Shiva Lingam and Dimethyltryptamine !!!

It is religion and chemistry. For some reason I was trying to understand Hinduism, yeah my knowledge is very brief, with all the anti-secular videos floating around. I hit upon a video which was talking about Shiva Ling(Lingam). What is a Shiva ling? The following could be the answer: it is a physical representation of Lord Shiva. That's right in many ways. But there is little more technical detail which needs to be documented/ understood if you have not known it before hand, like me.
There is a gland in the mid brain called the pineal gland, which produces serotonin, melatonin (i have no idea what they are for) and Dimethyltryptamine (DMT). Dimethyltryptamine as a chemical/ a inhaled drug causes a near death experience. Wikipedia quotes Near death experience as "A near-death experience (NDE) refers to a broad range of personal experiences associated with impending death, encompassing multiple possible sensations ranging from detachment from the body, feelings of levitation, extreme fear, total serenity, security, or warmth, the experience of absolute dissolution, and the presence of a light, which some people interpret as a deity".

Having introduced Shiva Ling and DMT I now need to relate them. When I read the phrases detachment from the body, feelings of levitation, total serenity, presence of a light I can feel a few bells ringing in my head saying this is what meditation too does to your body. Well I am sure we would have heard this already. It is when we meditate at a spiritual level the pineal gland is activated and it produces the above mentioned chemicals and thus near death experience happens. The lings of Lord Shiva that we all have come across is the posture when he is meditating.

Certain other facts and points to think over, related to the same topic:
1. Moments before a persons death there is large amount of DMT produced. Is there a reason/ relation why Lord Shiva is the destructor and he being associated to the penial gland which secretes DMT?
2. It is also found that penial gland works best in complete darkness. (I don't know how light can enter your brain!!) Also the sanctum where the Ling is placed in a Shiva Temple is in complete darkness. Are they related for some reason?
3. The penial gland is in the shape of an eye. This can be easily seen in the pic above. We know that Lord Shiva has the third eye which is vertical.
Hope you found this piece interesting.

CNN Heroes

They can be helped for their noble thought, hunble dreams and world changing intentions. Just click on any of the names doesn't really matter who, coz it makes them feel that what ever they have done is atleast noticed and there is someone in the world who supports their work. Just a second of your time.
Who cares if your voted to bring in Obama or Mc Cain these people need some appreciation and lets just click on VOTE.

Winter has just begun...

An update: Its 28th Oct and I have seen the sub zero temp for the first time.. Haven't felt it yet.. I am not sure whats in store for the rest of the winter.. bring the blankets on.. oh i cant think of how good it would be to sleep for long hours.. i m lovin it!!!







Its Oct : 20th
The Winter has just began and the worst temperature readings is yet to come... All these years I felt I live in one of the colder places in south India (Hosur/Bangalore) but these are newer limits of coldness. I experienced a single digit climate when I had been to Manali before and that was 4*C or 5*C.
Although we might not experience snow here the cold-winds(terrible winds) make the winter really bad. Will post if there is some thing interesting.
I must accept this is nothing compared to other places like Seattle where Snow is what they see half the year. Time to say Cheers... Welcome Winter!!!

Entering Politics

Hey all,
Finally I have decided to enter politics, but not in India but in the US for the forth coming elections. I would like to have your support and encouragement. Have a look at the campaign video.

http://www.tsgnet.com/pres.php?id=370743&altf=Wjkbzb&altl=Sbhbwbo

Thanks,
Vijay

Journey with a Father...

