A lone tree

[An amateur attempt at composing a poem]

A lone tree stands

In the forest, brimming with life.

Intertwining creepers on other trees, rising shoots.

Even the light, sifting through leaves,

Dances, almost teasingly, near the age-old roots.

A young sapling when it was,

Buoyant in its stem, flexible

And eager to soak it all in, be awashed.

Daring antics, it desired to play and swing,

But the forest floor around it had faced drought

And was barely giving.

Holding its stead, it played with whatever came by,

Sometimes a wasp, a bird or simply gazing at the sky.

The soil around it had leeched,

it survived because deep its roots had reached.

A cost was to be payed for living –

Forego companionship, these boundaries cant be breached.

It longed for a brush of twigs, with other trees,

Throw its fruits, sing a song, hear the breeze.

But none would come.

The forest changed, new soil bred different species,

Different, vibrant, arrogant.

For them the tree’s presence – insignificant.

Pale in comparison, ghastly,

The tree could just look on,

Remembering its legacy.

Untold desires it suppressed,

Faking ignorance, adamant it appeared.

All for a belief – being different is not a fault.

A point was proved, but the point was lost.

Barely Caught! [Catch Me If You Can: Part-2]

The issue of online privacy keeps me thinking a lot these days about my surfing habits. Suddenly, I have become more alert to the markers dropped innocently during my web travails.

The awareness hit me when a close friend narrated his experience of online snooping on someone. No prizes for guessing, the person was his ex-flame. The search had been going on for quite some time but met with little success. The reason was not his inability to look at the right places. It was simply that The Person either was WWW shy or didn’t have regular connectivity. The Person must have been doing the regular stuff like e-mail and IM chat; but nothing beyond – no personal blogs, no web pages, and no profile on a community.

One fine day, my friend’s usual search for The Person on an online community brought up an unfamiliar result. Clicking through made him realize that his search was over! The lucky breakthrough delivered more than he had imagined as this was a profile page full with recent details about The Person. It also contained conversation snippets of The Person with other people. After spending some hours making these click-throughs, my friend had The Person’s personal life virtually laid bare in front of him. Latest job, recent events in The Person’s family and friend circle, future plans and more formed a collective picture. What came out didn’t provide any comfort to my friend; but that’s another story.

I was kind of shocked to know that my friend was able to pull out so much information just sitting at his terminal. He didn’t even have to hack into any accounts or employ any unfair means. All this information was in public domain; anyone could have collated this info! While my friend did not mean any harm (actually he suffered more by knowing about The Person’s current personal life and has decided to abstain from any further enquiry), I was perturbed to know that similar such data could be gathered upon me by someone looking to extract benefits from knowledge about my personal life. It also gave an eerie feeling that I don’t even know if someone might be watching at this very moment what I am doing!

Frankly, my importance in the Grand Scheme of Things is not so great that I can become a target of an attack. And neither is my personal life so colorful that hungry eyes will be devouring it. Yet, it does put a constraint that it will not be possible to keep away certain people from me even if I want to. How do I overcome this? A simple solution would be to delete my profile on such networking sites. While that may work, I still can’t delete the Caches of the Search Engines of the world which will turn up my blog post and comments in online communities long after I have deleted them.

The posts that I make today on various topics may not be exactly what I think about them in, say, 5 years from now. However, not being able to purge off these records makes me vulnerable and accountable in future. And if it is true for me, it is true for anyone around. That brings up the fundamental question whether we should enthusiastically participate in the culture redefining phenomenon of “online collaboration”? If we don’t, we are missing on one of the most exciting, democratic process of information creation of our times. If we do, the indelible, permanent marks we engrave on the Web may come to haunt us in future. My future career will have more implications of this than ever before. Imagine the kind of nightmare that can ensue when a sub-ordinate or a mischievous colleague discovers a scandalous or emotionally charged event from my past years.

I have begun the task of eliminating these markers to the extent that I can. Still, where should the line be drawn?

[Update #1: 23/02/2007]

I found here a way to block Google Searchbot from discovering a webpage and adding to its index. This partially solves the problem. Still, I can't prevent Google from indexing my posts on online forums.

