Chaos called 'St. Mary's Feast'

If you're in ಬೆಂಗಳೂರು/Bangalore for the last week of August or the first week of September, and by your misfortune, you are bound to visit Shivajinagar/surrounding areas... I pity your condition.

Is St. Mary's feast celebrated the most in Bangalore?? I was baffled to find wikipedia's St. Mary's Bascilica, Bangalore link among the top three while I googled for St. Mary's feast. Confused, I searched in google.co.uk as well to make sure that location preferences are avoided. Still I find the same result.

What we call Bowring Church, actually St. Mary's Bascilica, the oldest church in Bangalore, located just opposite to Shivajinagar bus stand, is the source of chaos.

In short, this St. Mary's feast, is the celebration of virgin mother of Jesus, Mary (who got sainthood just because she gave birth to the messenger as a virgin??!). Did she take long to take birth (15 days of celebration)?? I don't see Christmas celebrated that long; atleast here in Bangalore.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, St. Mary's feast celebrations started almost more than 600 years after her birth. Why did it take so long for them to celebrate? Mary's birthday is still unknown but they celebrate it on September 8th of the Gregorian calendar. There is no solid proof that it falls on September 8th.

To my misfortune, I've been to Shivajinagar during this season almost every year since a minimum of 8 years. Its getting worse year by year. The worst I experienced was today, when buses from Balekundri Circle (Indian Express) to Shivajinagar on the Meenakshi Koil Street was blocked in the morning. So every bus from Indian Express were detoured to BRV ground and reached Shivajinagar via the Central street. I calmed myself saying 'Fuhget it! This is gonna get over this week' but while coming back from Domlur to Shivajinagar, no matter how many alternative routes taken by the bus, I had to wait 1.5 hours to reach Commerical Street. All buses denied to go to Shivajinagar. Let alone buses, no vehicles. After a 10 minute walk to Shivajinagar, I was shocked to see Shivajinagar Bus Stand completely occupied by these people. How can they use it?? Never have I seen such a thing before.

Not a single bus in the vicinity of Shivajinagar. I walked past the Meenakshi Koil Street towards Balekundri Circle passing by tens of beggars pleading alms on my way.

Not all agree walking from Commercial Street to Indian Express like me. Its irritating to most of them. Even the policemen couldnt control the situation. All I recollect such a thing happening was a year and half back when our infamous Devegowda called for a jana jaagruti samavesha at palace grounds affecting people commuting in the vicinity of Palace Grounds.

One more thing I need to mention here is that majority (more than 95%) of people attending this feast were Tamilians. I felt like I was in some busy town of Tamil Nadu while I walked past them. All black faces, in strikingly irritating orange uniforms (not to discriminate but to explain the fact). Was totally bugged up by their celebrations. Never have I seen Christians whom I know talk about St. Mary's feast; neither any other church celebrating it other than St. Mary's Bascilica.

I've seen Karaga/Ganesha festival being celebrated all over Bangalore but never is it this troublesome. Its distributed all over and not concentrated in one location. Blocking one of the major business zones completely for days together for some festival is irritating to many. And this St. Mary's feast started some 10 years ago I feel. Nowhere I saw it getting celebrated in my childhood.

I'd like to recall when the first person who tried to evangelize me, telling that 'truly speaking, there is no festival in Christianity; its a sin for a christian to celebrate any festival; hard core christians don't even celebrate Christmas you know... blah blah blah.' Now what is this feast considered to be??

I personally feel this is another method towards their evangelism strategy. To hell with them.

I like to give one message to those who celebrate this feast. If you want to celebrate, celebrate it in a distributed fashion and not concentrating near Shivajinagar. Its annoying to many who live in the city. First of all, get to know whether this can be celebrated after all (as your bishops, clergymen whosoever is concerned...)

Please do not try to play with the sanity of the city.

OVER N OUT.

Slangs I wish I could ban...

I'm writing this post inspired by this post from another fellow blogger.

I would list down phrases or slangs that we hear a lot these days wherever we go. Without much ado...

1. Jai Ho: You all know that this is another song from the movie 'Slumdog Millionaire' (which my li'l brother repeats as 'Slumdog Gullenari' meaning slumdog wicked fox). I don't know whats so special in that song other than it won an Oscar. Now ARR fans calm down.This is just my opinion. If you've got your own, keep it to yourself.

