This weekend ...

Sudhir and Madan came to Chenna to visit our friend, who met with an accident. He has improved a bit since I visited him a month back when he landed here. The first thing I could notice is that he has put on some weight and the visible evidence is his little belly. He refused with his usual witty smile and said that, it was because he was sitting his stomach got that shape, else it will be flat. Still he needs a cuff tied to hold a spoon & assistance from others to move, he regained a little bit of sense in his legs & he could move his fingers. Its a positive sign. Whatever changes, his mental attitude stays the same with the good old sense of humor. As Vens had his Santro, we decided to take him out for a dinner. As moving in & out of a restaurant will be a big ordeal, he preferred a drive-in restaurant. Out of the 2 known drive-in restaurants in the city, Woodlands was rejected because of the number of mosqiutoes. We might need a dozen Good Knight coils there. The only left choice was Planet M @ VGP. I think of the same situation in US. He can get into any restaurant/shop and move without much trouble. They make sure they have every provision for the physically challenged people. Here most of the commericial places have only stair cases & wheel chairs are not welcomed there.
As Maddy agreed to make it as his treat for his 42% pay hike (Damn! Three years back when we came out of college, he was the highest paid in our class!) But for 11 people with all variety of items from Pizzas to icecream, the amount came slightly around 2k. That should be nothing for him. Back home Sudhir started playing our fav. game ever - AOE :-)

I was talking with Sudhir about lot of things and was mentioning about the gal I met at ashram. She is around 18 now. 2 years back she was sold to a brothel house by her own gradma just for Rs. 20k. She was there for an year and got resuced afterwards. Now she is tested HIV +. Sudhir said, thats because its south. What does that mean? He explained that, there in north, gals younger than her will be sold at a cheaper rate and never get rescued. Thinking of people like my friend or these innocent kids, my question on the existence of God gets stronger. Back in my school days my thirst for knowing the purpose of life led to me glance me thru the writings of various Gurus from Vivekanadha to Prabhupadha to Osho. Each of them have their own view on what & who God is and generally I disagree with them in most of their arguements/views. The thoughts I could accept closely is of Kanchi Periyava's. His book 'Theivathin Kural' is THE best reliegious book I've ever read. Still there are few things that I disagree in that book too :-( Finally, till now, I don't believe in Him & His existence and the thought grows stronger everytime I meet innocent people 'punished' for doing no harm to others. Thoughts on this now reminds me that a blog on the book is still pending. Got to read it once again to blog about it.