My first FragFest

First things first....for all you n00bs out there...a FragFest is a gaming event.
And to all the laypersons out there...'n00b' is the shortform for newbie and its used to refer to all amateurs.(Its kinda derogatory too)

So I made my way to my first FF last night...Just a couple of guys working in the same company getting together for a few hours of unadulterated Counter Strike!!
Being an avid gamer I couldnt resist the offer when it came up on the bulletin board.
First thing i noticed was that everyone was introducing themselves only by their screen-names...

So I was like...
Hi Im Royston.
And He goes....
Pleased to meet you, Im RaxiS_ConnoR and this is Drakcul!

And Im thinking...what have I gotten myself into?? These guys are real pros! Im gonna get my butt kicked so badly Im prolly gonna give up gaming for life.
Another first timer, Josin aka :::PinDRopSileNcE>>> was also there.

What followed was 3 hours of amazing gameplay...stuff that Ive missed dearly after leaving the carefree trainee life back at Mysore.

All things said and done :::PinDRopSileNcE>>> and SwitchBlade (thats me) ended up making quite a good team together! Him with his trusted AK47 assault rifle and me armed with my ever present Magnum sniper rifle. Im not gonna boast but I did have the highest number of frags in nearly all the maps...(Guess I did boast just a little :P)

PS - If you n00bs are still wondering...a 'frag' is a kill.

Had to leave relatively early coz I had to be in the office by 8:30 today morning....cripes! Looking forward to my next one :)

Cheers!

"Always fear a sniper unless you encounter him from behind"

Run-in with the Mama

On my way to work I was stopped by a Mama near ShivajiNagar police station. Along with me another dude on a scooter was pulled over. I realised what the problem was when I saw his licence plate...it was from Madhya Pradesh...my bike is Karnataka registered...

I knew that Mama was going to try and make a quick buck from us. By the time I parked my bike and entered the police station, the other dude had already bribed his way outta the sticky situation.
Mama asked me to show him my NOC while he pocketed the 100 he had just received.

I told him that I didnt need one as its been not more than 2 months since I bought the bike and the law is that you can ride your vehicle without an NOC for 6 months in a foreign state.
Thinking I was unaware of this clause in the law he went on to describe in detail how the law works and how I should have a temporary NOC with me if not a permanent one.
Then hes like,"Ab bolo...1000 rupees ka fine hain...parchi de doon kya?" (Now tell me...its a Thousand bucks fine...do you want a receipt?)

I asked him to wait while I phone my friend who is a police commissioner...Mama got worried..."Yeh karne ki kya jaroorat hain? Woh toh Karnataka ka commissioner hain, Maharashtra ka nahi!"
(Why do you want to do that? He's the police commissioner of Karnataka and not of Maharashtra!)

I continued to let the phone ring...He relented saying."Kya tum yahaan permenently rehne ke liye aaye ho? Agar nahi toh NOC ki jaroorat nahi hain! Tam jaa sakte ho."
(If you're not gonna stay here permanently then you dont need an NOC! You can leave.)

He handed me back my licence and left as I walked away with my head held high and a broad grin on my face!

The score now stands...
Royston - 1 Mama - 0


PS - For those who are unaware of the term Mama...it is the fond name by which we refer to our traffic policemen here :)

Hello God

Here is a short poem written by a soldier while he was hiding in a shell hole during the Vietnam War.


Lord God, I have never spoken to You,
But now I want to say, "How do You do?"
You see God, they told me you didnt exist...
And like a fool I believed all this.

Last night from a shell hole I saw Your sky,
I figured right then they had told me a lie.
Had I taken time to see the things You made,
I'd have known they were not calling a spade a 'spade'

I wonder God, If You'll take my hand
Somehow I fell that You'll understand.
Funny I had to come to this Hellish place
Before I had time to see Your face

Well, I guess there isn't much more to say,
But Im sure glad God, I met You today.
I guess Zero hour will soon be here,
But Im not afraid since I know You're near.

The signal!...Well God, I'll have to go,
I like You lots... I want You to know.
Look now this will be a horrible fight,
Who knows I may come to Your house tonight.

Though I wasn't friendly to You before,
I wonder God, If You'd wait at Your door.
Look Im crying...Im shedding tears,
I'll have to go now God, goodbye!
Strange now since I met You Im not afraid to die...

Depravity!!

