The Learnings Of My Mind

MOGUL MADNESS

2006-04-11T11:00:00.000-07:00

My eyes lit up when I saw the cover of the book that I have yearned to read since long now.The book cover read "Freedom At Midnight".Written by Dominique Lapiree and Larry Collins it is one of the most read books in the Indian Subcontinent and which describes events leading to the division of India and formation of Pakistan .200 pages down ,it has inspired me to write this post ,describing a problem on a bigger scale and which has its association with the present day world.The state of economical disparity and the inability of its rulers(now politicos) to cure it is one of the major problems we face in today's globalised world.The problem has existed in India since ages and to be true it exists in every devoloping nation and is prominent throughout the world.Although I firmly beleive that the aforementioned task is easier said then done, I have a strong feeling that the steps taken by the so-called elite class or the privellaged class have lacked the serious concern and shear intent to solve it.I will like to analyse this issue with some background of our past and then try to co-relate it with the present USA which its devoured presidents are trying to build.

The diffrence between the poor and rich dates back to the time when the first barter system started.At that time there was no shortage of provisions and land ans hence no problems or terms like economical disparity.As time passed people came to know about other regions in the world.Population started to increase and coin as a means of trade came into existence.The resources now were not as abundant as in the past and the population was growing rapidly.Now people had to choose carefully about the way they spend thier money and diffrence in the lifestyles of people with the diffrence in thier wealth grew.Some accumlated wealth enough to influence the people living around them and turned into thier rulers.This cycle continued for a long time and the rulers became richer ,more influential and hence more powerful.Now they wanted to explore new lands and the resistance was met severely.Wars broke out much too often and blooshed was a commonplace.The greed and the self right to something better always pushed a civilization farther and farther away from the lands it had orignated from.There was mass colonisation of the world and every down-trodden and under-developed country was exploited in the name of development.Then at the dawn of 20th century people came to realise the fact that bloodshed was no longer a possible solution which will satisfy thier greed.A new vision of brotherhood and common welfare came into being.Theory of Adam Smith gave way to The Game theory in which it is described that best results are only possible when an individual does whats the best for him and the group.

But the question that troubles my mind now is that its been about 100 years since first sparks of societal equality or socialism came into being and still we see ourselves at a long distance from the objectives we tend to acheive.Where did we go wrong ? Did we ever in a true sense wanted economical disparity to wash away or was it just a random thought of a few philosophers and economists alike which has now faded away into the mysts of time?I look at the last 25 years and surely the intent for the common advancement of the soicety has increased.We have planes filled with supplies and essential goods flying in from almost every devolped nation when a tragedy strikes somewhere.We have loans granted by the World Bank whose donors are the rich nations.Then why arent we even heading closer to curbing this problem.

The Ruler Of Today- The Co-operations:

The answer is simple.We have never really wanted to be equal in status with the so called non-privelleaged or poor class of people.The colonies of that time still exist today,just that we now have masked our intents by signing treaties and agreements.As an example the treaty of trade between US and mexico was signed a decade and a half ago.It was estimated that people of mexico will reap huge benefits and thier standard of living will be at par with people in US in 10 years time.As we can see none of it has happened now.The production factories that have been set up thier have reaped huge benefits and grown many-a-fold in their sizes but the poor people who used to live under the iron sheets continue to do so.Surpising to know is the fact that today we people have been so blinded by these institutes of money mongering that we hardly aknowledge the fact that the shoe which we buy for 5000 bucks actually has a manufacturing cost of 500 ruppes (shipping included).An average person in these new colonies earns a mere 2 dollars a day when the average rate of a person doing labourous job in US is 8 dollars per hour.
Co-operations have deepened thier roots and now are treated as The God in thier manufacturing departments.The nations who have sworn faith to the powerful nations are deemed to get good amount of loans from the World Bank as the major power in those institutes rests with thier valuable allies only.In other words when we look at today's world there is still no freedom.Our lives controlled by a few people whom we havent not chosen to lead us.Policies they make affect the world,wars they wage affect the world and there is no stopping them.From Vietnam to Iraq,war has been used as a means of suppression,the only diffrence that they have given it the name of righteousness.

If I try to concentrate my thoughts on the need of diffrent groups/countries/conglomerates to indulge in such activities I find myself short of ideas.We spend around 60 years on this planet and out of them 30 years are wasted in making what we call our careers,or in a more abstract manner,searching for the means to find bread.For that we give the best years of our life away.Competition and a sense of achievement are catalysts for a better world but what acomplishment is it to be a part of soceity where you spend all your life in earning just because your stature can be a bit higher then your neighbour's.Where have the attics of sharing and sacrifice faded away in land of Krishna and Christ.Questions like these bother me,and I can see no end to this rat race that we humans have become a part of.To shrug it off we have to think beyond the materialistic means in this world and towards the utopian world where sacrifice and brotherhood is the measure of one's success.Through this post I know that I might not be able to change a lot but its an honest attempt to produce certain sparks in the mind of the rulers of the world that we have to see and be a part of it alike.
Want to write a lot more about it but will add that later.

A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE- THE HANNIBAL 'S PERSPECTIVE

2006-04-06T05:27:00.000-07:00

Hannibal ,the name itself presents a picture larger than life.Few can understand the significance of this word in the history of human civillization and the history of violence.Some of you will wonder who Hannibal was.Hannibal was the commander -in -cheif of the Carthagian army during the second Punic wars.He crossed the Alps with elephants (a task as impossible then as it is now) and nearly defeated the Roman army .Infrences have been drawn on his personality,his manner of conduct and his tactical genius since long but few have ventured into the greater aspect which makes him one of us.In words of the protector of Scotland Sir William Wallace is it the self-right to something better.We all strive for something better throughout our lives.Be it a good college degree,or a slight increase in wage,be it spirituality or an increase in public status ,we all work for our goals and in turn want something better then we have .

Violence as a means of satisfying the hunger for something better has existed since ages.One civillization dominating the other,massacarring people for the sake of better agricultural lands and other resources has existed since long.The saga continues till date.Analyzed by thousands of groups of analysists and reporters are the malign plans of the western bloc countries especially United States Of America to have a monopoly over black gold present in the Arab countries.The question that now exists is that if this kind of violence can be justified by any strech of imagination.One of the primary thoughts that strikes me is that the country,civilization,group which destroys the other (patially or wholly) has better technology to harness the resources present their and hence leading to the most optimum utilization present till date.This might sound very crude and inhumane but is true none-the-less.

For the first time my mind wants to think out of the way to seek for the positive effects of years of violence if some ever existed.Though seiges have always given way for the mass production of weapons and the arms race in almost every part of the world ,what remains hidden is the way they paved for the advance of technology in the various fields of sceinces that affect our lifestyles .If we talk about the medival period then it was the age of steel weapons which gave rise to better smelting and other blacksmith techniques providing us a better way of producing tools and utensils,thus increasing effectiveness in agricultural and building tasks.Talking about a more recent scenario we all know about the cold war.Had it not been for cold war and prior to cold war the second world war it would have been difficult to trigger the advances in rocket technology which led to man conquering moon and whose use is so ubiquitous that we can hardly feel it.Another very debatable issue is with the unification of world and civillizing so called not so civillized people.Be it the deep forests of Africa or the peaceful forbidden land of Australian aborigines ,discovery and conquest has paved way for introducing people with a better way of leading lives.Something which they couldn't have acheived in some thousand years more because of lack of resources.

The defects of war also exist and are very obvious in nature.Conquering people and manipulating them against the tide of time is an inhumane act no one can approve of.Exploiting them and forcing them to abandon thier centuries old customs and practises are few of the many diseases which a war carries with it.The burtal killing of Axtecs and Mayans by their Spanish advesaries just to redeem Christ can never be explained by any righteous man.But as they say thier always has been and always will exist a trade-off .Its just that in this case its the trade-off of human lives, values,traditions,releigon and beleifs which remains above all and whose trade-off for development of the human race sounds abominable.Though I have put this in a very crude manner but some truths are bitter,maybe to bitter to be accepted still we have to accept them.

A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE -1

2006-04-01T20:55:00.000-08:00

vi·o·lence
n.

Physical force exerted for the purpose of violating, damaging, or abusing: crimes of violence.
The act or an instance of violent action or behavior.
Intensity or severity, as in natural phenomena; untamed force: the violence of a tornado.
Abusive or unjust exercise of power.
Abuse or injury to meaning, content, or intent: do violence to a text.
Vehemence of feeling or expression; fervor

In a series of posts I will like to describe about the History Of Violence and how it affects us.How we perceive in our day to day lives and what affect does it have on us.In the very first post I am describing a bitter experience I had on 2nd April 2006.
Violence is an artibute of human being which is as old as the human form itself.Rather violence as a means of survival has existed ever since first animal forms begin to appear.A form of distress triggers a reaction in human body leading to the increased blood preassure and harmone flow which comes out in form of violence.Today was a sad day in my life,for today I was accused of ebing impolite by a teacher.Never has this occured to me since my childhood,rather I have been ordained as a good student by almost all my teachers.But today was not so.Though I feel cheated I will try to present it in the most non-biased form for both the concerned parties namely myself and my teacher.I set out for the XX(name withheld,name of an institute ) class and was surprised to know that a D.I class has been set up for today because usually its a quantative ability session for us on sundays.I reached the centre on time ,took my seat and the session began.

