Tuesday, 30 September , 2008, 09:03
London: The notorious Muslim extremist Omar Bakri Mohammed’s daughter is an “animal” in bed, reveals her ex-lover.
The 20-year-old son of Brazilian immigrants revealed that Yasmin Fostok, 27, was ‘sex mad’.
“We had mad sex. She was very athletic in bed — it was loud,” British tabloid The Sun quoted the lover as saying.
“But then what did I expect? A pole dancer does not just have ordinary sex. She was an animal,” he added.
Also read: UK hate preacher paid for his daughter's boob job
Speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, a barber from London said that it were Fostok’s insatiable demands that forced him to end their relationship.
He did not know that the 27-year-old pole dancer was the daughter of Bakri.
It was so wild I thought she was a bit mad. When I got up in the morning I thought ‘This cannot go further’,” he added.
The duo met in March when Fostok contacted him on Facebook, and asked to hook up.
Their first date, to a comedy club in central London, ended with a simple kiss — but she quickly showed she was after more when she emailed him 11 sexy photos.
Some snaps showed her naked, and in others she sported kinky gear — including a Police girl’s outfit.
More India news | World news
He said that, on one occasion, they were in a Honda Civic with another couple when Yasmin began pawing him.
“She wanted to go for it. I had to tell her to relax. It was embarrassing as my cousin and her friend were there,” he said.
The two parted ways in June.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Monday, September 29, 2008
Readers Opinions: French President's comments
Write to Editor
Sikhs, Muslims must respect our tradition: Sarkozy
ris, UK, says: I am ashamed of our prime minister who unlike Sarkozy did not defend India at the EU.
[29 Sep, 2008 2126hrs IST]
ankur, manila, says: i think racism is more prevalant in the developed western world than anywhere else where outsiders are seen as disturbing their way of life. If you look at countries like india, where people grow up with so many cultures, no one takes againts a sikh, a muslim or even a person from another country. Living in harmony with other cultures does not mean harmonizing them by the way they look or dress, isn't it more of a state of mind where one is patient and welcoming.
[29 Sep, 2008 2125hrs IST]
PS, USA, says: Sarkozy doesn't get it! Does he? Turbans are part of the Sikh identity, not a costume/tradition/custom. It is not a temporal aspect that can be done away with. It is not worn for convenience, rather it is mandated as one of the articles of faith. A Sikh keeps the outer appearance because of the way Waheguru made him/her. Doning a turban is yet another part of his God-conscious-nature and the pride that it brings to a man. I wonder what the Sikh PM really talked to the French counterpart. You got to make a bold statement Mr. PM, protect the fundamental rights of Sikhs, the right to practicing ones's religion freely. I'm glad US has no such discriminatory policy against Sikhs/Muslims. One day world will come to realize that granting (I hate to use this word) such rights is in the betterment of the whole society.
[29 Sep, 2008 2124hrs IST]
any, any, says: I dont advise anyone from India to go to europe, I have been for long outside the india, they are racist people,that is their tradition and custom. I advise students to go the asian countires, singapore, one of the best destination. Asian poeple are nicer and free of ill-will to skin color.
[29 Sep, 2008 2123hrs IST]
ANIL KUMAR, NEW DELHI, says: Sikhs should stop migrating to the country that does not respect them, also Indian Government should have least possible diplomatic relations with them.
[29 Sep, 2008 2116hrs IST]
Shivaji rao Pratap, LA-CA-USA, says: Dear sir, I congratulate the French President to speak in front of our psedosecualr Prime minister regarding the duties and obligations of the minorities towards a nation.Look what is happening in India. The Muslims have their own seaparate laws in democracy! We should get rid of that asap. This is what the congress under mahatma gandhi wanted. One people, one law, one nation. The Muslims can not get out of govt ofices on fridays during govt time to say Namaz! They just can not do Namaz in streets,as it happens in Mumbai to block the trafiic! Muslims can not get govt money to go to Haz! This is agiainst Islam! You should use your hard earned money for pilgrimage not by borrowing, begging or stealing! Askany good and knowlegeble muslim. The Sikhs in Punjab have still some soft corner for Pakistan as their Nankhana sahab gurudwar is there. They have taken help of ISI to fight for separate sikh land. Now it has stopped but still now and then we see people doing things to break the bonds between Hindus and sikhs. In USA, Sikhs would rather have a Sikh identity or a US American identity but will not call them selves Indian or talk of special relationship they have with Hindus. We put billions to punjab, made it the grannery of India, we gave 20% army jobs for them We decoarted them in every possible post from President to PM to CM to every thing. But still sikhs in Kashmir are not 100% with the Hindus. I hope our mahatma PM learns few good lessons from his trip abroad this time. Country, nation, culture comes first. India is essentially a Hindu Nation just like USA, France adn Britain are christian nations. Hindu traditions, culture and heritage comes firsta nd foremost. Secualarism is not appeasement of minority and ignoring the amjority for vote bank politics.
[29 Sep, 2008 2115hrs IST]
rahul, new york, says: India should kick all Europian missionaries out. They are violating the Indian traditions. They make foolish claims that all other religions are false..this is a violation of Indian tradition.
[29 Sep, 2008 2114hrs IST]
Vikramjit Singh, Delhi, says: If the French really respect Sikh traditions then the respect must be in their actions not in their words. Wearing a turban does not disrespect Franch tradition but forcing sikhs not to wear one certainly disrespects Sikh tradition.
[29 Sep, 2008 2112hrs IST]
H Singh, USA, says: They should have stopped MM Singh from meeting French Prez. How can they sign such official pacts with turbaned person? What happened to secularism now? Bottom line is only the powerful will get recogntion. If Saudi Makes a rule that those who want to come and live in middle east, they should circumscise, will everyone start circumscising to respect the rule?? Key point is respect the differences. There are riots between Blacks and whites in Paris every other day. Is it due to religion?
[29 Sep, 2008 2102hrs IST]
Jitendra Desai, Surat, says: Good advice to the PM of a most secular Indian political party! On his return, PM should render similar advvice to our Muslim and Christian brrthren.. to learn to respect Hindu traditions.
[29 Sep, 2008 2059hrs IST]
Sikhs, Muslims must respect our tradition: Sarkozy
ris, UK, says: I am ashamed of our prime minister who unlike Sarkozy did not defend India at the EU.
[29 Sep, 2008 2126hrs IST]
ankur, manila, says: i think racism is more prevalant in the developed western world than anywhere else where outsiders are seen as disturbing their way of life. If you look at countries like india, where people grow up with so many cultures, no one takes againts a sikh, a muslim or even a person from another country. Living in harmony with other cultures does not mean harmonizing them by the way they look or dress, isn't it more of a state of mind where one is patient and welcoming.
[29 Sep, 2008 2125hrs IST]
PS, USA, says: Sarkozy doesn't get it! Does he? Turbans are part of the Sikh identity, not a costume/tradition/custom. It is not a temporal aspect that can be done away with. It is not worn for convenience, rather it is mandated as one of the articles of faith. A Sikh keeps the outer appearance because of the way Waheguru made him/her. Doning a turban is yet another part of his God-conscious-nature and the pride that it brings to a man. I wonder what the Sikh PM really talked to the French counterpart. You got to make a bold statement Mr. PM, protect the fundamental rights of Sikhs, the right to practicing ones's religion freely. I'm glad US has no such discriminatory policy against Sikhs/Muslims. One day world will come to realize that granting (I hate to use this word) such rights is in the betterment of the whole society.
[29 Sep, 2008 2124hrs IST]
any, any, says: I dont advise anyone from India to go to europe, I have been for long outside the india, they are racist people,that is their tradition and custom. I advise students to go the asian countires, singapore, one of the best destination. Asian poeple are nicer and free of ill-will to skin color.
[29 Sep, 2008 2123hrs IST]
ANIL KUMAR, NEW DELHI, says: Sikhs should stop migrating to the country that does not respect them, also Indian Government should have least possible diplomatic relations with them.
[29 Sep, 2008 2116hrs IST]
Shivaji rao Pratap, LA-CA-USA, says: Dear sir, I congratulate the French President to speak in front of our psedosecualr Prime minister regarding the duties and obligations of the minorities towards a nation.Look what is happening in India. The Muslims have their own seaparate laws in democracy! We should get rid of that asap. This is what the congress under mahatma gandhi wanted. One people, one law, one nation. The Muslims can not get out of govt ofices on fridays during govt time to say Namaz! They just can not do Namaz in streets,as it happens in Mumbai to block the trafiic! Muslims can not get govt money to go to Haz! This is agiainst Islam! You should use your hard earned money for pilgrimage not by borrowing, begging or stealing! Askany good and knowlegeble muslim. The Sikhs in Punjab have still some soft corner for Pakistan as their Nankhana sahab gurudwar is there. They have taken help of ISI to fight for separate sikh land. Now it has stopped but still now and then we see people doing things to break the bonds between Hindus and sikhs. In USA, Sikhs would rather have a Sikh identity or a US American identity but will not call them selves Indian or talk of special relationship they have with Hindus. We put billions to punjab, made it the grannery of India, we gave 20% army jobs for them We decoarted them in every possible post from President to PM to CM to every thing. But still sikhs in Kashmir are not 100% with the Hindus. I hope our mahatma PM learns few good lessons from his trip abroad this time. Country, nation, culture comes first. India is essentially a Hindu Nation just like USA, France adn Britain are christian nations. Hindu traditions, culture and heritage comes firsta nd foremost. Secualarism is not appeasement of minority and ignoring the amjority for vote bank politics.
[29 Sep, 2008 2115hrs IST]
rahul, new york, says: India should kick all Europian missionaries out. They are violating the Indian traditions. They make foolish claims that all other religions are false..this is a violation of Indian tradition.