Greeting fellow netizens...Im Baaaack!! Back in Pune (relocated from Mysore) and back to blogging from my cubicle ;)
It is with a heavy heart that I recount the following incident....

Today morning as I rode my bike to Aurora Towers from where I catch the 9am bus I noticed something....Someone had stolen my speedometer!! I mean they unscrewed it and made off with it!!
I have an Red Avenger that is barely one month old and she has been violated so blatanly!!
The thief also took the time to bend my rear view mirror for good measure. Oh! the depravity of man's evil heart!!
Apparently such thefts are common as Avenger parts are hard to come by in the market. No consolation there...
Gonna take my baby to the service station tomorrow and pamper her. She deserves it after this horrible incident.

Grace

Can two people who believe in two completely different things ever see eye to eye? Is it possible for them to both be correct in their own way?

Consider Christianity...a 'religion' that has as many different denominations as there as stars in the sky. These denominations differ from one another on the basis of doctrine, traditions and beliefs. Can all of them be correct in their understanding of the Bible or is there just one denomination that has found the absolute truth while the others are living a lie...

If religion by definition is a means of finding God more than just a way of life than Christianity is by no means a religion...coz a Christian with the slightest Biblical knowledge would know that there is no way for a sinful human to ever come to know a Holy God without God sovereignly revealing himself.

So if God is the One who does the revealing, how is it that He reveals Himself to people in different ways? The answer is...He doesn’t. He reveals himself through his created works, which all can see, sense, touch and experience. But much more clearly than that, He reveals Himself through the Bible and through His son Jesus Christ.

So if there is only one inspired Bible (Apocrypha aside...) and only one Christ...then where does the difference of opinion arise? People belonging to different denominations don’t believe in different Christs do they?

It arises through the differences in interpretation of the Bible...Some verses are taken literally, some contextually and some are regarded as mere poetic phrases.
But is this the way God intended His word to be interpreted…in so many different ways? And if He is omnipotent and omniscient then how didn’t he foresee that people would misinterpret his perfect word? If believing a false doctrine can keep you captive to your sins and if it’s only the truth that can set you free then why didn’t God come up with a more foolproof plan of revealing himself?

The answer is Grace! God knows that we are human and far from perfect. He also knows that by our own means and relying on our own efforts we won’t be able to do diddly-squat! His word is perfect…it is we who in our imperfection misinterpret the word and create divisions in the universal church of God.
The Bible provides us everything we could ever need while on this earth, but if we could know Him only through His word then we would never know Him completely. In other words we cannot ever expect to know God completely while on this earth.
As the hymn says…”Were with ink the ocean filled or the sky of parchment made, were every stalk on earth a quill and every man a scribe by trade; To write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry nor could the scroll contain the whole though stretched from sky to sky.”
If only the love of God itself were so incomprehensible then comprehending all his attributes (His holiness, His righteousness, His wrath..) would certainly take more than an eternity!

The Bible says that you have to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and strength; to repent for your sins and trust that Christ alone is an all sufficient sacrifice…this is the gospel, that Christ had mercy on us, died for our sins and saved us by His Grace!

There are many other doctrines like speaking in tongues; the in-depth knowledge of which isn’t essential to attain salvation, though they are extremely important because it is on the basis of these doctrines that the denominations differ.I know believers who speak in tongues and I also know believers who dont.
Any ‘church’ that doesn’t believe in the core gospel is in fact not a church at all! I’m not claiming that it’s ok to believe in something that’s wrong. Its just that God is merciful regardless of who we are or what are beliefs are on certain matters.

God knew that there would be several denominations and He displays His Grace in that salvation belongs to Him alone and there can be believers in the Presbyterian church, the Charismatic church, the Methodist church or the Baptist church…all touched by One God who chose to reveal Himself to whomever He chooses.
The correct knowledge of His word is the difference between a mature believer and an immature one but God knows that not all of us can be Masters of Theology even though we are expected to learn His word and memorise it.
There is an absolute truth in the Bible, but we can only know God completely and absolutely when we stand before Him, face-to-face, and worship Him for the rest of Eternity.

Nanage Kannada Gothilla!

Its been two weeks since I got here and I've come to realise that its gonna take me more than 2 weeks to get familiar with this place. Still havent got the slightest clue what people around me are saying...but I have managed to learn one sentence in the local language...Nanage kannada gothilla...which means I dont know Kannada!