The teacher was teaching first time to us and all of the class was weary of him.On account of asking about growth percentage when growth was taught I was reminded by a furious voice not to ask about the parts of the subject which have not been taught as yet.I nodded in agreement.When growth percentage was being taught I asked my doubt again.Somehow he couldn't understand my doubt ,therefore I requested him to proceed with the teachings while I perform certain calculations before asking my doubt again.But he refused and waited for me.I took a little amount of time which infuriated the him.I was accused of testing his abilities .He came closer to me and asked me about the city which I belong to.I obliged him by saying Ambala.To this his reply was shocking.He replied," I am from Rajroopur in allahabad,behave with me or it wont be good for you".I couldn't utter a word and headed for the blackboard to tell him once again about the problem.But some of my batchmates were furious and so was I.They got up from their seats and told him that they wont study from a teacher like him.He threw the pen and left the class.There was a lot of chaos outside the class and it ended after we called the centre head who assured us that such incident wont take place in future.

Though I can clearly say that it was his fault and that he should have controlled himself properly but then somehow I feel bad about the incident.No matter whose fault it was both the parties suffered.Somehow it was bad managment on my part.I should have stopped my friends from leaving the class no matter how wrong the teacher was.Who knows what image had he developed in his mind about our class and that can happen with anyone.Lack of judgement or wrong judgement does lead to situations like the above one and they can be only solved by a virtue which is a true mark of a person,its patience.Had I understood that teacher was a bit weary and had a lack of confidence and thus he reached the conclusion maybe and just maybe I wouldn't have asked him the question but I also beleive that to go in a class and not asking about the things which are troubling me is a sin.On the other hand had my friends being a little patient we would have handled the situation.

Most of the times in our lives we follow our impulses,get into fights,then feel bad about it.Be it fighting with your close one's or with strangers over as petty things such as a seat of a bus we have incorporated violence in many forms in our lives.Today's lifestyle doesnt help either.High levels of distress and discontent give rise to furstrations which trigger violent incidents very frequently.When we are in need of more of patience we find ourselves going far away from them.Its about time when we realise that giving up a few things when we involve ourselves in situations of distress may in long run help us.Although my mind is not clear if i want to follow Mahatama Gandhi's path always but it is quite sure that there is not going to be an act of violent revolution in most of the cases from now on.As I end this post I once again cant stop myself to think about the teacher and his situation and all that I can say is for God to ordain souls as hapless as us with a little more patience.

THE REAL ATLANTIS

2006-03-26T20:35:00.000-08:00

And so it begins.My mind is exploding with the thoughts of how the lost city of atlantis would had been if one ever existed.To start a fire ,one needs a spark and this time the raging fire in my concious was caused by a documentary on the regular missing planes ,ships and life-forms over the doomed Bermuda triangle.A certain explanation reasons out the presence of powerful crystal which once were part of the great city of atlantis to be lying on the ocean floors.Tilted from there orignal positions when they come in contact with sunlight they release tremendous amounts of energy which create time wraps,make compasses go beserk and radios to malfunction.The most discussed loss was that of the flight-19 in december of 1945.5 naval avengers were on a routine practise flying when they suddenly disappeared from the radar.They were never to be found despite the large scale combing operation.Not only this,about 20-25 ships and planes go missing in the area and yet there lies no sign of debris.When something as heavy as a ship sinks they leave debris for hundreads of years but the ocean floors of the bermuda triangle are clean.

Enough of explanation of what bermuda triangle is,now my mind concentrates on predictions of a clairvoyant in the begining of the 20th century.He predicted that the lost city of atlantis will rise from the sea bed in 1968-69 and though doubt remains it almost happened.A series of rectangular shaped rocks rose from the ocean bed.Those stones were brought there and didnot belong to the native land of hawaii.Though debatable it still remains an intresting find.Psychics constantly feel the energy of crystals which lie on the sea bed.Still thousands of people search for the greatst city ever.A civillization ahead of its time and probably even more advanced then the present day world.

My inqusitive mind wants to riddle out the origins of the stories of Atlantis.The orignal descriptions of Atlantis lies in the works of great greek philosopher Plato.After death of his teacher Archimedes,Plato travelled far and wide to lands unknown to human civillization till that day.There are two scripts in which he has dedicated to the city of atlantis.

People of Atlantis have been known to discover the secret power of stones and the effect sunlight has upon them.Quite simillar as it seems to our philosophy of adorning crystals of diffrent types for specific purposes.The city had its own power stations where power was generated by the crystals,transport and road facilities,various types of entertainment zones,hospitals etc.In short everything which we can associate with the modern day city was present there.They had mastered the art of harnessing resources of mother nature.The wit and intelligence of the people that resided was unparalled and their wealth uncountable.How great a city like Atlantis be destroyed leaves me baffled but as most of the writings suggest it had been due to earthquake and tsunami which made the coastline sink.

That was that.But what if the city never existed and Plato wrote it for the purpose of what he proposed as Utopia.Though his work is commendable what now concerns me is the state of human mind.The search and quest for perfection which is never ending and which drives almost all of us.The goals that we have and the bigger goals that are attached to it.My mind questions sometimes that where are our civillization is headed.We have made WMD's, traversed in space,built life saving drugs and made a tremendous progress.Still we keep on making things better,more diverse,more intense,more correct in every sense of the word.I know the answer now- we all are headed to atlantis.

The real Atlantis lies in the hearts of people.People like you and me,who seek perfection knowingly or unknowingly.

The quest for perfection,the adventure of discovery and the thrill of invention naturally comes to us.It has helped us shape the world which we live in and will shape our future,the only question that remains is how much time will we take?

I have some more things to write about,and will write about it as and when i get appropriate time and thought.

A MATTER OF CHOICE

2006-03-24T20:41:00.000-08:00

Its been quite some time since I have attended college.To be precise after I have returned from the holi holidays I havent attended a single class but I did attend a 5 minute meeting with my project guide .All my classmates must be attending class of distributed systems and trying to figure out how to make a computer system work better I find myself scribbling my arbitarary thoughts on something which we are involved with directly or indirectly.Its Decision Making.Since early days to now the parameters for decision making have changed and in our business deals we have shifted from what was called "every man for himself theory" to the "game theory".But my concerns in not business because thats not where we usually stumble while making decisions .On the other hand in today's busy complicated and eat while u are on the road world its our minds and private lives that have gone for a swing.

Though there exists a spectrum of problems from altercations with our parents and freinds because of diffrence of opinion to abortion of teenage girls or young women if one can call them so.My mind suddenly traverses a sevral thousand years in the past and finds itself in the territory of our ancestors when the mechanism of formation of families was still developing.I wonder how from living in the form of large masses independently gave rise to the communities which lived in large masses but where certain individuals were bound to each other and shared a greater sense of commitment.That formation is still prevalent and will be prevalent for quite a long period of time and maybe till the time human race exists.Though none of our ancestors would have imagined that a way of living designed on the basis of physical needs alone will be as effective in the modern world where people snap in split seconds.Too much work preassure ,too many expectations and monotonous approach to life in most cases increases the need of mental support and better understanding on our parts.

How many times we have read in newspapers about people hanging themselves from fans,girls consuming poison the moment they have unwanted pregnancy,peasants consuming pesticides when they cant provide for thier families.In simpler words the mental stress and complications of today's world affect everyone with no regards to thier economical state,background ,caste sex etc .Maybe one of the few things in this world which treats everyone equally and with no hypocrisy.Still we come across a lot of people who have aced the methods to defeat these stresses and it not only holds true for them but also their family.The way they stand for each other is impressive to say the least.So now my mind wants to figure out that what where do these happy people who face every difficulty with a smile diffrent from the usual complaining and sobbing types.

Firstly and most importantly they trust in each other and they realise that the network of friends ,siblings and thier parents is there to help them no matter where they stumble.Secondly they work on the axiom that stumble,fall and then rise again or try it again.I read somehwere that as I grow up the chances of finding a person who will be willing to listen to me(read as soulmate) will decrease exponentially because of the increased complication of our lives.Although I am not critical to the statement it certainly made me think that is it worth it for me to earn a few comforts in our life while I give away a huge chunk of myself away.

So after all this blabber about our ancestors ,the family system and a few other things my mind reaches to the problem where we have to make most important choices,the tradeoff between our personal and professional lives.The level of complication we want to achive in our working life to the complications which exist in my personal life.The people who we find happy and content today have aced this tradeoff and have made themselves familliar with the rules of it.As of now I have been only able to chalk out two major points which influence this decision making process.Number 1: First to set my priorities and decide my goals.In this complicated world we cannot fulfill all our desires except if our desires are too few. Number 2: The flexibility which we should allow ourselves to live with.We have become too mechanical and too much of perfectionist.Now being a idealist aint a bad thing but not accepting faliure in the right manner and rising from it is certainly a cause of worry.In other words,dont be too strict to yourself.You win some and you loose some but at the end of your time what will matter the most is : How much you learned from your wins and looses and what diffrence you made to this world.With this I will like to close this post with a purpose in my mind,the purpose to know myself better everyday,to understand and try to figure out where I want to head everyday and spend some more time with my family which by the way is 900 kms from where I reside.

FATE AND DESTINY

2006-03-20T05:05:00.000-08:00

As I start to scribble down my thoughts ,I find it hard for words just wont reach me.The incident which has provoked me to write this piece has already left me speechless but somehow I have to continue for it is necessary for people to read it and recall everytime they find themselves fighting with themselves or with thier destiny.There have been two instances in my life when i have felt the same way.I have always beleived that destiny lies in our hands.Its our karma which decides where we end our lives but sometimes forces of nature force us to change,abort and influence the way we go about spending our lives.

