One fine day, a bus driver went to the bus garage, started his bus, and drove off along the route. No problems for the first few stops; a few people got on, a few got off, and things went generally well.
At the next stop, however, a big hulk of a guy got on. Six feet eight, built like a wrestler, arms hanging down to the ground. He glared at the driver and said, “Big John doesn’t pay!” and sat down at the back.
Did I mention that the driver was five feet three, thin, and basically meek? Well, he was. Naturally, he didn’t argue with Big John, but he wasn’t happy about it.
The next day the same thing happened-Big John got on again, made a show of refusing to pay, and sat down. And the next day, and the one
after that, and so forth.
This grated on the bus driver, who started losing sleep over the way Big John was taking advantage of him.
Finally he could stand it no longer. He signed up for body building courses, karate, judo, and all that good stuff. By the end of the summer, he had become quite strong; what’s more, he felt really good about himself.
So on the next Monday, when Big John once again got on the bus and said, “Big John doesn’t pay!,” the driver stood
up, glared back at the passenger, and screamed, “And why not?”
With a surprised look on his face, he replied, “Big John has a bus pass.”
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source: some story from a forwarded mail
Someone remarked that according to this book, non-vegetarian food is supposed to be the costliest in terms of the natural resources consumed.
“consciousness grows more complex and intense the higher we rise in the
animal kingdom.”
– William James, the founder of modern psychology
Someone had asked…
> First of all why do you think it is your right to kill plants for your food?
> neither I am telling it is someone’s right to kill animals … .
> why do you think it is lesser evil to kill plants compared to “kill” animals ?
For which I had answered…
“consciousness grows more complex and intense the higher we rise in the
animal kingdom.”
– William James, the founder of modern psychology
With amoeba and stuff like that at the bottom, plants are at a lower level,
and it goes on to all the way up to to the most known advanced life form
i.e. humans. Please this is not something I invented – I am talking about
the the same heirarchy chart we have seen right from school days! 🙂
Of course for us, our species is most important compared to any other, since we have the abilitity to think, imagine, create, have emotions, be self-aware, compassionate and all that – all these are the implications of consiousness. But though we might not like to admit it… animals do have subsets of these abilities too, to varying degrees. And sometimes even beyond what we commonly speculate, for example the link that Sudhir posted a while ago… Parrot’s oratory stuns scientists
I hope this also explains the difference between bananas and cows/calves!
Non-vegetarianism may be a personal choice, what I try to emphasise is atleast the treatment of the animals when they are alive.
At the age of around 12, my friend of the same age told me that with he had dissected live frogs. He justified it with his Karma theory “it was the frog’s Karma that he has to suffer, so it suffered, it was inevitable”. It might look like a ridiculous explanation now – or rather a misuse of a profound concept by a kid – but the Al Queda today use such philosophical concepts such as “merely executing Gods word” etc to justify their attrocious acts of terrorism – including the recent sawing off of a hostage’s head with a knife while he was screaming in pain (and then airing it on TV for all including his family to see).
The kid as much as the terrorist in the two examples were using their intelligence to justify *any* kind of action that they like to do, using only their brain and not their heart. That was the point behind the
examples.
We humans feel so miserable when we go through any injury – say accident or surgery or even just an injection. Yet we do not hesitate to inflict the very same misery on other creatures by using our intelligence to justify it. Here again I am talking not about vegetarianism but atleast humane treatment of live animals.
I understand cruelty is also part of nature, human nature being no exception. But I believe we always have a choice.
A few years ago, a friend Rahul verma asked me to not miss a movie that was to be aired on TV on a Christmas Day. He said “no matter what happens … DONT miss it” I asked why whats the story about… etc but he refused to reveal any details except the bare minimum.
But then there were some relatives visiting at home; and I didnt want to watch the movie in pieces so I ended up missing it. And then I eventually forgot about it.