[29 Sep, 2008 2114hrs IST]
Vikramjit Singh, Delhi, says: If the French really respect Sikh traditions then the respect must be in their actions not in their words. Wearing a turban does not disrespect Franch tradition but forcing sikhs not to wear one certainly disrespects Sikh tradition.
[29 Sep, 2008 2112hrs IST]
H Singh, USA, says: They should have stopped MM Singh from meeting French Prez. How can they sign such official pacts with turbaned person? What happened to secularism now? Bottom line is only the powerful will get recogntion. If Saudi Makes a rule that those who want to come and live in middle east, they should circumscise, will everyone start circumscising to respect the rule?? Key point is respect the differences. There are riots between Blacks and whites in Paris every other day. Is it due to religion?
[29 Sep, 2008 2102hrs IST]
Jitendra Desai, Surat, says: Good advice to the PM of a most secular Indian political party! On his return, PM should render similar advvice to our Muslim and Christian brrthren.. to learn to respect Hindu traditions.
[29 Sep, 2008 2059hrs IST]
Sikhs, Muslims must respect our tradition: Sarkozy
29 Sep 2008, 2028 hrs IST,PTI
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Save Write to Editor
MARSEILLES: Insisting that France is not discriminating against Sikhs wearing turbans, President Nicholas Sarkozy on Monday said that he expects the community to respect the customs and traditions of the French people.
"We respect their traditions and customs and I hope they also respect France's rules," Sarkozy said in a joint interaction with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who also belongs to the Sikh community, after the India-EU summit.
"We respect Sikhs, their customs, their traditions. They are most welcome to France. But we have rules concerning the neutrality of the civil servants, rules concerning secularism and these rules don't apply to just Sikhs, they apply to the Muslims, they apply to all on the territory of the French Republic." Sarkozy said.
France in 2004 had imposed a ban under which Sikh students were prohibited from wearing turbans to schools, a decision that has incurred world-wide protests from the community.
Print EMail Bookmark/Share
Save Write to Editor
MARSEILLES: Insisting that France is not discriminating against Sikhs wearing turbans, President Nicholas Sarkozy on Monday said that he expects the community to respect the customs and traditions of the French people.
"We respect their traditions and customs and I hope they also respect France's rules," Sarkozy said in a joint interaction with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who also belongs to the Sikh community, after the India-EU summit.
"We respect Sikhs, their customs, their traditions. They are most welcome to France. But we have rules concerning the neutrality of the civil servants, rules concerning secularism and these rules don't apply to just Sikhs, they apply to the Muslims, they apply to all on the territory of the French Republic." Sarkozy said.
France in 2004 had imposed a ban under which Sikh students were prohibited from wearing turbans to schools, a decision that has incurred world-wide protests from the community.
Cook dies after eating chilli sauce for a bet
Monday, 29 September , 2008, 13:29
Last Updated: Monday, 29 September , 2008, 14:34
London: An aspiring chef died hours after eating a plate of super-hot chilli sauce as part of a bet with his girlfriend’s brother. Forklift driver Andrew Lee had challenged girlfriend Samantha Bailey’s 29-year-old brother Michael to see who could eat the hottest sauce.
The 33-year-old man complained of itching all over his body as he tried to sleep at night, and later died of heat attack. Bailey woke in the morning, and discovered him dead in bed beside her. The mum of four called paramedics, but they could not revive him.
Men find women's bodies 'more attractive in winter'
“He was a strapping lad,” British tabloid The Sun quoted Andrew’s mother Pamela as saying. “We can only put it down to the sauce. After making it, he stuck his finger in to test it, and went to wash it, saying, ‘Wow, that’s hot’,” she added.
Andrew’s sister Claire revealed that the contest was planned and her father John had especially grown chillis for the contest. “It wasn’t a proper meal because he’d already eaten lamb chops and potato mash after work.
More offbeat stories | Science updates
“He got into bed at 2.30 am and started scratching all over. His girlfriend scratched his back until he fell asleep. When she woke up he’d gone. It’s incredible. Who’d have thought he could die from eating chilli sauce? He loved cooking and wanted to be a chef.
“He used chillis to make Thai dishes but never anything this hot. We don’t know of anything else that could have caused his death. He was perfectly healthy and the post mortem showed no heart problems,” she added.
Last Updated: Monday, 29 September , 2008, 14:34
London: An aspiring chef died hours after eating a plate of super-hot chilli sauce as part of a bet with his girlfriend’s brother. Forklift driver Andrew Lee had challenged girlfriend Samantha Bailey’s 29-year-old brother Michael to see who could eat the hottest sauce.
The 33-year-old man complained of itching all over his body as he tried to sleep at night, and later died of heat attack. Bailey woke in the morning, and discovered him dead in bed beside her. The mum of four called paramedics, but they could not revive him.
Men find women's bodies 'more attractive in winter'
“He was a strapping lad,” British tabloid The Sun quoted Andrew’s mother Pamela as saying. “We can only put it down to the sauce. After making it, he stuck his finger in to test it, and went to wash it, saying, ‘Wow, that’s hot’,” she added.
Andrew’s sister Claire revealed that the contest was planned and her father John had especially grown chillis for the contest. “It wasn’t a proper meal because he’d already eaten lamb chops and potato mash after work.
More offbeat stories | Science updates
“He got into bed at 2.30 am and started scratching all over. His girlfriend scratched his back until he fell asleep. When she woke up he’d gone. It’s incredible. Who’d have thought he could die from eating chilli sauce? He loved cooking and wanted to be a chef.
“He used chillis to make Thai dishes but never anything this hot. We don’t know of anything else that could have caused his death. He was perfectly healthy and the post mortem showed no heart problems,” she added.
Friday, September 26, 2008
To improve your marriage -- be quiet
By Barbara Graham
(OPRAH.com) -- Forget everything you've heard about frankness, sharing your feelings, getting him to express his. New research into the male mind makes it clear that discussion may be the fastest way to shut down communication. (Oh, you noticed that, have you?)
Men see discussion of "issues" as criticism and feel shamed, author says.
When I first heard about the book, I thought it was a gimmick. "How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It" sounded like a title somebody's prankster husband dreamed up after a rocky couples' therapy session.
When I mentioned it to Hugh, my own husband -- who in 22 years of marriage has never once said, "Honey, we need to talk" -- his face lit up like the Fourth of July.
Needless to say, I was suspicious. What about the vast repertoire of communication skills women have spent decades perfecting? Were Patricia Love and Steven Stosny, the psychotherapists who co-authored the book, advising us to forget everything we've learned and rethink how we relate to our partners?
The answer is yes -- and they're not kidding.
"The number one myth about relationships is that talking helps. The truth is, more often than not, it makes things worse," says Love, a tall, lean redhead with a down-home Texas twang and a generous smile. She is co-founder of the Austin Family Institute and leads workshops around the country when she isn't making television appearances or co-writing books, including the best-selling "Hot Monogamy."
"Talking about feelings, which is soothing to women, makes men physically uncomfortable," says Stosny, the Maryland-based author of "You Don't Have to Take It Anymore" and an expert on male aggression. "There's literally more blood flow to their muscles. They get fidgety, and women think they're not listening."
Don't Miss
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Oprah.com: Are you too needy? Give it up and find true love
Oprah.com: What every wife should know
We're relaxing in the sunroom of my house in Washington, D.C., on a golden autumn morning. I learn that it was Stosny's research into the core emotional differences between the sexes that radically altered his thinking, as well as the way he works with clients. When he shared his findings with his friend and colleague Pat Love, they rang true to her, even though they flew in the face of the verbal problem-solving approach she'd been using for 30 years.
Like electric shock and sugar blues
According to Stosny's analysis of several hundred human and animal studies, male and female responses to stress are distinct from birth.
"When a baby girl hears a loud noise or gets anxious, she wants to make eye contact with someone, but a baby boy will react to the same sound by looking around, in a fight-or-flight response," he says. What's more, while newborn girls are much more easily frightened, boys have five times as many "startle" reactions, which are emotionally neutral but pump up adrenaline. Boys need to intermittently withdraw into themselves to keep from becoming overstimulated.
These differences hold true for most social animals and correlate with our biological roles: The female's fear response is an early warning system that serves to detect threats and alert the males of the pack to danger.
As girls grow, they go beyond needing eye contact and refine a coping strategy identified by UCLA psychologists as "tend and befriend." If there's a conflict, girls and women want to talk about it.
Boys and men, however, need to pull away. A man's greatest suffering, Stosny says, comes from the shame he feels when he doesn't measure up -- which is why discussing relationship problems (i.e., what he's doing wrong) offers about as much comfort as sleeping on a bed of nails. Oprah.com: Men and women ... what makes us so different?
So, I wonder, does this explain why, when I reach out and tell Hugh I'm feeling isolated from him -- on the assumption that this will foster closeness -- he gets defensive or withdraws? Do my verbal attempts to re-establish intimacy make him feel inadequate? Is that why he gets that glazed look in his eye and is suddenly compelled to watch men tossing balls on TV?
Yes, yes, and yes, replies Love. And our responses aren't all in our heads. When a man feels shamed by a woman's criticism, his body is flooded with cortisol, a stress hormone with an effect that is decidedly unpleasant.
A woman experiences a similar cortisol rush whenever her husband shouts at her, ignores her, or otherwise does something that scares her and seems to threaten their bond. Love compares the sensation that accompanies the sudden release of cortisol to sticking your finger in an electric socket, followed by the sort of "sugar blues" crash that occurs after you polish off a few too many glazed doughnuts.
"A cortisol hangover can last for hours in men and up to several days in women," Love says. "It's no wonder both sexes try to prevent it."
Compassion more important than love
Okay, this makes sense, but if talking about relationships makes men twitchy and drunk on cortisol, then what's the alternative? Charades? Oprah.com: How to be a black-belt communicator
"It's the connection, stupid!" exclaims Love, quickly adding that it's not me personally she's calling stupid. "Everyone -- men, women, myself included -- needs to learn that before we can communicate with words, we need to connect nonverbally. We can do that in simple ways, through touch, sex, doing things together. The deepest moments of intimacy occur when you're not talking."