For all the sentiment mongers this is not one such post. Although this is written when Vaaranam Aayiram is due to release it has no connection to that too.. You will see it if you read on...
There was this awesome day when I was going to Atlanta for a purchase visit to an Indian store over there by bus. It was organised by a local church. The Chinese too had come along coz they wanted to go to the Chinese store. Awesome.
We are 8 Indians and ~30 chinese and few American on board. Good looking girls too. The seat next to me was empty and I was not hoping for a gorgeous awesome hot babe but atleast a lookable and talkable one. There was the real surprise.... The father of the church which organised the trip sat next to me!!! Oh noooooo.....
When the initial Hi's and intro was over I wanted to really get off that seat or atleast send him packing. He threw the bait in. I would address Father as F. Here
F: Do you believe in God?
M: Yeah if I need him otherwise no.
F: How do you see God?
M: Blah Blah Blah...
Few more questions went on in the same genre which was totally not of my type. I felt this was it.. I asked him would you mind if I ask you a question? He was happy like the Lord Labakku Das in vivek comedy... He was like yes go ahead...
M: Have you read The DaVinci Code?
F: !!@@!! No I havent..
M: Oh have you seen that movie atleast?
F: Yeah but i dint remember what was in it.. long back I saw it....
M: Oh ok.. So this is how it goes.. (told him.. infact poured it out). Is that true??
F:
F: How do you guys worship in India?
M: We have one god for each thing.. Rain, Air, Water, Sun, Moon, Earth, Money... etc etc...
F: Oh thats bad so many Gods to worship??
M: No that is better... We dint want to over load one God.. :-D
.
.
.
.
M: Have you seen Indian movies?
F: No But I would love to. Heard a lot about them.
M: I would like to recommend one movie if you are really interested... its called Anbe Sivam(Love is God!!!).
F: Love is God?? What is it??
M: Told him the atheist explanation given in the movie.. which I really liked... Expected him to have left by then.... But to my surprise he was still there... Can't help it... The journey itslef was over and we did our purchase and while returning back the same thing happened and the seat next to me was empty... But he chose another scape goat for his preachings... He was a real PRO (Public Relations Officer!!!) to Jesus... Amen...

Power Theft!!!

It was a great weekend... Seriously a great one....What is the fine amount a political party pays for stealing power from an electrical line in India for some road side meeting? (பிரச்சாரம் to be precise). How many houses in India have a tampered electrical meter and pay peanuts to the electricity board(with the help of EB Men, of course!!)?? What is the fine amount if such a person is caught by the EB? Well I am not sure. But I know in US what it means by power theft. How?? Read on...
Saturday morning I was just out of my bed at 11A local time and I have a person from the Duke Energy(private player in providing e'city and other facilities similar to EB in India) who comes by the door.
He : who is Mr Babu(Addressed by my Second name).
Me: I said yeah its me.. How you doing?
He: Good and I need to talk to you.
Me: Sure come on in.
He: I am not coming in(with a stern face, so I went out). you people have tampered with the power meter and this the component you have broken and the blah blah is gone(All I could recollect was how I hated XII standard 9th Chapter in Physics...)
Me: No we dint do that.. But anyways whats the problem now?
The next words of his made me think of running to the sea shore, jumping into the sea and swimming back to India.
He: I need to call the cops. This is a case of power theft and I need to report to them. You need to pay $1000 fine or accept for 3 months IMPRISONMENT!!!!!!
ME: aaaaahhhaaaa!!!!
The next few minutes I had to do a multi tasking in my head. Thinking of the following:
1. Make him understand that I seriously dint do that . (The obvious thing to do.)
2. Figure out who is a good lawyer here. (Gandhiji where are you????)
3. Arrange for $1000 to throw it in Indian style.... take it!!!!!
4. Will he accept bribe?? (Indian BTW!!!!)
But finally all the experience of negotiation with all the shop keepers for prices, the experience of asking teachers for marks, the experience of asking friends for treats and getting them, the experience of begging to my computer programs to show some mercy on me and run smoothly without errors and many such experiences finally helped me.
After about almost half an hour of talking, talking, talking.... a deal struck...
He: You sound good and I feel that you would not have done it. So you will have to pay a fine of $160 for the tampered component. I will talk to the folks back at office.
Me: Thanks man... I appreciate it... (I seriously did appreciate!!!)
I had to pay to the office through phone and I realized that every step you take in foreign soil is like walking in a land filled with land-mines!!!!
BTW is it at-least Rs. 1000 in India fine for power theft???

Watch this!!!! என் respect போச்சு your honour!!!!

Absolute Peace..

