I would ask mom and dad to buy one and come when they come from office. :) They b(r)ought one home a year later. :)
• Later, I thought babies happened when a man and woman hugged and kissed. Little did I know there was a lot more to it than kisses and hugs.
• I thought actors lived inside the TV. They had similar looking people and they jumped to start acting when I switched on my TV. I would switch the TV on and off in succession to see whether they are a proactive lot and adhered to time. They had one person for each TV from a lot that looked similar. And since we are buying these people also, the TV is costly.
• I used to believe that the Indian flag had orange at the top and the Kerala flag has red on top. (Thanks to my very imaginative mom!)
• I used to think that people who ate non veg on sundays are all christians. So much that I believed the neighbours who didnt buy meat on sundays were hindus.
• I used to be scared of pencils cos I thought it was made of lead. Thanks to my mom who made it a point to educate me of lead poisoning :-|
• I used to think that when people fell in love they actually danced and ran around bushes singing songs.
• I thought 'gelf' and 'persia' were countries thanks to my mallu upbringing.
• My dad had me believe that eating a seed would make a plant sprout inside my tummy. I was so scared of eating water melon.
• There is a small hill near my home (Vilangan hill). When I went up there, I always thought that I was seeing Tamil Nadu towards the end of the horizon.
• Incidentally, I also wanted to walk to the end of the horizon to see where the sky and earth met. The best part is, I did walk the farthest my tiny legs could carry me. I was disappointed profusely that they never met and seemed to go further away as I tried walking nearer.
• I would ask my dad why the moon kept following us. And he would say that is cos he was showing us light.
• While looking at their wedding album, mom and dad told me that they didnt take me to the wedding because I was a reallllllly small baby then and could not be carried around. And I believed them.
• While sitting on the bike with dad (used to sit in front of him on the fuel tank), I used to act like I am in fact controlling the bike and he is merely holding the handles. And that if I concentrated enough on the actions, it would look real to the ousiders.
• I used to think that the people who owned an Omni were running underground businesses and killed and kidnapped people. - Thanks to the Molly,Kolly,Bollywoods. I was in fact scared of my mom's cousin who owned one for his business. The fact that he called it his 'business vandi(vehicle)' scared me further.
• My parents are bankers. And I used to think their job was to mint money.
• My mom had me believe that bathing in fowl shit would make me beautiful and that she was beautiful because when she was a kid, grandma had made her take bath in it. I asked her if I could bath in fowl shit one day. She readily agreed :D
• I used to think there were people up in the sky. They have a life of their own. I still do. :)
• I used to think that sanitary pads are used to clean spilt ink. But always wondered why only women used it!
• I thought that when there is a rain, there is a specific area the cloud covers. So when you stand on the boundary of it, one side of you is in the rain while the other side is dry. I always wanted to stand on one.
• I used to believe that the world would end in 2000 AD and me and my cousins (when we were together for summer holidays) would go up the terrace and chant stuff to avoid it. Seems like it worked :P
• I used to think that if you take your hands off the steering wheel, the car goes here and there and will hit things. I still get scared if hubby does not have at least a hand on the steering wheel. :D
• I used to wonder how a paper could be sent through such small wires. (The fax machine)
• Mom told me that people in aeroplane could actually see us wave. So every time I heard a plane fly, I would drop everything and run out. Shout 'bye!' and hope they acknowledge my bye with dropping something down since I cant see them.
• I would think that pills had a way of finding their way to the problem spot in the body. And that capsules opened themselves up after reaching my stomach.
• I used to conjure up various spellings for the word 'mic'. Maike, mike... Wondered which was the right one. Btw, how many of you know that mic is just a short form of the word microphone even now? :P
• I used to think that 'to let' boards were written by people who were illiterate and missed an 'i'. Thought those toilets were a public service. Even when I was a kid, I was obsessed with language. I love languages. Especially English and Malayalam.
• Used to think that banks existed on river banks only. Hence the similar usage. (Kerala used to be abundant with 44 rivers. Big and small. So I didnt doubt myself a bit!)
• I used to think that older people had a different set of names Jose, Nair, Baby... and kids another set - Siji, Biji, Jo... (I am a mallu and these are common names for one there.)
• Feathers, when kept inside books without being shown the sky, would get a baby. I bought a feather cap while on a tour hence and pulled out all the feathers and put them in a book. After a long time when their baby feathers didnt grow or have baby feathers at all, I asked the perfect person for the answer. My mom. Her answer was simple. "They already saw sky when on the bird. So you would have to breed a bird in the dark for such feathers." I was disappointed.
• I used to believe that uncle Scrooge was real and he really had a biiiiiiiig vault of money. Thanks to DD, I didnt have many cartoons to watch while I was a kid.
• My mom had me believe that someone came and put flesh on my feet at night and that is how I grow tall. One day, determined to find how much I grew and catch that person, I marked my height on the wall and went to sleep. Pretended to be asleep. Nobody came and I didnt grow taller. Confronted mom and she burst out laughing.
• I really thought there were tiny people living in some part of the world. Like Lilliput. Dont ask me why.
• The head ornament I wore for my first holy communion was pure gold and that mom had borrowed it from a neighbour. Guess who was behind this lie too!
• Used to think everyone slept at night. Until we went for an overnight trip somewhere and saw the roads were still abuzz with activity.
• Used to think I was in a TV show. I would act all up thinking cameras were following me everywhere I went.
• Another misconception I had was that hawala ( supposedly synonymous with black money for me, then. A little back ground on this word -this is called "kuzhal panam", which literally translated means pipe money.) was in fact money flowing through pipes. So if someone from Kerala is caught in Mumbai with 'kuzhal panam', he put the money from kerala and it flowed through the pipe till Mumbai and the receivers took it. So, if we dug the earth randomly, we will see these pipes. Needless to say, OFC cable diggers both scared and fascinated me. :D

