Abortion - Parental Say

The priest yesterday during sermon touched on the topic of abortion. Mentioning quite vehemently that it was a devilish practice.

He went on to add, that people were killing children in the name of medical expedience, stating reasons like chances of physical or mental handicap.

Did'nt quite agree with him, since, I feel this is a decision that is best left to parents. After all it is their responsibility to bring up the child and expecting that their the child would grow upto be a healthy and normal human being would be every parents dream.

Going on those lines the knowledge that a baby is not properly developing should be a perfectly legitimate reason to discontinue a pregnancy if the medical situation warranted such a course.

One must remember that it is the advancement in medical technology which has enabled us to save many such infants who otherwise would not have been able to survive.But, their are instances wherein the deformity might be such as to leave the infant with either very little chances of survival or put the parents under tremendous financial burden attending to the cure. In such a situation should it not be the parents call what decision to take.

Last year the Nikheta Mehta case in brought this issue to the fore.

Wikipedia - Abortion Law

Cartoon credit:Cartoonstock.com

Valentines Day - the True Story

In spite of what you have been told by everyone, the truth is that
Valentine's Day originated hundreds of years ago, in India , and to top
it all, in the state of Gujarat !!!

It is a well known fact that Gujarati men, specially the Patels,
continually mistreat and disrespect their wives (Patelianis). One fine
day, it happened to be the 14th day of February, one brave Patelani,
having had enough "torture" by her husband, finally chose to rebel by
beating him up with a Velan (rolling pin to make chapattis).
Yes....the same Velan which she used daily, to make chapattis for
him.... only this time, instead of the dough, it was the husband who
was flattened.

This was a momentous occasion for all Gujarati women and a revolt soon
spread, like wild fire, with thousands of housewives beating up their
husbands with the Velan. There was an outburst of moaning
"chapatti-ed" husbands all over Anand and Amdavad.

The Patel men-folk quickly learnt their lesson and started to behave
more respectfully with their Patelanis.

Thereafter, on 14th February every year, the womenfolk of Gujarat
would beat up their husbands, to commemorate that eventful day - the
wives having the satisfaction of beating up their husbands with the

Velan and the men having the supreme joy of submitting to the will of
the women they loved.

Soon The Gujju men realised that in order to avoid this ordeal they
need to present gifts to their wives..they brought flowers and
sweets. This is how the tradition - Velan time - began.

As Gujarat fell under the influence of Western culture, the ritual
soon spread to Britain and many other Western countries, specifically,
the catch words 'Velan time' !!! In course of time, their foreign
tongues, this got anglisized to 'Velantime' and then to 'Valentine'.

And thereafter, 14th of February, came to be known as Valentine's Day
and now you know the true story of Valentine's day.

Some more losing ....

Continuing the take aways from Richard Bransons Losing My.. here is one from chapter 21.

"The sky was pitch-dark all around us.I scarcely looked out of the capsule but concentrated on the instruments. As I sat there with Per Lying comatose at the bottom of the Capsule, it seemed clear that we were going to die.With just three fuel tanks we would run out of fuel some thousand miles off the American Coast and have to ditch in the sea.We would have to fly this balloon for another 30 hours if we were going to live.I knew that the only chance of us living was for me to fly the balloon right to in the core of the jet stream.I put all thoughts of death out of my head and for the next 10 hours concentrated intently on the dials.

I do not believe in God, but as I sat there in the damaged capsule, hopelessly vulnerable to the slightest shift in weather or mechanical fault, I could not believe my eyes.It was as if a spirit had entered the capsule and was helping us along. as I watched the instruments and calculated our ground speed, it became clear that we were begining to fly very fast, close to the necessary miles an hour.Before we had dropped the fuel tanks we were flying at 80 miles an hour, which had been very good progress.Now we needed a miracle.
I slapped myself across the face to make sure that I wasn't hallucinating but each fifteen minutes the speeds grew faster: 160mph,180 mph, 200mph and even 240mph. The increase was astounding....