Catch Me If You Can

[Update #1: 04/03/2007

A blog post with same title lead to the arrest of a 16-year old fugitive from a juvenile detention center]

Think of a word which describes your online identity uniquely. Run a Google Search. Include all the similar results which are omitted as default. What’s the result count? If you found it surprisingly high, probably you can appreciate what the following discourse is about.

Some of us LIVE on the Web. It is primary source of ‘communication’ and ‘information’. With the exponential increase of Web 2.0 services, ‘collaboration’ has joined the buzzword list and they together form the Holy Trinity. Each and every time we deal with any of these entities in online space, there is a trail being left.

Participation in ‘collaboration’ requires us to ‘Register’ on the site of the service provider before we can start our contribution. Each time we register, there arises a need to provide a unique identity (login id). When Web was a new phenomenon in our country, it was easy to get unique logins by using our first and second name together. But with the explosion of internet connectivity, it is difficult to do so, especially for the common names and surnames.

Facing this problem, we start inventing login ids - the flamboyant, zara hat ke ones. The success and ease of getting a unique login with any such formulation makes this a repetitive habit. And why try new combinations when one jazzy identity can suffice every time and also saves the trouble of remembering different login ids for different sites.

So, most probably than not, if you are an avid ‘collaborator’, you will have the same login id for most of your favorite and not-so-favorite hangouts. Almost same will be the case for password and hint questions to these logins. You get the drift?

A silent surfing on Web can at best tracked by your network administrator. There are other ways as well, but this is assuming you are not a hot target that somebody would like to invest resources in tracking your surfing habits. So, given the privacy policies in general, just visiting some sites, sending some mails and reading movie reviews isn’t going to hurt. The trouble begins when you start leaving markers – questions on forums, reviews on products / services, posting links to downloads, answering queries on topics. Doing all this requires you to identify yourself with your unique identity. When the Search Engines of the world prowl the Web, they sniff up all that.

So running a search on the unique identity will show in a nutshell which communities you visit and what your contribution is. A 10 to 15 minute reading and surfing of the search results can potentially let anyone know your likings, views, habits, hang-outs, and in unlucky cases more damaging personal information. You may have never bargained for this. But, your privacy can lay threadbare. If you have such a unique identity, try running a search and see for yourself what potential information is available about you for anyone to have access to. And if somehow somebody cracks a password in any one of these sites, it will be just a cakewalk to hack all the other accounts.

The forums are right in their own when they ask for identifying us before we post anything. This ensures that at least a unique person can be identified for any unwanted posting and flamebait. However, this very thing also allows the Search bots to capture the information. So, what is the solution? Making new identities each time, generating new passwords, remembering all the matches for all the sites? That’s a tough task in the current scenario of relentless surfing. You are saved only if your unique identity has yet not been identified as being ‘unique’ by people who know you. But how long will that last? Sharing blogs, filling social networking profiles, instant message ids, or a trivial identity created in more carefree times of school/college carried to this day forward can all leak that unique identity to an observant eye.

If you find a solution for yourself which works universally, do post it here. If I am missing on any existing solution, it would be great if you can point it here.

Conspiracy Theories

[This post is an attempt at a chronological description of my exposure to the Conspiracy Theory phenomenon and the related aspects of explosion of unverified and easily accessible “information”. Neither do I claim veracity of any of the facts nor do I promote any of the theories mentioned herein.

This is by no means a comprehensive compilation of all such theories. It’s just a log of my journey from childhood to the present-day delving in the mysteries surrounding our world. I have poured my thoughts to remove a clutter which had been growing for long – serves the purpose of pensieve. The post will also help me to evaluate my theory that personal blogs, unless talking about general interest stuff, don’t hold relevance to readers, if they aren’t acquainted with the writer.

The generously sprinkled links have been searched and added to help the reader, if s/he wishes to embark on the journey with me. Many of the links are just more than information; they have been selected on the merit of being unique / surprising. They also serve as a future one-stop search engine for my own surfing habits. And I do hope that they will also lead the unknown reader(s) of this blog to interesting or temporarily amusing ideas. Please report any broken links and/or suggest additional/better ones. Better, leave a comment, bricks or bats. :D]

[Update: The post got referred by uforeview.net]

They abound everywhere. To the latest ones doing round on the internet to the age-old urban legends concerning mythical monsters. Geographical boundaries and progress of technology hasn’t impaired their strength.

