Tribute to Sidney Sheldon
Posted: January 31, 2007 Filed under: News/information and opinion 3 Comments »Not everyone is a natural reader; you must be really special if you have keen habit of reading. Reading the proper write-ups can widen your horizons and make you visualize. For example, reading a novel is far more interesting than watching a movie based on that same novel. The director of the movie can never depict what the author of the novel was trying to express, you have to do that within your mind because it’s impossible for the movie makers to present everything visually.
I was never a reader; I tried to read different type of books (outside my text books) so that I can develop a habit, but all in vain. I used to start a book and forget about it. I really needed a book/novel that was a page turner and I finally found one and so started my reading habits. It was ‘Doomsday Conspiracy’ by Sidney Sheldon. After that I followed all his books and I guess I have read them all.
I explored books/novel of different author’s after that but Sidney Sheldon was the one who instigated reading habits in me. Sheldon passed away Tuesday (January 30, 2007) and I would like to pay tribute to him through this blog.
Tribute to Sidney Sheldon
Posted: January 31, 2007 Filed under: News/information and opinion Leave a comment »Not everyone is a natural reader; you must be really special if you have keen habit of reading. Reading the proper write-ups can widen your horizons and make you visualize. For example, reading a novel is far more interesting than watching a movie based on that same novel. The director of the movie can never depict what the author of the novel was trying to express, you have to do that within your mind because it’s impossible for the movie makers to present everything visually.
I was never a reader; I tried to read different type of books (outside my text books) so that I can develop a habit, but all in vain. I used to start a book and forget about it. I really needed a book/novel that was a page turner and I finally found one and so started my reading habits. It was ‘Doomsday Conspiracy’ by Sidney Sheldon. After that I followed all his books and I guess I have read them all.
I explored books/novel of different author’s after that but Sidney Sheldon was the one who instigated reading habits in me. Sheldon passed away Tuesday (January 30, 2007) and I would like to pay tribute to him through this blog.
Transforming beggers
Posted: January 18, 2007 Filed under: Randomization of randomness 3 Comments »I come from a very religious family, but I hated it when I had to go to the temples with my parents. It’s not that I am a secular, but I loathed the protocols of worshipping. I preferred going to the temples by myself. When I am feeling down or agitated I used to go to the temples. I normally didn’t go inside the temples but I used to love the serenity of the area. The bells ringing, the birds chirping, the hustles of the devotees, and of course the monkeys. My favorite temple was ‘Karya Binayak’ at ‘Bungmati’. I used to get heaps of happiness by just being there. The only thing that saddened me was the presence of ‘beggars’.
I am a firm believer of “you can teach a man how to fish but you cannot feed them”. I normally don’t give them any money but sometimes I can’t stop myself. There is no way one person can help them all. The line of beggars in every steps of “Dakshinkali Temple” during Dashain festival used to make me sick. I wish I could help them all, but I guess even Bill Gates can’t help them as long as they are just content on begging.
I think the temple’s trust must employ them in someway, e.g. for cleaning, errands etc. There should be a strict law and equally strong enforcement against begging. Most of the beggars are seen around the prominent temples, and I believe the temple has more than enough fund to employ them and explore areas where they can be used.
There has always been a conflict regarding the assets and earnings of temples. For example temple like ‘Pashupatinath’ has huge income source, but it is said that the earning has never been transparent and majority of them are gulped by the ‘Pujari’s’. There had been debates regarding employing Nepalese instead of Indians as ‘Pujari’ of ‘Pashupatinath’, but that concern was attenuated due to the influence of “Higher Power’s”. Now that new constitution has been promulgated, the influence of “Higher Power’s” is significantly diminished. I request the government to advance major steps in making the earning of temples more transparent. If ‘Sai Baba’ affiliated hospitals can do kidney transplants in IRS 25.00, Nepalese temples can most certainly take care of the beggars, and keep the site clean and efficient.
Transforming beggers
Posted: January 17, 2007 Filed under: Randomization of randomness Leave a comment »I come from a very religious family, but I hated it when I had to go to the temples with my parents. It’s not that I am a secular, but I loathed the protocols of worshipping. I preferred going to the temples by myself. When I am feeling down or agitated I used to go to the temples. I normally didn’t go inside the temples but I used to love the serenity of the area. The bells ringing, the birds chirping, the hustles of the devotees, and of course the monkeys. My favorite temple was ‘Karya Binayak’ at ‘Bungmati’. I used to get heaps of happiness by just being there. The only thing that saddened me was the presence of ‘beggars’.
I am a firm believer of “you can teach a man how to fish but you cannot feed them”. I normally don’t give them any money but sometimes I can’t stop myself. There is no way one person can help them all. The line of beggars in every steps of “Dakshinkali Temple” during Dashain festival used to make me sick. I wish I could help them all, but I guess even Bill Gates can’t help them as long as they are just content on begging.
I think the temple’s trust must employ them in someway, e.g. for cleaning, errands etc. There should be a strict law and equally strong enforcement against begging. Most of the beggars are seen around the prominent temples, and I believe the temple has more than enough fund to employ them and explore areas where they can be used.
There has always been a conflict regarding the assets and earnings of temples. For example temple like ‘Pashupatinath’ has huge income source, but it is said that the earning has never been transparent and majority of them are gulped by the ‘Pujari’s’. There had been debates regarding employing Nepalese instead of Indians as ‘Pujari’ of ‘Pashupatinath’, but that concern was attenuated due to the influence of “Higher Power’s”. Now that new constitution has been promulgated, the influence of “Higher Power’s” is significantly diminished. I request the government to advance major steps in making the earning of temples more transparent. If ‘Sai Baba’ affiliated hospitals can do kidney transplants in IRS 25.00, Nepalese temples can most certainly take care of the beggars, and keep the site clean and efficient.