Stosny puts it this way: "We need to stop trying to assess the bonding verbally and instead let the words come out of the bonding." Interestingly, he adds, "When couples feel connected, men want to talk more and women need to talk less, so they meet somewhere in the middle. Being aware of the fear-shame dynamic helps."
To illustrate the point, Love tells the story of an afternoon when she and her husband were lying in bed naked after showering. "I was wondering if he'd initiate sex, when all of a sudden in my mind I crossed over to his side of the bed and got a sense of what it was like to be him, never knowing if he's going to be accepted or rejected. It was terrifying. I understood then how deeply ashamed that must make him feel," she recalls. "It was an epiphany that changed my life." She immediately began emphasizing compassion in her work with clients, and has come to believe -- as does Stosny -- that it's even more crucial to the success of a long-term relationship than love.
The tricky part is that men and women must empathize with vulnerabilities they don't feel to the same degree -- namely fear and shame. To do this requires what the authors call binocular vision, in which each partner makes a conscious effort to consider the other's point of view. "The problem is that when you're angry, you're wrong even when you're right because you can't see the other person's perspective," Stosny says. "That's when you lose the thing you long for most, the connection."
Okay, I get it: Connection rules. But it's hard to imagine most people being capable of reaching out to their partners in the heat of an argument. Love and Stosny acknowledge that it's a tall order. Still, they say, for couples to productively address the hurt that underlies anger, it helps to have a previously agreed-upon signal such as a hand gesture to keep disagreements from spiraling out of control. This doesn't mean they should try to ignore their feelings, but instead find a way to convey that the other person matters more than whatever they're resentful or anxious about -- and then talk. The beautiful part, Love says, is that "it takes only one person to make the gesture. The partner will feel the impact, even if he or she can't drop the anger right at that moment."
Admittedly, this approach is most effective for couples in a precrisis state, Stosny says, "when there's still time for the man to step up to the plate and stop withdrawing or being reactive, and for the woman to understand that her husband really does want to make her happy and to stop being so critical. Men are better able to stay in the room and listen to women if they don't think they're being blamed for their distress."
But ultimately, Love adds, "couples have to decide that the relationship is more important than all those things they do that annoy each other." Oprah.com: Are you a nag? How to stop
"Even when Hugh throws his sopping wet towel on the bed, forgets to put gas in the car, or stares into space when I try to tell him something that really matters to me?" I ask, only half joking.
"If you give him positive reinforcement instead of criticizing him, he'll start doing more of the things you want him to do," Love says.
The next night over dinner, I give it a whirl. "I love it when you put gas in the car and hang up your wet towel," I say. He looks at me like I've gone off the deep end. "What's up?" he asks suspiciously. "Why are you being so nice?"
But a few days later when I'm distraught over a potentially scary mammogram report and he jumps in too quickly to reassure me that everything will turn out fine (it does), I decide to try out the binocular vision that Love and Stosny recommend. That's when I see that Hugh feels like a failure because he wants to make things better and he can't.
So instead of my usual knee-jerk irritability at what I perceive as his lack of sensitivity, I say, "I'm terrified and I just need you to listen." Which he does, patiently, lovingly. After I've finished reciting my laundry list of fears, he holds me close and neither of us says anything for a long time. We don't need to.
It's the connection, stupid!
By Barbara Graham from "O, The Oprah Magazine," February 2007 E-mail to a friend | Mixx it | Share
(OPRAH.com) -- Forget everything you've heard about frankness, sharing your feelings, getting him to express his. New research into the male mind makes it clear that discussion may be the fastest way to shut down communication. (Oh, you noticed that, have you?)
Men see discussion of "issues" as criticism and feel shamed, author says.
When I first heard about the book, I thought it was a gimmick. "How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It" sounded like a title somebody's prankster husband dreamed up after a rocky couples' therapy session.
When I mentioned it to Hugh, my own husband -- who in 22 years of marriage has never once said, "Honey, we need to talk" -- his face lit up like the Fourth of July.
Needless to say, I was suspicious. What about the vast repertoire of communication skills women have spent decades perfecting? Were Patricia Love and Steven Stosny, the psychotherapists who co-authored the book, advising us to forget everything we've learned and rethink how we relate to our partners?
The answer is yes -- and they're not kidding.
"The number one myth about relationships is that talking helps. The truth is, more often than not, it makes things worse," says Love, a tall, lean redhead with a down-home Texas twang and a generous smile. She is co-founder of the Austin Family Institute and leads workshops around the country when she isn't making television appearances or co-writing books, including the best-selling "Hot Monogamy."
"Talking about feelings, which is soothing to women, makes men physically uncomfortable," says Stosny, the Maryland-based author of "You Don't Have to Take It Anymore" and an expert on male aggression. "There's literally more blood flow to their muscles. They get fidgety, and women think they're not listening."
Don't Miss
Oprah.com: Steps to a more fulfilling relationship
Oprah.com: Are you too needy? Give it up and find true love
Oprah.com: What every wife should know
We're relaxing in the sunroom of my house in Washington, D.C., on a golden autumn morning. I learn that it was Stosny's research into the core emotional differences between the sexes that radically altered his thinking, as well as the way he works with clients. When he shared his findings with his friend and colleague Pat Love, they rang true to her, even though they flew in the face of the verbal problem-solving approach she'd been using for 30 years.
Like electric shock and sugar blues
According to Stosny's analysis of several hundred human and animal studies, male and female responses to stress are distinct from birth.
"When a baby girl hears a loud noise or gets anxious, she wants to make eye contact with someone, but a baby boy will react to the same sound by looking around, in a fight-or-flight response," he says. What's more, while newborn girls are much more easily frightened, boys have five times as many "startle" reactions, which are emotionally neutral but pump up adrenaline. Boys need to intermittently withdraw into themselves to keep from becoming overstimulated.
These differences hold true for most social animals and correlate with our biological roles: The female's fear response is an early warning system that serves to detect threats and alert the males of the pack to danger.
As girls grow, they go beyond needing eye contact and refine a coping strategy identified by UCLA psychologists as "tend and befriend." If there's a conflict, girls and women want to talk about it.
Boys and men, however, need to pull away. A man's greatest suffering, Stosny says, comes from the shame he feels when he doesn't measure up -- which is why discussing relationship problems (i.e., what he's doing wrong) offers about as much comfort as sleeping on a bed of nails. Oprah.com: Men and women ... what makes us so different?
So, I wonder, does this explain why, when I reach out and tell Hugh I'm feeling isolated from him -- on the assumption that this will foster closeness -- he gets defensive or withdraws? Do my verbal attempts to re-establish intimacy make him feel inadequate? Is that why he gets that glazed look in his eye and is suddenly compelled to watch men tossing balls on TV?
Yes, yes, and yes, replies Love. And our responses aren't all in our heads. When a man feels shamed by a woman's criticism, his body is flooded with cortisol, a stress hormone with an effect that is decidedly unpleasant.
A woman experiences a similar cortisol rush whenever her husband shouts at her, ignores her, or otherwise does something that scares her and seems to threaten their bond. Love compares the sensation that accompanies the sudden release of cortisol to sticking your finger in an electric socket, followed by the sort of "sugar blues" crash that occurs after you polish off a few too many glazed doughnuts.
"A cortisol hangover can last for hours in men and up to several days in women," Love says. "It's no wonder both sexes try to prevent it."
Compassion more important than love
Okay, this makes sense, but if talking about relationships makes men twitchy and drunk on cortisol, then what's the alternative? Charades? Oprah.com: How to be a black-belt communicator
"It's the connection, stupid!" exclaims Love, quickly adding that it's not me personally she's calling stupid. "Everyone -- men, women, myself included -- needs to learn that before we can communicate with words, we need to connect nonverbally. We can do that in simple ways, through touch, sex, doing things together. The deepest moments of intimacy occur when you're not talking."
Stosny puts it this way: "We need to stop trying to assess the bonding verbally and instead let the words come out of the bonding." Interestingly, he adds, "When couples feel connected, men want to talk more and women need to talk less, so they meet somewhere in the middle. Being aware of the fear-shame dynamic helps."
To illustrate the point, Love tells the story of an afternoon when she and her husband were lying in bed naked after showering. "I was wondering if he'd initiate sex, when all of a sudden in my mind I crossed over to his side of the bed and got a sense of what it was like to be him, never knowing if he's going to be accepted or rejected. It was terrifying. I understood then how deeply ashamed that must make him feel," she recalls. "It was an epiphany that changed my life." She immediately began emphasizing compassion in her work with clients, and has come to believe -- as does Stosny -- that it's even more crucial to the success of a long-term relationship than love.
The tricky part is that men and women must empathize with vulnerabilities they don't feel to the same degree -- namely fear and shame. To do this requires what the authors call binocular vision, in which each partner makes a conscious effort to consider the other's point of view. "The problem is that when you're angry, you're wrong even when you're right because you can't see the other person's perspective," Stosny says. "That's when you lose the thing you long for most, the connection."
Okay, I get it: Connection rules. But it's hard to imagine most people being capable of reaching out to their partners in the heat of an argument. Love and Stosny acknowledge that it's a tall order. Still, they say, for couples to productively address the hurt that underlies anger, it helps to have a previously agreed-upon signal such as a hand gesture to keep disagreements from spiraling out of control. This doesn't mean they should try to ignore their feelings, but instead find a way to convey that the other person matters more than whatever they're resentful or anxious about -- and then talk. The beautiful part, Love says, is that "it takes only one person to make the gesture. The partner will feel the impact, even if he or she can't drop the anger right at that moment."
