The power of fear

The belief in a supernatural power, that which holds everything in control, that which can overpower humans, that which brings fear in to minds, and that we name as God, has been responsible in holding the humans together and preventing us from destroying each other. Today, I have been watching a documentary about Tibet on BBC. In Tibet the mountains are considered goddess and the lakes are sacred. This belief is deeply rooted in every tibetian and hence will naturally keep him aware of his environment and prevent him from polluting the lakes. Imagine, Had trees been considered sacred how different the world would have been now. I usually favour the idea of educating people and making them aware of the effects of pollution and teaching them to be environment friendly. But in real life it's much easier to achieve the same effect through fear.

Finding a Karate school

For quite some time I have been planning to learn Karate. I started seriously searching for a Karate school since last week. My main criteria were quality of the school and the travelling time and my main reason for learning Karate was to keep myself fit and to increase my reflexes. I picked up a bunch of contacts from the internet and started contacting. Most were far away from my home but I found around 3 schools within 30 minutes travel from home. Yesterday, on contacting one of the schools, I was given a few details and was asked to come in person to get the fee details. I thought that I have found my school. Today morning I went to their school in spite of the heavy monsoon downpour. The details goes like this: 3 classes per week with 1 hour practice every class. The fees was Rs. 2000 per 4 months. I was also informed that there is a one year course costing Rs. 18,000 and that black belt will be awarded at the end of the course. I thought "Man how simple is it to get a black belt", but I had doubts in my mind. I consulted with one of my friends who, as a child, has trained for 2 years. He too had doubts and I decided to ask the more informed people and posted a query on the usenet. The response to which has made me rethink about this school. I am back to square one and have started my search again.

Driving you crazy

With the ever increasing number of vehicles and lack of proper mass public transport system, Chennai roads are becoming worser every day. Lack of courtesy to the fellow road user has made the roads an unpleasant place. One can travel 5 km along any road and easily see one or two instance of quarrels. One of my fried has forwarded this - Driving a cultural change. It's not entirely impossible to get near the goal stated in the link but I believe that no number of rules or enforcement will change the situation. Instead the general attitude of the people should be changed. People should be thought to be considerate to others. Todays news has brought in a little relief, not that the government has changed the rules overnight and the roads will be a different place from tomorrow but because the department has at least acknowledged the fact that we are lacking behind and something has to be done about it. And yes, the driving schools are the right place to start with.

"There is a net addition of about six-seven lakh vehicles on the streets every year."

Thats a woofing sum. Isn't there a city planning / managing division?