I was away at home whenthe news of a surya kiran plane crash in bidar reached me.Two pilots lost thier lives in a freak accident.I did not take the news seriously or gave it a thought for more than a few seconds till i returned to allhabad this morning.I found out that one of the pilot's was the husband of someone whom I have been knowing for the past three years.He was the husband of my teacher who taught me economics in my 4th semester.She had got married just a few years ago and has a beautiful child.I fail to visualise her state of mind for I had always seen her laughing and smiling.She along with her husband and child were the only faculty members present when we had thrown the fresher's party and she has been a helping force all this time.I have questioned myself time and again that why on earth did it have to happen.Is there no justice in this world.People whose karma we regard as impure laugh throughout thier lives and die ,and people who really make us feel the presence of God (as only he can give rise to such beautiful souls) leave this world in a hurry.They say
WHOM GOD LOVES DIE YOUNG
WHATEVER GOD DOES OCCURS FOR A GREATER CAUSE
Maybe I am acting in a impulsive manner as everyone knew that there was a risk of death in the nature of job taken care by the deceased.But for once I cant stop thinking about my teacher.Thier's was a fairy tail .Both loved each other and had to face stiff opposition before marriage from thier parents side but still they went on and just when they would have been breathing through the most beautiful days of thier lives it came to an end.

The last time I felt like I am feeling today was in 9th standard when a friend of mine died in a car accident.She was the apple of the school.The most talented person in class or perhaps even the school.She was someone who can be easily regarded as an idol no matter what the field of intrest .The whole school mourned in the same way as my whole college is crying but after all these years when I think about her parents it definately takes a part of me away.No matter what place I am at,what activity I am indulged in,it often makes me sad.At times I still try to recall her lovely face and her never give up attitude though I must admit her memories are getting lost into the sands of time .

Now I am feeling a lot pacified,and my mind wants to search for whatever good I can derive from these tragic incidences.The first thing that strikes me is the value for someone as a person,as an associate and a pal.How many times in our lives we disregard our closed ones,we end up fighting with our fellow beings breeding hatred and when we realise that how much of hapiness and goodwill we could have reaped from a certain person,relationship or a casual meeting its too late.We follow our impulses not realising that how sublime our lives are.How things can turn to vapours and disappear in a matter of few seconds.We realise that our worst of enemy could well have been the best of our friends only to find a certain void in us which will never be healed.Other then this they do help us in making us robust and making us remember of a force far greater to be controlled by us.Some call it God ,some fate and others nature but no matter what it is the fact is that it is a force which can affect our lives at anytime and anyway which it wants.We cant fight with it no matter how hard we try,we have to adapt and move on.We have to trust in destiny and somehow make ourselves understand that in the end everything will fall in place.I guess this relationship of fate and destiny has always been present and be it the flora and fauna or be it our sophisticated world,mother nature rules us all and that is one thing which we humans have to remember at every point of our lives.I hope that all of you who will read this will realise how important it is for us to respect such a force and move on rather than staying and fighting against it and more importantly for us to keep on trusting our destinies and moving on after these set backs.

A BEAUTIFUL MIND

2006-02-28T09:54:00.000-08:00

The schedule for my mid semester examinations was announced 15 days ago and today its 28th feb, tuesday and the time is 11:18.Exactly 60 hours remain for them to commence.What my state is like?Well I wont say I am in distress because I dont even know what to study as of now.Havent attended a single class of many subjects and well the only class I attended was of Artificial intelligence course when the professor was generous enough to know why m I not attending his classes.Though I am writing about it quite late,this situation has prevailed over me since the begining of 2nd semester.I started to miss classes and became disillusioned.Tried to revive myself in the begining of 3rd semester,studied for 6 hours a day for 20 days and got burnt out.After that each new semester started with new courses but that didnt change me.Typically my schedule consists of sleeping 4 or 5 hrs,talking to friends,playing loads of computer games,day dreaming and last but not the least entertaining myself a la movies and music.But I wasn't like this from the starting then what really changed me?I wasnt someone who won't study to be a good software proffesional because I could murder someone for being one since I was in 10th standard.My mind tries to peek in reality for once because it has lived in the realms of dream world since long.

Apparently,it is quite clear that I became disillusioned.Disillusioned by the course,by the subjects and the way they were being taught to me,by the way I was marked in the examinations.I was always worried about the freedom to which I can explore in a subject of my intrest and now in 6th semester when my collegaues have published papers ,made projects that have been filed for patents I find myself a little lost in the scenario.Where did I go wrong?Did I take all this a little too easy or I wasnt really intrested in computer sceince itself?

As I am lost in thinking all this a sudden thought strikes my mind.Its about the people who dared to be diffrent and who made a diffrence to the way we are living now.Most of us know about Albert eienstein ,Graham bell but a very few of us know about a great mathematician John Nash.Nash was a impoverished student.He joined princeton and never went to classes.He had the belief of discovering something which was unique.All his colleagues looked down upon him but he persisted.In the third year of his course he changed the face of 200 years of economics.His law of equilibrium was pubhlished that year.Same is the case with one of the great entreprenuars of our times Steve Jobs.He was at 30 when he was fired from the company which he started at the age of 20.But he persisted.Opened pixar and as we know pixar developed the first animated movie and is a leader in cartoon animation since then.Before the launch of macintosh and lisa he was a humble person who used to walk 7 miles every saturday to fetch a meal at the Shri Krishna temple.The examples are endless.We just need to see and learn from them.

So what my wants to reason out is the quality that made them diffrent from other intelligent human beings.The answer comes in swiftly and loudly,its there ability to think diffrent and trust themselves.Its thier ability to persist that what they think will materialize.Dreams we all have,but few of us have the mettle to make them a reality.Self beleif is quintessential to success.There are times in our lives when we feel down,but the power to get up and keep moving is what determines where we reach at the end of our lives.I have always remembered one thing that the ballon flies because of whats inside it and not its colour.When we move through the dark caves with a lantern or many times not even a match stick in out hands we have to keep on beleiving that the cave has a way out.Thats what makes us diffrent.Tens of years of research is needed to accomplish a substantial result.Realisation is important.All that i have written isnt hidden from anyone of us.We all know it but the matter boils down to the fact that how much we are ready to make them a part of our lives.I recently met someone who was feeling sad because she had a fight with her lover and couldnot talk to him for few days.She was someone who had read tens of books on mind and how to deal with the situations.But still she was in distress because she failed to realise all the gyaan .So its my request that whosoever reads this piece not only build a strong faith in his/her abilities but realises it when the need arises.

THE BEAUTY AND THE GEEK

2006-02-26T11:30:00.000-08:00

Well its a sunday and a dance party is going on in its full flow inside the college campus but here I am scribbling the learnings of my mind in my own words to be etched on my heart and this blog for a long period of time if not forever.As I wasnt quite intrested in dancing I decided to see a T.V series.The name of series was the beauty and the geek .They described it to be a social experiment wherein geeks who havent dated or even kissed a girl before get to live with beautiful women with very little and in most cases no I.Q's at all.The idea is the transfer of knowledge and confidence which the individual holds in his/her respective field.Well there were 7 of them in a season and i ended up watching all of them on the trot.And then it began,my insane mind as it always does started calling me up and started to force me to get into the intricacies of what real significance does a beauty or a geek hold in our real lives.Which category I belong to if at all I belong to one and what notions have we built up in our minds regarding these two words.

I wont regard myself as a geek but in genral only about 2 percent of my total friends have had relationships of any kinds and only a few of them have dated women.For me I havent dated women and well I havent even got close to doing so.When I was growing up and reached by teenage age I was told by my parents as most of our parents do that not to indulge in any kind of affairs,to concentrate on my studies and to stay clear of any girl friends.Well I wont say I was hell bent to talk to girls and yes I was very concious about my career but somewhere down the line a slight discomfort zone developed around me.Though my case is very moderate I have friends who are very shy of girls.They all are good students,they have extremely sharp mind,decent looks to say none the less but well the most often phrase that they utter when you are at some mall with them or some theatre for that matter is that a guy with an I.Q of less than 50 percent can have a beautiful girl to spend some time with and I who has taken such and such exam and scored in the top two percent cant even spend two minutes with that girl.Friends are often heard accusing each other of this mental unrest that studios people especially the one's placed in good colleges .But well the fact that many people are disturbed by thier not being comfortable with the fairer sex is visible.Its just a matter of day when one speaks his heart out and is regarded as frustrated for that day.Sometimes I think in pursuit of been regarded as knowledgable and having desire to succed academically we have subsided a whole lot of our desires and feelings.Attraction for the opposite sex naturally comes to us.Its a law of nature but what most of us have been forced to do by our parents or by ourselves is that to deny us of experiencing something that is a part of us to something which we really want to inculcate.Being succesful is good.Infact there is nothing like success but what I question is it worth the social detoriation which we have caused to ourselves.

On the other side of the coin when I think about beautiful girls and well the common boyfriend/girlfriend syndrome that has engulfed us I start feeling rather lucky not to be a part of it.It not only detoriates feelings of trust and faith that one used to associate a relatonship with but also taints a person's charecter.Commitments have grown weaker then the graphite on the pencil lead,relationships end up as a mere tool to use each other and well in the end the party which has had more profit is happy leaving the other in tears for sometime or else both are happy.The meaning of 'holding on to someone' has given way to the principle of 'I dont want to be stuck with him/her all my life'.Phrases like 'it was just an infactuation' ,'i was in a crush' etc have become commonplace in our conversations regarding our relationships.Lesser do we care about what went wrong and why it went wrong.We just want to move on and not even care about what happened.I dare say but a typical pushovers attitude has bethroted us.At the end the result is that we grow unhappy and start running from any kind of rendezvous with the other person.Then we are found trying to be strong and unshakable as if we were made by god to end up as stones.

In my mind now are some questions cropping up such as " why we have reached such a detoriated state?".The answers come with lapses in time and I have to be patient to hear them.Lack of feeling,not being true to oneself and only acting due to peer preassure,busy and complicated life style,the abstract meaning of the word 'freedom' and a lot more are the phrases my mind just whispered to me.I do agree with a lot of those points and to some I have debated with myself and things arent as clear as that should be.I wonder what your mind will whisper to you when you think about this situation but hey do let me know whatever it was.