This term is used by the politicians and the stupid media (as always) to praise a victory. Jai Ho Deccan Chargers, Jai Ho India, Jai Ho Congress... what not?

2. Chak De India: Aah! another movie song. Anytime India wins a match, even some of the telecasters as well as commentators use this term. If you're in the corporate and have been to watch the match on the screen in the reception, takin a break you could see lotsa them using this term when India wins a match. You should check out the enthu in it.

3. Anyways...: Though you might not find it in any of the standard dictionaries, you'll see many of the corporates use this term; specially those in the manegerial stream or the marketing team.

Some random chap in the US started this rubbish. Possible conversation goes...

Person 1: We have a PROBLEM.

Person 2: Yeah!

[After some discussion]

Person 2: Look, we have 3 possible solutions, one is blah blah... second boo hoo and the third is this...

Person 1: ANYWAYS, we cannot void this situation...

Actually he might have meant a space between any and ways. People started clubbing both of them and started using it.

Some of the people in marketing might have copied it from the Americans and started using it here just as a matter of exhibiting US accent and it caught up here in India. What crap?

4. Resources: Another corporate term. Every human as well as non-human in the corporate is mere a resource for these PMs and higher level. I get so much irritated when two managers pass by discussing that put one more resource into this module. That module needs no more than 1 resource. so, take two resources from that module and put him into this project...

All I say here is treat what you call as resources as Humans.

More related terms: Deadline, process, timesheet...

5. Whats up Da/Ra?? : This phrase in Bangalore was introduced by the tamilians/teluguites respectively for Da in tamil nearly means buddy so does Ra in telugu. There are some of the dumb localites who followed them in schools and it got prevalent as a Bangalore college lingo. So did the phrases 'chumma' et al... Feels like hitting the person to the face on using it.

6. Raa Raa...: Lemme come to our Kannada Film Industry. There was one stupid movie called 'ApthaMitra' which ran for 1 whole year just because that the heroine of the movie died in a helicopter failure. The unfortunate heroine was charming 'Soundarya'. The film producer Dwarakish (calls himself the dwarf of Karnataka. Huh!) had given an open statement that Soundarya died and gave a new life to me. Lest I would have died. I had plans to write about these stupid movies one after another. Dunno when I'll take that up. Okay, coming back to the topic of discussion,

This phrase is a song in this crap movie. Dwarakish always has a song in another language (specially telugu) in his movie. ( Check out 'Nagumomuganale' from 'Rayaru Bandaru Maavana Manege', or 'Yanchei quanchini lei lei' from 'Singapuradalli Raja Kulla') dunno what for. This was the turning point in the movie according to him. This song became so famous that almost all crap movies in Kannada have a scene reserved for this song wherein some stupid female dressed as a lunatic in a saree with a big 'bottu' as big as parvatamma, hair undid etc... comes in dancing to this tune. This scene will be totally unrelated to the movie but still most of these real estate producers need one such scene in their film. One thing for sure is that the mass go crazy listening to this song. I still havent found the reason why???

Do you feel I've left out any? please mention them... Do contribute your terms too. Would be happy to know that!

Non-Indianization of Indian Education.

This post contains just an example of the title given. Its been a gradual process happening since we got freedom with congress being the catalyst.

Kindly have a look at this pic.


This is a drawing book provided by the government to the primary school students. If you observe carefully at the top (I suggest you download the image and view it in enlarged mode) you would see the following sentence.

Highlight the HUSSAIN in your child with this scientifically graded DRAW & COLOUR series.

It gives me real pain to see such a thing on a growing child's desk. This is the way the kids have been denied the actual truth. Tragedy is that people like M.F. Hussain who draw Indian gods nude, are heroes for us today. What are we trying to tell to our next generation?

I don't need to say more about M.F. Hussain. He is a true MF. You know what MF is. Don't you? Google on him to see some of his idiotic paintings. He's been in India for so long and has been consistently degrading Indian gods, glorifying the muslim tradition making a point that even a least muslim is better than any Hindu. Saddest part is that government is supporting his cause instead of penalizing him. They wanna award him Bharat Ratna?? Irony at its best.

