... Antville.org

Instead, I am at office on a friday evening waiting for a late night telecon with my onsite co-ordinator :( People, not part of this stream, think software is a high paid low work job. If only they knew .. If only...

Anyway, the good news is that WEEKEND is here. So guys, have a great weekend. I plan to finish off the design of the site this weekend so that from next week, I can solely focus on the content.

Till then, this is /.\ n a n d signing off.

'Today there are once more saints and villains. Instead of the uniform grayness of the rainy day, we have the black storm cloud and brilliant lightning flash. Outlines stand out with exaggerated sharpness. Shakespeare's characters walk among us. The villain and the saint emerge from primeval depths and by their appearance tear open the infernal or the divine abyss from which they come and enable us to see for a moment into mysteries of which we had never dreamed.'

• Ethik, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1940.

from here.

Sharbat Gula : A 12 year old girl : Afghanistan : 1984,

2002,

read this.

Further investigation inside the nationalgeographic website got me this one,

For wallpapers like these, , go here. Once you have got your wallpapers, do go here to read this prize winning story about life in kuwait after the gulf war,

Then click over here to read a fascinating article about a Royal Miss pageant on Georgia's Jekyll Island,

Happy reading.

The guys at tinywords.com are doing a good job. Every day, they put up a new haiku on their website. Haiku, for the uninformed, is a japanese form of poetry written in three lines and 17 syllables. This is the epitome of the understatement, where a lot is conveyed in little. Tinywords.com will send you a email or even a SMS message with a haiku everyday, if u subscribe for it.

You can find a ton of links regarding haiku here.

and finally, a couple of haiku wannabes, from your truly :D she taught him what love was not. for she was not, what he thought. the heavy silence of the dark night around me. nothing but my thoughts for company. As the night waits for the sun, I wait for the right one. I know, I know. Those are not proper haikus .. but atleast, I tried :-)

from the rest of india. I just love my cricket :D

Today, I got to watch what must be one of the greatest Test innings if not the greatest ever. Nathan Astle scored a swashbuckling 222, of a mere 153 balls in an unbelievable chase of a mammoth 550 target set by England. Ultimately, New Zealand fell short by just 99 runs but that doesnt take away anything from that stupendous effort by Nathan Astle. No words of mine could describe the kind of innings he played. Read more about it at cricinfo.com.

I admit to having a soft corner for New Zealand. After India, They are the team that I like to see win. Something about the cheerfull persona, their die hard spirit and the impossible wins that they come up with frequently always fascinates me. They are a lot like bhuvan and the Lagaan team. Always underdogs and the least fancied team. And always achieving the impossible.

New Zealand cricket team, You inspire me. All the best folks, in the upcoming world cup.

some lovely words from my friend, Ammu, A destroyer does not know the pain of a creation……… A destroyer does not know the joy of a creator………… So let us not destroy anything …………… So let us not kill religion……….

The way is long n distinct,,, the paths r twisting ……… But they all lead to the same destination, God ….. Thanks Ammu.

As I have already said, There is nothing wrong with the idea of God. It is the interpretation of God in the hands of a few humans that is wrong. You ask me to change these people. But people like them will always be there. You cant expect every person to be sensible like you are. All I said was, Let us take away the weapon they use : Religion.

I got a hundred odd responses to the rediff.com article that I wrote ( If you havent read it, read it here). I am happy to find that 85 % of the people agree with my views, around 5 % agree partially and the remaining 10 % disagree. I am happy with these numbers and I can live with them.

Some are the responses, I got are :

Manoj says Hello, I cannot conceive of any more simplistic way to say GOD IS LOVE and to make a point that no religion or god ever preached fighting.

Thank you very much, Anand. Tirumal says Hi I just wanted to say that this was very powerful. How true... every word that is said in this diary... what a service of Rediff to humanity... Just keep up these standards of excellence. Just made my day.....I have printed it... saved it.. Thanks. and so on.

Some of the very negative comments include "Let us kill this guy" and "This guy is a complete failure in life" . I dont know what to say other than criticism should be directed towards what i said, not a personal attack on me.

Some of the more positive criticisms were centred around the communist idealogy and how such experiments have already failed. What I have to say here is this : Communism took away much more from a person other than his Religion. A person was stripped of all his possessions. What I was wishing for was the removal of just the religion. Maybe, that will result in a more pleasing endresult. Again, you cant suppress something. If we have to end religion, It has to be by a majority decision. Once you suppress something, it will rear its head in some form or the other. So if at all something of this happens, it has be accepted by the majority as the best way forward. I know it is wishfull thinking and that was precisely the tone in which the article was written. A wish, A hope for a better world.

My good friend, Ammu wrote in saying Man's basic nature is the problem and that has to change not religion. What I had to say to her is this : Agreed, Man's basic nature has to change. There is something of the animal left in all of us. It lies sleeping in all of us, waiting for the right amount of provocation to rear its ugly head. Religion is the one of the biggest triggers for this. There is something fundamental about Religion and God that provokes a Man more than anything else. So I suggest we take away this trigger. Hopefully, things might improve.

As usual in a debate, People agree and disagree. I am happy that i have struck a chord in many a heart and that is the good that I will carry forward from all this.

Thanks for reading.