THE GREATEST WEAPONS EVER -II

2006-02-24T00:24:00.000-08:00

Continuing with my series of posts on the greatest weapons ever I now move on to consider weapons of a diffrent era.This era starts from the early 16th century to the end of second world war.I will give description of three unique firearms here .All of them were considered as the most superior weapon available during thier era.The genral description of these weapons can be that they all belong to the class of weapons which we know as firearms that is the weapons which use to power genrated by combustion of chemical substances.These weapons were more then perfect substitutes for hand to hand melle and long ranged weapons.Needed hardly any training for thier operation and were devastating in nature.Though cavalary was in prominence till the early 19th century but apart from them cannons and arquebuses ruled this era of warfare.The Indrustrial Revolution was the force behind almost every war waged during this period.

WALTER PPK(The Bond Gun At number 3):

James Bond is a modern cowboy and he needs a trusty friend.The PPK fits the bill.It can fit into James bond pocket but it can also fit into his girlfriends handbag just as easy.Its a cult weapon designed in the year 1931 for the German police and later it was adopted by various secret services.Ian fleming ,the creator of 007 and was in British naval inteligence and knew of the reputation of PPK.Its a top of a rank handgun still used prominently by undercover police officers and particularly women.In short its years of reasearch packed into one small light semi automatic pistol.The PPK functions on the principle which is known as Blowback.When a round is fired then the power generated in the bore blows the slide back,the slides collects and another round and you fire your next shot.A person can do so till thier is ammunition in its magazine.The PPK comes inbuilt with a safety mechanism,nice to know if you are tucking one into your pants.If you see the red button(see the snap provided) then you know that safety is off.The drawback of the PPK is that due to its smaller size and concealibility it has to use a smaller bullet( a 380).At the extreme ends of the guns range the bullet might have difficulty in penetrating heavy clothing.So the Bond gun has suprise on its side but lacks the punch that is expected of a truly great weapon.

THE THOMPSON SUB-MACHINE GUN(number-2)

The Thompson its the first submachine gun.Its made by John F Thompson at the end of the first world war for a trench broom.Trenches full of soilders which needed to be cleared out.Closed quater assault where automatic firepower is preferable.It became so iconic that every form of submachine gun tends to be called as a tommy gun and thats fame.The tommy gun enjoyed its finest hour in the hands of allied forces during the second world war and was a personal favourite of British commandos.Firing from the hip in automatic mode ,this gun was capable of spraying 700 rounds per minute.Earlier attempts of making a submachine gun had used smaller bullets,too puny for the job in hand but a tommy gun uses a 45 caliber long cult which is a real man stopper.The only drawbacks of the gun is that its beautiful.The reason they stopped making it was because it costs too much.The other reason is it rattles.So its not good for usage in the quaters where you dont want your enemy to know what your position is.

THE ARQUEBUS(number-1)

This weapon makes me humble and too little to say or write anything about it.Its a weapon that heralded the modern warfare by rethinking the idea of a handgun.Burting its way into prominence in the Battle Of Pavia ,the father,mother aunt and uncle of any modern firearm its the arquebus.When I personally think about the arquebus I think about the changing the state of warfare.There were projectiles that could not be seen which were wounding and killing people.The things that go into the barrels are soft lead balls ,the things that come out of the barrels are lead pieces with a muzzle velocity of 1000 ft/second on impact will do incredible damage.They will be split into pieces,you can be hit in your arms and still have a piece of lead in your heart or the lung.Earlier guns were crued and fired like a firework.The thing about the arquebus was that it provided a wooden stalk so that one can rest the gun on his arms and fire for better accuracy.There were many firing mechanisms the earliest of which is called a matchlock.The match was a paritcularly unsavoury piece of kit as it was soaked in human urine to make it slow burning,Its because of the chemical compound saltpetre found in human urine that gets the match its fizz.Saltpetre is also a component of blackpowder,the soul behind the arquebus.The drawbacks of early blackpowder was that it is a horrible substance.It expands to 300 times its own volume and creates a great white smoke .This leaves a residue into the bore which is called fouling,After 4 or 5 shots the barrel is so chocked up that one cannot physically run down a ball down the breach.So what one has to do is produce a musket ball which is undersized and as it travels down the bore it collides with the bore side leaving the bore astray.So the arquebus is definately not a precision weapon.The arquebus is designed for mass volley fire for which one needs lots of people and lots of arquebuses.Its like firing a whole range of shotgun balls down at the enemy.The side which first broke was the side which genrally lost.As an individual weapon an arquebus needs a lot to be desired of but it surely deserves its place at the top for inspiring all form of firearms.

THE BATTLE OF PAVIA:

(Feb. 24, 1525), the decisive military engagement of the war in Italy between Francis I of France and the Habsburg emperor Charles V, in which the French army of 28,000 was virtually annihilated and Francis himself, commanding the French army, was taken prisoner. Francis was sent to Madrid, where, the following year, he concluded peace and surrendered French claims to Italy.

The French army had been besieging the city of Pavia, 20 miles (30 kilometres) south of Milan, when the 23,000-man Habsburg army under Fernando Francisco de Avalos, marchese di Pescara, arrived to aid the 6,000-man garrison and lift the siege. A hasty French attack was on the point of encircling Pescara when 1,500 Spanish arquebusiers opened fire on the rear of the French cavalry and riddled the ranks of the French and their allied Swiss infantry. The French attacks thereafter, made by German and Swiss mercenary infantry, were routed. The Spanish counterattack, supported by the Pavia garrison, which joined in the battle, completely swept the French from the field, destroying Francis' army as a fighting force in the process. Spanish hegemony in Italy dates from this battle.

SLEEPLESS IN PENITENTIARY

2006-02-22T09:06:00.000-08:00

How often in our lives do we sit back and think about the situations,the people,the events taking place around us but not affecting in a direct manner.Not very often but perhaps for Tsunami or flood or for that matter bird flu in a certain part of the country,we are forced to think about sufferings of the people.Our lives have grown busy and complex ,but does this way of living entitle us to turn a blind eye to the events that are inseperable part of our society and of a great importance.I am talking about prisons and correction facillties and about our attitude towards the people who spend thier terms waiting for the day when they will be able to breathe free air.

The history of penitentiary goes back to the most ancient of civillizations.Be it Egyptian or Mesopotamian civillization slaves and prisoners have been always lurking in the mists of time ,thier status almost neglegible,thier states even worse.With the development of human beings the development of social culture took place.A basic code of conduct came into a picture which we know as law.An individual is expected to follow the law or else he/she is entitled to punishment is a fact that is even know to a small child for he also has to suffer when he disobeys his parents.Society is treated as the mother of every individual which resides in the aegis of it but then what I ask is that have we treated the culprits in the same manner the parents treat thier child who has just broken a glass vessel.I dont even know that how many of you reading this post must have bothered to think about the state of penitentiary before this but for a moment I want to stop and think about the state of minds of people who spend years and years in the same place.

I have spent around two and a half years in my hostel room and in the same campus,and to tell you the truth I have grown jaded by the uniformity of events and landscape.Compared to my room a jail ward is much smaller.I wonder how it will be to spend all those years ,walking back to the same place,waiting for the same time when the lights will be out and when you will lay back and think that one more day of your sentence has passed and now you will breathe free air sooner then yesterday.Freedom they say is a man's most wanted state.Our fundamental rights are all related to freedom and I guess thats why we have found a perfect way to punish the culprits..By snatching thier freedom away from them.Some people end up spending some of the best years of thier lives in prisons.I wonder how it will be to meet your loved ones just once a month or maybe even less.We adjudged people as criminals and banished them from our society not knowing that what we have led them to.Emotional disturbances and physical abuse is commonplace in the institution which we have constructed for reveiving the bad and the ugly.Homosexuality,gang wars,bribery,exploitation are just a few bad sides to our so called 'correction facillities'.

'So what should we do?' is a question thats disturbing me now.Under no strech of my imagination can I treat a crime as a misplaced and sad sequence of events and neither can I let the criminals go free.Law indeed is above us all and that is why there is a certain decorum in our society but still have we only learnt to punish people for thier wrong doings in a way that they can never have thier self respect back.I want to quote here a line from The Holy Bible.Jesus Christ has appealed to
FORGIVE A CULPRIT 7 TIMES 70
and according to one of the interpretations its not 7 multiplied by 70 but 7 raised to the power of 70.Not only the bible but be it any religion forgiveness is a omnipresent virtue expected to be inhibited by its followers.Not only we end up punishing them but also snatching thier place in the society forever.A very big problem that I will like to address by narrating a ture story is:

A man murdered his wife at the age of 35 after 10 years of his marriage when he came to know that she had an affair with someone.He was a teacher in a high school then.He was sentenced to 20 years of prison without a parole.He spent all that time and when he came out he found the world around him is now a diffrent place.As his teaching were not needed anymore he was assigned a small job in a departmental store by the parole officers.Because of lack of physical competency he got frustrated and due to lonliness and emotional distress commited suicide just a year after his sentence was completed.
Stories like these are common .Prisoners who spend more then 10 years often find it hard to get to terms with the society and live rest of thier lives in seclusion.Although the crime he commited cannot be justified but then how can we justify the loss of one more life and some of the best years of one's life.How will soceity pay for the loss of hundreads of students that he would have taught and made his contributions to the society.

