As we try to find ways in which we can help people in those areas, this is a place where we picked up a lot of directions.

These guys are doing an awesome job:

Please use this resource and get in touch with them:
The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami

Asia quake toll tops 23,000

26th December 2004
1. I had a heavy dinner yesterday, I need to get my tummy tucked-in for the New Year party, lemme go for a walk in the morning. Marina beach is a kewl place for a long and vigorous walk. I still haven't decided where to party on the New Year's. Should I go to Shomu's party or should I just go pub hopping?
2. I love X'mas holidays. I get to come back home from Love dale, I get to play cricket with my school friends on the beach. I want to hit a sixer today, God please help me do this. I have never asked you anything. This is really important to me.
3. It will be so much fun to bunk IIT tuitions and walk on the beach in the morning with my boyfriend.
4. So what is it is Sunday, at this age, you have to walk everyday to keep fit. Get up. Don't you miss the breezy beach?
5. It is a good thing that I stay right on the beach, my plastic sheet thatch seems to be holding for now. I have to find that guy who paid me 25p less yesterday for the tea, I will keep looking for him till 10 in the morning, he has to come here to watch his son play cricket.
6. I hope this works out. This girl is cute and all but I dint know jack about her and now I HAVE to live with her for the rest of my life. But at least spending a few days with her in Phuket might help us get to know each other better.
7. Fuck man, I have to stop thinking about the RFP's, I have to stop thinking about my bitch of a boss and how she is ruining my career. I spend 2000 quid on this vacation and let me feel the sand on the beach even if I cant feel any bums as yet! Hey! the sea seems to be receding, strange! almost like my hairline!
8. I had to use up the LTA for this year, I had to use it by the end of the year and what better place to ger Rama and the kids than to the Andamans. Kiran is 14 now and he takes so many more risks than I ever could, jet skiing, canoeing and what not. We are off, back home tomorrow. The morning after Christmas is so beautful. Let me savour my last morning in Andamans. The sea seems a little rough today. What the hell is that? Was that an Earthquake? Good that I am on the beach and not in a building. I am safe.
9. 200 Rupiah yesterday. If I can get to that school of fish that I missed, I could make a lot more and not fish for a few more days. I left home at 4.00 am, my children were sleeping. I hope to buy them something in the evening.
10. There is a silver lining to every cloud. Retirement is not that bad! Pretty women all around, peaceful and serene sea in front of me.
11. 3000 miles done with another 700 miles to go before we can see some dry land during the day. Thailand has been a revelation for Kayaking, awesome little islands, awesome little lagoons, I dont care if I couldnt see Brooke Shields or that Leornado's little island. Once we are done by the 1st, the 6 of us will down enough beer to fill a mini-sea.
12.
13.
14.

3000 "people" died in India
12000 "people" in Sri Lanka
10000 "people" in Indonesia

Statistics! :-(
Don't think of disputing the numbers. That is not the point.

Mocha- 3 months, getting ready for his bath and hating it.



Mocha- 15 months
We are still waiting for him to grow up!

According to Kasparov "What separates a winner from a loser at the grand-master level is the willingness to do the unthinkable. A brilliant strategy is, certainly, a matter of intelligence, but intelligence without audaciousness is not enough. Given the opportunity, I must have the guts to explode the game, to upend my opponent's thinking and, in so doing, unnerve him.

So it is in business: One does not succeed by sticking to convention. When your opponent can easily anticipate every move you make, your strategy deteriorates and becomes commoditized. So, yes, a sort of courage is paramount. But that courage must be tempered by other less-glamorous qualities.

Me likes.

Am like a horse in a stable
feeling all fit and able
get my meals on time
Can sleep when I want to.

Then I dream about
the horses in the wild
can feel the breeze on my mane
and the tingle on my hide
dream about the absence of shackles
wild grass everywhere
snorting and galloping breezong through the days.

I wake up to see
the fence in my stable
know it can be crosseded being physically able
I think of the security
the meals on time and luxury life
and how I need to be more mentally able...

Anup and I, a few years back in a Linear programming session.

Anoop and Jasmine- Honey mooning in Colombo.
Hope you guys are doing well.

Amen.

Bomb blasts in bali, 9/11, riots in Aceh, riots in gujrat, war in iraq, fatal accidents every minute, tsunami in India, Sri Lanka and Indonesia.
Either I have been lucky to have escaped such cataclysmic events or...
One is waiting for me round the corner.
Hope I din't tap the wrong door.

