Religion has no religion

Aamir Khan's PK could not have come at a more appropriate time. Religious Conversions, forced and voluntary, are the talk of the town in India. Many Ghara Waapasee programs are being organized in several parts of the country. There are critics and supporters alike for these events. Religion has once again become something that creates division rather than removing it. And Aamir tells us that he doesn't know how to select the most appropriate religion for himself. And I fully support him. Imagine yourself being an alien landing in India and discovering that you cannot get any thing done without belonging to a religion. PK brought forth this dilemma in very entertaining way.

I wonder whether religion created us or we created the religion. The concept of religion has gone all wrong. Yes, I am not any authority to define religions and none of you need to agree to that. Yet, I see a strong need to put forth my idea. When PK learns that GOD in different religion has different fashion, people following different religion have different fashion, some GOD drinks wine and some abhors it, women in some religions wear white on finding a husband and some wear it on losing the husband, and the list goes on. What a complex phenomenon. Is this really what religion means? Complexity, untouchability, non-tolerance, murder and hatred?

If you do a certain thing, why do you do that? Either you believe it to be useful for you or somebody or you believe it to be convenient and comfortable to do. You will seldom do something which does not qualify as above. So, if your religion promotes something untoward like murder, will you do it? Not until you really want to kill somebody. And if you have decided to pull the trigger, will you not do it because your religion does not allow that? So, my dear friends, it all boils down to interpretation, convenience and belief.

Managers of GOD!!! I liked that term very much and PK certainly makes a mark there. It it their interpretation that we often blindly follow and the result is prolonged oppression and failure of objective. They continue to make wrong phone calls to GOD and give us misleading directions. They enforce on us, in the name of the religion, what they see best for themselves. And we writhe in pain with the long-term consequences of these corrupted preachings.

Religion for me is a time-tested, cordial, natural pattern of life. If you are looking for day-to-day or futuristic solutions to real-life problems, most often than not your chosen religion should help you get it. You must make your own choice of following a religion. I see no point in deciding it for you at your birth. When you are a grown-up, your religion should also grow up if you think so. And, follow your religion without contradicting or demeaning any other religion.

In today's world, religion has turned out to be the most dangerous scourge crippling our planet. What is supposed to be the preserver and comforter of life in any form is fast turning into its deadliest enemy. Banish any single religion and absorb good things from all sources and then declare that to be your own religion. Hate and anger are the worst qualities of human character and your religion must not contribute towards propelling them.

My Father and Shree Chakravarti Rajagopalachari -- Brothers not on Blood but Actions

It took me a chance reading this morning to find out that my father shares his birthday with Shree Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, popularly called Rajaji. A very nice feeling indeed. The purist will remind me that a king and a beggar may be born on the same day but their life is often as apart in relationship as day and night. Yet for me the signs are really soothing. Rajaji was the last Governer-General of India and also the last highly powerful, highly learned human being from the pre-1947 India who was unbelievably humble. My father has no such prominence or clout but he is a man of equally unflinching truth, devotion, hard work, determination, faithfulness and vision. If ever the glory and might of a father gains from the actions of his son, then I do not want to fail him.

Rajaji lost his entire family, wife, 3 daughters, one as young as 3, and 2 sons-in-law. K.P. Kesava Menon, Chief Editor of Mathrubhumi observed, "Sri Rajagopalachari is rarely moved by emotion". If you read his poem, Kurai Onrum Illai, in Tamil, or listen to its very touching rendition by MS Subbulakhsmi jee, you can get the lasting impression for yourself. The poem remembers Lord Krishna and reiterates that he has no regrets about losing his family. God has rightfully taken away what he bestowed on him. What a purity and simplicity of thoughts!!!

My father has been asked several times to come out for help in the middle of the night or at the busy business hours of the day. These were close relatives, dear friends and strangers alike. And he never declined. Many a times these visits resulted in losses - personal, financial and emotional. He never pushed anybody beyond a limit to recover the damages. His face always wore a smile, his hands always greeted in respect and his actions always desired to do something good for them. I have never seen or heard him complaining about pain, suffering or betrayal to the Almighty. He simply sits in meditation as if to reiterate the fact that it is all his to take away.

Rajaji was a prolific writer. He had written on varied subjects and his writings reveal depth and scholarship. His important and valuable publications include : Ramayana, Mahabharata, Upanishads and Bhaja Govindam in English language. Mahabharata and Ramayana are published in many editions and translated into many Indian and foreign languages. Rajaji was awarded by the Sahitya Akademi for his Tamil book on Ramayana which went on to be translated in several other languages. Originally published in 1951, it remains one of the most authoritative explanation of morals and ideas behind Karma & Dharma.