As I begin to think more and more about this situation my mind wants to venture into the solution part of this problem.On one side we know that we cannot let criminals let go and on the other side we them to be an active part of the society.Perhaps its much more difficult then it sounds but then impossible also says i am possible.As an example India's first woman IPS officer Kiran Bedi took a great intiative when she was incharge of Tihar jail.All the inmates were to take part in yoga excercises without the presence of any armed security guards.Every sunday for a 3 months this excercise was carried out and at the end of it the incidences of violence in the jail went down dramatically.Inmates were found to be more calm and composed in thier daily routines.She took a great intiative and proved the point that inmates can be as peaceful and as cultured as any other human being iff given the chance.Her voices are now lost in the sands of times and Tihar jail once again has an increased crime rate.No other penitentiary in India has such routines whereby the inmates are allowed to mix themselves with the common people.Possible solutions like mental conditioning,freedom atleast to be able to be in contact with the outside world and a better living enviorment are a few necessities we have to impart to the inmates before we put them behind bars for years .Some will question me by stating that it will be too expensive and maybe impractical but I ask them that are those people a lesser part of society then we people are.And if your answer is no then how can we be entitled to make our fellow brothers suffer and snatch from them the basic amenities which seperate a human from an animal.

ITS BETTER TO BURN THEN TO FADE AWAY

2006-02-21T07:09:00.000-08:00

KURT COBAIN(1967-1994)

The day of 5th April 1994,a man shot himself with a shotgun in the greenhouse area of his house.That man was Kurt Cobain.I know not how many of you know about Cobain but he was the lead singer of the rock band which we all know as NIRVANA.He left a suicide note which had a line
"ITS BETTER TO BURN THEN TO FADE AWAY"
The rest of the post is not about the person but about the inhumane act that he commited.I picked up the newspaper one morning and the last column of the front page carried a story which almost shocked me.It was about the suicide of a prominent t.v actress who commited suicide because she couldn't get to terms with her lover.I was numb for a few seconds as my intellect failed to understand the depth of plight of the lady for it was abusing the lack of courage in a person whom thousands love and hundreads idealize.

Acknowledgement is a state which a human always strives for.Acknowledgement to a person is what steam is to preassure cooker,what petrol is to car and what love is to life.A person looses the intent for living and the desire to achieve when he finds himself in a position of not being acknowledged by people whom he wants acknowledgement from.The moment this occurs depression sets in.Be it a break-up between a girlfreind and a boyfreind or be it the non satisfaction of parents even when thier child did his/her best,the only result of it is profound sadness and a state of distress.Some of us grow impulsive and some of us like to isolate ourselves from the world when such occasions arise .But most of us get over it .My mom recites a maxim to me whenever I am sad.She says " Sadness and Happiness are two shades of life.And as night follows day and day follows night they keep following each other".I am quite sure that all of us know it by now but the question is how much do we realize it.The times when we are sad we dont make efforts to understand and see the better side of it,rather we keep on cribbing about the past.Understandably,this is what human nature is about but does that mean that we should ever even try to commit a suicide.

Our lives are not our lives because we are bound to people.People who are affected when we are sad or when we are happy and people who will be affected because of our absence.We belong to the land where philianthropists like Karna were born.How can we be so selfish to all the people who love us.And even if for a moment I stop to think about the people around me ,then also how does a suicide justify me as a person.How can a person be defeated by himself.

A very common phenomena that i have noticed is that we people are too strict with ourselves.We dont want to accept defeat and keep moving towards our destinies rather we stop and start to crib about what has went wrong.We have become more ruthless to ourselves than to our enemies.People can be heard saying baffling phrases like, i want to be a strong individual.I dont want any emotions for anyone.I want to be alone".Usually this is the state after a major setback but what I ask is that why cant we let the defeat affect us in a positive manner?Why cant we let emotions rule over us and let them affect us in the way they want to?Why cant we be calm and think rationally?

At this point I am forced to think and reason out the factors that have led to the change in our mental attitude when we meet a failure.First and foremost the overhyped and elusive peer preassure comes to my mind.Its quite ture that peer preassure is a lot in our lives.Its a part of life that we live with .Be it our professional life or our personal we dont want to lag behind our colleagues and friends or else they will banter us.We dont want to be called loosers.I ask here just a small question that if the people who ridicule me if i dont have the same salary as them or if I cant be comfortable with a certain section of people can be my true friends?The other factor is obviously not being able to acheive a certain degree of achievement which we had strived for.Here again i want to just shed some light on the same point which is the soul of this post that why cant we see our failures as a step closer to our destinies?There can be some other factors too but no matter what factor comes to my mind I can never reason out the code of conduct adopted by so many people.

How can a bullet,a pill or a rope be a solution to the problem which has orignated in our minds?How can we possibly sweep the problem under the carpet rather then facing the adverse circumstances?These questions have baffled me and made me ponder over them on and off and today I find it safe enough to say that no matter the degree of adversity ,every individual has born with a soul which can see him/her through the worst of times.The only effort required by us is to enlighten ourselves spiritually and realise the deep meaning of life which lies much more in acheivement.Which lies in the realms of Karma and not the result,which deals with the effort to transform this earth into the Kingdom Of Heaven.

To end this post i will like to quote a sentence.The sentence was entreched on the cieling of a blacksmiths workshop who ended up saving hundreads and thousands of life which hadnt been possible if he had commited suicide after his wife's death.The person was Baliean .

WHAT MAN IS A MAN WHO DOESNT LEAVE THIS EARTH A BETTER PLACE

and for sure leaving this world by killing oneself is not making this world a better place.
Want to keep on writing but i guess i will take a break now and maybe I will add a few things later.

THE GREAT INDIAN MARRIAGE TRICK

2006-02-19T20:06:00.000-08:00

Our nation has gained reputation for Mahatma Gandhi,Kamasutra and The Great Indian Rope trick the world over but there is a lot more our nation can boast of.Its a nation where great marriages are made.The keyword here being MADE.It is a commong sight for us to find our mothers and aunty's talking about the various possible matches,scrutinizing to an extent that can even leave stock market analysists ashamed.Sometimes I am tempted to inquire that where did such thing which we know as "Arranged Marriage" started.

Arrange marriage does have a prominent presence in all the ancient cultures of the world but the question is if as an individual we are ready to commit ourselves to this long prevalent custom of ours.As for me arranged marriage is an institution which debars an individual to exercise his basic right of freedom.Maybe I sounds a little harsh but in most cases,its the only truth.The two parties involved are least concerned about the individuals to be betrothed.They seem to be only concerned about the economic status, social class, educational levels and even astrology rather then how the two of them mutually feel about each other.In a society of ours where love is still considered a taboo by majority such system obviously justifies its prevalence .

I m not a marrige expert and neither have I been in many relationships but I find it safe enough to say that for two individuals to be sharing thier lives and respecting each other,love is necessary .Though there is no defination of what love is but in most cases the least essential criteria for two people to be in love is to know each other.When we talk about the kind of relationships which our parents had forged or which a lot of us are going to forge we can easily see absence of love ,atleast in the starting point of a relationship if not the latter.The bride and the groom hardly get to meet each other.They talk over phone a lot perhaps or chatt a lot but interaction is restricted to a limit.Neither of them seems to be courageous enough to tell all about his/her life simply because the stakes are too high.But what i question is that if someone is so scared and cant even tell me the truth ,then how can I trust that person throughout my life for trust is the basis of any relationship,be it friendship or love.

This is not all but a small part of how harmful arrange marriages are for the individuals themselves .The worst part of it is for potential brides.How many times a young girl has to parade in front of some strangers carrying cups of tea trying to vow them or expecting them to be vowed.How many times she has to face insult from her parents and relatives when she fails to do so. We in mordern India talk about Women Empowerment but how often we look at this dark side of how we treat them as mere objects.I fail to understand why our parents or relatives continue to do that.How can they turn a blind eye to this when they have nurtured the girl as thier heart and soul for so many years.But is all happens and we accept it because it is a part of our so called 'Great Culture'.Great becomes truly great when everyone accpreciates and aknowledges it and though our culture is really great but institutions like arranged marriage are a blot on it.

At this point of time I m forced to ask myself that why does an arrange marrige work?I have debated over love vs. arrange marriage point with many of my elders and the only shield they posses is that arrange marriage works.But i ask ,that what is the defination of a marriage that works to them.In most of the cases it works because of the lack of expectations from both the sides.Their are no expectations and the roles for both individuals in more or less bound.Is this the essence of what we call a happy life.Long have we heard our parents teaching us to get into good colleges and good comapnies thereafter just to earn fat salaries and get good lifepartners.But does my salary or my education or my employer decide the kind of person I am.We are born in the land of virtues,and are my elders telling me that my virtues depend on the salary that i earn?A love marriage might fail but atleast I will know that it was my decision and how my feelings changed for my counterpart over the time period and why they changed?Atleast thier will be a sense of expectation and a whole lot of trust on her.Someone whom I can share my deepest fears and crazy desires with,someone on whose side i want to wake up every morning..Not someone who brings me a cup of tea and says suniye ji utth jaiye because she knows what her role is but someone who can even order me at times to make breakfast for her today.

The more I think about it the more I am tempted to write.Dowry demands and the culture of spending high amounts of money on marriages are all the banes of an institution which we know as arrange marriage.If only someone can redeem countless women who died because of bursting gas stoves maybe and only maybe I may weaken my stand against it.Till that happens i really wish that all the us reform ourselves.