Admittedly, this approach is most effective for couples in a precrisis state, Stosny says, "when there's still time for the man to step up to the plate and stop withdrawing or being reactive, and for the woman to understand that her husband really does want to make her happy and to stop being so critical. Men are better able to stay in the room and listen to women if they don't think they're being blamed for their distress."
But ultimately, Love adds, "couples have to decide that the relationship is more important than all those things they do that annoy each other." Oprah.com: Are you a nag? How to stop
"Even when Hugh throws his sopping wet towel on the bed, forgets to put gas in the car, or stares into space when I try to tell him something that really matters to me?" I ask, only half joking.
"If you give him positive reinforcement instead of criticizing him, he'll start doing more of the things you want him to do," Love says.
The next night over dinner, I give it a whirl. "I love it when you put gas in the car and hang up your wet towel," I say. He looks at me like I've gone off the deep end. "What's up?" he asks suspiciously. "Why are you being so nice?"
But a few days later when I'm distraught over a potentially scary mammogram report and he jumps in too quickly to reassure me that everything will turn out fine (it does), I decide to try out the binocular vision that Love and Stosny recommend. That's when I see that Hugh feels like a failure because he wants to make things better and he can't.
So instead of my usual knee-jerk irritability at what I perceive as his lack of sensitivity, I say, "I'm terrified and I just need you to listen." Which he does, patiently, lovingly. After I've finished reciting my laundry list of fears, he holds me close and neither of us says anything for a long time. We don't need to.
It's the connection, stupid!
By Barbara Graham from "O, The Oprah Magazine," February 2007 E-mail to a friend | Mixx it | Share
Politics & Humour............!
"I am reserving two tickets for you for my premiere.
Come and bring a friend - if you have one."
...George Bernard Shaw (to Winston Churchill)
"Impossible to be present for the first performance.
Will attend second - if there is one."
...Winston Churchill, in reply
"If I were married to you, I'd put poison in your coffee."
...Lady Astor (to Winston Churchill)
"If you were my wife, I'd drink it."
...Winston Churchill, in reply
"You will either die on the gallows or of a loathsome disease."
...John Montague (to John Wilkes)
"That depends on whether I embrace your principles or your mistress."
...John Wilkes, in reply
"He can't help it - he was born with a silver foot in his mouth."
...Ann Richards (about George Bush)
"Nixon's motto was: If two wrongs don't make a right, try three."
...Norman Cousins (about Richard M. Nixon)
"If you haven't found something worth dying for, you aren't fit to be living."
...Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Kites rise highest against the wind--not with it."
...Winston Churchill
"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on."
...Winston Churchill
"In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."
...Martin Luther King Jr.
"I stand by all the misstatements that I've made."
...Dan Quayle
"Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of congress; but I repeat myself."
...Mark Twain
"Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind."
...John Fitzgerald Kennedy
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the
opportunity in every difficulty."
...Winston Churchill
"Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names."
...John F. Kennedy
"I don't measure a man's success by how high he climbs but how high he bounces when he hits bottom."
...General Patton
"If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do matters very much."
...Jackie Kennedy
"Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't."
...Margaret Thatcher
"Feminism was established to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society."
...Rush Limbaugh (like he's one to talk)
"Older men declare war. But it is youth that must fight and die."
...Herbert Hoover
"Pro is to con as progress is to congress."
...Unknown
"Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount."
...General Omar N. Bradley
"My first wish is to see this plague of mankind, war, banished from the earth."
...George Washington
"A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject."
...Sir Winston Churchill
"History will be kind to me for I intend to write it."
...Sir Winston Churchill
"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened."
...Sir Winston Churchill
"No one can guarantee success in war, but only deserve it."
...Sir Winston Churchill
"Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm."
...Sir Winston Churchill
"Throughout the history of mankind there have been murderers and tyrants; and while it may seem momentarily that they have the upper hand, they have always fallen. Always."
...Mahatma Ghandi
"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it and then misapplying the wrong remedies."
...Groucho Marx
"In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican."
...Henry Louis Mencken
"Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book."
...Ronald Reagan
"Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hard-working, honest Americans. It's the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then - we elected them."
...Lily Tomlin
"Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far."
...Theodore Roosevelt
"There is only one quality worse than hardness of heart and that is softness of head."
...Theodore Roosevelt
"I am different from Washington; I have a higher, grander standard of principle. Washington could not lie. I can lie, but I won't."
...Mark Twain
"It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly American criminal class except Congress."
...Mark Twain
"I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it."
...Harry S. Truman
"It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit."
...Harry S. Truman
"I don't know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be."
...Abraham Lincoln
"The ballot is stronger than the bullet."
...Abraham Lincoln
"Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves."
...Abraham Lincoln
"Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally."
...Abraham Lincoln
"Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first."
...Ronald Reagan
"One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors."
...Plato
"Politics is actually a combination of two words: "poli", which means many, and "tics", which means bloodsuckers."
...Jay Leno
"To err is human. To blame someone else is politics."
...Hubert H. Humphrey
"For seven and a half years I've worked alongside President Reagan. We've had triumphs. Made some mistakes. We've had some sex ... uh...setbacks."
...George Bush
Come and bring a friend - if you have one."
...George Bernard Shaw (to Winston Churchill)
"Impossible to be present for the first performance.
Will attend second - if there is one."
...Winston Churchill, in reply
"If I were married to you, I'd put poison in your coffee."
...Lady Astor (to Winston Churchill)
"If you were my wife, I'd drink it."
...Winston Churchill, in reply
"You will either die on the gallows or of a loathsome disease."
...John Montague (to John Wilkes)
"That depends on whether I embrace your principles or your mistress."
...John Wilkes, in reply
"He can't help it - he was born with a silver foot in his mouth."
...Ann Richards (about George Bush)
"Nixon's motto was: If two wrongs don't make a right, try three."
...Norman Cousins (about Richard M. Nixon)
"If you haven't found something worth dying for, you aren't fit to be living."
...Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Kites rise highest against the wind--not with it."
...Winston Churchill
"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on."
...Winston Churchill
"In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."
...Martin Luther King Jr.
"I stand by all the misstatements that I've made."
...Dan Quayle
"Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of congress; but I repeat myself."
...Mark Twain
"Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind."
...John Fitzgerald Kennedy
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the
opportunity in every difficulty."
...Winston Churchill
"Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names."
...John F. Kennedy
"I don't measure a man's success by how high he climbs but how high he bounces when he hits bottom."
...General Patton
"If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do matters very much."
...Jackie Kennedy
"Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't."
...Margaret Thatcher
"Feminism was established to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society."
...Rush Limbaugh (like he's one to talk)
"Older men declare war. But it is youth that must fight and die."
...Herbert Hoover
"Pro is to con as progress is to congress."
...Unknown
"Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount."
...General Omar N. Bradley
"My first wish is to see this plague of mankind, war, banished from the earth."
...George Washington
"A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject."
...Sir Winston Churchill
"History will be kind to me for I intend to write it."
...Sir Winston Churchill
"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened."
...Sir Winston Churchill
"No one can guarantee success in war, but only deserve it."
...Sir Winston Churchill
"Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm."
...Sir Winston Churchill
"Throughout the history of mankind there have been murderers and tyrants; and while it may seem momentarily that they have the upper hand, they have always fallen. Always."
...Mahatma Ghandi
"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it and then misapplying the wrong remedies."
...Groucho Marx
"In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican."
...Henry Louis Mencken
"Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book."
...Ronald Reagan
"Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hard-working, honest Americans. It's the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then - we elected them."
...Lily Tomlin
"Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far."
...Theodore Roosevelt
"There is only one quality worse than hardness of heart and that is softness of head."
...Theodore Roosevelt
"I am different from Washington; I have a higher, grander standard of principle. Washington could not lie. I can lie, but I won't."
...Mark Twain
"It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly American criminal class except Congress."
...Mark Twain
"I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it."
...Harry S. Truman
"It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit."
...Harry S. Truman
"I don't know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be."
...Abraham Lincoln
"The ballot is stronger than the bullet."
...Abraham Lincoln
"Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves."
...Abraham Lincoln
"Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally."
...Abraham Lincoln
"Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first."
...Ronald Reagan
"One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors."
...Plato
"Politics is actually a combination of two words: "poli", which means many, and "tics", which means bloodsuckers."
...Jay Leno
"To err is human. To blame someone else is politics."
...Hubert H. Humphrey
"For seven and a half years I've worked alongside President Reagan. We've had triumphs. Made some mistakes. We've had some sex ... uh...setbacks."
...George Bush
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
What Happens When We Die?
By M.J. STEPHEY
Tue Sep 23, 6:40 PM ET
A fellow at New York City's Weill Cornell Medical Center, Dr. Sam Parnia is one of the world's leading experts on the scientific study of death. Last week Parnia and his colleagues at the Human Consciousness Project announced their first major undertaking: a 3-year exploration of the biology behind "out-of-body" experiences. The study, known as AWARE (AWAreness during REsuscitation), involves the collaboration of 25 major medical centers through Europe, Canada and the U.S. and will examine some 1,500 survivors of cardiac arrest. TIME spoke with Parnia about the project's origins, its skeptics and the difference between the mind and the brain.
ADVERTISEMENT
What sort of methods will this project use to try and verify people's claims of "near-death" experience?
When your heart stops beating, there is no blood getting to your brain. And so what happens is that within about 10 sec., brain activity ceases - as you would imagine. Yet paradoxically, 10% or 20% of people who are then brought back to life from that period, which may be a few minutes or over an hour, will report having consciousness. So the key thing here is, Are these real, or is it some sort of illusion? So the only way to tell is to have pictures only visible from the ceiling and nowhere else, because they claim they can see everything from the ceiling. So if we then get a series of 200 or 300 people who all were clinically dead, and yet they're able to come back and tell us what we were doing and were able see those pictures, that confirms consciousness really was continuing even though the brain wasn't functioning.