How can you be a 50% peaceful with the current settings?? Can you in the first place?? If no was my reply, then I would not be bloggin this at all. Yes 'we' can. As simple as keeping your mobile away. I was a reckless user of mobile phones in India and after coming to US, I and my brother share a mobile and he has it all the time. So I am without a mobile yet I have a number for others to communicate. It works like this : every evening I get the info that so and so called up and if need be I will call back and inquire whats the matter... Absolute peace.. No disturbace at all..
But how will this help some one back in India where mobiles are very much affordable and a necessity more than luxury?? Leave the mobile one day at home and try how it goes. You will miss it as if your hand is cut away.. Evening you might find many missed calls and many messages.. Call every one and have a word... Leave it the next day you will feel better and leave it the third day you will have a good work time because half the time you get calls from call centers, friends who want to decide the dinner, dinner time, dinner place, what time you will be at home, I will come late so on... Its when you would have some how fought the hell for the best concentration to fix a bug these call will zip in.. Damn it!!! Getting back to work and finishing the bugs story goes on forever.. Try it for a week you will feel much better at work place..
Sounds philosophical?? But it works believe me.

எங்கே எனது தோசை.....

வெளி நாட்டு மண்ணில் வாழும் தமிழருக்காக...


அன்பிற்குரிய தோசையும் சட்னியும்,
கண்டு பல நாட்கள் ஆகிறது. உங்கள் ருசி என்ன வென்று இந்த subway burger உம் papa john pizza உம் மறக்க செய்து விட்டது. காதலியை நினைவு கூர்ந்து கவிஞர்கல் கவிதைகள் எழுதி மகிழ்விக்கிறார்கள் ஆனால் உன்னை மிகவும் நேசித்த நான் தமிழும் தெரியாமல், கவிதையும் தெரியாமல் Google தமிழ் editor உதவியுடன் உனக்கு ஒரு கடிதம் எழுதுகிறேன்.
கூடிய விரைவில் எதாவது இந்திய உணவகத்தில் தோசை கிட்டும் என்று எண்ணி வாழ்கிறேன். தோசை readymade mix எல்லாம் try செய்தேன், ஆனால் நம்ம ஊரு கல் தோசை, பட்டர் தோசை, முட்டை தோசை, உத்தபம், வெங்காய உத்தபம், roast, சாதா, செட் தோசை, மசாலா தோசை, ரவா தோசை, பன்னீர் தோசை......, போல் கொஞ்சம் கூட இல்லை. MTR mix, செட்டியார் mix, முருகன் இட்லி தோசை mix எல்லாம் தண்டம்.

ஏதோ சொந்தமாக தமிழ் கவிதை எழுத தெரியல நா கூட ஒரு dedication....
எங்கே எனது தோசை கனவிலே சுட்டு மடித்த தோசை,
இந்த ஊரில் கிடைபதில்லியா அம்மம்மா கண்ணில் தெரிவதில்லையா
தோசை தேடி தாருங்கள் இல்லை என் ஊரை திருப்பி தாருங்கள்....

இங்கு ஒரு நாள் நல்லா தோசை உம் தேங்காய் சட்னியும், தக்காளி சட்னியும், சம்பரும் கிடைக்கும் என்று ஆசையுடன் உன் தரிசனத்திற்கு காதிற்கும் உன் அன்பு ரசிகன்,
விஜய ராகவன்.



P.S : உன் தம்பி இட்லி, பணியாரம் கூட இங்கு இல்லை. சாம்பார் என்று பருப்பு தண்ணி தான் கிடைக்கிறது.

UPDATE** I had been to Atlanta and guess what had been to an Indian hotel. As you can guess with the topic I had a huuugeeee dosa.... Not a simple one... Ghee Masala Onion dosa.... I guess the letter worked well.... The journey to Atlanta was itself so eventful which I wil be blogging soon... :-)

He he he...

Some times in life you are thrown at new situations which is totally strange to you.. strange by all means... completely strange. It makes your mind and eyes pop out. My school friends and college friends know of the affection i have towards computers and more so when it comes to assignments and internals/term exams. I know how good all my friends were in assignments/exams.

I read this in my univ profs website where they generally post the course requirements and conditions to be his student. Have fun reading it. I could not stop laughing thinking of my past :-)

I. Academic Integrity Policy
A. Any breach of the principles outlined in the Academic Integrity Statement is considered an act of academic dishonesty.

B. Academic dishonesty is further defined as:

1. Giving, receiving, or using unauthorized aid on any academic work;
2. Plagiarism, which includes the copying of language, structure, or ideas of another and attributing the work to one's own efforts;
   
3. Attempts to copy, edit, or delete computer files that belong to another person or use of Computer Center account numbers that belong to another person without the permission of the file owner, account owner, or file number owner;
   

C. All academic work submitted for grading contains an implicit pledge and may contain, at the request of an instructor, an explicit pledge by the student that no unauthorized aid has been received.