MC D'S COMES TO ALLAHABAD

2006-02-19T07:55:00.000-08:00

I had to compose this post because this is the best thing that has happened to me in a while i suppose.I am a big burger fan and I used to love munching away at Mc. donalds burgers and shakes.What can be better for tight budgeted person like me who took as much pleasure in having the burger as in bird watching.Spending some good time with friends and watching almost every possible cricket match sipping cola and yelling with 100's of people was one thing i used to be an imperative part of.But since i had joined by college in allahabad it had become quite a rarity.The discontent has been ended by this event.Although i havent been there as yet but for sure I m going to fetch me a nice chese burget tomorrow.The problem was not only the absence of Mc.D's in allahabad but also lack of food joints here.There are hardly any decent food joints in allahabad and if you drop in for a visit to sangam make sure you better be ready to have only average food because you don't have any dominos or pizza huts or for that matter maurya sherattons here.I have heard a multiplex is soon going to be operational here which is another refreshing news.Since i have joined my college i have only seen 4 movies in the theatre because most of them were really inhospitable.I guess at the end of the third year of my studies i will finally get some respite from the boredom of this place where the only playtoys are computer games or internet.Ending this post with a dream that I should get into a B-school were such necessities are readily avaialable else i will have to end all my college life in studying which can promise good placements but cities which cant provide you entertainment.

THE DAY WHEN I FLUNKED

2006-02-19T04:54:00.000-08:00

I know not what has inspired me to post the stuff which i m going to but i guess maybe its one of those days when you look back at some of the most disappointing days of your life.I have already bunked my Career Launcher class, not to post about my failure but i suppose to spend sometime with myself .Ever since i was a child,I have been treated as a gifted individual.Someone who has above average as far as I.Q is concerned.My teachers used to discuss that why am i not standing first in the class .Sometimes they used to tell my mother that they are amazed by the magnitude and depth of questions i inquire about.But all this faded away from my memory,from my parents memory and i guess from the memories of every single individual who had faith in me on the day when i flucked.Presently I am studying in a college where only the top 2 percent students get admission and where the strength is 120.My batchmates are board exam toppers and almost all of them used to top thier respective classes but for me I have never stood in top three students of my class.But this is not the story about how i made it to where I am but its the story of my failure which inspired me.

The incident i want to talk about happened to me about 5 years ago when i was studying in class 11th in Army school Ambala Cantt.My 10th class board results cant be termed as good under any spectrum of scrutiny.I got a mere 76 percent and the subject which i trusted most namely Maths failed me badly .The story picks up when i joined the so called elusive non-medical stream .I knew of IIT from the time i was in class 8th.People has branded me already as IIT brain and obviously the expectations were very high from me.So to accomplish my goal of making it to the IIT's i joined a small coaching institute I.C.D.I. I started ignoring the standard course and concentrated more on the competition exams.It was in september that the half-yearly exams were held and results were declared soon afterwards.For the first time in my life i flunked.Not only in one subject but in two of them,namely Maths and Physics.I remember the exact marks that i had scored.In maths it was 12.5/100 and in physics i got 21/70.It was obviously a shock for me.No matter how meagre my preperations were i had never failed before.But still I dint take much notice of this early warning and kept slogging at organic chemistry that is taught during BSc course in colleges.My chemistry teacher who still asks about me from my cousins studying in the same school said in front of the class that i should give up IIT preperation and go for a PHD. in chemistry.I was obviously very elated or ever more so i was riding in the air and dint even realise that I am about to fall.I tried to stop my parents from visiting my teachers for the first time in my life.I pleaded them that my performance has been very poor and it wont happen again.I couldn't possibly hurt them by letting them know of my failure in such unusual fashion.My animosity with the maths teacher grew.It was so much so that i had to stand out of the class for the only time of my school life.I know not what had tempted him to do so but from what i felt was that he was trying to take his spite out on me because i had joined a coaching centre for competition preperation and not his tution class.

Terminals were announced to be held in the first week of december and this time i was all prepared to have my vengenance on the two subjects in which i had failed.First came physics which was a piece of cake for me and then arrived maths ,which was a bit on the tougher side.When the results were declared i found myself failing in maths again.Out of a paper of 30 i was only able to score 9.5 .I just needed a 1/2 marks to pass and show my parents the result.I went to the maths teacher and inquired that why he has deducted marks unnecessarily.He rejected my plea and said my marks wont be increased.I was very disappointed and started shying away from attending maths classes or even studying maths.

Final exams arrived in march and it was do or die for me.I prepared a little bit for other subjects but for maths i didnt studied much and even if i did i wasnt able to grasp the thing the way i did in physics and chemistry.I took the maths exam knowing very well that i need above 50 to pass the exam and to be promoted to the last exam.I only scored 36.5/100.I did pass the final examination but i wasnt able to acheive the minimum aggregate required for passing this course.So then a re-test was scheduled for all the students falling under my category.I had scored fairly in all other subjects so i was quite confident that the teacher will help me and pass me so that i can be promoted to class 12th.The re-test went well .When i came out of the exam hall i calculated my marks to be around 60/100 and was feeling satisfied enough to pass the exam about which i hadnt really cared ever.To my dismay when the results were declared i had failed.Not only that i scored a mere 28 .All the others passed that exam and i was the only student in the class of 40 who had failed.It was a spectre terrorizing me every moment till the next month.I was so ashamed that i couldnt even talk to my parents and my grandfather.My chachaji and grandfather along with me went to the Principal to convince him if they could promote me to 12th standard.He simply refused and i was nearly in tears because i had let so many people down.And when i saw my grandfather standing there in the office i swore to myself that i am gonna take out my vengenance for the place i have been put into.

After much of a hustle i was finally awarded a pass certificate with a condition that i can no longer study in Army School Ambala Cantt.I had studied in this school since my 5th standard.I had developed as an individual because of this institution and to be very true it was a matter of great shame for me because i will loose the right of being an alumunus of the school which i so deeply loved.

But my peril didnt end there.I got addmission in DAV public school ambala city and studied for the next of the year like a sincere student that i always was.I kept failing in maths in that school too till the board examinations arrived.I scored 84 in boards and cleared the screening examination for IITJEE which only 13 others cleared from the whole of city.So it was a little sort of revenge for me for i had shown all the people that I am as capable as anyone else.I never talked to my maths teacher of Army school but i guess now i have given up on him.I feel that no matter what he did,be it unfair or fair,it turned out good for me and i guess all is well that ends well, though i have just started my journey towards the apex of my destiny.

This experience was a great leveller for me and for once i came to know the true essence of the phrase that failures are the pillars of success.I learnt a lot about people and how they behave and change according to the circumstances.What true friends are and who are the people who are just intrested in using you.When i remember those days i still get some tears in my eyes for i remember walking briskly in the verandah challenging the whole world to throw whatever bad thing are instored for me and how i will surivive all the mallice and hate to rise like a phoneix from its ashes.

CORRUPTION IN INDIAN LAWBODIES

2006-02-16T12:05:00.000-08:00

THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA

Today was a busy day for me.After the India- Pakistan match which was comfortably won by india ,i resumed a bit of quants .Had my dinner quite early around 2000 hrs and now while writing this post i m feeling quite hugry.Still what prompted me to write this piece right here and right now are two instances in my life when i found myself feeling really guilty about the state of indian law.
No.1 : A friend of mine told me a story which i will talk about a bit later and
No.2:My tryst with a policeman.

Firstly, I will like to tell you about the story which one of my friends narrated to me about 3 years ago.My friends father is a criminal lawyer and it was just by a chance that when we were discussing about law in india,my friend was also present.I am forced to use my friend everywhere because it might not be appropriate to name him here i will call him A for the sake of anonymity.So,now A begins to reciete us a story which was a real life incident which he faced in his 8th standard.One beautiful morning A was excercising in the lawn of his home when he noticed three police jeeps halting in front of the gate.He witnesses a 40 year old inspector get off from the jeep and walk towards his home.He quickly opens the gate and lets them in.The inspector asks him about the whereabouts of his father.He runs inside calls his father and requests the police party to make themselves comfortable.His father steps out of the door and is immediately accosted by A. A was in 8th standard at the time of incident and so was bewildered by the routines of policemen.So, now he runs to his father and quietly starts to pay attention to the talk between the inspector and his father.
The inspector informs his father ,who is a criminal lawyer by proffession that there has been a murder few weeks ago and that they desperately need someone to acquit.He also tells A's father of his motive to acquit a few small robbers they had caught hold of just last night.A's father just smiles and says "That will be fine".Then inspector is again concerned about what weapon he should present in the courtroom (the weapon with which the victim was murdered).A's father tells him to run into the house and bring him a big dagger hanging on the wall of thier drawing room.A returns with it and gives it to his father who in turn gives it to the inspector and says "Here you are,a perfect weapon.Dont worry about the rest of the thing,I will take care of it".The inspector departs with a grin on his face.

The second incident concerns me as a subject.I was returning from Delhi in a car after taking the main examination for IITJEE about three years ago.I live in Ambala and the highway from Delhi to Ambala is a very good one where cars easily touch 100ks/hr.We had covered more then half of the journey and just near Kurukshetra we came acroos a police crossing where our car was stopped.The driver was not using the seat belts and that was his crime.So its me ,my mom and the driver in the car.Although i was 18 years old at that time but i myself hadnt ever tried to manipulate a policeman or bribed anyone.As the car halted a policemen quickly marched towards me.Before i could even open the door of the car he was standing right next to it.He starts off in a fashion which is quite usual to bollywood movie and says "Do you know what all we can do for this carelessness on your side.Not only was the driver using seatbelts he was also driving above the valid speed".I was numb and did not know how to react to the situation when suddenly he softens his stand and says "Dont worry it will be a fine of 800 bucks.I should get the receipt".I say allright sir and wonder that what a bad day am i having.Then i am a little baffled when he says again "Dont worry i should get the receipt"and then almost without a pause he says"I am going to get the receipt".When he uttered that third time a voice from a lonely corner of my mind shouts out "U fool what are you doing..offer him a bribe..".I take the bait and offer him a bribe of 400 bucks and so its settled.