How does this project relate to society's perception of death?
People commonly perceive death as being a moment - you're either dead or you're alive. And that's a social definition we have. But the clinical definition we use is when the heart stops beating, the lungs stop working, and as a consequence the brain itself stops working. When doctors shine a light into someone's pupil, it's to demonstrate that there is no reflex present. The eye reflex is mediated by the brain stem, and that's the area that keeps us alive; if that doesn't work, then that means that the brain itself isn't working. At that point, I'll call a nurse into the room so I can certify that this patient is dead. Fifty years ago, people couldn't survive after that.
How is technology challenging the perception that death is a moment?
Nowadays, we have technology that's improved so that we can bring people back to life. In fact, there are drugs being developed right now - who knows if they'll ever make it to the market - that may actually slow down the process of brain-cell injury and death. Imagine you fast-forward to 10 years down the line; and you've given a patient, whose heart has just stopped, this amazing drug; and actually what it does is, it slows everything down so that the things that would've happened over an hour, now happen over two days. As medicine progresses, we will end up with lots and lots of ethical questions.
But what is happening to the individual at that time? What's really going on? Because there is a lack of blood flow, the cells go into a kind of a frenzy to keep themselves alive. And within about 5 min. or so they start to damage or change. After an hour or so the damage is so great that even if we restart the heart again and pump blood, the person can no longer be viable, because the cells have just been changed too much. And then the cells continue to change so that within a couple of days the body actually decomposes. So it's not a moment; it's a process that actually begins when the heart stops and culminates in the complete loss of the body, the decompositions of all the cells. However, ultimately what matters is, What's going on to a person's mind? What happens to the human mind and consciousness during death? Does that cease immediately as soon as the heart stops? Does it cease activity within the first 2 sec., the first 2 min.? Because we know that cells are continuously changing at that time. Does it stop after 10 min., after half an hour, after an hour? And at this point we don't know.
What was your first interview like with someone who had reported an out-of-body experience?
Eye-opening and very humbling. Because what you see is that, first of all, they are completely genuine people who are not looking for any kind of fame or attention. In many cases they haven't even told anybody else about it because they're afraid of what people will think of them. I have about 500 or so cases of people that I've interviewed since I first started out more than 10 years ago. It's the consistency of the experiences, the reality of what they were describing. I managed to speak to doctors and nurses who had been present who said these patients had told them exactly what had happened, and they couldn't explain it. I actually documented a few of those in my book What Happens When We Die because I wanted people to get both angles - not just the patients' side but also the doctors' side - and see how it feels for the doctors to have a patient come back and tell them what was going on. There was a cardiologist that I spoke with who said he hasn't told anyone else about it because he has no explanation for how this patient could have been able to describe in detail what he had said and done. He was so freaked out by it that he just decided not to think about it anymore.
Why do you think there is such resistance to studies like yours?
Because we're pushing through the boundaries of science, working against assumptions and perceptions that have been fixed. A lot of people hold this idea that, well, when you die, you die; that's it. Death is a moment - you know you're either dead or alive. All these things are not scientifically valid, but they're social perceptions. If you look back at the end of the 19th century, physicists at that time had been working with Newtonian laws of motion, and they really felt they had all the answers to everything that was out there in the universe. When we look at the world around us, Newtonian physics is perfectly sufficient. It explains most things that we deal with. But then it was discovered that actually when you look at motion at really small levels - beyond the level of the atoms - Newton's laws no longer apply. A new physics was needed, hence, we eventually ended up with quantum physics. It caused a lot of controversy - even Einstein himself didn't believe in it.
Now, if you look at the mind, consciousness, and the brain, the assumption that the mind and brain are the same thing is fine for most circumstances, because in 99% of circumstances we can't separate the mind and brain; they work at the exactly the same time. But then there are certain extreme examples, like when the brain shuts down, that we see that this assumption may no longer seem to hold true. So a new science is needed in the same way that we had to have a new quantum physics. The CERN particle accelerator may take us back to our roots. It may take us back to the first moments after the Big Bang, the very beginning. With our study, for the first time, we have the technology and the means to be able to investigate this. To see what happens at the end for us. Does something continue?
Tue Sep 23, 6:40 PM ET
A fellow at New York City's Weill Cornell Medical Center, Dr. Sam Parnia is one of the world's leading experts on the scientific study of death. Last week Parnia and his colleagues at the Human Consciousness Project announced their first major undertaking: a 3-year exploration of the biology behind "out-of-body" experiences. The study, known as AWARE (AWAreness during REsuscitation), involves the collaboration of 25 major medical centers through Europe, Canada and the U.S. and will examine some 1,500 survivors of cardiac arrest. TIME spoke with Parnia about the project's origins, its skeptics and the difference between the mind and the brain.
ADVERTISEMENT
What sort of methods will this project use to try and verify people's claims of "near-death" experience?
When your heart stops beating, there is no blood getting to your brain. And so what happens is that within about 10 sec., brain activity ceases - as you would imagine. Yet paradoxically, 10% or 20% of people who are then brought back to life from that period, which may be a few minutes or over an hour, will report having consciousness. So the key thing here is, Are these real, or is it some sort of illusion? So the only way to tell is to have pictures only visible from the ceiling and nowhere else, because they claim they can see everything from the ceiling. So if we then get a series of 200 or 300 people who all were clinically dead, and yet they're able to come back and tell us what we were doing and were able see those pictures, that confirms consciousness really was continuing even though the brain wasn't functioning.
How does this project relate to society's perception of death?
People commonly perceive death as being a moment - you're either dead or you're alive. And that's a social definition we have. But the clinical definition we use is when the heart stops beating, the lungs stop working, and as a consequence the brain itself stops working. When doctors shine a light into someone's pupil, it's to demonstrate that there is no reflex present. The eye reflex is mediated by the brain stem, and that's the area that keeps us alive; if that doesn't work, then that means that the brain itself isn't working. At that point, I'll call a nurse into the room so I can certify that this patient is dead. Fifty years ago, people couldn't survive after that.
How is technology challenging the perception that death is a moment?
Nowadays, we have technology that's improved so that we can bring people back to life. In fact, there are drugs being developed right now - who knows if they'll ever make it to the market - that may actually slow down the process of brain-cell injury and death. Imagine you fast-forward to 10 years down the line; and you've given a patient, whose heart has just stopped, this amazing drug; and actually what it does is, it slows everything down so that the things that would've happened over an hour, now happen over two days. As medicine progresses, we will end up with lots and lots of ethical questions.
But what is happening to the individual at that time? What's really going on? Because there is a lack of blood flow, the cells go into a kind of a frenzy to keep themselves alive. And within about 5 min. or so they start to damage or change. After an hour or so the damage is so great that even if we restart the heart again and pump blood, the person can no longer be viable, because the cells have just been changed too much. And then the cells continue to change so that within a couple of days the body actually decomposes. So it's not a moment; it's a process that actually begins when the heart stops and culminates in the complete loss of the body, the decompositions of all the cells. However, ultimately what matters is, What's going on to a person's mind? What happens to the human mind and consciousness during death? Does that cease immediately as soon as the heart stops? Does it cease activity within the first 2 sec., the first 2 min.? Because we know that cells are continuously changing at that time. Does it stop after 10 min., after half an hour, after an hour? And at this point we don't know.
What was your first interview like with someone who had reported an out-of-body experience?
Eye-opening and very humbling. Because what you see is that, first of all, they are completely genuine people who are not looking for any kind of fame or attention. In many cases they haven't even told anybody else about it because they're afraid of what people will think of them. I have about 500 or so cases of people that I've interviewed since I first started out more than 10 years ago. It's the consistency of the experiences, the reality of what they were describing. I managed to speak to doctors and nurses who had been present who said these patients had told them exactly what had happened, and they couldn't explain it. I actually documented a few of those in my book What Happens When We Die because I wanted people to get both angles - not just the patients' side but also the doctors' side - and see how it feels for the doctors to have a patient come back and tell them what was going on. There was a cardiologist that I spoke with who said he hasn't told anyone else about it because he has no explanation for how this patient could have been able to describe in detail what he had said and done. He was so freaked out by it that he just decided not to think about it anymore.
Why do you think there is such resistance to studies like yours?
Because we're pushing through the boundaries of science, working against assumptions and perceptions that have been fixed. A lot of people hold this idea that, well, when you die, you die; that's it. Death is a moment - you know you're either dead or alive. All these things are not scientifically valid, but they're social perceptions. If you look back at the end of the 19th century, physicists at that time had been working with Newtonian laws of motion, and they really felt they had all the answers to everything that was out there in the universe. When we look at the world around us, Newtonian physics is perfectly sufficient. It explains most things that we deal with. But then it was discovered that actually when you look at motion at really small levels - beyond the level of the atoms - Newton's laws no longer apply. A new physics was needed, hence, we eventually ended up with quantum physics. It caused a lot of controversy - even Einstein himself didn't believe in it.
Now, if you look at the mind, consciousness, and the brain, the assumption that the mind and brain are the same thing is fine for most circumstances, because in 99% of circumstances we can't separate the mind and brain; they work at the exactly the same time. But then there are certain extreme examples, like when the brain shuts down, that we see that this assumption may no longer seem to hold true. So a new science is needed in the same way that we had to have a new quantum physics. The CERN particle accelerator may take us back to our roots. It may take us back to the first moments after the Big Bang, the very beginning. With our study, for the first time, we have the technology and the means to be able to investigate this. To see what happens at the end for us. Does something continue?
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
'CEO death should serve as warning for managements':Readers Opinions
Write to Editor
Rajendra, Boston, says: I guess a temporary worker can not expect same salary as a permanent employee. This disparity exists in Govt sector also. Further its not the management who is responsible for this type of issues but rather than the Govt itself. As per the current labour laws you can not hire / fire the workers at your will. So the mgmt takes workers as temporary/contractors and give them low salary and then fire them after 3/6 months to avoid making them permanent. Govt needs to think and make labour laws more flexible in a manner so as to give benifit to both the workers and a company.