Englishman with his pipe and a stiff upper lip.

Dinka Man, Sudan

The worst kind of fatigue is the fatigue of boredom.

How do I create an early warning system for the last situation?

.

Silence.
Confusion.
Decision.
Peace.
Silence.

It is strange and interesting how our pseudonyms get stuck to us.
I started using "atheistbishop", when I was looking to create a kewl screen name to play chess, something related to chess.
Atheistbishop got stuck to me since that evening.
It was easy to see how he got perpetuated. I din't have to check if anybody else was already using the id on any site and it was a neat name to have on chat!
Atheistbishop starting having a life of his own when I started blogging, thanks to foolie who co-opted me.
Atheistbishop's blog seemed to have a life of its own. Two avid bloggers meeting in the evening for a coffee, in most cases, don't discuss the content of their blogs. It is almost as though the blog has a life of its own in the cyberspace and interactions with the being called blog should be restricted to that world.
I blog for myself. But, I also play to the galleries. (Even though they are mostly empty :-))
It is this dichotomy between personal content of the blog and it's availabilty to everybody in the world, which makes the content and the thought process of the bloggers interesting.
It is an argument between being true to one's thoughts and Not being comfortable saying "all" that one want's to say.
May be this is when the identity of the pseudonym asserts him/herself, creating somekind of a distinction between the tangible world and the cyberspace.

There would be times when I am measured in what I say, But there would be times when the blog is release for Atheistbishop. Where, he doesn't care about what the gallery might think.

Black Yamaha RX 100, 1989 model.
I bought the bike in December of 1994. 10 years till date.
It was my lifeline till 2002.
It still gets my heart racing. I always feel 18 when racing it, I am on it :-).
There is some kind of visceral bond between me and the bike.
It tends to get a smile whenever I get on it and give it a rev and hear that awesome growl.
It kinda understood that I was a pauper as a student, it dint need service for years together.
I loved it but treated it badly. In all these 10 years, it never stopped once.
Dad asked me to sell it to buy a "different" bike. He din't want to face the ire had he said "better".

Today, I drove it after a few months.
It was fun ripping on the roads leaving saftey to the dogs.

I had such awesome memories on it, of all the friends who loved the bike as much as I did.
It is always parked next to my car.
I get into the car and drive away everyday.
But it is the Black, Yamaha RX 100, which is and will always be my first love.

Do you want to ride mah baby?

gairon ko kab fursat hai dukh dene ki
jab hota hai koi humdum hota hai

sach yeh hai bekaar hume gham hota hai
jo chaha tha duniya mein kam hota hai

hum hongey khud sey ghair
humdum, chahat aur dard key baghair

"OK," She said. She watched him go out of the door, saw him wave before he stepped into the elevator. She had never felt so close to him, never so much in love and if someone told her she would not see Michael again until three years passed, she would not have been able to bear the anguish of it.
- Mario Puzo in The Godfather, just before Michael Corleone goes to the hospital to check on Don Corleone, setting off the series of events culminating into Michael's killing Sollozzo and McCluskey.

Kay doesn't see Michael for another three years. She lives, and does pretty well for herself.

How well we exaggerate the importance of what is in front of us...

gairon jo kab furst hai dukh dene ki
jab hota hai joi hum dum hota hai.

Not plagiarized, a straight lift off.
- Foolie quoting Jagjit Singh.

The Schizophrenic Mind

Why does the mind vacillate so often?
Why can't it stick to a stance?
Why does have to present itself with extremely convincing arguments for and against a situation?

Never mind.

Confessions of an Atheistbishop:

"I analyze every second I exist
Beating on my mind every second with my fist"
-- Limp Bizkit

Revisted.
As true as ever.

Mind has a great ability to exaggerate the importance and the indispensability of the people in front of you.
So much so that the people start exaggerating their importance in your life.
As time passes, the mind moves on.
People don't.

How do citizens communicate their expectations to the governments?
Necessities are easier to communicate as they double up as campaign speeches and vote bank pleasers.
How would the government understand citizen's expectations for developmental needs?
How does the government get to know that the citizens need an better system to pay income tax?
What is the interface?
The elected representatives are too few and far between.
Again, a middle class, 20 something, educated, working in a Consulting company is not a "typical" Indian.
So, if I haven't ever been reached out to by the Government to understand what I "think" rather than what I "need", then it be just that I am not important enough or we aren't sizeable enough.
Every long-term decision made by the government needs to have an implicit understanding that "this is what the people want". How does the government get this idea?
One school of thought says that, "initiating new programs or massive changes to the governance structure is only possible through visionary leadership, by a leader who can think far enough, farther than the citizens. By that logic, citizen's expectations are limiting and short-sighted."
May be it is the size of the population in India, which makes, an outreach to gather public opionion, extremely difficult.
In a few European countries, citizen's participation in decision making is more organized. For example, Switzerland follows a system called "direct democracy", where it is possible to insist, by collecting a modest number of signatures, that any law proposed by the government must be submitted to a vote by the electorate.