My father is a very special scholar in his own right. He has deep understanding of Updanishads, Vedas, Ramayana, Gita, Mahabaharat and other Hindu scriptures. He translates texts from these sacred books into simple Hindi regularly, explaining in lucid terms the good and bad of each hymn/sermon. He also visits online and offline forums, gatherings and conferences and commands learned audience. He had traveled across the world under the umbrella of various organizations spreading the good preachings of Sanaatana Dharma. My exposure to good learning began as early as 4 when I learnt and recited Gayatri Mantra by heart. And to this date all good moral and cultural traits that I possess are 100% the meaningful and example-based teaching of my father.

Another inspiring similarity between my two legends is there love and efforts for Hindi. Rajaji had a strong belief in the usefulness of Hindi for the all Indians.

I consider the importance of Hindi for the South Indians because there is no getting away from it. If there is any Indian language which can replace English throughout the length and breadth of country, it is Hindi. A majority of people understand it.

He was the first politician to introduce Hindi in Tamilnadu schools in 1952 in the capacity of Chief Minister of Madras. My father was there in Chennai during the massive anti-Hindi unrest in 1967. He talked to people, made them understand the all round benefits of learning Hindi. He also categorically proved that the entire business in Madras could be conducted in Hindi if the local party stands to gain from the trade. The protests were purely political in nature. My father has been a hard-working part-time journalist for more than 30 years and his contribution in advancing quality and adoption of Hindi via Hindi journalism is well-known in Media fraternity.

I know some of you will accuse me of bragging. I assure all my readers that this is a very true comparison, done with the intention of celebrating the most commonly shared qualities among people we can admire. The most lasting influences come from folks who are closest to us. This piece is my worship to my father who is the most simple and yet powerful motivation I can get free of cost. Rajaji must have inspired my father and other in his generation and idiots like me will do themselves a world of good if we can identify and absorb such brilliant, common human values.

Captchas!!! Annoying Web Soldiers

How many times have you failed to login urgently to a website? IRCTC users, you folks must have a history of login troubles when something like whole world seems to depend on it. Apart from typo and memory errors for credentials, we often get stuck with CAPTCHAS. A quick round of Googling will tell you that, "A CAPTCHA is a program that protects websites against bots by generating and grading tests that humans can pass but current computer programs cannot.". But why in the world do we need to prove that we are humans?

The current state of Web Technology does not have any better ways than Captchas to avoid unintended usage of any of our accounts online. So, captchas are here and there everywhere. The more the algorithms behind them advance, the more cryptic and unintelligible they become to view and type. I regard myself as having very sharp eyes and yet when it comes to reading these captcha options, I regularly find it difficult to decipher the strings without taking at least a couple of attempts. And time-critical activities where login is delayed because of these visually heavy strings. Some sites do give an option for Audio options where the captcha strings can be heard but the Accessibility-reliant users may still find it hard to crack.

Thankfully, Google has devised a better algorithm that replaces the distorted text with a new experience where user simply need to tick a check-box to announce that they are not a bot. For the time being, websites have the option to stick with the old experience or move over to the new API. For users, that switch probably can’t come fast enough, so chances are most sites that are under active development will switch over pretty soon. The new API is given the name reCaptcha.

So why is Google making this switch? It turns out that the old-style CAPTCHAs weren’t all that good at keeping robots out anyway. With today’s technology, bots could solve CAPTCHAs with 99.8 percent accuracy. That makes them pretty much useless — except for one thing: reCAPTCHA was born of the idea that CAPTCHAs could be used to a) prove that somebody was human and b) help scan books. That’s because the old reCAPTCHA presented users with two words: one known one and one that OCR software had issues with. For the most part, it didn’t matter what you typed in for the second word, but once enough users typed in the same word, chances are that this was indeed the correct word. Over the last few years, Google also started using reCAPTCHA to transcribe house numbers from Street View.

Given that this new version hasn’t launched yet, it isn’t quite clear what impact it’ll have, but chances are far fewer users will see these prompts and hence Google will transcribe fewer words and numbers. The classic reCAPTCHA prompt will now only appear when Google’s algorithms aren’t quite sure that you are indeed human.

What this new API allows, however, is a far more flexible CAPTCHA experience. As Google announced today, for example, mobile users may soon see an image classification puzzle where they are asked to click on an image similar to the supplied one. This will help Google with its computer vision projects — something the company is probably far more interested in these days than basic OCR.

The new reCAPTCHA is already live on a couple of sites, including Snapchat, WordPress and Humble Bundle.