Sam

     That I am a hypocrite, I say with no pretence. I am a hypocrite because I claim to believe in a Person who forgave those who went a few extra miles in torturing and dragging Him to the hilltop where He was to die; forgave those who killed His followers; forgives habitual sinners; forgives those who have one foot in hell but I do not forgive. I was forgiven, I am forgiven and I will be forgiven if I repent. That is the assurance the Scripture gives me.          But I do not forgive.          Mercy I get readily, 24/7 and with no strings attached. Mercy I give with a reluctant heart, after a long pause and with a laundry list of clauses. Sometimes I do not have mercy on others at all. Somehow, I missed one of the most important take home messages of my faith, in fact a map back home.          I missed the lesson of forgiveness, I missed Christianity.          I...

      Seventy years ago this day, among millions of dead and dying, as iron crosses glimmered on adolescents’ chests, with piles of those who had been living corpses being discovered, with thousands still fighting for their divine Emperor, with two cities oblivious to what is going to hit them in three months’ time, with half a continent being placed on the dinner platter of communism, peace was declared.      In the beginning of the twentieth century, after decades of unrest, a wrong turn of the car plunged Europe into a ‘necessary war’ pulling most of the known world into it. Peace was declared at the end of it too. Peace in the midst of humiliation and punishment for some, retribution for others but for a very many people it was when rape, confiscation, torture and murder were still fresh in their memories. The ‘Peace time’ that would follow the Great War would produce the boots, the tanks and the boats that would yet again strike unimaginab...

A man who comprehends what it takes to be a Christian and still chooses by his own free will to continue to be a Christian is a fool. A man who  comprehends what it takes to be a Christian and chooses not to be one is also a fool and how wide the difference between the two! For those who have crowned Him in the run down, constitutional Monarchies of their hearts...              Do you have any idea what you got yourself into? No you don't.      You have made the best decision you will ever make. It is better than the choice of your life partner because now you have chosen a companion for all eternity. And let me tell you that more than being the best, it is the right decision no matter what the world might say. You will not regret it when you get to the end of your multi-Athlon here on dirt.      But, while you are here, do you have any idea what you got yourself into? No, you don’t. ...

     You might have heard people say that they like to serve the poor and that’s why they chose medicine as a career. What you don’t hear is what they say at the back of their minds. “I’d like to serve the poor” (In America) “I’d like to serve the poor” (And have a million dollar house) “I’d like to serve the poor” (I think) “I’d like to serve the poor” (Nah! I took the course because I hate Maths)            Hatred for Maths or hatred for physics is not as common among medical students as one might imagine. There are medicos who talk about maths and physics as if they were Hyderabadi Biryani and DBC respectively. One might expect as little maths in the Medicine curriculum as possible but every now and then mathematical formulae keep giving a guest appearance in the text books, some of which we are expected to mug. But there is one, should I say branch in medicine which operates on numerical data. ‘Research’ is where m...

     If Mohammed Bin Tughlaq was to return from the dead and be made the vice chancellor of AARJEEUHS, he would I’m sure, find its current administration very pleasing…to the point of nostalgia. He would then, I guess, incorporate all the engineering colleges into the university, forcing them to follow its current curriculum. With AARJEEUHS unleashed over those ever-holidaying laymen, this is probably how a typical engineering course would be…                   Every engineering college would be attached to a servicing centre or at least a mechanic shop complex (one with >1000 sheds) for the students to see cases. All the colleges will have to conduct “Continuing Mechanical Education” programs and ‘workshops’ etc. Some of the must-have books for the students would be- Harley Davidsons (since Harrison Ford would be too heavy to carry), Freedom Park Community Mechanics, Fire Fox Basi...