This gal beats Shakira!

Check out this liquid lady! Shakira stands no chance in front of this lady...some special talent!

India 2020 - Will it be just a Vision?

Today I came across this article and was stunned!! The practice of 'Sati' still exists in India?? Whatever be the case, either the wife jumping into the pyre at her own will, or the family members pushing her, the bigger question is 'are we on track for Vision 2020 for India'? With almost 70% of India's population in rural areas, the faster we develop the rural areas, the earlier we will be reaching our aim.
I hope Mr. Abdul Kalam can steer the government's efforts in the right direction in the right areas!

Unique practices of Marriage

Recently, some of my friends were having a conversation about marriage, how it is followed at their places, etc. And I could not stop wondering how the practice itself started. As usual, I hit my 'all-info' site, wikipedia.org. Though I did not get the right answer for my question, I found some interesting stuff there. I have copied it below for your easy reference:

Unique Practices
Some parts of India follow a custom in which the groom is required to marry with an auspicious plant called Tulsi before a second marriage to overcome inauspicious predictions about the health of the husband. However, the relationship is not consummated and does not affect their ability to remarry later. One should note that this is not a norm found across the entire Indian sub-continent.
In the state of Kerala, India, the Nambudiri Brahmin caste traditionally practices henogamy, in which only the eldest son in each family is permitted to marry.
In Mormonism, a couple may seal their marriage "for time and for all eternity" through a "sealing" ceremony conducted within the LDS temple. The couple is then believed to be bound to each other in marriage throughout eternity if they live according to their covenants made in the ceremony. Mormonism also allows living persons to act as proxies in the sealing ceremony to "seal" a marriage between ancestors who have been dead for at least one year and who were married during their lifetime. According to LDS theology, it is then up to the deceased individuals to accept or reject this sealing in the spirit world before their eventual resurrection. A living person can also be sealed to his or her deceased spouse, with another person (of the same sex as the deceased) acting as proxy for that deceased individual.
Other unusual variations include marriage between a living human and a ghost (Taiwan), a living human and a recently-deceased human with whom they were emotionally involved (France), and between a human being and God (Catholic and Orthodox monasticism). Again, these lack the social meaning of ordinary marriage and belong rather to the realm of religion or (in the case of weddings of dogs to other dogs, Kermit the Frog to Miss Piggy, and the like) pure spectacle.
One society that traditionally did without marriage entirely was that of the Na of Yunnan province in southern China. According to anthropologist Cia Hua, sexual liaisons among the Na took place in the form of "visits" initiated by either men or women, each of whom might have two or three partners each at any given time (and as many as two hundred throughout a lifetime). The nonexistence of fathers in the Na family unit was consistent with their practice of matrilineality and matrilocality, in which siblings and their offspring lived with their maternal relatives. In recent years, the Chinese state has encouraged the Na to acculturate to the monogamous marriage norms of greater China. Such programs have included land grants to monogamous Na families, conscription (in the 1970s, couples were rounded up in villages ten or twenty at a time and issued marriage licenses), legislation declaring frequent sexual partners married and outlawing "visits", and the withholding of food rations from children who could not identify their fathers. Many of these measures were relaxed in favor of educational approaches after Deng Xiaoping came into power in 1981.

Howzzat for a marriage? I like the Na of Yunnan province ;-)

Near & Dear

I have often come across some Indians who say (in a disgusting tone) 'I do not want to stay in that area because there are sooo many indians'. Pal, you too are an indian, what's your problem in staying with them? I got 2 kinds of answers to this question of mine:
Version 1: I do not like the Indians. They are very narrow-minded, intrusive, etc, etc

What?? Boss, you too are an indian. How broad-minded are you? You do not like indians, but you will behave like one (in terms of shopping, entertainment options, traveling, etc). You do not like indians, but will go for lunch with them. I bet, my friend, you would very soon go searching for Indian friends!

Version 2: I have come so far from India. I want to feel the US kind of living.

Reasonable. But, are you following the life completely. No. You stay inside the house mostly. If you go outside, it will be with your Indian friends. How many of US friends do you have? Have you matched their spending lifestyle? Their freak-out on friday lifestyle? I doubt.

I am clue-less as to why someone has to feel low about being near to their country folks. This is not an abnormal phenomenon. I don't think 'Birds of a feather flock together' would have been coined just like that. This will be the case with every national when they are in a foreign area!

There is nothing wrong in being with one's near and dear.