And then I grew up. :(

Taxed!

American tax payers are idiots. A big chunk from that goes into tapping calls and snooping. Tell me what you get out of it Mr Tax Payer? :)

Sources : The Hindu
PS- It is funny how the Americans find it fine to be looted by their own to betray others.

The Story so far, for the people who missed it - Edward Forward...

After all, blood is blood.

Snooping, Snowden and Alternatives

It is a bit late to analyse this situation but I felt so strongly about the way everyone other than a US citizen has been violated of their privacy and faith.

Now, obviously everyone who continues reading would have a basic idea about what the whole incident is.

So, what are our alternatives?

1. ICANN (controlled by the US dept of Commerce ) is controlling all our website registrations and tracking it. This makes it easier for them to snoop around who does what and what goes on, where. Although this was not a part of the revelations by Snowden, it is only common sense to understand why they fight tooth and nail to keep that control within themselves. We should revisit the need to have a separate body under the UN to control the  website registrations and other related services. I am not saying that it will not be under the influence of the who is who from the upper strata of the US government, but at least it will be lesser.

Now, we also see that there is a price variation for the .us extensions. It is higher. Why? (Any thoughts are welcome on this. :) )

2. We are so dependent on the WOS, and MS and Google that we cannot hide anything even if we wished, from these giants and programs. We need indigenous developers to bring out alternatives. They need to be encouraged for further secure innovations. I can see the time in future where we might just go back to snail mail because there is too much snooping around.

3. I also foresee the danger of the US trying to gain the upper hand if any outbursts happen from other countries by flaunting the fact that they have sensitive information about that particular country, which if ousted could bring in enemies from all over the world. In other words, BLACKMAIL. Even its allies (NATO countries included) are under the RADAR and snooped on.

4. OFCs and telephone cables for any operator, has to be installed in the host country. Not in the US. or a country of their choice. At least, the outbound links and streaming can be monitored. Indian companies should be encouraged. I feel it has become the need of the hour to have another Swadeshi movement. This time, against all the global crap being dumped as 'imported' items and how we are getting exploited by these 'foren saabs' and not for our bread and butter.

5. Remember when there was a proposition to change the global exchange currency from the dollar to remnibi or anything other than the dollar? If so, you will also remember how the US oppressed that move and in a year (at the max), that discussion had bitten dust - Partly due to the debates across countries on which currency should it be- . Why? They control the global currency rates. And remain economically powerful hence.

It will be an extremely hard move, but getting another currency nearly as established as the dollar will bring down the power of dollar.

It is not the Big Brother watching any more. It is the BIG D*MN BULLY who is. Let all the minions understand this and take steps together to combat this bully who needs to know what his place is.

Incidentally, there is a lesser discussed partner in crime for this Big Bully. The UK is hand in hand with the BB in this project, although I suspect that they are being made to give more information the to the BB than take any, as any balances with the BB on one side will be.

Another idiot on the roll!

So this idiot, comes along and argues with me as shown above. He blames God when he cannot explain it. Metaphor otherwise. Somehow, they have changed the meaning of Metaphor for his use.
He opportunistically blames miracles and claims to know the Bible better than anyone at times and feigns ignorance at other times. Now, I am NOT an atheist. I just feel like kicking the 'blind belief' in its shin once a while and see where it goes. That conversation went on although I never took part in it after this point. Had enough fun already. :)

Love and Sarcasm,
Durga Nandan

100% FDI in Telecom

Telecom Commission gives 100% FDI  nod.
Impact: As much as the foreign inflow of investment will be there, there will be an outflow of profits and  in the long run a lot of 'Indian money'.
Will create jobs.
Will bring in good competition and technology.
Bring down the tele-connectivity prices (Hopefully. If anyone can give me a reason for or against this, it would be great.)
But is India not saturated enough a market for growth? Will investments flow in like expected?

Attapady Malnourished

Daily News : Brinda Karat laments on the Attapady crisis.

Daily Dose : Although the article shows how knowledgeable she is about the crisis, it does not tell us what she has done for them.
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