My indulgence in conspiracy theories has been growing over a period of time. My first encounter with an urban legend was the reference to Kraken in the class 3^rd ICSE English reading book (Gulmohar Reader) – an excerpt from “The Kraken Arrives” story (unfortunately, I could not find the source and author of this story). While browsing through the old Indrajal comics collection of my dad, I found that even Mandrake the magician had to face the Kraken once, but this one was MUCH bigger.

Gulmohar Reader was instrumental in introducing me to many other legends and myths. Minotaur got its share of space in the emphasis on use of brains by Theseus to navigate the labyrinth. Greeks had more to offer through stories on 12 tasks of Hercules, Achilles’ vulnerable heel, Phoenix, et al. David and Goliath inspired me to take on the senior standard hunks (thankfully, I never put that into practice) without any knowledge of the story’s significance in Biblical scheme of things. Even my initial introduction to Middle-Eastern literature began with knowing about a large bird from the legends of Sindbad the Sailor and Arabian Nights.

Following close on heels was the story of Yeti – the abominable snowman of the Himalayas – in my all-time favorite Indian comic book series (Super Commando Dhruva – Barf ki Chita). The Yeti made further appearances in the same series. However, there was another comic book which involved Yeti in a different context. Tintin found a formidable foe, and then later an ally, in a Yeti when he was in Tibet. Discovery Channel brought back memories of this creature with a special run episode on Ape-Men from around the world including BigFoot (I guess you must have seen the runs and re-runs of Roger Patterson’s 1967 BigFoot footage)

Till this time I had been untouched by more frightening and scary propositions of urban legends. Enter the Dracula, in a “comic” way in retrospect, in its Lambu-Motu incarnate from the Diamond Comics annals. The legends of scary creatures got another shot in arm by reference to Jersey Devil in an issue of Hardy Boys – The Outlaw’s Silver, where the Hardys go on a treasure hunt in the Pine Barrens.

The Jersey Devil would make another appearance in years to follow in the X-Files (Season 1, Episode 5). The series followed up on many such legends through its “monster of the week” episodes on Nessie, werewolves, vampires, El Chupacabra. The X-Files deserves a special section of its own for the contributions made in firmly ingraining in me the thrill of mystery and unexplained. Werewolves beamed themselves into my living room through the TV Series aired on AXN (which I now realize must have been originally aired on Fox Network). Underworld, Blade and Van Helsings of the world followed later.

This was about the beginning of the time when instead of conspiracy theories coming to me in unexpected ways, I started chasing them. The Pustak Mahal “World Famous” series was the first step in this journey. Titles like “World Famous Unsolved Mysteries” were quite a rage in those times (circa 1990 – 1995) and formed a quintessential gift item on kids’ birthdays and academic successes. Each new conspiracy theory thread spun off from the two page articles in these books would explode in future when I would be introduced to Internet and unlimited access to uncensored “information”.

The Web opened up a portal to a world hitherto hidden from my reach with all its conspiracies and unexplained phenomenon. The first to strike was the Moon Hoax, with its paradox of the destination being visible yet not affording irrefutable evidence of “Mankind’s One Giant Leap”. The unknowns of the space continue to haunt me from that time. The other frontier beyond human exploration is much closer to the home - the deep ocean floor – Atlantis, Lemuria and recently the Indian Ocean Tsunami.

This point of time marks the explosion of (mis)information which a democratic medium like Web would offer me. It becomes difficult from here to track the exact chronology of what I was exposed to but here is a genuine try to capture the motions.

The click-through effect of web media led to one discovery after another. Area 51 became my sought after address on Earth. The Cydonia face stared at me from millions of miles with all the fascinating possibilities ranging from the aliens building an artifact on Mars to the Humans actually descending from a Martian race. Even on Earth, intricate geometries of crop circles embarrassed me by reminding of my own lame drawing skills. Majestic 12 seemed to have become the ultimate masters of human race and by proxy - of its destiny. US government agencies, like CIA, FBI and some which perhaps don’t even have a name, seem to hold keys to numerous caverns filled with logs of activities and truths which they believe shouldn’t be known to the world. Some of them were exposed – CIA mind control experiments using LSD. Some are still open to conjuncture – mystery surrounding Nikolai Tesla. I am not an American and thus haven’t been exposed to the extent of conspiracy theories existing in US society about events in their own national history – like JFK assassination.