But I did see it recently … and must say it really captivated my heart!! 🙂
Though I would like to write a lot more about it, I’ll keep it to the minimum…
[Btw I wouldnt set expectations too high, because sometimes I find a movie truly outstanding, eg Finding Nemo, and find that somebody else wonders what on earth I found so extraordinary about it 🙂 ]
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Life is Beautiful
(Italian movie with English subtitles)
Vita è bella, La (1997)
Directed by
Roberto Benigni
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A Jewish man (in Italy) has a wonderful romance with the help of his humour. Then he gets married, and later he, his wife and five year old son are taken by a NAZI concentration camp.
It is starts off as a comedy, and when circumstances change – it remains a comedy – under the most contrasting circumstances.
Probably it would be available in any VCD/DVD rental. Of course its easy to get the rest of the story outline through google/etc, but I’d suggest to avoid that and just watch it letting things unfold (without waiting for something dramatic to happen because its the entire movie thats good).
For those who are short on time and inclination, here is the conclusion in advance: kindly carry your own trash bags wherever in the remote wilderness you go and carry back your non-biodegradable trash with you, even small chocolate wrappers, and dispose it in a city.
This photograph shows one of the most beautiful and secluded places I’ve
been to – Mudhumalai, and you can see the garbage thrown around
there too (see near the bench). What a pity!
I am presenting a true incident here only as a ‘technology
demonstrator’ that change is possible…!!
For those who are short on time and inclination, here is the conclusion in advance: kindly carry your own trash bags wherever in the remote wilderness you go and carry back your non-biodegradable trash with you, even small chocolate wrappers, and dispose it in a city.
Mudhumalai – notice the white spots
I am presenting a true incident here only as a ‘technology demonstrator’ that change is possible…!!
Some time back I went to a place Thattekere, very nice spot with a small lake and some hills…
Birds eye view of Thattekere
Having spent the whole morning in the midst of nature, my mind had become very peaceful, and in such a state, one is very unlikely to get into trouble! 🙂 I picked up a large cover, walked up to the group, took a fleeting wild guess at who appeared to be the most rational of them, and walked up to him and asked casually “do you need this cover or do you already have one?” He was surprised that a total stranger was talking to him like an old friend, and asked “why?”. I replied “so that you can put all this trash into it” as if he was going to do it anyway. He was a bit off balance but only for a moment, and replied “no thanks, we already have some”. I replied, oh ok fine, and walked away.
I returned to my group, chatted for a while with the others and did some general time pass… and later the other group came in sight… they were leaving the place. I walked back to their spot and was amazed… it was restored to its former perfection!
I looked around and saw two large plastic covers next to a tree… full of used plates, plastic cups, etc.
In Germany, I have seen even the richest people partition their garbage and personally carry and drop it into the respective recycling bins in the street. Here somehow many people seem to have the impression that disposing of garbage personally is below their dignity and should be done only by ‘low class’ people.
To continue… I picked their two bags and started walking back, and happened to overtake the group which wasnt very hard since they were chatting and walking very slowly. The same gentleman whom I had spoken to earlier asked what I was planning to do with those bags. A lot of funny responses came to my mind but I restrained myself; I expressed my admiration on how neatly they had cleaned up the place without leaving any trace behind, and explained that since nobody would come and pick up the covers, soon monkeys or some other animals would come and distribute them all over the place again when they smelt some left over food inside. And these animals would possibly choke on the plastic stuff and go through a lot of misery. I added that I myself hadnt known all these things, until I happened to read them in the paper. Hence the best thing to be done with the garbage would be to take it back and throw it in the city where it would be picked up.
He replied “no problem, please dont take the trouble, let me do it myself” and took the covers from me. He wondered if I some officer or custodian or something and I said no, Im an engineer at HP. We started chatting and he said he he and his group were from BHEL and just stopped by since they were passing through the place. Eventually we parted as friends. I am not really a nature activist or something. Im only a software engineer who also cares about the environment and does a little bit for it now and then. I considered it one more victory for nature, just for one more day.
Maybe tourists cant really be blamed because they have no idea what to do with their trash, because dustbins cant possibly be present everywhere. One solution could be that they be given bags to put their trash in at the entry point to any place (which somebody told me is actually done in many places in the US). I suggest this to government agencies wherever I go, but these things take time. For the time being, lets all carry our own trash bags.