Mysore is a very quiet city and everyone goes to sleep at 8:30....hence the nightlife is practically non-existent. The laid back locals couldn't care less about whats happening around them. Rickshaw drivers will tell you to walk rather than make a few rupees taking you to your destination. Waiters wont bother themselves waiting on your table!

I have found a very nice place to stay since along with 6 of my college mates coz we haven't been provided accomodation on campus. Its a duplex bungalow and I can't help bragging about it coz at 10k a month its an absolute steal! A similar fully furnished bungalow in Pune would cost you half a year's salary and in Bombay....well no one could rent it coz not many people are that rich.

We also have a maid who is an absolute God-sent. She washes,cleans and sweeps without any complaining....actually she cant coz she only speaks Kannada and none of us can converse with her :)

Still havent got any wheels here. Planning to go book a bike one of these days coz public transport is a real pain!

The company campus seems too good to be true...with an expanse of 335 sprawling acres its one of the biggest campuses in Asia! There is only one multiplex in Mysore and it is in our campus! 4 screens and a new movie every Saturday :)
Ive taken quite a few pics of the place and I will be posting them soon.

The mosquitoes have returned....apparently they have unfinished business with me :(

After yet another looong hiatus from everything online, Im back and blogging from Mysore where I shall be spending the next year or so of my life working for a software company and earning my bread and butter with chicken as a side dish.
That say...'When in Rome do as the Romans'. Not sure if this applies to South India too but if it does I should be expected to end every statement with a 'da', rattle of a sentence at the rate of 200 words per minute and be have a musical lilt to my speech.

Thats all for now. Mosquitoes are waging a full blown war against my uncovered feet and Im losing fast....

Im Back!

Been more than 2 weeks since I've been online. Being deprived of a net connection is just too horrible to endure but thanks to Sify, our friendly neighbourhood unreliable ISP, thats exaclty what Ive had to do.
Plus Im way too lazy to frequent net cafes....until its an emergency (overflowing inboxes/urgent mails/birthday e-cards etc..) and I have to drudgingly make the 5 minute trip to the nearest cafe.
Lots of things have been happening since I was last active in blogdom. The whole Da Vinci issue seems to have subsided (people REALLY love controversies!) and has been replaced by the Mika Singh-Rakhi Sawant liplock among other things.

I managed to pen down a short poem a few days ago. It just popped into my head while I was trying to study for my exam :) Will put it here in a day or two for sure...after some editing ;)
But now that Im back, I vow to update this page more frequently. I even have a pending tag to do for Ishi which I will get to asap.
Til my next post then, ciao :)

Cracking the Da Vinci Code

I’m sure many of you are familiar with the Dan Brown novel titled 'Da Vinci Code' which is fast becoming the talk of the town and has gained the reputation
of being one of the greatest conspiracy theories ever. Lets face it.. all of us love a good conspiracy. Whether it be the Apollo landing on the moon, the real hand behind the 9/11 bombing or even the JFK assassination.

However the book in question has made some very serious claims that have not only fuelled the anger of the Catholic Church but have also placed seeds of doubt into the minds of millions as to whether the basic doctrines of the Church are nothing more than a fabrication.

The story starts of with the murder of a museum curator, Jacques Sauniere. A Harvard professor and a cryptologist (who happens to be related to the curator) are commissioned to decipher the clues left behind by Sauniere and they stumble upon a conspiracy which is the truth behind the foundations of the Church and the Holy Grail. The book has been praised for its "impeccable research" and starts off with stating a few facts about the Priory of Sion and the Opus Dei which are meant to lead the reader into believing that the entire work is based on truth and not fiction.

Some of the clams that the Da Vince code makes

Jesus' divinity is a false claim that was voted in by the Nicene Council.

The Bible is incomplete as Constantine suppressed some documents about Jesus other than those found in our current N.T canon.

Jesus Christ was secretly married to Mary Magdalene and they had children.

Now these claims are quite bold and if there is even the slightest truth in them....it would shatter the foundation upon which the current church stands firmly.

So let’s have a closer look into what the book claims.


