Category: General

Zubin was quick with the map. We all sat in the car, as per the instructions of Rashmi. I knew, once we get out of the car, our weekend trip will be ending up watching a movie and loitering at home. Gee… what a wonderful proposition. Only if Rashmi will allow us to get out of the car! Zubin was quick and was back with the map. Lots of places were considered and finally we decided that we would be going to Greenwich. I had been to Greenwich once and knew the important attractions. Moreover we will be driving through London as well.

Soon we hit the road again, joined A40, and soon we were in front of Madame Tussauds and London Planetarium. Madame Tussauds is worth one visit, and recently Amitabh Bacchans was statue also has been kept on display. I had been to Madame Tussauds and it was nice, but my expectations of London planetarium were really high. Maybe for that reason, I was not satisfied by the performance at the London Planetarium. I rather felt that the Planetarium at Worli, Bombay was more nice, in ambience, content and presentation. Another worthwhile visit in Bombay is the Science center in Worli., which is very close to the Planetarium, but has a different entrance far from it.

A glimpse from the car at Tussauds, which is close to Baker Street Station (remember Sherlock Holmes?), and we were on our way figuring out the way to Greenwich. Two navigators sitting at backseat were scouring the books to find a route to take to our destination. Somewhere around the way, we lost it. I think I am becoming an expert in getting lost. Particularly when Zubin is my navigator. My passengers were getting hungry and a McDonalds gave us the break which was needed. Especially after the near-accident, that I was about to cause. (what can you expect when you apply break and the car skids?!) Further route was discussed over burgers and chips. Someone suggested returning back home to the cozy comforts. “ah yes” I thought, “we came all the way to Central London to have Mc Burger!!!”

The weather was bit cloudy and it was drizzling all the way., we followed the map onwards to Greenwich and after scrambling for places to park, we finally found parking on a basement near cutty shark.

to be continued…

I make fun of god., and I get several angry-upset-scathing eyes staring me. But I do go on… God seems to be the only person, whom you can make fun of anytime-anyway-anywhere, who wont keep any grudge against you. Am I an atheist? No. Do I believe in god? Yes indeed I do, but its really hard to explain “God”.

“Just as certain world religions say that, people who do not beleive in personal gods outside themselves are atheists., we say that a person who does not believe in himself is an atheist. Not beleiving in the splendor of one’s own soul is what we call atheism”– Swami Vivekananda

ps: Swami Vivekananda brought Hinduism and its philosophy to the west, who till that time considered India to be a land of barbarians

I recently saw “Bandit Queen”, movie by Shekar Kapur. Indeed it was a brilliantly made movie, and I should say the movie explicitly pointed out some of the ills (unfortunately) still affecting India. The movie was based on the life of Phoolan Devi, the dacoit of the chambal, but phoolan devi herself disowned the movie after the release. Still the movie was an excellent piece of work by Shekhar Kapur.

Recently the Bandit Queen, Phoolan Devi, who had become a member of parliament, was shot dead. The investigations are going on and will go on..

BBC celebrated this week as Islam week. I watched a program late night on BBC2 about Islam, and the civilization that it has been, around the period of 900 AD to 1100 AD. It was a wonderful program, which cleared some misconceptions about Islam. Islamic civilization reached the peak during this period. Baghdad, which was the capital of the Islamic civilization, was a city par excellence, much advanced for that period of time and most of the intellectuals of that period had gathered there. These scholars and Intellectuals, translated volumes of the books from various cultures, like Greek Philosophy books, Number system from India, all the available knowledge was being translated to Arabic.

This is the period where “paper” was a rare commodity in Europe and Arabs mastered the use of paper and books. Islamic civilization spread far and wide. But one Muslim king from Egypt committed a great blunder, which caused a major turn-around for Islamic civilization. The above king destroyed the Christian church of Jerusalem, which angered the pope-dom and led to the future crusades. Kingdoms in Islamic civilizations were not united at that time, which helped the crusaders and the ferocious Mongols who came later. The Mongols invaded from Far East, they were great warriors and they took control of Baghdad. They destroyed many structures, burnt many books and plundered the whole city. But in three decades, they got converted to Islam and started spreading Islam.

More information on Islamic civilization can be found on BBC website [Link]