The evil empire of Microsoft entrapped me in its grip – not from the expected Windows or Office suite – but through a PC game called Age of Empires. My childhood memory of the Hardy Boys “The Aztec Warrior” got a shot in the arm by playing the campaigns of Emperor Montezuma and the serpent God Quetzalcoatl. The Meso-American and Amazonian races of the Aztecs, the Mayans and the Incas soon found their way into my mental frame through horde of uncountable mentions. If Cortez never found El Dorado, his bad luck – I did. The unforgettable hills of Machu Picchu were as fascinating as the plains hosting as drawing board for Nazca lines, at least with respect to their mysterious origins. Far up north, the Reds won’t be much of a trouble except the Anasazi people – X-files episode (Season 2 Finale) and a Johnny Quest episode. The date 22^nd December, 2012 is etched on my mind. I will start my packing my bags then, as probably Arthur Dent would have advised, because that’s the date that Mayan calendar “promises” as end of the world. And this has inspired multitude of other theories, one of which I will deal later in the post. The X-files series ended with this date being set for beginning of alien colonization of Earth.

Of course, Hollywood had to have its say in all this through the Terminator, the Aliens and the Predator. Though not exactly conspiracy theories, they did fall in the chain of command to serve the hunger for not-so-real. And then came along a movie which changed my identity to Neo – The Matrix. This post can’t even attempt to do justice if I try to explain the profound effect of the movie on my life.

While Matrix had a definite Neo-Christian theme to it; my belief in what constitutes a religion was to be shaken by a mere work of fiction – The Da Vinci Code. I don’t know whether Dan Brown ever intended but an ignorant person like me was taken completely off-guard by the political machinations of religion exposed in the book. The threads spawned here divide and re-divide and some of them later merge into other conspiracy theories. Though many of the readers would be aware by now of Holy Grail, Knights Templar, Priory of Sion, Illuminati, New World Order; I would like to mention a book which dealt with the core theme of exclusion of “knowledge” by few to gain power. Umberto Eco’s “The Name of The Rose” delivered a fiction in the world of 14^th century persecuting Church along with a message of “Knowledge/Information is the source of ultimate power” (perhaps Google bosses would appreciate this better).

As it had to be, religion and controversy proved to be bretheren-in-arms as I dug more into the history of the fertile lands of Tigris and Euphrates. The common Abrahamic origin of Jews, Christians and Muslims and their claims and counter-claims made me shrink to a cocoon shrouded by the web of undocumented and re-documented chapters of human history. In my humble personal opinion, if any good can come from analyzing existing conspiracy theories, the whole gamut of these related gray areas of history should be the best candidate to spend time and resources on as a lot of present world international and religious disputes might appear in new light and hopefully also get a solution.

Ahh, I digressed. Back to the conspiracies. Discovery Channel added fuel to the alien angle by linking the physical sites and geometry of Stonehenge, Easter Islands, Giza Pyramids, Yonaguni-jima (a sunk pyramid off the coast of Japan), the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan, lake Titicaca, ruins of Tehoticuan to the likes to constellations and stars in the Heavens – the Orion’s belt, Draco constellation, Pleiades. Soon my interest-telescope was focused on Sirius and the Dogon tribe which claimed to have been taught astronomy by “Sirians”. It was also time to look back to Indian Hindu mythology to find more alien connections and give wings to my own imagination through one of the initial posts on this blog.

And thus, this brings me to write about the theory which just swept the rug from under from my feet - Zecharia Sitchin and his theory of the 12^th Planet, Nibiru. His claims - that humans were genetically engineered from Homo Erectus to serve the purpose of a slave race for mining operations of an extraterrestrial traveling race which were referred as Annunaki by Sumerians, one of the first civilizations on the face of the Earth - just left me gasping. Forget about the ethical and moral questions, he claims that Mayan calendar ends at 22^nd June, 2012 because that’s the date when “Gods” will descend to claim their space back on Earth. I wont even attempt to describe how he interlinks Old Testament with Sumerian Tablets (Book of Enoch and Gilgamesh) to spin this story which seems plausible when viewed in context of recent findings about actual era of construction of many old world structures (including Sphinx and Pyramids) when humans shouldn’t have even existed according to present day beliefs about human origins.