I find his art kinda modern art. just some lines and colour and thats all. no detailed art. He just can't be compared to our very own Raja Ravi Varma or Venkatappa, Vasudeo Pandya to name a few.

Why is such a thing happening? Indian values are constantly being suppressed by the left centred government in the name of secularism. do they really know the meaning of it? For them it is just degrading Indian values and nothing else. Anything Indian, should be banished. Lest, why can't they follow the gurukula system in education which is far better than the ones followed today? I see no fault in that. In fact, gurukula is a better option when compared to any of the other education system which gives importance to each and every pupil's overall growth.

Couldn't they have replaced Raja Ravivarma instead of MF Hussain?

Say what?

Pubs, Discos & RSS, Sri Rama Sene, KaRaVe...

Currently whats the hot news in the state and the centre?

Nope! Its not the Mumbai Attacks but the attack on the pub culture by Sri Rama Sene in Mangalore.

Thanks for the stupid media in creating more hype towards this...

Personally If you ask me whether i'm for or against the pub culture? you know the answer better if you're a somewhat regular reader of my blog.

Its a clear 'NO'.

To write more on the pub culture, I might not be the right person coz I dont fall in that category of goin to pubs n discotheques. But this post is based on my experiences of interaction with those who follow it and support it. You've got a point, (I need not say it everytime) post a comment. Always welcome.

Expression for some, is to write out their thoughts, for some its singing, some its dancing... It varies among the people, but according to the Indian Constitution, everyone has got the right to express*.

Yes! There is a asterisk(*) which says conditions apply. The sole condition is that your fun, your expression should not be on someone else's cost. This is the only point I raise for this issue.

They've got better things to discuss in the parliament, but they elongate such petty issues wailing away their precious time. They can discuss about how to improve remote villages for their basic needs, about the power outage problems widely prevalent across the nation( I can go on and on...), but they never seem to take up such things. They're least bothered.

They're only concerned for a few people who were brutally battered for doing some stupid thing.

They were partying. Partying hard! Dancing for some great hip-hop songs with loud speakers, drinking, smoking...

Dont you think this will be a nuisance in the area? Wouldnt it increase the crime rates? People are concerned about those party-goers but are least bothered about the victims of accidents made by the same party animals. I'll just give the recent accident that happened. A person took his car drunk in Indiranagar hit three men and they died on spot. Tell me who is responsible for this?

Many such cases go un-noticed just for the reason that these party animals are highly influential. You can see the police taking the drivers license that day, the next day, you can see the same driver driving.

Okay! Forget the non-party-goers. I might have mentioned this point in some of my previous posts but it would add more weightage here too. How many affairs start and break up in such parties? People who have secret desires among their fellow colleagues do not hesitate to make it true in such parties by adding some tablet to the drink, making the victim numb and do whatever they want? Probability is very much high. There are many such instances.

Instances like a denied proposal, may make way for a murder. These people do anything when they're outa their mind. They dont care about the aftermath.

Anything can happen. Noticing this, the police have come up with a 11PM deadline and these partygoers conduct a rally opposing this. Strange thing is media is supporting such petty causes like anything.

I agree that 'Sri Rama Sene (SRS)' was a bit too violent in stopping the party that day, but do you think being sober would have worked? Never. They would hardly have listened to SRS. To stop such a thing, one has to be rude for a quick outcome. ( I agree in Gandhian principles, but it would take more time). Who would listen to the voice of the non party goers? Its only the common man who has to raise his voice amidst the roars of the highly influential people which would hardly ever been noticed.

I completely support SRS in this regard.

People might disagree with me in this respect, but I go by my words anytime. You've just seen the repeated video clips on media of SRS guys beatign the party girls black and blue. Have you seen how they party half (almost complete) naked? Does the media capture such videos?

One express your concern only for those who are beaten by SRS? Who will cry for those normal people who were hit by a drunkard party goer? Surprisingly none.

Finally, Partying(as the call it! Atleast what happened on that day) is not Indian Culture. One can see the transition, the west is getting easternized and the east westernized. Recently there aws a news, Two Russian couple got married in Udupi Sri Krishna Matha in totally vedic style. They even converted their names Keshidhama Das and Vrunda. They stand for the first transition and these party goers, stand for the latter transition.

