The dark side of charity

Charity is what the elite give back to the society, it is the rich helping the poor. But in many cases, at least in India,  charity might take an entirely different meaning. This thought first came to my mind when I started thinking about the free food provision for the poor near my house. Everyday as I walked towards my bus stop, a marathi family would get food filled in buckets and distribute it among the beggars. Apparently the beggars there knew about this. So everyday precisely at that time they would assemble at that location waiting for food. Initially I felt very good about it. I felt good that were people who actually cared for the poor. But when I inquired I found out that they were doing it because a BABA had advised them that if they donated food to the poor for a month, they would be blessed with wealth and prosperity. The goodwill image that was created in my mind had shattered to say the least. It was then that I realised that 7/10 times the reason behind charity is selfish. It is in hope of own good fortune that people do charity. So what if there were no poor, what then? Whom would the donations be made to. How would we please the gods by convincing them that we are generous people who care for the less fortunate. So this implies that there have to be poor people whom we can make donations to. The correct and ideal equation would be that people donate because there are less fortunate people than them but I am afraid that in the present times this equation has taken a total U-turn. Now people require poor people to exist because they want to make donation.
So here's the question in the current context is charity a selfless act of giving to the society or is it just an other way to try and achieve our selfish aims.

How chance rules our lives!

I was wondering about Sheldon’s dialogue in the first episode of the first season of “The Big Bang Theory”, where he speaks about “The mass cultural delusion, that sun’s apparent position to earth during the time of birth somehow affects our personality”. Well, maybe it does. I ‘am not saying it because I have some medieval faith, but I think there might be a scientific explanation. To understand this clearly, you need to realize something. I wish you don’t realize it completely, because the after affects of that realization aren’t good.Once you realize it, life seems worthless, everything you do seems pointless. I might not be right. I wish I ‘am not right. This might seem obvious at first but as you understand its deeper implications, that is when trouble starts. The idea is simple: “its all chemical reactions”. Everything we do, everything we say and everything you can imagine is a chemical reaction at the basic level. So you might ask if its all chemical reactions, then life must be one-dimensional, that is only one definite course of events is going to  occur in your life. And what course of events occurs must depend on the initial chemical configuration. This would be an excellent explanation for the theory of destiny. But I ‘am afraid this might not be true. Heisenberg’s Uncertainty principle had explicitly made it clear that down at the level of the atoms, probability rules. There is only a certain possibility of an event, down at that level. And most of the reactions, including neurological reactions, occur at that level. So it’s all a game of chance. There is only a certain possibility that something will happen in your life. Worst part, it’s not your choice. Your social and cultural upbringing does affect the outcome but only in a small way. They bias some of the possibilities but never make them certain. This is where Baye’s law of probability comes into place. The probabilities are weighed but still they are only probable, not certain. Even if your upbringing creates a 99% chance of a certain outcome, for that one time when you need to make the decision, the electrical signal in your brain might take the one in hundredth chance and go the other way and this might change the entire course of your life. Well the point is, even if you might not notice it, “chance” affects our life in the subtlest way. Call it luck or whatever you want, the truth is that our life is a game of chance and we can only hope for a favorable outcome. Einstein didn’t like to believe that the world is ruled by “chance”. He famously said, “God doesn’t play dice”. I wish he was true, I wish there is a definite course for us. I don’t bother if it’s decided beforehand or is it in our hands to shape it, at least we won’t be at the mercy of “chance”. 

khoya MAIDAAN....

“Nowadays, kids don’t play outdoors. All the time they are glued to their computers or gaming consoles”, I bet many of you have heard this from some or the other elder. I know many think it’s the “GENERATION GAP” but I beg to differ. There are reasons why today’s kids don’t spend as much time outdoors as they should. And the computer and gaming consoles being addictive is not it. It plays a role, a minimal role though. There is a bigger reason. Every kid in India is aware of it.


I love playing cricket and football, and I enjoy playing them more than playing a game of ‘CALL OF DUTY’. But here is the problem, where do I play? There is no where I can play. I obviously can’t play in my house, because I would break things (expensive) if I did that. If I played in the street, the neighbors would start shouting at us. Most of the time this neighbor is an old lady; I have never quite understood why these old women are always so frustrated. The reasons they come up with vary from one circumstance to another. But there is a fixed set of these excuses. Here’s the list:
->you are making too much noise
->this is not a ground
->you will break the windows
->don’t play (they don’t have any specific reason. They just try to force there will upon you)
So with all this it’s impossible to play in the streets. The only option left for us is playing in a ground.

‘Ground’, almost sounds like an extinct word to me. Most of them have been converted to parking lots. And in parking lots, you definitely can’t play . You would break some car’s headlight if you did. There are anyways few of them (grounds) left, very few of them. But we can’t even play there. The elderly people have conquered these grounds and transformed it into their jogging/walking zones. They shoo us away from grounds. So where do we play?
It’s an amazing paradox. They want us to play and they give us nowhere to play. This is probably what happens in the majority of the cases and this is why kids stopped playing outdoors.
We would love playing outdoors. But that would happen only if you let us.

