Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Valentine's Day



Happy Valentines Day

V- Day is here and so are the protests by Shiv Sena.. Makes for a good debates across all the channels..In NDTV 24*7 debate Ashok Singhal claimed ‘Such Days are leading to the collapse of our sanskriti’..Pat came Pooja Bhatt’s reply “Is Our culture so weak that suddenly it comes to collapse on this one day”

It is not that I am in favor of the V day or I love them..But somehow till date I can not understand shiv sena’s point. I mean they say it promotes western culture but the so does mother’s day, father’s day..All of this is coming from them right..

Personally speaking V day is no different for me. How can I suddenly be this girlie girlie being waiting for gifts and all the love which should(Note the should usage here) be showered on me on that day..Not my type..but if u look at it, there is nothing wrong in making hubby feel a little guilty over not giving me gifts

So yeah I do use the occasion for my own little purpose :-;

Yesterday saw Sudha Murthi’s interview (CNBC TV 18).Do I hear, who is she?? Ok, she is Narayan Murthi’s wife..

Hearing shuddh hindi words coming from her was a pleasure..
Quite a talkative person as opposed to Narayan Murthi. “Murthi is very shy” as she claimed..
Throughout the interview she called her husband Murthi..Was amused to hear that..
Not sure it was bcoz we are so accustomed to Mr Narayana Murthi or just that in my pa’s ma's generation never heard anybody talking abt their husband with first names..

Sudha Murthi worked for Telco and Infy.. Story goes that after seeing a Telco work ad which had footnote ‘Female Candidates need not apply, Sudha wrote to JRD abt the gender bias.

JRD himself apologized and offered her the post. Though initially she had no intention to join as she had a scholarship from US, she did join Telco after the incident as after that letter she felt she was morally responsible to take up the offer.. She became the first woman engineer at the shop floor of the company

While leaving the Telco(she said she was going to join an adventure venture) when she broke the news to JRD he said "you fought so much for the job and now you are quitting it?" She told him that her husband wanted to start the Infosys Adventure. And then JRD turned almost a soothsayer to say, "If you make lots of money you must give it back to society as you have received so much love from it."

Words stayed with her and lead in shaping of ‘Infosys Foundation’ she created.

Coming to JRD, her mother was French. She was initiated into Parsee religion by RD(Ratan JRD’s father). Seems this had created quite a stir in those times as parsee religion does not allow this and even had lead to a famous court case.

Courtsey : Oxford Book Store

Yeah also went to Oxford Book Store..Was an interesting visit..On my way to store noticed an adjacent building named as FreeMasons,19 park street..

Does it ring bells for you..it will if you have read Da Vinci Code..So me curious to find out more picked up a book(No did not buy :-;) abt Calcutta’s historical places in Oxford..

Wow and here is what I found was..
Earlier 53,Park Street , this has the honor of receiving Freemasonry in India ,
in the year 1730.
Now serves as the headquarters for the FreeMasons in Eastern Region.

Never knew freemason was here in India as well. Interesting

Do u know Swamy Vivekananda, JRD Tata, Motilal Nehru , C. Rajagopalachary were initiated into freemasons society.. Well I never heard this before

Ended my day laughing at this shop claiming to be in
“Shakes Peare Road” ..

Trivia:Pic above is from Kolkata Book Fair..What was I doing clicking flowers..well neighbor was in bengali book shop and I used the oppurtunity

10 comments:

Mr. J said...

Freemasons.. always intriguing. And yeh after reading Da Vinci, it makes it even more interesting.

rauf said...

the guy is writing a book on freemasons

e2d said...

Hi! nice pic ..
Sudha Murthy--cool lady hu?
And not much clue about Freemasons...but I am curious now.

Zette Remi said...

Hey! I watched that program too! I liked it a lot. She is a very smart lady.

And about Shiv Sena - if they don't want to accept anything Western, they better start giving up using telephones since it was invented by a Westerner (Alexander Graham Bell was a Westerner, correct?)Why do people go to such extremes?

Sangita S said...

Me: yeah I know. :-)

Rauf:Hope the book is out soon..I wld surely get it

e2d:Thanks u liked the pic

...: lol. Good point ..Hope shiv sena is reading this..

Sangita:Cool u r keeping the promise of interactive blog..Let's see how far u go lady :-)

angeldust_xtc said...

now, i know who left that anonymous comment on my blog months ago;)

nice read girl. put up some more pics.

Sangita S said...

Angel: Good to see u here after a long time..U going real busy..

Hey I do not write anonymous..:-)

angeldust_xtc said...

make a new post already girl.

And u did write anonymously, check.maybe forgot to leave a name but I thought u were Miko.

Mr. J said...

Whts up lady.. no new posts..

Unknown said...

Hi Sangitha,

Cute comments on Freemasonry. Freemasonry isn't one person its an organization that spans India and the world. The characteristics are uniform across the globe (lots of info on the web)

I am a freemason from Bangalore. Here are some websites that you can take a look at for more information.

My lodge: www.southernbrotherhood.org
Grand Lodge of India: http://www.masonindia.org/
United Grand Lodge of England:
http://www.ugle.org.uk/

Cheers,

Mark Monteiro