Ending this post on the hope that there would be control on the pub culture.

leavingbangalore.com - a review.

People are getting crazy to get ideas. They dont mind getting this low for ads. One idiot, started a stupid ad as I had mentioned in leavebangalore.com's review, these people from real estate seem to get an advantage over it.They mimick the same ad, give more publicity by having ad boards along the streets have a pic of a woman showing her back to the audience with the caption, "I am leaving Bangalore" with a footline "www.leavingbangalore.com" for more info.

Stupidity @ its crest.

My suspicion is that these ads are being arranged by people who party hard and those who are suffering, facing the 11:30 pm ban. No surprize if they come up with another website leftbangalore.com!! Maniacs. Let them put a fullstop to all these.

If you go to these sites (leave or leaving bangalore), you'll find many reasons why they hate Bangalore. On the contrary, you can also see many mentioning why they love Bangalore. Some dont like the people here, some don't like their language (what crap?, its like you coming to my home and disliking me being in my home...), some blame the traffic, some blame the condition of the roads, the infrastructure, auto drivers, taxi drivers, politicians... who else and what not? everything you find here, someone has an objection on it.

You can also see many people asking those who want to leave to leave. Thats the best thing they can do. If they find a better place, why should they stop? All I ask is, can they repair the irreparable loss to the city where they'd been existing for quite a while? Due to their intrusion, how many trees have fell, how many people have lost their houses? How many have lost their lands? All because of the intrusion of the outsiders? You've got an argument? shoot! I'll take it.

All they do is just complain. No plans to come outa it and do some remedy to such things. I can give answers to all of their arguments for which this post would be too large. Let them fire in the comments, I'll take them.

They wont be satisfied with any improvements in the infrastructure. They're here just to crib. We should not care for such people and continue to do our work. They are insatiable in an unknown land and its not like they dont have these problems at all at their home. They've got more in fact.

Okay! Considering all the flaws... What can the city do to it? Its the politicians to be blamed and not the city. They dont have such an idea in their mind. All I can say is "People who want to leave, can leave. Nobody cares for them" they blame Bangalore for their leaving, its their cheap mindset. We simply cannot do anything about it and we hardly care.

Rest, who wanna stay here, please do respect the culture, the language, the people and go ahead... You'll always love this city.

Thou Shant Evangelize!!!

Well, Well, Well!!

Now i'll write about one of the things i hate to the core.

Yes! You guessed it right! Its about Evangelism!!

Dictionary.com gives "the preaching or promulgation of the gospel; the work of an evangelist" as the meaning to evangelism.

Wikipedia says "Evangelism is a Christian movement for emphasizing personal conversion and the authority of the Bible or, by extension, any other form of preaching or proselytizing." It continues... Christians often characterize evangelism as "...one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread." Hehe!! So cheap a comparision! Religions do exist for the sake of bread eh??

In laymans' words, Evangelism is just the process of conversion from one religion to another (strongly followed by Christians n to quite a good extent by Muslims, by force during the medieval age, (Mughals)). Forcing one to change his religion by preachin him, brainwashin him n bribing him!

Note that i'm not criticizin the whole religion here n am just expressing my views on things i hate in their rituals. I do give my reasons. You are always free to comment whatever you feel honestly. Do share yo views. Its not meant to hurt ones feelings,even in case it has hurt you, thats yo problem.

Note that they claim that Jesus had said this to their followers - 'Yo, Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, [even] unto the end of the world. Amen.

– Matthew 28:19,20 King James Version'

They say its their right to evangelize!

I had not bothered to know about evangelism since my engineering. Till then, i was not thinking about the society i live in to the extent i'm doin now! The first time i heard the word Evangelism was in 5th semester when one of the Microsoft's session in our college, when Mr.Kevin D'souza, .NET evangelist came to our college to evangelize us to .net. Prof.Victor, English Professor and the Principal of Degree College, Nitte, Bangalore, one of the chairperson invited to the session was surprized of the usage of the word evangelism in this context and he explained the usual n actual usage of Evangelism! Thats when i knew about it!