[23 Sep, 2008 1855hrs IST]
Anupam Gupta, Newcastle UK, says: what rubbish! rather than establishing the rule of law by getting these killers punished, the minister is acting like a trade union leader. No wonder that nobody is safe in this congress "misrule". I would have bought his argument if the news of Mr Chaudhary feeling insecure would not have emerged. It simply meant that there was clear threat to his life and this incidence was not accidental but a planned one. Highly irresponsible one Mr Minister. Ministers in this government whenever they open their mouth, show their intellectual level and make one realize the importance of keeping mum when you don't want to expose your foolishness.
[23 Sep, 2008 1853hrs IST]
MeIndian, ac, says: What a piece of work this minister is ? Instead of going after the guys who committed such a heineous crime, he chooses to sympathize with the guys who beat the CEO to death.
[23 Sep, 2008 1852hrs IST]
Jenboy, Hong Kong, says: Thanks Mr. Oscar Fernandes. Now we the discontent voters know how we should handle our failed elected members of parliment.
[23 Sep, 2008 1850hrs IST]
Sameer Maheshwari, Gurgaon, says: its saddening to know about this death. However, when we talk about economic slowdown and all kind of crunches why do we talk about retrenchment of labour, why not a pay cut in higher managements hugelu inflated packages....
[23 Sep, 2008 1848hrs IST]
SP, Mumbai, says: Mr Fernandes would do well to guage that there is more than a "simmering discontent" against politicians in our country.
[23 Sep, 2008 1847hrs IST]
Vinay Gowda, Bangalore, says: The minister seems to be supporting the employees who have murdered the CEO rather and threatening management. The reason being that the employees being pushed too much. A cabinet minister should be reprimanding these ruthless murderers rather than protect them. If the minister feels it is due to the difference in the pay scales then he should have worked towards solving the issue long back and this scenario would not have happened. Let me ask one question Majorities i.e. we Hindus are being pushed too hard in the same way by the Government appeasing the minorities all the time so VHP or Bajrang Dal can kill, loot and harm the minorities and Oscar Fernandes should warn the Government and minorities in this regard rigth ???
[23 Sep, 2008 1847hrs IST]
Ritesh Kumar, Chaibasa, says: Thanks Union Labour Minister Oscar Fernandes .Please help the poor employees.These MNCs are exploiting Indian like slaves.
[23 Sep, 2008 1846hrs IST]
Anirud, Singapore, says: If your report is accurate (which often is not), what is this man's point? That it is okay to beat people to death when you are discontented? So should all Indian citizens beat Oscar Fernandes to death or worse, quarter him because he is a member of the most corrupted nexus which has done little for salaried, law-abiding, tax-paying individuals?
[23 Sep, 2008 1846hrs IST]
Ramesh, Delhi, says: I agree with the minister . Its time simmering discontent Indians should kill all these ministers now.
[23 Sep, 2008 1846hrs IST]
Rajendra, Boston, says: I guess a temporary worker can not expect same salary as a permanent employee. This disparity exists in Govt sector also. Further its not the management who is responsible for this type of issues but rather than the Govt itself. As per the current labour laws you can not hire / fire the workers at your will. So the mgmt takes workers as temporary/contractors and give them low salary and then fire them after 3/6 months to avoid making them permanent. Govt needs to think and make labour laws more flexible in a manner so as to give benifit to both the workers and a company.
[23 Sep, 2008 1855hrs IST]
Anupam Gupta, Newcastle UK, says: what rubbish! rather than establishing the rule of law by getting these killers punished, the minister is acting like a trade union leader. No wonder that nobody is safe in this congress "misrule". I would have bought his argument if the news of Mr Chaudhary feeling insecure would not have emerged. It simply meant that there was clear threat to his life and this incidence was not accidental but a planned one. Highly irresponsible one Mr Minister. Ministers in this government whenever they open their mouth, show their intellectual level and make one realize the importance of keeping mum when you don't want to expose your foolishness.
[23 Sep, 2008 1853hrs IST]
MeIndian, ac, says: What a piece of work this minister is ? Instead of going after the guys who committed such a heineous crime, he chooses to sympathize with the guys who beat the CEO to death.
[23 Sep, 2008 1852hrs IST]
Jenboy, Hong Kong, says: Thanks Mr. Oscar Fernandes. Now we the discontent voters know how we should handle our failed elected members of parliment.
[23 Sep, 2008 1850hrs IST]
Sameer Maheshwari, Gurgaon, says: its saddening to know about this death. However, when we talk about economic slowdown and all kind of crunches why do we talk about retrenchment of labour, why not a pay cut in higher managements hugelu inflated packages....
[23 Sep, 2008 1848hrs IST]
SP, Mumbai, says: Mr Fernandes would do well to guage that there is more than a "simmering discontent" against politicians in our country.
[23 Sep, 2008 1847hrs IST]
Vinay Gowda, Bangalore, says: The minister seems to be supporting the employees who have murdered the CEO rather and threatening management. The reason being that the employees being pushed too much. A cabinet minister should be reprimanding these ruthless murderers rather than protect them. If the minister feels it is due to the difference in the pay scales then he should have worked towards solving the issue long back and this scenario would not have happened. Let me ask one question Majorities i.e. we Hindus are being pushed too hard in the same way by the Government appeasing the minorities all the time so VHP or Bajrang Dal can kill, loot and harm the minorities and Oscar Fernandes should warn the Government and minorities in this regard rigth ???
[23 Sep, 2008 1847hrs IST]
Ritesh Kumar, Chaibasa, says: Thanks Union Labour Minister Oscar Fernandes .Please help the poor employees.These MNCs are exploiting Indian like slaves.
[23 Sep, 2008 1846hrs IST]
Anirud, Singapore, says: If your report is accurate (which often is not), what is this man's point? That it is okay to beat people to death when you are discontented? So should all Indian citizens beat Oscar Fernandes to death or worse, quarter him because he is a member of the most corrupted nexus which has done little for salaried, law-abiding, tax-paying individuals?
[23 Sep, 2008 1846hrs IST]
Ramesh, Delhi, says: I agree with the minister . Its time simmering discontent Indians should kill all these ministers now.
[23 Sep, 2008 1846hrs IST]
Readers Opinions:'CEO death should serve as warning for managements'
Write to Editor
Dr S deepak, SJH, Delhi, says: This country is becoming a big heap of filth led by mindless people sitting in the administrative posts. This is the country where the PM ironically talks about cutting down wages of CEOs while politicians & beurocrats siphon off amazingly huge amounts of money in their pockets with no qualification. Now a meritorious responsible officer has been lynched by an awry mob, and the minister sitting on official chair is talking nonsense. This minister is infact threatening. In the way mayawati allows sabotaze of Reliance fresh outlets in UP,In the way Up regime allows kidnap and money bargain of the son of a leading CEO, in the ways rogues are allowed to attack on innocent citizens , in the manner the media attacks owners of costly cars having met a road accident it shows this country is full of frustrated, desperate people who dont have any jobs or livelihood and they wish vent out their frustration on innocent rish people. But instead of laying systems on part of ministers and educating common man by media regarding overpopulation and inactivity of the government they both are targetting the highly skilled and valuble professionals. This is a shame and begining of a disaster. educated profesionals learn to behave and progress by their own talents , but this country is pushed into a regime of goons in form of these netas who want to reward the public of its incivility, barbarianism, hedonism and they want them to remain so always. This country is celebrating mediocracy, crudeness and propagating poor, frustated starving mob which doesnt understand language of civilizaed society, education or human compassion.
[23 Sep, 2008 1900hrs IST]
GK, Bangalore, says: How about saying this after a politician is murdered. "This is a chilling warning to politician's who are not bothered about people". Everybody's guess as to how politicians will react in the parliament. God save India !
[23 Sep, 2008 1900hrs IST]
U, S, says: Oh C'mon... a man is dead and the government is justifying that....
[23 Sep, 2008 1900hrs IST]
shuja, canada, says: The Minister obviously has no idea of what law and order means. In a civilized enviroment you dont go around killing people over disagreements. It is sad that we have such people.
[23 Sep, 2008 1859hrs IST]
Yat P, NYC, says: I am appalled to see such comments coming from a minister.Instead of condemning and performing stern actions against the laborers,this pathetic minister is warning Managements.Then I guess we should follow the minister's advise and do the same justice to our politicians who are sucking our blood for ages.
[23 Sep, 2008 1858hrs IST]
Test, bng, says: This just to attract votes nothing else. In any case it should be handled peacefully & after this incident, an immediate action should be taken rather than conveying your message.
[23 Sep, 2008 1858hrs IST]
Prashanth, Hyderabad, says: How can you let ministers comment on matters like this. He should be warning the workers that they will not get any benefits rather than warning the management. Management is always doing what it takes to run a business. No one wants to make a loss and this is only for the larger interest of all the employees.... This is a very irresponsible statement and should be condemnded by one and all.
[23 Sep, 2008 1856hrs IST]
Uday, USA, says: Mr Oscar Fernandes, I don't see condemnation of this killing. If outburst in the form of murder is justified, then people with their frustration in different parts of our country, especially in Kashmir and north-east, are fine with their murder-spree attitude since no one listens to them. Also, common people have plenty of problems that are not cared for by politicians like you as well as the government. Should common people start showing their frustration by killing the politicians? As much as this is not rationale, other acts of frustrated labourers killing CEO and other officers isn't. What warning are you referring to, Mr Minister? Please tackle the problem through your governance.
[23 Sep, 2008 1855hrs IST]
Sagar, Pune, says: Extremly irresponsible statement.Hounerable minister should not mix up administration and justice,why the government did not take steps in time for correcting the situation.Everybody seems to become wiser after this has happened. Are the workers become CJI????or the hounerable minister?
