Vamsy's Blog

 After reading the fiction series "Harry Potter" during college, I longed to read one more fiction series. That happened finally with "Wheel of Time" series by  Robert Jordan. These book series is much longer  and much more diverse than "Harry Potter". The reason I started reading these books is due to the TV series made on Prime with the same name(which was unfortunately discontinued).  First of all, we have to give credit to the late Robert Jordan for his huge imagination. The way he created a new imaginary world which contains magic, valor, evil, friendship, sacrifice, and what not is remarkable. How the many imaginary nations, each with diverse cultures had a common belief that the Dragon "reborn" will fight the dark one in the last battle is interesting. From Kings to Peasants, this long story talks about people from diverse backgrounds. While some people can tap the One Power and perform miracles, some people use the same one power to do wi...

Introduction A religion or idea surviving for thousands of years is not an easy task. That too when there are heavy odds against it for over a thousand years. But, Hinduism did that. It is flourishing for atleast 3000 years(many believe it to be over 6000 years). Every time there is a challenge, it survived by adopting and reforming itself. I believe, this is another moment when more reforms are needed. In this article, I want to briefly touch some of the major challenges faced by Hinduism in the past and how it survived before going through the reforms needed. Major challenges faced in the past Arrival of Aryans When the mostly undocumented Indus Valley Civilization is in the path of decline due to climatic changes. The natives encountered Aryans entering their land and merging with them. These 2 different cultures would have merged in a wonderful way taking ideas of each other and formed a primitive version of what is now followed as Hinduism. From the archeological evidence so far, ...

 After waiting for almost 2 weeks, I finally watched Kalki 2898AD movie. My overall opinion of the movie is, it can be made much better. In single word, I will say that the movie is "Bad". Below are the reasons I didn't like the movie- The story demands seriousness and sticking to the root(like in RRR). But, they tried to forcefully add comedy into the movie. Especially the comedy involving Prabhas and Bujji is terrible. The Telugu accent used in the movie is super irritating. Lot of cast is added to the movie just for having them in the movie. The random song involving Disha Patani is unnecessary and waste of time. Finally, while the movie is taking its root from Mahabharata. They glorified Karna over Arjuna. Which is factually incorrect. Of the 3 hours I spent in the theater watching the movie, there is not a single instance of applause from audience. I didn't get goosebumps even once through the movie. While I mention about the negative aspects on why I didn't ...

 Couple of month back I am searching for a show to watch. Then, I started watching Merlin series. I am able to watch the whole series in less then 2 months. It is not that the show is awesome. But, the most awaiting part of the series is to know when will Arthur know the secret of Merlin. For that I have waited till the last episode. Before going through why I didn't like the ending, the reason I liked the show is, most of the episodes have an ending. They don't carryforward to next episodes. The show also spends good amount of time developing the characters. How Lady Morgana became so evil, how Gwen goes from being a servant to Queen, and most importantly how the bond between Merlin and Arthur develops. The friendship between Merlin and Arthur is the backbone of the show. Without which the show would have been a flop.  Coming back to the reason I didn't like the ending is, they decided to kill King Arthur and the most powerful sorcerer in the world is not able to do anythi...

My recent 4 week trip to India got concluded just last week. It is a great trip I will remember for long time. While it is impossible to get comprehensive observation in 4 weeks, I have few observations that I am sharing in this blog. These might not be fully accurate given the short span I stayed there. Mobile Data Very cheap, fast and reliable mobile data. I got around 42GB(1.5GB/day) of 4G mobile data for a mere Rs.300(3.75 dollars). This includes unlimited calls and messages for 28 days. No roaming charges when travelling with in the country. QR codes and OTPs It felt like there are QR codes everywhere. Most of the shops(big/small) has a QR code displayed. Google Pay and Phone Pe are deeply penetrated using these QR codes and cheap mobile data. Right from receiving a secure Amazon delivery to making any online payment. You have to enter an OTP. I think these QR codes and OTPs are making Indian masses who generally are not well versed with technology to trust it. Great Vegetables Wh...

For much of the human history, Asian countries like India and China together accounted for over 50% of worlds GDP. In particular India with its fertile lands is seen as land of riches. But, how come such a rich country is enslaved by Europeans, which fall behind India in every indicator till 1700. In this article I want to share my views based on what I read and understood. Requirement For millennia there was a high demand of Indian made goods like textiles, spices and Jewelry in Europe. For this, Europeans have a requirement to have trade ties with India but not the other way around. Again that doesn't mean that there are no Indian traders. Indian traders at that time navigated across seas from China in the east to Europe in the west and traded goods. They moved their goods in large Indian made ships. There are records of Indians building huge ships before(Navy of Marathas, Cholas and Rastrakutas are a few examples). But, at that point the major requirement is for Europeans to hav...