Policy on Cheating/Honor Code
All work handed in must reflect your own work. Duplicate homework and programs will not be accepted. Any such instances will result in an F for the assignment, and may result in an F for the course. Some joint work can be submitted with the permission of the instructor, but only if properly identified as joint work.

Not even in my dreams I can imagine how I am going to go through this. My real appreciation to all the first hand assignment doers. You are great. All the copier machines like me would feel like this, I know!!!!.

Car drive.

Having come here just a week ago I made a quick check of my driving skills. Drove back from the Lake Hartwell to the place where I am put up currently.

View Larger Map
The driving sense is all the same but for the rules and "no Honking". The driving is keep right but that does not bother you much as you drive along the lanes as everyone else does. On the whole it was a nice drive. You dont get strained immaterial of how much ever you drive. But there is no thrill without bikers and auto people barging on. Miss you auto and cab fellas!!!

Tamil editors.

I have been fascinated for a long time with the way Tamil (An Indian language) editors have taken shape. But I was not very comfortable with many softwares which I used. I used to make use of the editor in tamil.net (scroll down to the end). But I was finding it very difficult to use as I had to search for spellings if the word is wrongly transliterated. But these days I have found a new place to bring my Tamil to life. It is a very well known place to many of us. It is the orkut.com scrapbook editor which has scrap facility in Tamil, Telegu, Hindi, Malayalam... it is really good editor to have a try in the first place. It gives you different combinations of possible spellings.
என் இனிய பொன் நிலாவே...
பொன் நிலவில் என் கனாவே... Cheers!!!!

Who is he?

How does this sound. "I don't know very English, but I know as much as write to you." People who know English will at least giggle. But this was written by no small man. This was written by the very man who gave this famous speech "I warn you, I am just beginning! If there is in your hearts a vestige of love for your country, love for humanity, love for justice, listen carefully... I know that the regime will try to suppress the truth by all possible means; I know that there will be a conspiracy to bury me in oblivion. But my voice will not be stifled – it will rise from my breast even when I feel most alone, and my heart will give it all the fire that callous cowards deny it... Condemn me. It does not matter. History will absolve me".
This is part of the letter written by Fidel Castro to ???. He wrote to Franklin D Roosevelt when he was twelve!!!. The purpose?? He wanted a $10 bill which is in green color. !!! Have a look at the letter Mr. Castro wrote to Mr. Roosevelt.
I guess had Mr. Roosevelt sent Mr. Castro the $10 bill the latter would not have gone against the Americans. A $10 would have created a soft corner and a good image of the Americans in the mind of Mr. Castro and he would not have criticized the Stars and Stripes nation in full public view. Had Mr. Roosevelt known even a bit about what Mr. Castro could do to the Americans he would have sent him a box full of $10 bills. :-)

.com oscars!!!

How good will it be to have a oscar kind of award ceremony for the most powerful company? Yeah Forbes has one listing which is totally based on the revenues generated and the profits. but powerful company means a lot more. Can we have a company which is reputed, liked by masses etc etc.
Yes there is an award ceremony for the most powerful company.

The purpose of this website is to give the opportunity to a company to match with the keywords " the Most Powerful Company " for one year. All companies are welcome to bid in order to become the most powerful one for one year.

Each year, a new auction is set up with equal chances for all bidders. Each year, the Most Powerful Company title is at stake.

The winning company will be provided with:
- the top ranking on search engines as "the world's most powerful company" for one year
- one ad of any chosen format
- the possibility to adjust the design of the website to its needs
- a show-off of its marketing creativity

All bidders will be rewarded with a better ranking on websearch engines and a better visibility for world's consumers, which will be reinforced by the polls.

This is an idea by three graduates from a B School and the results are due on July 31. Guess this is the first year and the contest is yet to catch up with the silicon valley biggies. Anyways a good start.

