I am not Funny

It is useless. I am definitely not funny. I concede. After reading this my wife, J took it all personal and came to my defense saying

1. How much I have improved.
2. How she did not like all this self-deprecating humour.
3. How no one else has changed so much in 15 years or shown such capacity for change.

You see from J's point of view she is a success. I am any wife's dream husband. I do not mean in the Brad Pitt style although I am not entirely devoid of looks. I mean I am the one they hope to mould to their needs. Most women give up trying after a while. My wife persevered through various trials and tribulations and succeeded and here I am making jokes about myself.

My daughter read that blog and said, it sucks. She actually believed that I no longer consider Pria a friend. She is a pre-teen. No sense of humor.

The only comment my mom made was "Why do you write such personal stuff?". My mom is interesting. Getting compliments from her is akin to getting teeth pulled. Very hard. Let us say it is next to impossible. You could get a 99/100 in Math and she would grill you for an hour about the 1 you missed.

My friend Krishna gave me a compliment ... I think. He said ... That was a good read Raghavan. May be I should read your blogs when I am waiting to board a plane :-) just seems more interesting. Krishna Sent from my iPhone ...

Three points can be inferred from this comment.

First, Krishna is on a business trip. We know this since his wife is back home fending for herself and the children.

Second Krishna in his own subtle way of showing off his iPhone. He takes more pride in it than Jobs himself. Jobs will directly tell you how everyone, yes everyone, hated their phones before he made iPhones for the benefit of mankind. Krishna as I said is not so direct. In a crowd he will casually take his iPhone and call someone usually regarding work, or pretend to read emails, again ostensibly work email.

Third, I am sure there is a compliment there somewhere. I will tell you what it is when I find it.

In closing J take a chill pill. Please do not believe exerything I write. Just because I say I am needy in a blog does not mean I am. I was merely trying to be funny.

I Had a Friend

I like the title. It sounds so Martin Luther King-ish. I had a dream. In fact I wrote a blog about that too. My dreams, I mean.

I have a friend named Pria.

She said she preferred my wife's blog.

That is OK. That is not a crime. I can handle that. I guess after 15 years of marriage, I have gotten used to the fact that everyone who knows us both like her more. Do you notice I did not say almost everyone? Yup, sadly without an exception no one likes me even a smidgen more than her, not even I myself. If they can like her more they can like her writing more too.

See it is like this, I was not always this nice or generous, I used to be needy, really needy. I don't mean the ordinary garden variety needy like needing affection, attention, or reassurance. It was not enough that people liked me, they had to like me more than my wife. But as you know we do not always get what we want.

The more I wanted people to like me more than my wife, the more they liked her more.

Say what!! Let me repeat that slowly.

The more I wanted people to like me more than my wife, the more they liked her more.

Kinda convoluted huh.

Worse, not only did people like my wife more, pretty soon they only liked her. I mean, they did not like me less. They did not like me. PERIOD

Now imagine how that made a needy person like me feel. Sad; and I did not like that.

Trust me it is no fun going to parties and having and people hissing behind your back. At times I have seen people move away casually on seeing me approach. You know, I am sorry I did not see you casually. Other times promising conversations would come to a halt when I joined it. Initially I thought I had some personal problem such as Bromhydrosis or Halitosis. After acquainting myself with suitable hygiene products it became clear it was just me they did not like. So I was forced to reform. I stopped being a really, really, needy person and just became mildly insecure. I have now improved. I am a better person. In fact people now tolerate me for the sake of my wife.

Coming back to Pria; she said she liked my wife's blog and like I said that is OK. I mean it hurts a little bit. How I wish she had stopped there. As I told you earlier, I am a better person. I do not mind if people like my wife's blog.

She said my style was ... I can't say it. OK, take a deep breath. Get a grip. She said my style was Pedantic.

I looked up the meaning and then came the double whammy. You know what the dictionary says?

... marked by a narrow, often tiresome focus on or display of learning and especially its trivial aspects; an academic insistence on precision; a bookish vocabulary;...

That hurts. Call my blog

1. Ununderstandable - Some of the earlier subjects were a bit dry. (This, that, and the other)
   
2. Not original - I can accept this. In fact I myself bemoan this fact here and here. Sadly how can a blog titled Cliched Thoughts ever be original.
   
3. Not funny - All I can say is; I try.

Anything but pedantic.

So in summary, after what she said about my style of writing, it is more like

I had a friend named Pria

PS: Please do not correct me that MLK said, I have a dream. I know.

I am an atheist ...

and I have been one for over 15 years. At one time I would have even described myself as an evangelical atheist, since I argued a lot and tried proselytizing others to atheism!!

So what is new? Why am I broadcasting this fact publicly now?