To all those who speak such things about the new gen kids, there is only one thing I can say:

Try to solve these problems first AND IF YOU CANT JUST KEEP YOUR F***ING MOUTH SHUT!!!

thinking of love

Its valentine’s time and love is in the air. Well to be honest I had to give a test today and have to give one tomorrow. Most of the other people in my college had similar duties to attend to. So I think it was much of physics and math that was in the air rather than love. But considering the tiny little amounts of love I still noticed around myself, it set me thinking about it.
Love is something I have never understood and probably never will. I feel that it is an extremely clichéd emotion. Love is of many kinds they say. And every love is different from other. I personally think all love is essentially the same. Its care and concern and selfless contribution to the other’s happiness .But you know I am just an 18 year old guy and might definitely be wrong.
The thing that amuses me most is when some girl responds to a proposal in this way
“I always thought of you as a friend, not as a boyfriend”. And the other common response is “I don’t know you enough”. The only way to understand a person is by hanging out with that person and being friends with him/her. So if you want to know about a person you need to be friends with him/her but if you don’t want to date your friend, well I don’t even know how it’s possible. It is a funny contrast of thoughts. I don’t know is it “girls” or “love” that I don’t understand.
The other question I keep wondering is: HOW DO YOU KNOW IT’S LOVE?
I’d appreciate your comments on this and for now I need to get back to my studies………….

-A REJECT

is friday the 13th really unlucky

The number 13 is synonymous with bad luck. It's considered unlucky to have 13 guests at a dinner party, many buildings don't have a 13th floor and most people avoid getting married or buying a house on a day marked by this dreaded number. Especially superstitious folks even avoid driving on Friday the 13th.

But is there any statistical proof to support the superstition that Friday the 13th — or even just the number 13 itself — is unlucky?

"No data exists, and will never exist, to confirm that the number 13 is an unlucky number," said Igor Radun of the Human Factors and Safety Behavior Group at the University of Helsinki's Institute of Behavioural Sciences in Finland. "There is no reason to believe that any number would be lucky or unlucky."

Radun might very well be correct, but there are a few bits of scientific research that have given superstitious folk a little more cause for concern, even if the scientists who performed the work aren't necessarily alarmed by their findings. [10 Weird Things Humans Do Every Day, and Why ]


For starters, a 1993 study published in the British Medical Journal indicates otherwise. Researchers analyzed the traffic flow and number of injuries from car accidents on the southern section of London's M25 motorway during the five months that the 13th fell on a Friday between 1990 and 1992.

They compared these numbers to data collected on Friday the 6th of the same months, and found that although there are consistently fewer vehicles on the road during the 13th — possibly as a result of superstitious people choosing not to drive that day, the researchers proposed — "the risk of hospital admission as a result of a transport accident may be increased by as much as 52 percent" on the 13th.

But before triskaidekaphobics, or those who fear the number 13, say "I told you so," it should be noted that although the data were authentic, the authors didn't mean for their conclusions to be taken seriously.

"It's quite amusing and written with tongue firmly in cheek," said Robert Luben, a researcher at the school of clinical medicine at the University of Cambridge and one of the study's authors. "It was written for the Christmas edition of the British Medical Journal, which usually carries fun or spoof articles."

Many people took the study at face value and it continues to be cited as valid evidence regarding the misfortune of both the number 13 and Friday the 13th .

"(Some people) clearly didn't understand that the paper was just a bit of fun and not to be taken seriously," Luben told Life's Little Mysteries. "Many also assumed that the authors were 'believers.' I'm sure that most of these people hadn't read the paper, which suggests that people being superstitious affects their behavior."

Since the 1993 study, other studies have been written showing that it's just women who have more accidents on Friday the 13th , with further studies determining that that's actually not the case. Other research results attempting to measure just how unlucky the number 13 is are mixed.

For example, in 2005, the United Kingdom newspaper The Telegraph analyzed the winning lottery balls dating back to when the UK National Lottery began in 1994. They found that the number 13 is the unluckiest ball, since it was drawn a total of 120 times since 1994, compared with the luckiest ball, number 38, which was drawn a total of 182 times. But, "of course, there is no way of predicting which balls will be luckiest in the future," the article cautions.

Not everyone has found similar patterns.

"Unfortunately, most of studies dealing with Friday the 13th and the number 13 are solely focused on statistical data, such as accident data, stock exchange data, etc., without any attempt to establish a 'direct' relationship between belief, or superstition, and behavior," said Radun, who is co-author of the 2004 study "Females Do Not Have More Injury Road Accidents on Friday the 13th," which was published in the journal BMC Public Health. "Therefore, it is not surprising that contradictory results may occur … In our study, we did not find that either women or men have more injury road accidents on Friday 13th compared to previous and following Fridays." [Superstitions Bring Real Luck, Study Reveals ]

Luben agrees that studies about statistics surrounding the number 13 should acknowledge how people's superstitions influence how they act. He wrote in his study that "superstitions affect behavior in all cultures in all parts of the world in some form or other." So whether you vow to never play the number 13 in a lottery or declare that 13 is your lucky number just to go against the grain, the stigma surrounding the number still influenced your decision.

"There are no lucky or unlucky numbers; they exist only in our heads – or in the heads of some of us – and they might become lucky or unlucky only if we make them as such," Radun said.

But many triskaidekaphobics, who count author Stephen King and former president Franklin Roosevelt among their ranks, don't need statistical evidence or hard facts to back up their conviction that the number is truly cursed. As with any superstition, no matter how irrational it may be, some people will still choose to believe in it.

ANTI GRAVITY?(1)

Today my dad was watching some show which was showing mysteries in different parts of our country. This episode was about a village near Mysore which has temple of goddess tripurasundari. Every year a festival/(jatara) is organized near this temple. In the festival goats and other cattle are sacrificed and rice mixed with the blood of these cattle is used as an offering to the evil spirits to stay away from the village. The rice, mixed with blood, is thrown in the air while the villagers go on a procession across the village. The interesting thing is, though according to Newton’s gravitational laws the rice should fall back on ground, not even one grain of rice is found on the floor.
“so how do u explain this, my “scientist” son?”, my dad said to me………
Well I have been thinking about it for some time and now I feel really sleepy….so will probably come with answers tomorrow…..u guys have any ideas……????
Gud night …
Tc……