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April 29, 2006

Just another day in the life of a screwed up medical student

One dreary Monday morning, a particular 'cool dude' woke up at about six in the morning, took one long look at that day's timetable through his half asleep eyes and the first thing that came to his mind was "F***!!"

He then went through the usual hustle and bustle to go to class,messaged several of his 'cool friends', those of his own college and others nationwide, then received a long romantic call from his better half, managed to eat some of that horrible mess food and went to class with that outrageous string bag in hand. He was lucky to meet a kind day ski who dropped him to class.

First period was surgery, taught by a prof who clearly dint know what he was talking about. Our hero got to work, painstakingly preparing notes for God knows what! Then came an eager microbiology senior resident, who proceeded to give a boring lecture. As the cool dude's enthusiasm had decreased by then, he passed the entire class gazing at her face, all the time listening to an exciting conversation between a day ski "couple" behind him who were sitting in different rows.

Then came the ward posting in which yours truly spent two hours listening to gibberish, and the last hour day dreaming through a talk from a prof. After the lunch break,the cool dude came dutifully to path class and commenced a siesta for nearly an hour, then saw some similar looking slides and wrote some lines mechanically, dictated by a morose in-charge.

That evening,he and some of his friends decided to go eat at a popular hangout, and it was there that he finally asked himself a question that was nagging his mind, eating away his conscience for the last couple of months- had he made a Himalayan blunder by chosing to come to Pondy and study in that uninteresting village for five and a half years? Somehow the reply came to his mind as vividly as smokerings being blown onto his face..No.. and he realised that it was his friends who made him forget all this shit and made him look forward to each new day in JIPMER.

So three cheers to all you fellas for being my buddies. My message to you all would be- just stay cool and chill out, yaar...

April 20, 2006

About the "Goddess of Menstrual Cramps"

Well, I'll start from the beginning- the Aryan invasion theory has been considered the cornerstone of Indian history for decades by scholars and archaeologists alike, perhaps even stubbornly, in the face of contradicting evidence- a relic of the colonial viewpoint. But over the last two decades, a group of Indologists led by David Frawley, a highly respected scholar who currently teaches at Harvard and has written several books on the Vedic civilization, have been propounding the view that there was no invasion at all, and that the Indian civilization is probably much more older than what we have thought.

The term "Aryan" itself means "noble", not a race. And if at all a migration had occured, it would have been the other way around, as there are numerous instances in the Vedas of the westward migration of the people.

Recent archaeological digs off the coast of Gujarat have revealed three underwater cities, two of them dating back to 6000 B.C!!!! And the third site is Dwaraka, which is probably the largest city ever excavated, dates back to 4000 B.C... Irrefutable evidence have been discovered that points out that the Ramayana and the Mahabharata were not merely literary epics; they were the narration of actual historical events!!!

All this tends to reinforce the idea that the Indus-Saraswati civilization was the oldest and largest civilisation in the world. Hence, there is a distinct probability that all the other ancient civilizations- Egypt & Mesopotamia- arose as a result of interaction with the Indus-Saraswati civilization, or due to migration of the Indians to these sites, or perhaps a combination of both these factors. The extensive trade links between these civilizations are testament to this.

But I digress... About 10 years back, some "goddess" figures were discovered in a Mayan pyramid. Since then, virtually every similar site in the Western Hemisphere has revealed the existence of female statues in some form or the other. But the historians were confused, as they did not know the function of these "idols".

David Frawley postulated that these statues represented the worship of the "mother goddess", similar to the Devi idols in the Indus-Saraswati civilization. In fact, his "grand theory" was that some of the Indians, who had acquired a flair for sailing long distances, had attempted an exploration of the world, discovered America and settled there, eventually building civilizations of their own- Mayan, Inca and Aztec- that resembled the ancient civilizations.

The majority of historians derided his views, and critcised Frawley for creating a "fertility cult". Some of them even commisioned a Spanish painter to draw her, and derisively titled it "The Goddess of Menstrual Cramps". And the name stuck!

goddess.jpg

By now, its been conclusively proven that those images represented the Earth Spirit Gaea. And lots of additional features have been discovered that show a remarkable similarity with the civilization in India.

So, perhaps, India is really the cradle of human civilization....