My traveling woes
Posted: January 17, 2007 Filed under: My bandwagon Leave a comment »Recently I went to Minnesota for my cousin’s wedding reception. I had a flight from Baton Rouge (1 hr drive from my place) at 5:45 am, so that meant I had to be at airport by 4:45 am. I got there half asleep only to find that my plane has been cancelled (there was ice storm at Dallas, my transit to MN). It was a mistake in my part too as I forgot to check the flight status in the morning before I left, it was ok the night before. I had to fight with airlines representative and they finally switched my airlines and rerouted me. As, I stayed there waiting to board, I was pondering, I always had issues when it comes to flying.
If you have read my blog “Remembering December 31”, I have mentioned my troubles when I flew from Nepal to US. I had few more troubles when I was in Nepal itself. Onetime when I was returning from Tansen (my field site), there was this huge landslide blocking all the major roads to Kathmandu. I took a cab to Bharatpur & Butwal airport but couldn’t find a flight. Then I took cab to Pokhara (I had to sleep in the cab near Syangja-Pokhara boarder because of curfew, which we did not know) and got myself a flight in double price. Other time, I was returning from Delhi, I had my visa interview for US the next morning, and my RNAC flight was supposed to land me at Kathmandu around 6 pm. But, I eventually got to my home the next morning, around 3 am. There was this guy in Delhi airport who was also cursing the RNAC along with me, and we talked a whole lot about politics when we were waiting for the flight. I (24 yr old kid at that time) was debating with this elderly fellow about politics only to find later that he was P.L. Singh (the ex-mayor of Kathmandu).
Few months ago, I had flown to Oklahoma to meet my sister. My flight from Lafayette to Dallas was good, but we had to get off the plane after we boarded for flight to Oklahoma from Dallas as they found out that there was something wrong in the engine. I eventually reached Oklahoma 4 hours late than my scheduled time.
Other time I was flying to St. Louis via Dallas, my flight was supposed to take off at 11 am but was delayed till 6 pm. It was ok, because I checked the flight status before I left for the airport (although I had to miss my valuable time at St. Louis). My flight from Dallas to St. Louis was further delayed because the stewardess group didn’t arrive. That was one of the stupidest reasons for having flight delayed. When returning from St. Louis, flight to Dallas was ok, but flight from Dallas to Lafayette was again delayed for even more stupid reason; the air hostess went out to grab a lunch and was missing. After an hour she appears strolling with a bag of subway. There are few more incidents and stories about my other flights too which I have not mentioned in this blog.
After the wedding reception, my return flight from Minnesota was again delayed and so was my connecting flight from Dallas, but by now I was used to it. I guess I have travel curse, so if you plan to travel somewhere and want to get there in time; my suggestion is never travel with me.
Beer Guff 2
Posted: January 11, 2007 Filed under: I love to drink 5 Comments »I always felt that one of the best companions for bachelor life is having a cell phone. No matter where you are, your cell phone is always with you. Even if it gets misplaced you can always ask someone to give you a ring and you can locate where it is, unless the battery is dead (my friend Samar got his third phone because he misplaced his other two when the battery was dead).
It always appears that when you are feeling lazy you don’t seem to find the thing that you are looking for. For example, when you come home tired from work and lay in the couch to watch TV, but your remote is under the pile of your dirty laundry. Don’t you ever wish you could turn on your TV from your cell phone? My friend Ashish couldn’t agree more on the usefulness of a cell phone. I have tried to assemble some of the stuffs that we wanted to embed in our cell phone; invented during our lazy hours. A cell phone must have following features too: a lighter, TV remote, bottle/wine opener, house key, car starter, pen, Chap Stick, etc.
Recently Apple Inc. introduced an iPhone, a cell phone that can act as an iPod & PDA and at the same time function as a regular cell phone. But the technology still has to go a long way before fulfilling all my expectations.
Holidays ain’t fun anymore!!
Posted: January 11, 2007 Filed under: My bandwagon 2 Comments »
I remember how much fun it was to have a long holiday when I was a kid. Life was so simple and laid back. Only problem that I had was teachers giving lots of homework for a vacation. I sometimes also got away with that by not going to the class in the final day and explaining them later that I didn’t even knew about homework. I don’t know how strenuous it was for my parents during the holidays, but I always had a blast. I had even enjoyed my long holidays when I was in my graduate school, but not anymore.
In America Holidays are very hard to come by, so when it does eventually come you really want to make maximum use of it. For international like me, holidays are more for traveling to new places because we don’t have families here. Since I live in Lafayette, a small city, airfares are sky high so best option is to travel by roads. But, this country is so big that traveling takes a lot of toll on you. Another option for me is to drive to Houston (3 ½ hrs) or Dallas (6 ½ hrs) and take a flight from there. But when adding the price for gas, parking at airport, considering the time consumed to travel to the airport and quantifying the tiredness in driving, I think the cost will come in par with flying from Lafayette itself.
This Christmas and New Year break was very special to me, I got to meet with people I really wanted to meet, went to the places I really wanted to go. It was a real blast. But after coming to work on the 3rd of January (luckily 2nd January was off) I was tired to death. It took me a whole week to recuperate.
Now I promised to myself I would spend coming holidays more laid back. I remember one time I asked my friend Lalit what he did for his thanksgiving break (he had 4 days off). He replied “I did nothing for the first two days and stayed home for the next two”. I laughed at that answer and so did my other friends. But now I am craving for spending holidays in such fashion, similar to what I did in Nepal, relax and watch TV.
PS: Firework pictures courtesy of Erika Stelzer