[23 Sep, 2008 1855hrs IST]
BangCEO, Bangalore, says: Bloody 1 million work and one in that one million dares to start a firm!! let us all listen to what one of our corrupted politicians says and do a COMPASSION business. My dear Oscar, the business is not like politics, we dont have governmental funds to eat with , we have to make our own funding!!! Take this word from me, there will be a day sooner or later in India, when I wil see all the politicians running and there is a BIG mob coming to kill them, and unfortunately that MOB contains also the Politician's own family...Shame on you Oscar Shame shame...
[23 Sep, 2008 1855hrs IST]
Dr S deepak, SJH, Delhi, says: This country is becoming a big heap of filth led by mindless people sitting in the administrative posts. This is the country where the PM ironically talks about cutting down wages of CEOs while politicians & beurocrats siphon off amazingly huge amounts of money in their pockets with no qualification. Now a meritorious responsible officer has been lynched by an awry mob, and the minister sitting on official chair is talking nonsense. This minister is infact threatening. In the way mayawati allows sabotaze of Reliance fresh outlets in UP,In the way Up regime allows kidnap and money bargain of the son of a leading CEO, in the ways rogues are allowed to attack on innocent citizens , in the manner the media attacks owners of costly cars having met a road accident it shows this country is full of frustrated, desperate people who dont have any jobs or livelihood and they wish vent out their frustration on innocent rish people. But instead of laying systems on part of ministers and educating common man by media regarding overpopulation and inactivity of the government they both are targetting the highly skilled and valuble professionals. This is a shame and begining of a disaster. educated profesionals learn to behave and progress by their own talents , but this country is pushed into a regime of goons in form of these netas who want to reward the public of its incivility, barbarianism, hedonism and they want them to remain so always. This country is celebrating mediocracy, crudeness and propagating poor, frustated starving mob which doesnt understand language of civilizaed society, education or human compassion.
[23 Sep, 2008 1900hrs IST]
GK, Bangalore, says: How about saying this after a politician is murdered. "This is a chilling warning to politician's who are not bothered about people". Everybody's guess as to how politicians will react in the parliament. God save India !
[23 Sep, 2008 1900hrs IST]
U, S, says: Oh C'mon... a man is dead and the government is justifying that....
[23 Sep, 2008 1900hrs IST]
shuja, canada, says: The Minister obviously has no idea of what law and order means. In a civilized enviroment you dont go around killing people over disagreements. It is sad that we have such people.
[23 Sep, 2008 1859hrs IST]
Yat P, NYC, says: I am appalled to see such comments coming from a minister.Instead of condemning and performing stern actions against the laborers,this pathetic minister is warning Managements.Then I guess we should follow the minister's advise and do the same justice to our politicians who are sucking our blood for ages.
[23 Sep, 2008 1858hrs IST]
Test, bng, says: This just to attract votes nothing else. In any case it should be handled peacefully & after this incident, an immediate action should be taken rather than conveying your message.
[23 Sep, 2008 1858hrs IST]
Prashanth, Hyderabad, says: How can you let ministers comment on matters like this. He should be warning the workers that they will not get any benefits rather than warning the management. Management is always doing what it takes to run a business. No one wants to make a loss and this is only for the larger interest of all the employees.... This is a very irresponsible statement and should be condemnded by one and all.
[23 Sep, 2008 1856hrs IST]
Uday, USA, says: Mr Oscar Fernandes, I don't see condemnation of this killing. If outburst in the form of murder is justified, then people with their frustration in different parts of our country, especially in Kashmir and north-east, are fine with their murder-spree attitude since no one listens to them. Also, common people have plenty of problems that are not cared for by politicians like you as well as the government. Should common people start showing their frustration by killing the politicians? As much as this is not rationale, other acts of frustrated labourers killing CEO and other officers isn't. What warning are you referring to, Mr Minister? Please tackle the problem through your governance.
[23 Sep, 2008 1855hrs IST]
Sagar, Pune, says: Extremly irresponsible statement.Hounerable minister should not mix up administration and justice,why the government did not take steps in time for correcting the situation.Everybody seems to become wiser after this has happened. Are the workers become CJI????or the hounerable minister?
[23 Sep, 2008 1855hrs IST]
BangCEO, Bangalore, says: Bloody 1 million work and one in that one million dares to start a firm!! let us all listen to what one of our corrupted politicians says and do a COMPASSION business. My dear Oscar, the business is not like politics, we dont have governmental funds to eat with , we have to make our own funding!!! Take this word from me, there will be a day sooner or later in India, when I wil see all the politicians running and there is a BIG mob coming to kill them, and unfortunately that MOB contains also the Politician's own family...Shame on you Oscar Shame shame...
[23 Sep, 2008 1855hrs IST]
Readers Opinions:CEO death should serve as warning for managements'
Write to Editor
'
Rahul Kumar Vyas, Calcutta, says: This is again appeasement by the congress ministry of a certain labour class. The congress, when the elections are due, does not have the courage to stand up to the illegal act committed by the labours. I have always maintained that congress of present age is nothing but a bunch of mentally bankrupt people who have no courage to sit in the oposition. These people are power hungry and can go to any length to retain Delhi. God must save our beloved coutry from these metally bankrupt people. I dont know as such when will we get rid of these COngressians.
[23 Sep, 2008 1908hrs IST]
Manish , C, says: What kind of Minister he is to make such statement. Nothing gives a reason to anyone to kill another person other than self defense. Is he saying that if laborers feel that Management is against their interest then they are entitled to kill them?
[23 Sep, 2008 1907hrs IST]
Raj, USA, says: Is this minister crazy? Nothing justifies killing a human being. Absolutely nothing. The government should do their job of enforcing law and order and cannot just wash their hands off this ghastly incident.
[23 Sep, 2008 1905hrs IST]
Gupta, Ghaziabad, says: Oscar Fernandes represents all that is wrong with the political class in India. He is a blot on the landscape to condone a heinous killing the garb of worker discontent. He should be fired from the cabinet today.
[23 Sep, 2008 1905hrs IST]
Basant, India, says: This kind of indifference and statement by a minister shows how serious they are in countries development and safety. This will only emboldened the antisocial elements in our society. No explanation can justify the cruel murder of the CEO.Instead of just talking about rights of workers lets talk about their responsibilities and duties. The day workers understand and realize their responsibilties and duties there will be no discord between management and workers.
[23 Sep, 2008 1905hrs IST]
G Krishnamurthy, New Delhi, says: The Minister for Labour appears to have forgotten that he is supposed to uphold the Indian Constitution. He appears to be justifying the action of the workers in taking someone's life and minimizing a horrific act of murder. Is he a member of the same Cabinet that pontificates so eloquently on the right to life of Afzal Guru? Are there two laws here, one for workers who murder their CEO, and one for terrorists who bomb Parliament?
[23 Sep, 2008 1904hrs IST]
scepticus, India, says: It is unfortunate that a minister made such remarks about this incident. It will give a wrong signal to unions. Unions should approach labour courts to solve their grievances instead of taking law into their hands.
[23 Sep, 2008 1904hrs IST]
Manoj Mishra, Rewa, says: There should not be any excuse for such a killing. Union Labour Minister Oscar Fernandes is a responsible person and statements from such a person like this is very unfortunate. Still we have mindset of criminal even at higher echelon of government. Long way to go India.
[23 Sep, 2008 1903hrs IST]
Ram, Wilmington, says: The minisetr instead of condeming the incident seems to hold a torch for the murderers?
[23 Sep, 2008 1902hrs IST]
JG, Kuwait, says: "CEO death should be a warning for mangement" How a union minister can even suggest that, he should be put on trial even remotly sounding justifying that murder!!
[23 Sep, 2008 1902hrs IST]
'
Rahul Kumar Vyas, Calcutta, says: This is again appeasement by the congress ministry of a certain labour class. The congress, when the elections are due, does not have the courage to stand up to the illegal act committed by the labours. I have always maintained that congress of present age is nothing but a bunch of mentally bankrupt people who have no courage to sit in the oposition. These people are power hungry and can go to any length to retain Delhi. God must save our beloved coutry from these metally bankrupt people. I dont know as such when will we get rid of these COngressians.
[23 Sep, 2008 1908hrs IST]
Manish , C, says: What kind of Minister he is to make such statement. Nothing gives a reason to anyone to kill another person other than self defense. Is he saying that if laborers feel that Management is against their interest then they are entitled to kill them?
[23 Sep, 2008 1907hrs IST]
Raj, USA, says: Is this minister crazy? Nothing justifies killing a human being. Absolutely nothing. The government should do their job of enforcing law and order and cannot just wash their hands off this ghastly incident.
[23 Sep, 2008 1905hrs IST]
Gupta, Ghaziabad, says: Oscar Fernandes represents all that is wrong with the political class in India. He is a blot on the landscape to condone a heinous killing the garb of worker discontent. He should be fired from the cabinet today.
[23 Sep, 2008 1905hrs IST]
Basant, India, says: This kind of indifference and statement by a minister shows how serious they are in countries development and safety. This will only emboldened the antisocial elements in our society. No explanation can justify the cruel murder of the CEO.Instead of just talking about rights of workers lets talk about their responsibilities and duties. The day workers understand and realize their responsibilties and duties there will be no discord between management and workers.
[23 Sep, 2008 1905hrs IST]
G Krishnamurthy, New Delhi, says: The Minister for Labour appears to have forgotten that he is supposed to uphold the Indian Constitution. He appears to be justifying the action of the workers in taking someone's life and minimizing a horrific act of murder. Is he a member of the same Cabinet that pontificates so eloquently on the right to life of Afzal Guru? Are there two laws here, one for workers who murder their CEO, and one for terrorists who bomb Parliament?