Viral Marketing

Wiki puts it as "Viral marketing and viral advertising refer to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives (such as product sales) through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of pathological and computer viruses". Click here to learn more.
I don't know if you were a part of the latest "Download Day 2008"? Was there some thing existing before this year as a download day? Why was it done? The answer is it was the FF or the Mozilla Firefox developers who chose such a marketing strategy to get their "huge" chunk of internet browser users. Mozilla was no bad previously. But this time they made sure they shut doors on many browsers even the IE most likely ;-).
The strategy they adopted to get the Download day a grand success is called viral marketing. For those wondering what success did it achieve on that day, the answer is they have entered the Guinness Book of records for the most downloaded software in a day. Eye popping numbers 8 Million Downloads in a day!!!.
This is a typical case study for the B-minded people.
When i say a case study I am reminded of yet another marketing strategy adopted by Cello company. They were new in the market and wanted the Brand Recognition to happen in the first place. So they had announced in the news papers that "reps from our company will call to your house number randomly anytime between xx and yy. If you correctly say cello instead of hello you will get nice gift vouchers etc etc." The whole of the chennai city went on saying cello cello for every call they got. Did they (the company) make a call or not... who cares. their objective was to recognize their brand. They did it. So marketing is very powerful when its cheap and creative but more importantly if it does meet the objective.

Life - a Trade.

Is life a trade? I was just thing about how life really is all about trade offs that we have to make. Right from a simple example over here: You go to your relatives place and they ask you do you prefer Tea or Coffee? You like both but can you say both? They will scan if top to bottom if you say so. You say "he he eeeee any thing will do" if you cant make a choice.
But life somtimes is merciless. It does throw you tough situations and will ask you to make a trade off. consider the example here: A man goes to see a girl along with his family members on the advice of a local astrologer or to be precise a match maker. But having seen the girl the man feels her younger sister is any time better than her so-called match, what can he do? Its like having Jileabi() in your hand not able to taste it.
although everyone in their life would have made and are making a million trade offs every minute we would not have acknowledged it with a name "trade-off". I got this word struck to my tongue from my interviewer also the owner of the company which gave me a job offer letter. He was from Microsoft and he grilled me for a 3 hours session at a stretch. I got through and I was the first employee of that company(I din't joint that company though). I asked him what the pay is he said 15K/M. I said its very low considering the investment I have made to do my graduation. I need some good return of investment and that was when he was telling me about trade offs and how he had to open a company in coimbatore etc etc. But trade off is a nice word which I liked. I traded off his offer finally. :-)

Life essentially is all about tradeoffs and which trade you choose and which one you bid good by to makes up your life altogether.

Twittering!!!

Alternately I can also be caught up @ https://twitter.com/vjragavan
Cool place, but I run out of characters every time. I agree for the amount of junk we have any space looks small. C U around.

Electric - City.

My grandma (a scientist in the kitchen domain) was reheating some old gravy and was trying to make a side dish out of yesterdays vegetables. One question struck me. Is it really worth reheating and eating it? Am I saving any if I preserve old food and eat it the next day by reheating it??? I can as well but fresh veggies and cook again.... I felt I dont save much by reheating.

Cooking is no more mere pleasure considering two things. 1. The cost of a gas Cylinder 2. The availability of cylinders.

One thing which hasn't taken off really well in India is the electric stove. For some reasons pertaining to the the way cooking has been practised in India e-stoves have not been a grand success. Let alone the success of e-stoves....well to be honest it does not even receieve a glance in malls. Such is the state of the electric stoves.

But frankly speaking there is lot of potential in the electric stove market now if not any earlier. The cost seems to work out very well and the best part is it can be automated. To people who have never used electric rice cookers here is a fact, the cooker turns itself off after some time so no more electricity is consumed but this cant be done with a gas stove. A simple but effective benefit. But the problem in India is the raw material itself. Electricity!!! itself.

Assume you have few relatives in your house and you are totally dependent on the electric stoves. You have chosen the best dish to be served and half way through the process busssshhh!!! (Not George W Bush) the power goes off... You have to cut a sorry figure. This is the most important reason why women prefer gas stoves. You can cook as and when you like. But if the availability of electricity is really dependable then electricity can be used for cooking. Only one way to achieve this is that the electricity board has to inform people the schdule of the maintenance work. Simply speaking people need to be informed about the time when power wont be available in their area so that women can plan their kitchen routine accordingly. The electricity boards do enough planning about this but all that they have to do is disclose it to people and make them aware. If electricity is really a dependable source for cooking then the gas demand falls down and it can be used as a back up in homes when power is not available.

All it needs is some co-operation from the EB people and the people itself.



P.S : Assuming that women are the primary cooks I have used women invariably. It is not intended that women are meant to work in kitchens alone :P