Recently, I am seeing many couples in India getting separated. Which is new to a country where divorce rate is historically very less. That doesn't mean couples in India are happy earlier. Many of them are quite unhappy and hate the other person. But, in my opinion they remained together for below reasons- Divorce is a big taboo. Divorced women are easy target. Divorced women are not accepted in society. Women and young children are completely dependent on men. Opportunities for a women to make on their own are limited. These are some reason I can think of on top of my head. To rectify them and help women and children, government of India made some laws with good intentions. They have provisions to protect women and implicate men and his family in below cases- Demanding money from wife. Abusing wife physically or emotionally. Not taking care of needs of wife. Forcing husband to give part of husbands income to meet her needs. Frankly speaking, these provisions are great and nee...

 There many false claims about British rule in India. Some of them are- British helped in uniting India. British brought industries and science to India. Without British rule, India would be in constant chaos.  Other colonial powers are worse then British. In my opinion, each of the above statement is a brutal lie. In this article, I want to give some facts debunking those lies. India(Bharat) is always referred as a land between Himalayas in the North to a large ocean in the South. Which is what present day India is. Ofcourse, the entire region is not under a single ruler politically for most of the time. But, this entire region is always united culturally. Even politically many rulers have tried to unite India in the recorded history. Empires who are successful either to rule or influence the entire region are Mauryas, Guptas and Mughals. Ofcourse, there are Satavahanas and Cholas from the south who extended their rule and influence beyond Ganga. Even, just before Britis...

 You might like or dislike, religion is a most important aspect in the life of billions of people. Unfortunately, this is also the most widely exploited tool to ignite hatred between different sects for political/personal gains. People who are being exploited don't recognize that they are being exploited. On the contrary, they are absolutely sure that what they believe is true and everything else is false. Believe me, none of these people has any clue of why their belief system is true and other belief systems are false.  We can also find one common observation that these people(irrespective of which religion they belong) claim that their religion teaches peace. But, these are the same people who gets irritated and angry if anyone asks them questions. The real reason they gets angry is because they can't answer rational questions. But, the reason they claim for their anger is due to the insult caused to their belief. While this anger is vented verbally by most people. The...

 The latest movie of Leonardo DiCaprio is a very nice satire on what can happen to the world if a selfish leader combines with a selfish businesses person. While I don't find a strong relation with anyone in real life, I like the way some points are raised in the movie. The correlation between the on going issue "Global Warming" with the Comet is uncanny.  Its a known fact that many leaders across the world are neglecting basic issues like "Global Warming", "Deforestation" and "Preserving Environment". While the recent agreements have raised some hope, many people say this is too late. Everyone has a genuine argument-  Developing countries argue that, first world countries progressed for 200 years by burning fossil fuels. Why shouldn't developing countries take their citizens to prosperity by doing the same? Developed countries argue that, why should we pay what happened in the past. Every country should cap their emissions on their own. ...

 Lately, I see that many people in social media use past as a way to be angry instead of using it as experience for better today. This is not unique for a single place or single society. This has become an universal problem. In my opinion, the major reasons for this is "Victim Mentality". Simply put, for some people blaming someone else for their failure has become the easiest way to justify their failure. The unfortunate thing is, they use this tactic to even comfort themselves. In some cases, some people striving to become leaders use full or partial truths from past to ignite hatred between people and communities. Apart from this "Victim Mentality", there is yet another way past is being used by some people to self boost themselves. I call this "Those Glory Days Mentality". These people will only want to remember past selectively and go nostalgic about them. Most probably, these people as individual or community have some how not doing well compared to ...

 If a kid in India is asked the question, what is India? His answer might be in one of the below lines- India is the region from Kashmir in the north to Kanya Kumari in the south and Gujarat in the west to Arunachal Pradesh in the east. India is the combination of multiple languages, religions and cultures. Above responses from a kid are very satisfactory. But, is it fully correct? If first statement is correct, then India is less then 75 years old. If second statement is correct, then the question is what is keeping this country together? I thought about this question multiple times earlier. At some point, I even thought why should India be together at all? Below are the reasons I went through such thoughts. Many times people from one region look down at people from other regions in the same country. There is no easy way for people speaking one language to navigate in different region. But, my opinion changed completely with more understanding and reading. The name India might be ...

No one needs any introduction about Mahatma Gandhi. He is the one who united Indians and fought a non traditional battle against Britishers. He is the one who thought the world that Truth, Non-Violence, Peace are not week but they are a symbol of strength.  How did he do that? Why did people took blows without protesting, just because a half naked lean man asked them? What is so great about him? In this blog I want to answer these from my perspective. First of all, Gandhi might look week. But, when his ideology is added to him, he becomes immensely powerful. Now the question is, how can an ideology alone makes a person so powerful. The answer for that is, No. Ideology alone doesn't make a person great. Dedication towards it, following it with whole heart and trying to help people through that makes a person great. It is the same with Gandhi, his dedication towards his belief. The answer to first question above is, Gandhi's dedication and determination towards his belief. Coming...