Jesus' divinity is a false claim

An excerpt from The Da Vinci Code...Teabing speaking to Neveu..
"Because Constantine upgraded Jesus’ status almost four centuries after Jesus’ death, thousands of documents already existed chronicling His life as a mortal man. To rewrite the history books, Constantine knew he would need a bold stroke. From this sprang the most profound moment in Christian history. … Constantine commissioned and financed a new Bible, which omitted those gospels that spoke of Christ’s human traits and embellished those gospels that made Him godlike. The earlier gospels were outlawed, gathered up, and burned."

Thus according to Dan, the Bible in its present form only came to exist as late as the 4th century AD prior to which there were several Gnostic gospels which Constantine conveniently disposed off with. The reason for disposing off with these documents?....they showed that Jesus Christ lived and died as nothing but a common man who was "a great and powerful man, but a man nonetheless.”
However many years before the Nicene Council convened, the heretic Marcion argued the Divinity of Jesus Christ by referring to the Gospels that are currently included in the present day bible. If the Divinity of Christ was only voted in the 4th century...how did Marcion ever come up with the idea of Christ's Divinity more than 200 years earlier?

Furthermore, John, a follower of Christ, confirmed the Lord's Divinity in the following passage...
In the beginning the Word already existed. He was with God, and he was God. He created everything there is. Nothing exists that he didn't make. Life itself was in him. So the Word became human and lived here on earth among us (John 1: 1-4, 14, NLT).
This scripture had been dated at 175-225 AD. Thus Christ was clearly revered as God over a hundred years before the Council at Nicaea.


The Bible is incomplete

The second issue is whether or not the Gnostic gospels are what Teabing claims...gospels which tell us about the life of Christ as a mere mortal.
The Gnostics are people who believe that they have some special hidden knowledge and believe in Salvation through this Knowledge. According to Dan, it was Constantine who branded the Gnostics as heretics at the council however history shows that the bishop Irenaeus condemned the Gnostics around 140 years before the council! Once again Dan hasn’t done his homework properly.


Jesus Christ was secretly married to Mary Magdalene

The third claim which Dan makes is that Jesus Christ took Mary Magdalene as his wife and sired children with her. Furthermore the womb of Mary is presented as the Holy Grail which bore the child who carried on the bloodline of Christ! This claim has to be the juiciest part of the book but like the other claims, is nothing but pure fiction.

There are two ways of looking at this. Firstly, the Gospel of Philip which says that Jesus kissed Mary (which was a common way of greeting one another) was written 150-220 years after Christ and is not historically reliable. This is the only piece of scripture upon which the claim has been fabricated and is very little to base a conspiracy theory upon.

The claim that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene (or to anyone else for that matter) is quite absurd when you think about the purpose for which Jesus came to earth. Jesus came to die, not to procreate like a normal human. Why would he take a wife if He knew before hand that she would be widowed and His child left fatherless?

1 Corinthians 7:32 says:
'I should like you to be free of anxieties. An unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord.
But a married man is anxious about the things of the world, how he may please his wife,'
Jesus did not take Mary Magdalene as his wife as His concern was not of the things of this world. His main concern was His ministry and spreading the word of God. He did not take a wife so that He could serve God 'without distraction'.

Further research shows that Leonardo Da Vinci, who is supposedly a member of the Priory of Sion, died 437 years before the priory was founded so it would be little difficult for him to have been one of its more prominent members.

As for the Holy Hrail, Dan has gone to some lengths to prove that it is in fact the womb of Mary and not the chalice which Jesus used at the last supper. He has even claimed that the architecture of several churches are designed to indicate the nether regions of a woman(!) thus indicating the true Holy Grail.

Conclusion

On the whole the book isn’t that impressive. Apart from the shock which the reader gets from the content of the book, the story flows in an unusual way with Langdon and Neveu solving the hardest of puzzles that the priory members could come up with, with relative ease.
Dan has struck upon a priceless formula here. Write something controversial and guarantee yourself a ticket to fame. And in this book he has certainly touched upon some very sensitive veins i.e. the reputation of the Vatican and the Deity of Christ.

I see no reason why the book or the movie should be banned, as long as the audiences are well informed about the truth. Otherwise we will have scores of people who know little or nothing about the Bible or church history swearing by the 'Code'.

What does Dan Brown stand to loose by propogating such lies? Revelations 22:18-19 has the answer...

For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:

And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and [from] the things which are written in this book.