Simple, no one reads my blog. I could say I see men in underwear dancing at night and no one would think I am crazy. For the record it is women I see (suitably scantily clad or mostly not clad). Not that there is anything wrong in seeing men in underwear.

The problem all started with this book. It always does, first you read a book; then you get ideas and everyone knows ideas are dangerous. Pretty soon you get arrested for setting the flag on fire as a protest!!

To confess, I read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins and guess what - I got religion!!

That's bad, real bad. Read any book but a book by Dawkins. Everyone knows he is going to hell. In fact he is so bad I heard he has an E-ZPass to hell.

About the book. It is great. If you wish to keep his company in hell (and mine) read it.

Now this post changes tone from being casual and almost but not quite funny to being mildly serious.

During the middle part of this decade, I had lost my passion for atheism. My wife and I were in our own pain and things looked really dark. We were in search of I_do_not_know_what. I guess we wanted anguish free life. We did not want to be unhappy. We wanted to be able to smile again. In those dark moments it seemed logical that people would pray. I used to wish I could pray. So I lost that militancy that made me a pain in the certain place of great heat. I guess I still am one but I hope less so than before.

I also felt that it is an innocent belief and that if I could escape from the clutches of religion and belief in god so could others. I felt that it was more often a matter of personal choice or decision.

Finally in raising a child you never know whether it is correct to deny ones child all that religion and belief in God brings; Culture and Tradition which really is about your identity. So I used to earlier avoid this topic considering it a little dangerous to tell my daughter that I really did not believe in Rama as a god and that Ramayana was just a story, albeit in the form of a great epic.

Although after reading this book I still did not feel the same passion as earlier, I no longer have any hang-up either. I am very comfortable with my atheism to a point where it no longer feel unnatural to bring up this topic in any conversation with my daughter.

One last thing; since I was born in India, I have always known that I would never be the President of USA. Since the greatest prize is being denied to me I want to make sure that I could not run for political office of any sort, setting aside the fact that no one wants me to run for any political office. How is being an atheist relevant? See results from this survey.


Ignoring the fact that the survey refers to "Well Qualified" candidates, I wanted to be sure that 20 years in the future when my wife forces me to run for a minor post in my HOA my opponents can dig this up and dish it out.

The beauty of this is that I could always re-discover God if the urge to enter politics resurfaces. It is well known that it is hard to resist the temptation of Satan. I could always blame him for my delusion and claim that I am now Born Again. Everyone knows you will go to hell for your sins but my mistakes naturally are between me and my maker and you sir have no right to judge!!

Look at the number of right-wing politicians who somehow have maintained their reputation through various scandals although they excoriated Clinton for his peccadillo's. Gingrich one of the central figures in that drama it turns out was himself having an affair at about that time he was impeaching Clinton for having one (or more)!!

PS: I thought I was the first person to coin the phrase evangelical atheist, turns out I was wrong. So much for me ever coming up with an original thought!!

Books I Have

This post is to list the books I have. This could help my friends who may accidentally stumble upon this post, and get an idea about the type of books I read, and hence know the sort of books not to gift me if they take it into their heads to get me a gift. Pretty convoluted, huh? Also I am not particular that the books be new. By buying used, you may be able to buy more books. I like more books. I buy books solely for the purpose of reading not to own a collectible. Here is a short list of books I would like to read.

Books I Want

In case you are curious about what I read, let us start here

My Current Reading List

Below is a comprehensive list of all the titles titles I have. This list is not complete and I will try to keep it updated.
Adventure Series
Agatha Christie
Alistair Maclean
Asterix
Biggles
Famous Five
Fantasy Genre
Fatty Series
Georgette Heyer
Indian Classics
Issac Asimov
Scott Orson Card
James Herriot
James Michener
Jeffrey Archer
Perry Mason
PG Wodehouse
Popular Science
Richmal Compton
Random

Ravi K and I ate 60 Idlis

The event described below happened more than a decade ago when J was expecting our first child D. One of the usual features of this pregnancy was that J barely put on any weight. Most people would not guess that she was pregnant especially if she was sitting. And when the lady joined civilization 6 weeks later most people would not believe that she has just delivered a baby.

Most pregnant spouses usually get pampered but not in our house. J still cooked the best meals and our friends use to comment on how well I held up under the pregnancy. One day she made Idli and Sambar. Our friend Ravi K had come that evening to check on us. Ravi is a funny guy although his humor sometimes takes a juvenile turn. I believe that jokes about bodily functions (such as crapping) stops being funny post teen-age after which jokes take the form of sexual innuendoes. In Ravi's case the former type of jokes are yet to lose their appeal. So we suffer.