The delays in decision-making in this progress would be debilitating in a democracy of India size with highly opinionated populace.

The question still remains, how can an educated, working citizen participate/ contribute to decision making in a democracy after electing a representative or a party to power?
When elected representatives are lambasted about the murkiness of politics, the usual refuge is that not enough educated, working citizens join politics.
They needn't.
Governance system should have points of interface where citizens can contribute to decision-making at various levels.
Other than experiments with electronic voting and using survey tools, the governance structures haven't evolved to incorporate the tools created from the Internet revolution to let citizens reach out to the Government.
How different is the communication
Citizen's expectations, can be looked at from 2 sides of the mirror.
1. How can the government fulfill my expectations of service delivery?
2. How can I communicate my expectations about decisions that the country makes? How can I contribute my knowledge and understanding in providing better service delivery for every body?
Other than the election, what is the other means by which a citizen can communicate with the Government? The Government of course, has the complete media machinery at its disposal to speak to its populace.
Citizens need more avenues and tools to communicate with the government not just once in 5 years but as frequently as possible.
Citizen groups and councils are doing a good job in their limited means. But more needs to be done.

I enjoy uncertainity.
But not when I am staring right into it.
I love to have options.
But not when I want all of them

I guess, I am just being hypocritical.

Korli recently told me that I have a tendency to get very comfy with where I am.
I agree.
I love my thoughts and the way they meander.
I get excited by my thoughts and get impressed by them.

I have to minimize these orgasms out of intellectual masturbation.

Things have to get out of "hand", its more fun the other way!

Don't you agree?

Ohayo Gozaimasu!
I am re-starting Japanese classes from tomorrow morning.
From 6.30 to 8.00 in the morning.
I miss trying to get a hang of that tough script, its like going back to the slate.
Write and repeat.
Write and repeat.
Write and repeat.

Sayonara

Let me get as good at Nihongo as I was at Francais.

IBM-Lenovo deal creates new global PC player - Computer Business Review: "IBM will take an 18.9% stake in Beijing-based Lenovo under the terms of the agreement, which also sees Lenovo become the preferred supplier of PCs to IBM, and IBM becoming the preferred services and customer-financing provider to Lenovo"

Quid pro quo (Without any quid)? You scratch my back, I scratch yours.

I was under the impression that we moved on from "Barter system" of doing business towards a more "Currency" based economy.

Je m'en fous.

I loved to use this phrase when I was learning French a long time back.
It slipped out of my vocabulary.
"I don't care" or "I couldnt care less" or " I don't bother much" didn't replace the term.

Je m'en fous is leading the rally back.
Welcome home.

He said I was in my early forties
with a lot of life before me
when a moment came that stopped me on a dime
and I spent most of the next days
looking at the x-rays
Talking bout the options
and talking bout sweet time
I asked him when it sank in
that this might really be the real end
how's it hit you when you get that kinda news
man what?d you do

and he said
I went sky diving
I went Rocky Mountain climbing
I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named fumanchu
and I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter
and I gave forgiveness I'd been denying
and he said someday I hope you get the chance
to live like you were dying.

He said I was finally the husband
that most the time I wasn't
and I became a friend a friend would like to have
and all the sudden going fishin
wasn?t such an imposition
and I went three times that year I lost my dad
well I finally read the good book
and I took a good long hard look
at what I?d do if I could do it all again

and then
I went sky diving
I went Rocky Mountain climbing
I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named fumanchu
and I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter
and I gave forgiveness I'd been denying
and he said someday I hope you get the chance
to live like you were dying.

Like tomorrow was a gift and you got eternity to think about
what?d you do with it what did you do with it
what did I do with it
what would I do with it?

Sky diving
I went Rocky Mountain climbing
I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named fumanchu
and then I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter
and I watched an eagle as it was flying
and he said someday I hope you get the chance
to live like you were dying.
To live like you were dying
To live like you were dying
To live like you were dying
To live like you were dying


- Tim Mcgraw