The arcs of conspiracies slowly converge to the one event in well-documented history which is near close to Apocalypse imagined on contact with Aliens - World War 2. The sightings of two most popular shapes of UFOs (cigar and a disc with 3 bubbles underneath it) are rumored to be result of Nazi re-engineering of captured crashed UFOs. Wernher von Braun, creator of V2 rockets and father of US space program, commented about some superior technology traveling in our air space, he was not far from what President Reagen himself reiterated twice in public as extra-terrestrial menace. Legends have it that The Third Reich made a desperate attempt to flee to Antarctica to establish a base in collaboration with Nordic aliens and they wait for the right time to make an appearance on world stage. Sounds incredulous? It won’t if you were to be told that US undertook a costly Operation Highjump with a strong naval fleet without any apparent reason immediately after World War 2 ended.

This pretty much rounds up what I have read, felt, believed and sometimes hoped to be true. As an X-Files fan and a believer, I maintain that “The Truth Is Out There”. History teaches us that what was chronicled may be forgotten, what once existed may perish, what once ruled might be decimated – yet, they will leave clues – clues waiting, almost tantalizingly, for an inquisitive mind and an adventurous spirit to query into the unknown. For, though, the past is gone, it defines what we are now and a spark of knowledge about its truth may change what our future might be.

The Heaven's Currency

Inside The Gates of Heaven, the Devil had been successful in implementing a law of "collateral damage" to keep things going smooth. Well, things were not like that always. But, the population outside Heaven kept growing and the Heaven kept assuming more majestic stature.

The Heaven has a life of its own. The ecology now encompasses many rules of evolution. It might be surprising, but Heaven also has a "mortality rate". Mortality rate in Heaven, what does that mean? The easiest analogy (and in fact quite fitting) to explain the anomaly will come from the Biblical Eden. Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit of knowledge and were “expelled” by the God for their indiscipline. The Devil gloated there. But in this Heaven, Devil shares the same plight of the Biblical God. Occasionally, a denizen of the Heaven will be “enlightened” to true knowledge (euphemism for disillusionment). The Devil will then have to find ways to either again jack the subject back into the Heavenly Matrix or a “fatality” occurs. Or going back to the Biblical analogy, a “Fallen Angel” is born.

Just like the mortals do not know about the fate of angels inside the Gates of Heaven, the angels inside the Gates of Heaven do not about the fate of the fallen angels. Yeah, the information gets only a one-way ticket in these channels! The second channel is either too congested, too indecipherable or just simply does not exist.

So, the Devil is able to keep most of the other angels in the Heaven in control. How? Certainly, not by force. To the credit of the angels, they are good fighters against any rules or oppression, when they become aware of it. The Devil has another tool in His assets to achieve the ends. It’s the Heavenly Economy.

Like the economy of mortals, the Heaven follows a simple principle of demand and supply. The medium of transaction is a special currency which we shall call as “Points” for lack of any better word. Each angel, when he enters the Gates of Heaven, brings with him/her some prior collection of Points. The Point is quite a powerful and stable currency even in the mortal world outside the Gates of Heaven. However, there the Point is used to buy only exclusive and costly goods and services. Its exchange value is too high for most of the normal transactions in the mortal world. But, inside the Gates of Heaven, Point rocks!

The Points brought by the angels from their mortal world are verified by the Heavenly authorities for check against counterfeit. Some angels find it difficult to prove the validity and date of coinage of their Points. Others simply forget where they stored their Points in the mortal world because they never got to use them in that world. May all the mortals planning to gain entry into the Gates of Heaven henceforth dust off their Points and keep an irrefutable record of the same!

Thus, all angels don’t start their Heavenly stay with same quantity of Points. However, they don’t mind it as it never affected their lives earlier. The first few days into the Heaven are a sort of induction program into their new powers, responsibilities and helplessness. The older denizens bring them to speed with the Heaven’s Economy. Within a week, each angel realizes how poor or rich is s/he with comparison to others by virtue of their initial stock of Points.

