This is one of the things I don't understand. If appendix and toncils are vestigial organs and Darwin's theory holds, then what is the purpose for facial hair ?

There are some cosmetic reasons for Sri Sri Ravishankar, kalki avatar and other self proclaimed god men.

It really helps Gillette to beat Moore's law with respect to razor blades. I mean, don't these guys double the blades every year. I cannot wait to see that 10 blade razor. I hear they are waiting for the holiday season.

It helps Saeed Anwar make a come back, and Inzamam win matches. (How come nobody suggested this to Ganguly ?)

It helps the new desi grad students and bored to death s/w engineers to make a statement(!) when they grow their first goatie immediately after landing in U.S.

But are these things considered in evolution ? If the evolution is taking place slowly then Pakistan, Bangladesh et al are still very backward. We are still an evolving country. China appears to be the only evolved place. I am serious. My department has two chinese guys for every non-chinese around. Have I ever seen one with a beard ? All of them are grad students. Someone should be lazy and should forget to shave, right ? I have seen no one, not one single person with a beard. Ok, I have seen those kung-fu movies with that old chinese guy with a long goatie and the ponytail and , but that is ancient china. They have evolved NOW. I can't wait to see the headlines why china is more evolved than India, how India will be more evolved soon, and how all Indians won't have facial hair by 2030. It will be great if some of my handful of readers pass this on to CNN-IBN or rediff !

In the events that followed the ban on blogs, we talk about censorship. We talk about freedom of speech. We find short cuts to read the blogs. We plan to file PILs. But what is this world coming to ? Did anyone bother about that poor webserver which is getting millions of requests to those blogs, but has to block it. Simply bacause it was "ordered to" block them. How emotionally draining will that exercise be ?. Here is the story from the webserver's side.

Note : It is hosted on geocities :-). If you are in India : please use tor. It is a rare, old forward, customized for the ban.

My bro Suraj forwarded this picture last week. Is that a resilient family ? Check out the poor man who is in the background. I can assure you that this isn't just a pose for the photo. Those people sincerely want to watch the serial. I have seen such personalities. I guess, it all started with Ramayan and Mahabharath. But that was fine. Some Mythology, some war, it was sort of ok. There will even be a confusion when there is a one day match to switch between DD-1 and DD-2.

At the same time DD had this 13 episode serials. Some of them were quite decent and it gets over in 13 weeks. So we were still in safe territory. KB's Rail Snegham was pretty decent. But that was it. I was left behind there. I wasn't part of the mega serial boom. But it happened and the boom is at its peak now. In Tamilnadu it started with Chithiiiii. It led to the development of the following characters.

Grandma : you will often hear her talk to grandma2 "sandala pavi, gayathriya kai vittutane". If you assume she is talking about your ex-girl friend gayathri and plan to confess then you are in serious trouble.

Mom : "It is already 8.30. Why don't you come and have dinner ?" Is it because of the couple of inches we lost ? No, Wrong again, it is because kudumbam starts at 9.00.

Sis : "What are you watching ? Is it good ? ". That probably means give me the remote and get out.

Dad : "vaada sappitralam." That means let us eat fast or we won't get food for another hour.

Seriously, these are real people. There is this girl we know. She is a s/w engineer. Being in a thankless job she works till 8.50 pm. Then her poor boy friend has to drop her at home. He again picks her up at 9.30 pm for dinner. 9.00 - 9.30 was her serial time with some kudambam, kaviyam type serial. It doesn't matter that your own life could be in jeopardy. What if the poor BF gets frustrated ? Who cares ? It appears people need that peek into some other people's problems. Most of these serials satisfy that longing for the gossip. They satisy the urge to see what is happening in the next door. But the problem is "the girl next door" has a drunkard as her husband and is perpetually crying.

For a change I would like to see a mega serial like "the girl next door" itself. Let me not care about Day-Night matches. Let me forget about food and make my mom wait for me. Ah, if had all my wishes granted then I wouldn't be blogging about this now, Will I ? :-)

Imsai Arasan 23am Pulikesi (Annoying(?)* King Pulikesi-23), is banned in Karnataka. Rakshne Vedika and Kaveri Kannada found the conspiracy of the Tamils. Pulikesi-2 defeated mahendravarman a tamil king in the 600's A.D. But mahendravarman's blood line is still a closely guarded secret. But they found it. Yes it is director sankar. He made it big into movies with one goal in mind. To avenge the defeat mahendravarman suffered against pulikesi. But he cannot blow his cover by directing a movie on pulikesi. So he instead produced one which portrays pulikesi with vadivelu !

Now tell me, how cheap can these people get ? Don't these guys have some sense of humor ? Can't they see vadivelu ? How can that character hurt sentimets ? I was looking forward for this movie, a political satire(probably) after a long time. Anyone remember cho's Mohammed-bin-Tughlaq ? The least common denominator of the bangalore is dictating terms once again. God save the high cort judges in Bangalore. They need to go to their grand kids' history books now.

* Imsai is not annoying as in Somnath Chatterjee, but it is annoying as in Sidhu. Something you can laugh at.
** The ban is true, Karthik, my friend in Bangalore, went to see it but couldn't. PVR refunded the money.

I hope I saved the best for the last. Point Lobbos is one of the best places we visited in this trip. Carmel is on the way. So it doesn't hurt to stop. PT.Lobbos where land, sea and the sky merge mesmerizingly. Check out the photos.

Tip : If you ever plan to visit Point Lobbos take your lunch. There is not even a snack shop in the park.
PS : flickr doesn't allow me to create more than 3 sets. I have started using flickralbum. If you want descriptions click on the photos themselves.