After the session, i recollected my sister telling me about Bhairappa's Dharmashri, I hadnt read it though i had bought the book long back. Just grabbed the book and started reading that. Boy!! How these people fool us around!! Was furiated about that aspect of Christians after reading it. Do read it when you are free. You'll get the tricks followed by them to evangelize!

After that, the major evangelist move i saw was that of stupid Benny Hinn's big programme for four day near my house! (@ Jakkur Aerodrome) I was laughing at the live telecast they were showin on TV! He was forcing people to just keep on saying Jesus! Jesus! and he will be healed! CRAP!!! What have they thought of these ignorant people! Just a move towards evangelizing 'em! They used to get such people to act and those fools would act as these idiots want and the innocent n the ignorant would believe that its true! Heck! I dont know what they get evangelizing people! (lumpsome Money?? eh??)

I forgot about that some days later till i met one in my company! He came as a tutor for a week! I refuse to disclose his full name. Lets keep it Mr.Rufus. He is a christian from Chennai! Came to our company as a Java trainer. He did his job to the required extent. Well, I have the habit of speaking to lecturers whenever possible. It was a tea break! We'd gone to the cafetaria! He was sippin his tea all alone! It was Dasara! 9th day! Aayudha Pooje! There was a procession going on the road with people dancing to the beats of thamate!

He saw that n asked "Why are they dancing??"

I replied "Its Aayudha Pooje! The 9th day of Dasara festival! They decorate their vehicles n tools they've got and worship god to keep them in good condition"

He replied "Oh yeah!"

I commited a mistake now by uttering this "Yes! Guess you guys have less number of festivals right??" I had to undergo a lecture for half an hour!

He started "You know, we dont have festivals. Its a crime to celebrate festivals! Though you say Christmas as festival, in core christianity, you dont follow any festival!"

I'm not able to recollect the exact words, but here are the excerpts i recollect from our conversation. I'll express my views inside paranthesis. I said "Is it??"

"Yes! You might have mistaken about Jesus Christ as our god! but you are wrong, Jesus is just the messenger of God! Our god is named Yehova! He is known in three forms. Father, Child or the Son and the Holy Spirit! God(Father) created the whole Universe in 6 days including Earth, solar system, all creatures, animals and man and all! ( Why didnt he mention about other galaxies??) After he created man (Adam and Eve) he let them free in Eden Gardens to just play! He said you can do what ever you want here and you are not restricted to do anything other than going to the tree of Knowledge! Even if you go there, dont ever try eating its fruit! ( Its an apple tree i guess. Now if he didnt wanted people to go there and eat, why should he have created that tree in the first place??) Adam and Eve hanged around Eden gardens but Eve was very curious(as every human being) about the tree of knowledge and she asked Adam to get the fruit from that tree! Adam initially refused but even he was curious n he got the fruit and they both ate it! They had created their first sin! God was furious about them! As part of their sin, they had their first child! From then on, human beings are creating sins after sins! A baby taking birth on earth is a sin! (Hmm!!!??) As we humans are creating sins to this extent, we'll go to hell if we dont take the side of God! God says 'Just worship me and I'll rip off all the sins you commit!' (So simple is it??)"

"Oh yeah?? How???"

"See, as i said, God has three forms(And you say god is one!! Huh!!), Father, Son and the holy spirit! Father sends his son to bear all the sins that his disciples commit! So any sin you commit n you truly believe in god, you wont get the punishment for your sins! All you need to do is believe in God and gods bears all the sins you do! God sends his own son to take the punishment of the whole set of people who believe in god!"

"What about the rest??"

"Why should he care about the rest?? They dont follow him and he is least bothered about those who dont believe in the ultimate truth!( What sort of god is he?? who cares about only those who believe in him??)

"Oho! that way?? Hmm" I said!

He continued to grind me with many more things i was totally not interested in! He explained more about Father, son and the holy spirit, the end of days, Lucifer, Armageddon n stuff like that! I was wondering why he was tellin me all this! At last after 30 minutes of boring, he said, "I stay near Frazer Town, Do come home every 12th of every month to get enlightened about the religion of Truth!(huh!!)"