So guys that was that.I really wonder how poor my friend would have felt and how much it would have affected him as a child.And the point is that things like these happen everyday.Its just that we people do not realise it until it happens to us or to someone close to us.But then its too late.Everyday some directors will come out with movies like satya,apaharan etc etc but we just seem to enjoy the fizz of the cola and crack of the pop corn much more than asking our souls about what should be done and how it should be done to free ourselves from this double cancer of crime and corruption.Personally,when i reached home after the incident I felt like I have cheated myself like never before.If someone will force me into a situation which is benefitial but not justified..will i take it?I thought that how petty a sum of 400 bucks is and still I just corrupted myself to save them.Maybe it was because it was a very small fault on part of the driver but still i couldnt justify my actions then and i cant justify them now.It is said that one cannot cheat himself or herself but everyday in some way or the other we do it.We go to restuarants and ask them for kacha bills because we know we will save 10 percent of the money this way.What we forget is the state is loosing that amount of money and more.Also one other thought that leads us to this kind of behaviour is the governments inability to perform and deliver.We hardly look forward to something fruitful being implemented by the government and hence shy from our duties towards the state.But i ask all of the people reading this piece that how can we justify our actions on the pretext of inability of a few people.We are a nation of 100 million and counting but how many of us feel responsible for our country.When we watch a cricket match each one of us is like supporting India and feeling good about it but when a decent man stands up to fight up againt a group of impostor politicians or bereaucrats we seldom step up.I can go on with this post forever and wont be able to affect mind of people,but the people who will matter would have already been affected .Closing it here,may add a few more thing later.

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY

2006-02-13T22:06:00.000-08:00

Maybe and just maybe i should have posted this a bit earlier but i guess i follow the aphorism "better late then never ".So here i am writing about valentines day.First of all wishing a very happy valentines day to all the readers of my blog.Maybe cupid strike you as and when you wish.Though there is a lot happening on valentines day every year and i guess this year wasnt diffrent at all i have some reservations as far as this particular day is concerned.Why only this day i guess all the other so called choclate day,fathers day,friends day and the list goes on.Not that i am a Shiv Sainik shouting insane slogans and trying desperate to save my so called "Indian culture " from being rottened by its counterpart ,namely "Western culture",but i feel that these days are double edged weapons.Double edged weapons in the sense that they can be occasions when we remember our near and dear ones and they can be instances when we shower our love for just that day and take comfort thinking that our commitments have been fulfilled.
All of us have friends and everyone agrees that friendship matures when we spend time with our friends.Especially in colleges and hostels where longlasting relationships our developed ,people understand it that how every meal,every nightout,every exam etc has helped in knowing a person better.But how many times it occurs that we have a passive friendship where we just remember to send a card on friendshipday and that too thanks to the reminders we had set for a particular list of people.In other words how often our friends become restricted to a list of people whom we bother for once in a while.People with whom we had shared some of the most wonderful times seem a burden to us when we have to reply to thier mails and letters.
Life surely is much more busier nowadays,no doubts about that but how can we let our commitments ,our friends just disappear into some Kilobytes of memory which is a part of a very large server lets say yahoo or msn?? or just a paper card or a phone call.Though these days give us an oppurtunity to remember our friends and dear ones once again but they also provide us with ammunition to just shut our commitments in a small room.
Love is a beautiful experience if at all i can encapsulate love in the word experience.But what Valentine day or Lovers day has significance for most of us.Its just another excuse for flirting around..isnt it??A person walks into a crowded mall in New Delhi on 14th feb. and you know there can only be two possibilities.Either he/she is with his/her partner or are waiting for him to arrive or else they are trying to find someone to spend a evening with.Its not always the case but yes its genrally this case.So how do we justify these kinds of actions then?An excuse to taint love ,on the pretext of boasting of dating a gal on the V-day or just as spending our liesure time in flirting around with someone and having fun.Either of the case,love does loose its meaning for people.Maybe thats a reason why people these days are often heard saying"True love is really hard to find these days".
So where have we lost our our way?Is it because of these so called special days or is it just because of our fast moving busy lives where one seldomly thinks seriously about anyone else.Even if for once I make myself understand all this,what really makes me feel sad is that people involved know not where they want to reach and what will all this lead them too.
The other question which disturbs me is that do these days even represent a day worthy of rememberance in a relationship.A day in any relationship is remembered when both the sides feel truly happy,when you share your darkest past,your greatest fear just like you have been saying all that to yourself for all these years.Probably you are so busy in making your partner happy by fetching the tickets for the most happening disc on V-day that you forget what really contitutes your relationship.All in all,the more i say the more i feel like expressing but for once there exists a very clear thought in my mind that yes,these days are of a certain relevance but the prominence which we have given to such occasions is way out of bounds..
So my friends,dont let the ball go out of bounds and live every moment of your life.

FAMILY-2006

2006-02-13T10:33:00.000-08:00

I was sitting quietly in my room when i suddenly heard a thud on door.Someone was surely practising some Bruce Lee style combat moves on my door.Taking a crictical look at the situation i instantaneously realised that i am better off in letting the savage fellow inside my room or else the door will be shattered.As soon as i opened the door i saw three of my closest and dearest dorm mates standing outside.The Career Launcher class in which all four of us have enrolled was finished about two hours ago and though we had to take a lot of whipping from the teachers we still were in jubiliant mood as India yet again thwarted Pakistan by 5 wickets.They quickly entered in my room when suddenly one of them ordered me to play a new movie.The other two nodded in his favour.Its a custom in our hostel then when we have visitors then we treat them as the masters of the room.Although it may sound a bit odd but isnt it the same guidelines of "Attithi Devo Bhava" which have been engraved on our mindfields since we were children."So which movie should I play?" i asked them.Obviously there was a small debate over this issue as we all have diffrent choices and every person has the right to express it but sooner then later it was clear that it has to be some new hindi flick.I guess that was all that was the needed.With a few clicks of my mouse i start surfing through the movie server which my lovely alma mater has provided for all its students.In the recently downloaded section i find a movie named Family with the starcast as Amitabh Bachaan.I guess that was all that was required for me and i quickly copied and started playing the movie.
Now here comes the good part or should i say the part which really made me think.All of us were watching the movie with a sense of emotion which is quite understandable as all of us have been away from home for atleast three years if not more.The short breaks are too small and as far as I m concerned I don't spend more then 20 days in a year at home.The movie ended and two of my friends made thier way to the computer centre whilst one walked lazily to his room.So i was left alone in my room with nothing much to do and just to think about my surroundings and the situations and people who affect me directly or indirectly.I cudnt even start & think about my day for a profound thought was consuming me.They say media affects you a lot and in this case it was to be true.Trying to uncover all the views and various subjects potrayed in the movie and keepin myself in a neutral position I started to place myself in thier places and asked myself if I would have acted in the same manner.After much of thinking and reciprocating i could see some words printed on the newsprint of my mind.The past memories were taking over the present and i found myself in a state of "Mea Culpa".Mea Culpa on the part that how much i had ignored by family at times.Mea Culpa because of not returning them with love when i was showered with it.Mea Culpa for shying from my responsibities at time.
There were so many other instances that it all looked like a spectre trying to consume my soul everytime i try to go deeper into the cave of my mind.Guilt was the most prominent state i was in for a few minutes but then i pacified myself in order to find the reasons and get into the details of the things which led me away from my family.Was it just selfishness on my part or were my priorities changing?Was i acting abnormal or is it the same with most people of my age?With mind full of questions i set out from my room to take a few rounds of the garden still searching for the answers which seem distant.What i found was that most of people did play there part in the families but at moments priorities did change.Ignorance did rule for a while.Be it spending time with your girlfriend when its time for you to go back home and meet the parents who are so eagerly waiting for you or be it the assignments and projects that you have undertaken when you should be with your parents.All of my colleagues at some point or the other had the same sense in that.We humans really are filled with qualities which are oxymornons to each other.At one time we can be as cold as stone and yet we can melt like wax in a matter of minutes.Emotions rule high and ever more so since the hectic life which we are leading nowadays.
Probably i did what was the best for me and my family back then but now i regard myself as thier culprit.Maybe they dont see a criminal in me but for me a sense of guilt has developed.Maybe this will blow over after sometime but one thing that has changed is that I will definately think about my family a lot more then I usually did.Hope all of you who read this piece also learn something for I know that we miss our families a lot but do very little about it.

THE GREATEST WEAPONS EVER (part-1)

2006-02-12T20:45:00.000-08:00

This series of posts is exclusively dedicated to some of the greatest weapons the face of earth has even seen.The weapons which have changed the course of history and the fortunes of civillizations.This will be a three part series and the weapons will be divided according to the era of thier maximum use and affect.The three groups are medival age weapons,blackpowder and early 20th century weapons and lastly modern firearms.
The Medival Period Weapons
The medival age warfare was restricted to castle and fighting in masses.We start our story from around 900A.D and will move on till the dawn of 17th century.The first weapon in consideration here is KATANA.
KATANA (no.4)
Katana first appeared around 900A.D.In the hands of samurai it was a symbol of warrior mindset.As we all know samurai's followed a tough code of conduct known as bushido .The high standards needed in order to fufill thier tasks made it neccesary for them to possess a weapon of highest standard.Katana fits the bill.Katana is a single edged sword with a slightly curved shape which facitillates it spending more time in the cut.This is extremely neccesary as the longer the sword spends in the cut the deeper it cuts.These swords are capable of cutting a human from his neck right down to his groin with a single blow.The anatomy of katana starts and ends with its blade.The genius of Japnese blacksmiths lie in creating a blade which is both hard and flexible.This is acheived by coating the finished blade with clay and controlling its rotar coolling.This means that katana will be both sharp and shatter proof.In hands of samurai its a very potent tool.The tactics involved with the use of katana were of deception rather then swinging swords like baseball bats.The average katana fight only lasted for a few seconds.Though in comparison to any other sword this 5 foot centre-piece of samurai beats hands down but its limited to its use geographically and never could affect this world in a big way.