The Heaven’s Economy has close ties with the Heaven’s Bureaucracy. No surprises here, too, when compared to the mortal world. The bastions of power in the Bureaucracy are achieved by the balance figure in any angel’s Point account. The angels have a past history from the mortal world to learn from. They know how important it is to be a holder of a bastion of power in any bureaucracy. Hence, they lose no time in earning more Points to increase their bargaining power.

The Economy now flourishes once these basic objectives have been set into the minds of the new angels. Many angels came into the Heaven to do, well, what angels do. But the peer-pressure of Point driven Economy forces the angels to take up any jobs to earn the Points. The poorer angels work even harder towards this goal. All sorts of unexplainable division of labor come into play due to this. Angels well versed in one craft/art/skill start pursuing other skills because those pay more Points.

Each single Point is fought for. The Angelical Brotherhood of the Heaven goes through turmoil whenever there are clashes for the possession of Points. Points become the life and soul of the angels. Some angels, when drinking the chilled beer under the setting sun (like the rooftop scene of “Shawshank Redemption”) after a day’s hard toil for earning Points, take a stock of what they are doing and then start veering dangerously close to the mental state which would qualify them as a “Fallen Angel”. Thankfully, the Devil’s Heaven has a bustling Economy and such moments pass-off too soon for the angels to have a permanent damage. Soon, some other opportunity presents itself to earn more Points and another Gold Rush in that direction begins.

The Economy was always not like this. There was a time when peaceful agrarian society prevailed in the Heavens. All that got changed when Trader Ships loaded with enormous quantities of Gold docked into the Heaven’s harbors. They requested free trade between their world and the Heaven’s. The Heavenly Authorities felt that it’s a good opportunity and even gave them preferential status against the previously well-respected inland Marketeers/Advisors. The Ships came all the way from the Lands of Lady with the Torch, Lands of the Great Clock, Lands of the Merlion, the Kowloon Island and the Capital City of Honshu Islands. The angels, not far removed from their mortal past, were gullible to the Gold offered by these Traders. The agrarian economy didn’t need many Points to thrive but now only few angels till the lands while most, if possible, want to board these Ships. The Ships have their special rules for awarding “Crewman-ship”. The Points form a crucial role in gaining those favors. Sometimes, even having lots of Points does not work if an angel has spent too much time in the mortal world as compared to other angels.

The angels, thus, want Points and the jobs inside Heaven are constructed to deliver what the denizens want. Demand and Supply. Cause and Effect.

Some of the angels in every era, and this era too, get perturbed by the effect Point Economy is having on the “free will” of the angels. After all, the angels are worshipped by the mortals. What would come to pass if the mortals realized that the angels are bound to the chains of Economy just like them? The Council of such Elders (and even Newer) angels proposes to abolish the Point Economy. They haven’t yet offered an alternative economic model. The Heaven has become so much dependent on the Ships that they can’t be just told to leave the shores. And till the time they are docked, Points Economy will rule.

The angels wait for the Second Renaissance. And all this while, The Devil still smiles.

A Treatise on Female Beauty

Randomly websurfing, I landed on this bollywood site, a picture gallery of cinestars.

Some of the most clicked galleries were the ones of Bipasha Basu, Kareena Kapoor, Malaika Arora, etc. In other words, of the hottie brigade. Doing what any sane man would have done then, I kept the interest in the viewer statistics to a minimum, and quickly gushed through the galleries of as many of these sultry hotties I could in 10 minutes.

Bipasha in particular was looking so very hawt in some of the pics that there appeared to be a larger conspiracy going on; a conspiracy of turning menfolk numb and stupid to the point of insanity. This is when that classic predicament struck me - by objectifying Bipasha and the hotties, was I in general reducing women to pieces of flesh?

Pausing for a moment or two, I injected some deep thought into the matter..and concluded that... no, I wasn't doing any such thing. I in fact felt (very much to the contrary of popular belief) that these fine women were telling me in unspoken words to respect female beauty more.

Now wait, we're talking about Malaika Arora, Bipasha Basu and cohort, right ? Whatever happened to my taste, my sensibilities, my moral universe and all those stuff that I say such a thing? How can they tell me to respect female beauty unless I am a warped sexist - these women carry their sensuality in their plunging necklines and for most practical purposes, are a source of shame to (indian) womanhood.