I dint give a reply! I just came downstairs to attend the Aayudha Pooje in our office! I was waiting for an opportunity to get out when Deepak, our office boy called us to attend the pooje. I dint speak to him since then! Have seen him many a times since then i purposefully dont speak with him since then!

I explained it to one of my Christian friend who was close to me then, and she replied that he wouldnt have told you about such things without seeing interest in you! I had a big argument with her on this issue! I still continue such arguments with her! She wudnt find answers to such questions i ask! She just doesnt have the answer. I wouldnt like to discuss the topic of argument here as it might make some of the readers have bad opinion on me.

Since then, I am just against evangelism. Against people distributing pamplets about christianity! Muslims are no behind! I had just got a pamplet near the mosque just beside Shivajinagar Bus stand saying 'Discover Islam'!! Other than that, during the mughal rule or the bahamanis, or the ghaznis or the Ghoris or the sultans, they converted many Hindus to muslims by force! They changed the names of many cities to muslim name. Prayag became allahabad is just an example. They call their religion as the true religion and people of other religion as Kafirs. Have they seen the truth to judge people of other religion as hypocrites??

I suggest you to read 'Aavarana' by S.L.Bhairappa to get a feel for the muslim customs and their Ill treatment towards Hindus. They can follow polygamy haveing 4 wifes legally and many illegally, they can destroy temples of other religion n many other things! Shame on them! Muslim females are not supposed to show themselves to other males other than their family members. eh??

They curb if we destroy their masjid (Ayodhya, Babri Masjid), but have they forgotten that Babur constructed that masjid by destroying a temple in that place?? I am not asking for a Tit for Tat here but just bringing up the point!

I just want to bring up the point that we Hindus have never gone to anyone asking them to get converted to Hinduism! We believe in our ideologies and we never force others to follow us! Its in our blood! If they are interested in our ideology, we pose no barriers for them! We havent gone outside preaching our philosophy! Its only the outsiders coming in asking about us! We are self satisfied! Its these christian missionaries and the muslim prophets who want their religion to prosper by having more followers try evangelizing people! What do they get??

There are true believers of Christianity n Islam who wont evangelize! There are exceptions everywhere! But i'm talkin about the majority of people!

I'd like end this post with a quote by Gandhi here - "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

So true!!

Stupid Days!

Dont worry! this post is not related to my work! This is regarding the new culture upcoming in India which is finding its way more deeply in the past 4-5 years!

I'm talkin abt those stupid days like Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Fathers Day Friendship Day et al., Such a stupid celebration! These Americans n the Europeans started this stupid culture n we are blindly following it! In the urge to celebrate such things we are forgetting our culture which has festivals with a meaningful cause!

Its like those idiots lacked festivals n they started it! Why the heck should we fllow it?? Isnt it a shame on us to blinly follow such meaningless things!

Yesterday was the so called Valentine's Day! In the morning while we were heading to the office, we used to see many pairs just walkin close all our way!

But, while returning back, we might have seen atleast some 200 couples, some in the same fashion as of morning, while others where holding hands, some were holding hips! (Dont they know public manners!!??) Few couples goin by two wheelers, the back seater embracing the driver, doing all sorts of wild, weird things( You want me to explain such things?? Think you better know it!)

In the mean time i also saw some dejected couples, the female crying! (I think she proposed n he dint agree! :( or they might have eloped from their houses??) I saw another hilarious couple (Dunno who proposed, but the guy was tryin to hold the gal's hand and she threw it getting irritated(probable reasons... 1, she dint knew he was in love with her 2, He dint satisfy her wish( May be getting a present! Huh!) I can give you hundred scenarios like that! But i'm in a hurry to my office now! Jagga may give a missed call anytime! Will list all those scenarios in the upcoming posts!

If you love(if you), do you need a day to celebrate yo love?? If you really care for your friend, you really respect your parents, do you need a day dedicated for them to make them happy?? Does it mean that on the other days you might make them disappoint??

If you really care, you dont need a day to celebrate! Respect that relationship and thats fair enough! Why celebration! This celebration is just FAKE!

Will blog on this in detail some other day!

Hope this brought some light in your mind! If you feel against this post, feel free to comment! Anytime i'm ready to express my views!