Olympus C-750 (F3.2, 1/125s)
Location: Boeblingen (south east Germany, near Stuttgart)
Autocorrected image… but still this is what it more or less looked like including the very bright sky in the internal one.
I was so stunned looking (and photographing) this that I ended up missing the train!! …oh well I took some more photos 😛
Though the entire semicircle of the two rainbows was visible, the camera could cover only this much. (as usual, any comments (for improvement/other) welcome).
One thing about orthodontic is you have to really stick to the plan, without any deviations upto the very end!
Eg at the end of my treatment (in my teenage days many years ago), I had nice looking teeth. Then I was supposed to wear some removable clips for a couple of months or so more. Partly due to my resentment of them due to the discomfort, and partly due to my keen sense of discipline (er… ie lack of it) I ended up ditching them, and my teeth gradually started going back to the previous state. But of course only to a certain extent, they stopped (hopefully 😉 ), and were much better than the original, though not quite
enough to star in a Colgate advertisement.
PS: But then one time I fell down landing on my chin, and had my teeth been perfect, I mightve bit my tongue but nothing happened, so… no regrets… 😉
“Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about
telescopes.”
– E. W. Dijkstra
Its clear that astronomy is not about telescopes and that its about stars
and celestial bodies et al. But when we say computers science is not about
computers, what is it about then?? Perhaps if I had heard this many years
ago
I mightve laughed at its apparent absurdity or might have just nodded and
casually forgotten about it.
Like I was saying… couple of weekends ago I was reading “Black Holes and
Baby Universes and Other Essays” by physicist Stephen Hawkings.
There in an autobiographical essay, he says after a disease and a surgery he
was terminally ill – speechless and paralyzed – completely immobile.
He still wanted to continue his research.
But his communication was limited to the help of another person flipping
through alphabets, and he would raise his eyebrows for the required one. He
would write sentences this way – very slowly letter by letter.
Then a software programmer sent him a device which flipped alphabets
similarly, and he could use his finger to indicate when the required letter
was reached. This was a major breakthrough – and it evolved gradually – the
stationary PC was eventually replaced by one embedded into his wheelchair
making him mobile. A screen was eventually replaced by a voice synthesiser –
allowing him to even speak again.
A man who was condemned by doctors to live as a vegetable counting down his
days – went on to write many more books, give many more speeches and do a
lot more research!!
(only a rough summary, explained much better in the book)
Of course it was basically the man’s indomitable spirit that got him back,
but software was instrumental.
After reading about this, Dijkstra’s words made a bit more sense than the
obvious 🙂 I felt this is what software is really about – improving the
quality of life and creating equality… Even a paralyzed person is now able
to live like an *equal* among other normal people – living a highly
respectable life!
[Saw it on a newspaper on the way to Germany from the UK, tried in vain to find it on the web later, but luckily later Conan was able to give me the link]
This was about a person Derek Ogilvie called as a Baby Whisperer. The article was quite amazing really, about how the man (of Scottish origin) is able to communicate with infants!
It starts off a bit on weird & occult lines but goes on to explain some interesting things – where we learn more about oursellves I felt.
The man says to the parents things that the babies remember, even things that the babies don’t like their parents talking about, and other stuff like that. The newspaper had conducted separate tests with three independent mother-child pairs. And the mothers attest that there was no way the man couldve inferred the things he did ad hoc like a very clever astrologer, because he didn’t speak much with the mothers at all but spent time only with the babies. He says the babies communicate to him through pictures or
colors or sensations in his body.
Most importnatly, the article clearly showed how peoples emotions transmit from each other just like cellphones radiate and receive signals: the man explained that when the mother felt bad or guilty or angry about something, the babies were clearly able to detect it and were affected too! If one is
miserable, indirectly everyone around will sense it indirectly, even if one is bravely putting up a smiling face. And especially babies.
So… what I infer is that being happy is not only important for one’s own sake but others around as well! 🙂
This photograph shows one of the most beautiful and secluded places I’ve