Getting back to the idli and sambar, J suggested that we eat our idlis hot and we acquiesced gracefully. We must have been very hungry or the food extremely delicious or both. The next thing we remember is J telling us that there was no more idlis left!! We ate so much that we left nothing for a pregnant woman!! Suffice to say neither of us are very proud of this episode in our life.

My nightmare

I dream a lot. I dream daily. Thankfully I do not remember all of them. But some of them are very vivid. You know the type of dream that when couple of days later remind of some event that you think really took place.

It seems it is OK to dream but my mom before my marriage and my wife thereafter do not seem to enjoy listening to me recounting them. So it is your turn to listen.

My dreams come in several varieties. Surprisingly even after 2 decades of being out of college; yes I am old fart; the most common theme seems to be around exams. Sometimes I find that I am at an exam and cannot remember anything that I have studied. Other times I realize that I have not prepared for the exam. Invariably this is always the final semester which would prevent me from graduating!! A variation on this theme is the missed exam. Usually I forget that I have an exam and do not go to college and find out later that I have missed it or I go to college several hours late on the day of the exam. Once or twice I have gone to an exam having studied another subject; I am kidding, that one was real. No really I actually did it and I am told that it is not that uncommon either.

Another genre of dream is about clothing or the lack there of. In all of these I usual find myself in various public places not suitably dressed. Occasionally I am not dressed at all. The strange thing in all these is not the fact that I am embarrassed and want to put on some clothes but that everyone else in my dream is serenely unaware of my natural state!! I must remember to ask our friend Dr. Ram who is a shrink what this dream means.

Then there are the dreams where something bad happens to people especially near and dear and I do not want to talk about them as they make me sad. I have enough pain from reality not to relive the painfulness of these dreams. I am thankful that these dreams are few and far apart.

Lastly I have a large number of dream where I miss a train, flight, or the bus and I have be somewhere urgently. Well I recently had one such dream that took the cake.

In this one I was standing in line at the airport and guess who do I see. Rudy Giuliani was ahead of me and flashing his badge and was being allowed to jump the line. I am digressing this dream is not about Rudy. At that moment I realize that I do not have my tickets!! That did not bother me as much as the fact that I found myself walking empty handed which means I left my computer in office in Velachary, Chennai. The worst of all I did not have my luggage.

One would be forgiven if they thought I had some valuables in them such as gifts for J and the kids D & M. Not really. I recently discovered that I could buy inexpensive but quality books India. These are books I read as a kid such as Amar Chitra Katha, Enid Blyton, Perry Mason, Agatha Christie, etc. Lufthansa allows 2 check-in bags weighing about 100 pounds along with 15 pounds in carry on luggage. So I usually carry an empty suitcase since all my clothes fill just one bag with the hope that I could fill the other bag full of books for my return trip. The thought that I had wasted an India trip without coming back with books was sickening. I guess only a bookworm would appreciate my anxiety about the missed luggage.

Shaivism and Vaishnavism - Two Exclusive Clubs

More than a decade ago, I heard in graduate school a joke -

Q) What are the three degrees of egoism?
A) I, Iyer, Iyengar

This probably does not make any sense to a Non-Indian and even amongst Indians it is understood best by South Indians. Iyers and Iyengars are two sects of Brahmins predominantly from Southern India. The joke (if it is not clear) is about their snootiness

and therein lies the irony; first some back ground ...

Sometime in 11th century Ramanuja initiated a philosophy what ended up resulting in the sect Sri Vaishnavas or Iyengars. Ramanuja disagreed with the prevailing orthodoxy, which was the Advaita school of thought (that in its time was revolutionary) and Iyers follow Shankara's school of thought.

This post started with a joke, promised an irony. Now you are merely left with boredom. So to tide over the boredom let me recount a story, sorry I mean two stories, one attributed to Shankara and the other to Ramanuja.

While on a walk, some disciples of Shankara were supposed to have shooed a person of lower caste to which this person asked them how that was possible since the same entity (Brahman) that pervaded him also pervaded Shankara. Shankara acknowledged the validity of this argument and is supposed to have apologized.

In the case of Ramanuja, his teacher taught him a powerful mantra, but adjured him to keep it a secret. Those who repeated this mantra were supposed to attain Salvation. Ramanuja immediately called all people, irrespective of caste and creed, to assemble before the temple. He then stood on top of the tower above the front gate of the temple, and shouted out the sacred Mantra to all of them at the top of his voice. His teacher was furious to which Ramanuja said that he would rather see millions attain salvation if that meant torture in hell for himself.

Then the irony as I see it is this;

Both stories clearly demonstrate that at least in the minds of these two men All men were equal. Both these sects were universal in their philosophy. To the best of my knowledge there is no mention of caste. How then do Iyers and Iyengars form two of the most exclusive clubs?