Well, nothing's quite warped about my taste, moral fibre yada yada. They're quite where they should be, and doing quite well. What is actually warped is the general perception, and general notions of female beauty in our part of the world. The thing is, Indians are a bunch of intellectually challenged dimwits who can't think using their own head, and they just choose the best possible dumb line of action every single time. In this case, they callously reduce these fine and beautiful women to a perspective of sin, sex or sleaze. Anyone with half a brain would be able to discern from any of the so called provocative Bipasha pictures that she is in fact exuding a subtle sense of being intelligent, a subtle message of being in command and a teasing reminder of being a superior female specimen - thus telling you to respect her more, rather than the other way round.

And that is why in our world of maa behen biwi izzat etc, it's hard for these hotties to garner respect for being women. I really can't say whether patriarchy aggravated this reality more, by stifling expressions of women's sexuality because male dominance is threatened by it; or whether it got aggravated because of a successful bid by feminists and women (who are personally and collectively threatened by these beautiful women) to create this mentality of hatred towards beautiful and sexy women. Or both working in tandem.

At any rate, the final outcome is that our system quickly denigrates these lovely hotties to pieces of flesh - a faulty system that has been scripted by and for the ego-satisfaction of jealous, personality-deficient feminists..... a system that also adds insult to injury, by telling you that you are reducing women to pieces of flesh by objectifying them - when in fact all you are doing is the most natural of things for a man to do - admiring very beautiful women. Anyone who has seen Malena would be able to relate to the plight of a hottie, how indefensible she is to the other women who force their (nasty) agenda on her, and how men are equally helpless in defending her against this nasty agenda. Why was Malena beaten up so brutally by the womenfolk of the village? Why were their eyes emitting a kind of hatred towards Malena that would put Hitler to shame? What was Malena's fault really? None. Her only fault was that she was drop dead gorgeous.

To quote a line from Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov - "beauty is the battlefield where God and the Devil war for the soul of man". It's quite simple. God will tell to look at beauty from a narrow and warped perspective - and to that effect, tell you to imbibe (a stupid thing called) morals, degrade Bipasha or your neighbourhood hottie, lower your gaze, and feel guilty from time to time for gushing at hotties - while the Devil will tell you to love, respect and admire hotties for who they are, and tell you to take 10 minutes off your busy schedule to objectify them (even if from a laptop monitor) and completely forget the reality of your existence for those 10 minutes. "Objectification" is a much vilified term and has impropriety written all over it, but is it all that bad and improper really? I firmly say No, now that I've looked under the veil of all the scheming machinations. I'm finally enlightened, and off I am to objectify the next hottie. A gori this time. A very provocatively dressed, but very beautiful Scarlett Johannson is the lucky one. ;)

Message in a bottle

Get the ink out. Spread out a sheet of paper. Write a message. Roll the parchment. Find a glass bottle, which has been emptied of its liquor content. Uncork it. Stuff the parchment into the bottle. Cork the bottle. And set it upon the sea.

The bottle bobs endlessly to the rhythm of the sea. Probably in sync with the heartbeats of the message writer, who watches the bottle float away. Some unknown day, some unknown hand will find the bottle. Or probably never.

Is setting of bottle on sea an act to create own personal mystery?

There are social networking sites. Orkut is popular in Indian subcontinent. Each person has a profile page. All the info on the page is a snapshot of the person's life. The page is one among the millions of pages "floating" on the web. Is it the same charm as that of "message in a bottle on sea" which drives one to fill out the page? The details, the witticism, the testimonials, the photo album - all put in to present the unknown visitor a glimpse of the owner's life.

Reaching out to unknown and making ourselves known has been a consuming passion for mankind. The same can be seen in the names people scratch on rock faces, archaeological monuments and classroom benches. The same can be seen when a lesser known painter signs-off his/her painting, when a caller on a radio show makes sure that his/her name is heard on air, when the good samaritans put their name plaques in temples/hospitals to which they have donated, when the Roll of Honor dazzles the name of Gold Medalists of previous years, when anonymous Marines scribbled "Kilroy was here", when NASA sent probes to deep space with plaques carrying message from mankind.

The brief moment of attention from a stranger - oh so elusive and precious.
You know what, I just had one :)