THE WAR BOOMERANG (no.3)
It sounds funny these days if i state that the boomerang was a potent weapon at a time but the relevance of the boomerang cannot be undone as it had an equivalent in all the civilizations.The Egyptian hunting stick was one such weapon which had some aerodynamic properties.Lets travel 40,000 years into the mists of time and see what events are taking place in the smallest continent of our times Australia.The Aborigenes are a peaceful lot of people but at that time they did have thier own set of troubles.The Australian boomerang is a weapon with which we can easily relate us to.Most of us have formed a picture of boomerang in our minds and the picture is of boomerang.The technology behind the boomerang is one of aerofoils.Intresting as it sounds the returning australian boomerang had small aerofoils on its curved surface.A commendable feat as they discovered the principle of aerofoils by pure trial and error.Though this is were the story of boomerang ends as it lacks the difinitive punch to hurt people bigger then a size of koala.

THE PIKE (no.2)
The pike is from way back to Alexander The Great's era.Tha roman phalanx was the most dreaded formation of his times.The pike follows the axiom "Simple Is Better".The good thing about pike is its impact when used in mass ranks.In medival period a group of peasants could be trained in very few minutes to weild this weapon and truly there is no such weapon which falls in this category.It is a long wooden shaft with an iron spear attached to its end.The real use of pike was in the start of 13th century when stirruped cavalary was blasting into way into prominence.The horsemen will get "Kababed" by the pikes or else the horses will themselves stop short of the pikes because they know you get hurt that way!!.All the modern millitary drills have their bases in the pike drill.The Swiss gaurds are a pike force looking after the security of pope for more then 500 years now.the drawback of pike is in one on one combats.It proves to be highly ineffective if the ranks are broken and so it only can get to no.2.

THE LONGBOW (no.1)
If a person enquries that which is the best weapon for you then only one reply can suffice "The weapon which changes the course of history,the one which builds the fortunes of people".For once reality is more then matched by fantasy.The Longbow was the most deadly weapon of its time.Used by the English Kings its tactical use led them to conquer whereever they went.In essence a longbow is a very very simple thing.It is a bent stick and therefore the best wood to make it from is "Yu" wood.This piece of timber is chosen for its strength,its density and its bendibility.There are kills in the ranges of 300 yards.The history of longbow begins with a ruthless king named Edward the longshanks-2.He banned all the spots except archery on sundays and all the peasants were to be trained in archery.A arrow shot out from the right bow could penetrate a breast plate.The longbow terrified The French..it terrified Europe.The French Knights had no idea what had hit them the way it penetrated their armour who were hitherto invunreable to such strikes.As far as statistics go then the speed of released arrow was 193 feet per second and they used to fire 6 or 7 arrows a minute.So it was the machine gun of its day.The only thing which led to the downfall of this wonderfully acurate and effective weapon was blackpower.But as winston churchill pointed out..the speed of shooting ,the acuracy and the use of longbow was not overthrown until the rifle barrel of the American Civil War ..which is an incredible thing to think.
With this ends the first part of greates weapons ever.Part -2 will be posted soon.Till then enjoy!!!!!!!

THE CRUSADES (part-1)

2006-02-12T08:41:00.000-08:00

POPE URBAN-2 AT CLERMOUNT CATHEDRAL

"What were the crusades? " asked my cousin harsh.He is a student of 10th standard studying under the C.B.S.E board and i realised instantaneously that what had caused this great curiosity in his mind for i was once standing in his place trying to explore this almost mythical fanatisicm.I begin with a never ending explanation for none exists.I stated "The crusades my dear brother were the Holy Wars that were fought between two prominent religious groups of that time namely the Christians and the Muslims.".As i was about to utter a few more words of knowledge he stopped me and enquired "Brother" he exclaimed "how can a war be holy? wars are always a cause of destruction .A symbol of death and despair.Do gods fight in these holy wars?Did Christ fought Muhhamed ???".I pacified the vast ocean of inquisitiveness which was already making waves and once again had started to affect my concious as it did once long ago.I continued "Dear ,had god alone seen the build up to these wars he would have prevented them.When something as tragic as these wars occured then one questions if god exists or not.Listen carefully for what i am about to tell you is not something which will be helpful for you to fill in the sheets while writing your history paper but will enlighten you to a world that existed and that helped in shaping up the world which live in now.About a thousand years ago the year 1096A.D to be precise the first crusade took place.Never a war so huge in its scale was seen on the face of this world.At that time the state of jerusalem the place which was both sacred to christians and muslims was ruled by muslims.Most of the european states were christian states and had little to fight among themselves.Pope Urban -ii was the soul behind the first and the only succesful crusade.The words of the pope were "God Wills It!".I know not brother if god even has a will to see his people fighting and dying but for once i can assure you that this happened.A great army of the christian states of france,itlay and germany was untied under one banner.The Princes' Crusade, also known as the Barons' Crusade, set out later in 1096 in a more orderly manner, led by various nobles with bands of knights from different regions of Europe.I refer to the Princes Crusade as diffrent from the first crusade because in the earlier part of crusade there were many peasants from the various country sides with little or no millitary skill that took part in the war.Most of them were masaccared and the effect they had was very little.Getting back to my point the key feature which led to the success of the crusade apart from the untiy of christian states among themselves was the lack of unanimity between the muslims at that time.The battle started with the seige of Anitoch and finally ended my a brutal massacare in Jerusalem".
THE BATTLE OF ANITOCH
The crusader army, meanwhile, marched on to Antioch, which lay about half way between Constantinople and Jerusalem. They arrived in October, 1097 and set it to a siege which lasted almost 8 months. Antioch was so large that the crusaders did not have enough troops to fully surround it, and thus it was able to stay partially supplied. As the siege dragged on, it was clear that Bohemund wanted the city for himself. In May 1098 Kerbogha of Mosul approached Antioch to relieve the siege. Bohemund bribed the Armenian guard of the city to open the gates, and in June the crusaders entered the city and killed most of the inhabitants. However, only a few days later the Muslims arrived, laying siege to the former besiegers. At this point a minor monk by the name of Peter Bartholomew claimed to have discovered the Holy Lance in the city, and although some were skeptical, this was seen as a sign that they would be victorious. On June 28 the crusaders defeated Kerbogha in a pitched battle outside the city, as Kerbogha was unable to organize the different factions in his army. While the crusaders were marching towards the Muslims, the Fatimid section of the army deserted the Turkish contingent, as they feared Kerbogah would become too powerful if he were to defeat the Crusaders. According to legend, an army of Christian saints came to the aid of the crusaders during the battle.

Bohemund argued that Alexius had deserted the crusade and thus invalidated all of their oaths to him. Bohemund asserted his claim to Antioch, but not everyone agreed, and the crusade was delayed for the rest of the year while the nobles argued amongst themselves. It is a common historiography|historiographical assumption that the Franks of northern France, the Provencals of southern France, and the Normans of southern Italy considered themselves separate "nations" and that each wanted to increase its status. This may have had something to do with the disputes, but personal ambition is more likely to blame.

Meanwhile a plague (perhaps typhus) broke out, killing many, including the legate Adhemar. There were now even fewer horses than before, and Muslim peasants refused to give them food. In December, the capture of the Arab town of Ma'arrat al-Numan took place, and with it the first known incident of cannibalism by the crusaders. The minor knights and soldiers became restless and threatened to continue to Jerusalem without their squabbling leaders. Finally, at the beginning of 1099 the march was renewed, leaving Bohemund behind as the first Principality of Antioch|Prince of Antioch.
THE SEIGE OF JERUSALEM

Proceeding down the coast of the meditararien,the crusaders encountered little resistance, as local rulers preferred to make peace with them and give them supplies rather than fight. OnMay7 the crusaders reached Jerusalem, which had been recaptured from the Seljuks by theFatimds of Egypt only the year before. Many Crusaders wept on seeing the city they had journeyed so long to reach.

As with Antioch the crusaders put the city to a lengthy siege, in which the crusaders themselves suffered many casualties, due to the lack of food and water around Jerusalem. Of the estimated 7,000 knights who took part in the Princes' Crusade, only about 1,500 remained. Faced with a seemingly impossible task, their morale was raised when a priest claimed to have had a divine vision instructing them to fast and then march in a barefoot procession around the city walls, after which the city would fall in nine days .

Over the course of that afternoon, evening and next morning, the crusaders murdered almost every inhabitant of Jerusalem. Muslims, Jews, and even eastern Christians were all massacred. Although many Muslims sought shelter in Solomon's temple, the crusaders spared few lives. . Tancred claimed the Temple quater for himself and offered protection to some of the Muslims there, but he was unable to prevent their deaths at the hands of his fellow crusaders. According to Fulcher of Chartres: "Indeed, if you had been there you would have seen our feet coloured to our ankles with the blood of the slain. But what more shall I relate? None of them were left alive; neither women nor children were spared."
In the days following the massacre, Godfrey of Bouillon was made Advocatus Sancti Sepulchri , refusing to be named king in the city where Christ had died. In the last action of the crusade, he led an army which defeated an invading Fatimid army at the battle of Ascalon .Godfrey died in July1100, and was succeeded by his brother,baldwin of Edessa, who took the title of king of Jerusalem.

INTRODUCTION

2006-02-12T08:01:00.000-08:00

The blog contains the learnings of my mind since 12th feburary 2006.The posts will include not only the day to day life scenarios and learnings but also the vision of a future and the learnings from the past that are printed on my mind.