Climate Change

So, how often do 28000 rivers go missing?
It seems to have happened in China

And, with 9 million people to bury every year, China is running out of space in their cities for burials. Duh.

And India is not alone in its annoying superstitions; apparently, an old Chinese custom declares that a dead woman should get married to a deceased bachelor.

Amazing eh. 

Dutt to Jail

Funny that this blog is called 'khadda' which means hole. Modeled after Galt's Gulch.

Yesterday, Sanjay Dutt was sentenced to completing his 5 years in jail for possession of an AK47 blah blah. Indians know the story - kinda. This is today's article - very thought-provoking view of how one ought to think of what happened to the man.
The story is simple - he used to be a wild child who loved guns and drugs. Of course, I am saying this based on what I have read which often is garnished with a lot of rubbish.

The points are:
Luck is a strong force; many celebrities and powerful people have gotten away with worse.

A bad decision can haunt you forever. Quite often, what these biggies say is that , 'hey, now we have changed ... sorry for what happened.' Which is quite the conundrum eh?

How do you repent the things you have done?
What is the cost of a life?
How strong is money really?

Pitiful

This song by The Kings of Leon is one of my favourites by them:

But everybody says this place is beautiful
And you'd be so crazy to say goodbye
But everything's the same, this town is pitiful
And I'll be gettin' out as soon as I can fly

It's the story of our lives in India :P
We live in the city in which we grew up; off late this trend is changing because work takes Indians to another city and they move there.
Bombay-ites love Bombay, largely because of inertia. They become comfortable with their friends, neighbourhoods and the functionality of the system.
At the thought of moving to a city like Pune or Bangalore (let alone Hong Kong), the conversation is like the 4 lines of the song mentioned above. 

It's not easy to leave a city like Bombay which provides some of the things we like having around - this could be a pub, a good restaurant, egg bhurji at 11pm on the road, taking a train to churchgate and of course, our friends - which makes me wonder, could it really be a product of our grooming?

The Indian social setting is based on friends and family; inevitably, people get married and then they are stuck. I don't mean it in the derogatory sense, (but all married people look similar into their 30s) I just believe that people get stuck with the concept of family and friends - there is a strong sense of attachment and duties and how things ought to be.

A friend recently told me that what the urban Indian yuppies want nowadays is easy money, a good social setting, a sexy wife (or husband) and home cooked food available at will (just like it was when living with the parents); they want to move out and create their homes the way they want it but want to live near the parents, they want to travel the world but can't imagine being away for too long. 
The West has spoilt us with choices I think. 

I don't understand the concept of marriage and I hate being tied down. Compromises are OK, but not when stretched to an extent where it changes the fibre of who I am. I don't like loud people, I don't like taking pictures of a monument, I hate traffic, I love my space, I love open spaces and I enjoy good company. I love the mountains and I enjoy my fair share of nature. I like new foods and new drinks and new people.
I don't understand what marriage or a relationship has to do with 'stability' or an anchored physical location to live at.

All these thoughts are spewing forth because of a dear friend (who I miss terribly - and that I mean) left her home country and work city and moved to another country which is culturally similar and moved in with her boyfriend.

Digression: I think live-in relationships are the way things should be. It gets rid of the legal and societal hassles (and burden) that come with a marriage. 

So, she moved in with this dude she hasn't known for too long but long enough (the time, I mean). She quit her job and is studying for an exam and praytell, what is wrong with that? Moving to another city is not a life changer - it could be a simple temporary move, one can just take it as it comes. Indians care too much about how others see them (don't roll your eyes, I know it is true) and the new Indians like to live life as though they are self-centered, but the truth is that they are torn between these dichotomous strains. 

So hey, as I had mentioned earlier and as the Beatles said, life is very short and there's no tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiime for fussing and fighting my friend.
This town is pitiful, and I'll be gettin' out as soon as I can.

Until then, let the beer flow.

P.S. I crave Korean Food.

The power of media

Something is changing in the world and we are not noticing it.
The speed with which information is now shared makes lemming behaviour come to the fore.

A good article here about how 1 photo went kinda viral on the net and nobody knew who shot it, where it was shot or when. And eventually, the truth surfaced.
But by then, everybody 'knew' where it was from and didn't care about the correction.

This kind of behaviour is all-pervasive now - we talk about things nonchalantly and care lesser about the things that matter. The need to be heard is becoming all the more important, which shows itself in the need for facebook, facebook stalking, blogging, twitter-ing (or as is called - tweeting), whatsapp chats and group chats.

The first time it happened was during the age of hotmail - the first few years of free email - when people loved sending forwards and exchanging trivial information.

Oddly, the need to be connected is now so strong that stronger, more wholesome relationships are breaking down in favour of shallow, short-lived relations.

We live in interesting times. 

Thoughts

Mortality must've hit you right? Instead of seeing yourself dying at 70, you see yourself dying 5 minutes from now.

Don't know why people believe in living for others, because living for oneself ought to come first eh? The Indian society is structured in a way that the family and the community comes at the expense of the self and now the new yuppie indians want the best of both - they want mummy's love and they want a super sexy wife.

Why hasn't euthanasia been legalised yet?

Why don't we have good sanitation for the general public - is it really that expensive if property rates can be easily north of INR 5000 / 20000 per sq ft.?

Why do you work for INR 100k per month if you have free family wealth of INR 5 Cr?

Building demolition

Now isn't this awesome. Plain awesome.

The Japs have created a way (someone else?) to demolish a building with lesser noise, more cleanly and much more beautifully.

Farooque Shaikh

My friend's post about her meeting with Farooque Shaikh.

Loved it - people get blinded by the pursuit and eventually start tripping on it.
It's important to take a step back and take it all in, see things in a simpler light and slow down just a tad.

To be Indian?

Interesting article, would also call it nice.

When did religion become so important?

And oddly more people around the world are agnostic or atheist than ever before (after religion had spread its tentacles) I think.

"As a female Muslim atheist, this is the kind of society I want to live in. And I don’t want to have to cross the seven seas for a little bit of respect. I want it here, in this country I love despite itself, and from people I love, regardless of their beliefs."

I do get tired of this country's nonchalance, nepotism, bureaucracy, and zero-sum policies (political, legal and social). 

Travel now.

I like my dentist. For one, he is really good and secondly, he loves traveling.
The second reason is a good one eh?

He looks like a normal old-ish Maharashtrian gent but last year he was in NZ and this year he is going to go Cambodia.

Anyway, he said today, as he has said before, "one should travel as much as possible, only so much that you can save money, and when you save it, you start worrying about investing and losing and taxes and thievery. What's the point re? And travel young, it's difficult when you're older - but oddly, you have more to spend when you are older."

When young people travel 'too much', they are branded as careless, hippies or loafers, unambitious, ingrates - and when old people travel, they are called cute.

Fk this all. Traveling is happening babay. Travel I shall.

Olive Ridley. Patagonia. Mountains. Forests. Antarctica. Mountain lodge. Good food. Good sex. Good health.