References:
Mona Lisa's Smirk
Da Vinci Code Thruth
And the most important reference....The Bible

Conch

She walked along the sandy shore..lazily...lost in her own world. Without too many concerns or thoughts to weigh down her mind..she was at peace.She felt one with the ocean and its warm breeze.Absent-mindedly she dug up shells from beneath the sand with her toes and examined them. The colourful ones she pocketed..the less fortunate ones were returned to their resting place beneath the waves.
After collecting nearly a dozen exotic shells (her necklace would be the talk of the class) she was returning back home when she struck her foot against it. It was the most beautiful shell she had ever seen.

Pearly white and shiny.In her mind she thanked the little critter for having vacated and left her with his home. She picked it up and dusted the sand off it. Too big to fit into her pocket with the rest of them, she carried it in her hand.

Then a thought passed through her mind. Didnt they say that you could hear the heartbeat of the ocean if you listened closely to a conch? She pressed the shell to her ear, closed her eyes and absorbed the sound.A part of her knew that the sounds she was hearing was nothing more than the echo of blood being pumped through her ears. The rest of her scorned the learned part of her and delighted in the sounds of the ocean. She imagined that she heard each wave as it broke upon the shore and lethargically retreated back from where it came. She imagined that she heard the breeze moving gently over the water and meeting the land. She imagined she heard the high-pitched scream of a girl....

Immediately she took the shell away from her ear and cursed under her breath.My mind is playing tricks on her,she thought.Thats what you get for being in the sun for too long.Instinct told her to toss the shell away and return home as fast as she could. Sadly following her instincts wasnt her forte. Curiosity had already got the better of her as she drew the shell close to her ear once again.

This time the voice was crystal clear.In an instant the waves seemed to have died away leaving the ocean still as death and the warm breeze had been replaced by a cold wind that made her shiver in her bikini. She was all alone on the beach. Just her, the vast expanse of the black ocean, the cursed shell and the scream which was quickly reaching its blood curdling crescendo.
She was paralysed...She used as much force as she could muster but could not move the shell away from her ear. It had taken control over her.She was its slave. As her knees gave way she could do nothing but lie there on the wet sand, tears running down her sandy cheeks, with the shell pressed against her ear. The scream had engulfed her. The last thing she heard before the darkness embraced her was a second voice. A voice that was much more familiar to her. A scream emitting from the back of her own throat...

A lifeguard found her lying cold and lifeless on the sand. The ambulance was sent for as he fervently tried to breathe life into her dead lungs.Within a few minutes he knew that she had passed on to the afterlife and said a small prayer over her body. Accompanying the body in the vehicle to the hospital he looked at the shell which had been pressed to her ear hard enough to draw blood. With tears in his eyes he held it up to his ear and tried to listen to the ocean that they had left behind.

Happy Birthday to me!!

This is officially my first post as a major! Yup I've finally crossed the threshold age and its taken me 21 long years to do so.

I wanna thank God for the numerous blessing that Hes bestowed upon me over the last year and for adding another year to my life. Hes been faithful and has kept me going thru good times and bad.(and I've certainly had my fair share of both over the last year)

Had a blast last night with 14 of my friends from church at one of my favourite restaurants. Small chinese place called Chung Fa. The food was absolutely delicious and i got some really cool presents including a song from one of my pals!

My ever liberal mom has now given me permission to start drinking! Now thats what I call a cool mom ;) Not that Im gonna use this opportunity to get sloshed or anything...
Come to think of it, I am now legally allowed to get married too...but thats one 'burden' that I'm not gonna take upon myself anytime soon.

I have a lot to look forward to in the coming year. I should be graduating by the end of June after which I'll try and earn a living in the software industry.Its quite a daunting thought to be working for my bread n butter, and not having worked a single day in my entire life its gonna be a totally new experience for me.

So i raise a toast to myself, to the exciting new opportunities that God has waiting for me in the near future, and to the fact that there still is a remote chance that I may become a full-fledged adult!

Facade

I look into the mirror, I see myself
Not as I am but as the world wants me to be
My masks are many, Ive lost my true self
In my little world of deceit

When the veil comes off, all thats left,
Is me and my reality
Ive tried to fool the world time and time again
I stand alone, the greatest fool in the end

Its time I loose my facade
Show the world my true self
I know its not what the world wants to see
The world delights in its own deceit

This is me as I am
Love me or hate me..I make no more excuses
I cant be someone else any longer
I just need to be me