[23 Sep, 2008 1904hrs IST]
scepticus, India, says: It is unfortunate that a minister made such remarks about this incident. It will give a wrong signal to unions. Unions should approach labour courts to solve their grievances instead of taking law into their hands.
[23 Sep, 2008 1904hrs IST]
Manoj Mishra, Rewa, says: There should not be any excuse for such a killing. Union Labour Minister Oscar Fernandes is a responsible person and statements from such a person like this is very unfortunate. Still we have mindset of criminal even at higher echelon of government. Long way to go India.
[23 Sep, 2008 1903hrs IST]
Ram, Wilmington, says: The minisetr instead of condeming the incident seems to hold a torch for the murderers?
[23 Sep, 2008 1902hrs IST]
JG, Kuwait, says: "CEO death should be a warning for mangement" How a union minister can even suggest that, he should be put on trial even remotly sounding justifying that murder!!
[23 Sep, 2008 1902hrs IST]
Readers Opinions:CEO death should serve as warning for managements'
Write to Editor
'
Praveen, Hyderabad, says: How can a minister makes such a irresponsible statement? For congress government the days are numbered.
[23 Sep, 2008 1949hrs IST]
Jaspal Singh, Chandigarh, says: The Minister must not talk in a language which gives encouragement to the violence resorted to by labour.The incident must be properly investigated and in any case like in terrorism, alienation/simmering discontent need not result into violence of the kind resorted to.I hope Mr Oscar does not propose to convert the whole of India into West Bengal.
[23 Sep, 2008 1949hrs IST]
Manish, Zurich, says: An irresponsible statement from a Minister. Congress must have some sensible ministers. Is this way to condemn ?? He shud warn the workers not to take law in their hands. Make rules which are good for employee and Employer and not these type of nonsense statements.
[23 Sep, 2008 1917hrs IST]
VM, UK, says: Our minister says "the workers should be dealt with compassion". What advise does he has for the workers. If there is an issue, it doesn't mean that the workers should get on with violence. This statement will give other to get on with violence
[23 Sep, 2008 1915hrs IST]
DoesItMatter, tracktheip, says: there is a lot of discontent against the Politicians as well ... I hope Mr Oscar Fernandes is aware of that.
[23 Sep, 2008 1913hrs IST]
K. Singh, USA, says: Surprize! A law maker is protecting law breakers.
[23 Sep, 2008 1913hrs IST]
KMG, kop, says: I didn't get the the message from his statement. He is telling such incident can happen and law will not hurt anybody. Management is also worker for company. It is very irresponsible statement. These people need to understand that time and requirement is changing. It is very tragic incident and people should be punished so worker get fear of consequences. What is job of this minister? Was he having information about dispute? Why didn't he updated himself so he would have taken initiative before this tragic incident. These people needs to think ten times before giving statement.
[23 Sep, 2008 1913hrs IST]
jai, usa, says: This minister should be fired for making such crazy statements in public and thereby condoning similar violence in the future. This guy should also be tried in the court of law for instigating workers from a position of authority. doesn't look like he condemned the violent acts of the workers. Unlike china, india is a supposedly free nation, if the workers don't like there jobs they should move on or in a worst case scenario - try to go on a strike, etc...not become thugs and resort to violence. When the company loses money and closes shop, where will everybody else go for jobs??
[23 Sep, 2008 1913hrs IST]
Ram, Vancouver, Canada, says: I would call this as a refreshingly welcome statement from the Hon.Minister. Now, the Indian public has an option of beating the corrupt and inefficient politicians to death. Long live democracy! How was this person chosen for the post of this ministry?
[23 Sep, 2008 1912hrs IST]
'
Praveen, Hyderabad, says: How can a minister makes such a irresponsible statement? For congress government the days are numbered.
[23 Sep, 2008 1949hrs IST]
Jaspal Singh, Chandigarh, says: The Minister must not talk in a language which gives encouragement to the violence resorted to by labour.The incident must be properly investigated and in any case like in terrorism, alienation/simmering discontent need not result into violence of the kind resorted to.I hope Mr Oscar does not propose to convert the whole of India into West Bengal.
[23 Sep, 2008 1949hrs IST]
Manish, Zurich, says: An irresponsible statement from a Minister. Congress must have some sensible ministers. Is this way to condemn ?? He shud warn the workers not to take law in their hands. Make rules which are good for employee and Employer and not these type of nonsense statements.
[23 Sep, 2008 1917hrs IST]
VM, UK, says: Our minister says "the workers should be dealt with compassion". What advise does he has for the workers. If there is an issue, it doesn't mean that the workers should get on with violence. This statement will give other to get on with violence
[23 Sep, 2008 1915hrs IST]
DoesItMatter, tracktheip, says: there is a lot of discontent against the Politicians as well ... I hope Mr Oscar Fernandes is aware of that.
[23 Sep, 2008 1913hrs IST]
K. Singh, USA, says: Surprize! A law maker is protecting law breakers.
[23 Sep, 2008 1913hrs IST]
KMG, kop, says: I didn't get the the message from his statement. He is telling such incident can happen and law will not hurt anybody. Management is also worker for company. It is very irresponsible statement. These people need to understand that time and requirement is changing. It is very tragic incident and people should be punished so worker get fear of consequences. What is job of this minister? Was he having information about dispute? Why didn't he updated himself so he would have taken initiative before this tragic incident. These people needs to think ten times before giving statement.
[23 Sep, 2008 1913hrs IST]
jai, usa, says: This minister should be fired for making such crazy statements in public and thereby condoning similar violence in the future. This guy should also be tried in the court of law for instigating workers from a position of authority. doesn't look like he condemned the violent acts of the workers. Unlike china, india is a supposedly free nation, if the workers don't like there jobs they should move on or in a worst case scenario - try to go on a strike, etc...not become thugs and resort to violence. When the company loses money and closes shop, where will everybody else go for jobs??
[23 Sep, 2008 1913hrs IST]
Ram, Vancouver, Canada, says: I would call this as a refreshingly welcome statement from the Hon.Minister. Now, the Indian public has an option of beating the corrupt and inefficient politicians to death. Long live democracy! How was this person chosen for the post of this ministry?
[23 Sep, 2008 1912hrs IST]
Readers Opinions: CEO death should serve as warning for managements'
Write to Editor
'
Ashish, Hong Kong, says: Highly irresponsible statement that favours taking law in our own hands. Pathetic As a Labor minister, the discontent of workers is the ministers problem and the fact the workers went to this extent is a failure on ministers duty. Of course no one is pointing that out
[23 Sep, 2008 2001hrs IST]
Harpreet Kandra, Noida, says: This is horrendous, the Minister is talking in a typical manner of a Trade Union Leader. Is he trying to justify the killing of the CEO by the labour class who simply does not want to work but want free salaries. How atrocious, this man is sick and he alongwith others who think in the same manner should be sent to Mental Asylum. What message is he giving out to the world??? Why worry about Religion terrorism being the biggest problem India is facing today, the real threat is from such Ministers having terrorising thoughts. Oh God please do something to save my country which otherwise will reach for its doom much faster if such people live and rule us.
[23 Sep, 2008 1958hrs IST]
hemant, bangalore, says: And he is a Federal minister ???? Is it the government of same manmohan singh who started the reform ? A bunch of crooks, liars and incompetent person call themselves ministers and issue such a ridiculuos statement. He must be fired from the government.
[23 Sep, 2008 1958hrs IST]
Ben, MN, USA, says: A most irresponsible statement from the minister, that hooligans and murderers should be dealt with compassion. Soon India will become Somalia, where injustice is cause enough to pick up the gun and seek rambo style justice. Are we not a country of laws? This should be a warning to all multinationals, not to invest in lawless India. As it is, India is one of the most corrupt nations in the world and has lower productivity than Bangladsh and Pakistan. Most US companies prefer to source textiles from these countries and only add India as a fall back position. If stability should come to India's neighbour they will take business away. I am amazed some people on this board are supporting the statement of the minister. No wonder Indian workers are slowing being shunned in the Gulf. You don't like the job move on, don't murder the CEO. Nothing justifies killing anyone. No human being has the right to do so.
[23 Sep, 2008 1957hrs IST]
vikram, delhi, says: way to go Mr. Fernandes, maybe its time we lead a lynch mob against you politicians. just goes on to prove that the only qualification needed to be a mantri is loads of chamchagiri and ZERO talent
[23 Sep, 2008 1956hrs IST]
Satyajeet, Bangalore, says: Thanks Man, We have now got the right to Kill Politicians.
[23 Sep, 2008 1954hrs IST]
Gundu Swamy, Singapore, says: OSCAR FERNANDES HAS TO GO !!!!! There cannot be any excuse to make such an irresponsible statement. If the PM wants his govt to represent all right minded Indians, Oscar Fernandes MUST be made an example and SACKED IMMEDIATELY.
[23 Sep, 2008 1954hrs IST]
Sanjeev Prasad Mishra, San Jose, says: Reading the comments here, I can clearly see the class divide. Here we have a bunch of netizens, who were fortunate enough to born in well to do families, had good education and have a good "white collar" job. It is therefore easy to assume that they would not know as to in what conditions do the workers have to work under in physical labour intensive jobs. Those who are calling workers criminals, i want to see them doing the same back breaking job. I bet 80% of these people would not even survive a day at work. Karl Marx was so true. Though I regret the death of the company's CEO, but we need to find out what made workers so aggressive? Did CEO say something provocative? Did he threaten them? I know people who have defused "dynamite" situation with elan and sorted the things out. I am left wondering how come 300 workers be fired for "non-performance"? Nah, their firing was more to do with "cost-cutting" and "maximising profit margins".
[23 Sep, 2008 1954hrs IST]
Praveen, Hyderabad, says: How can a minister makes such a irresponsible statement? The days are numbered for Congress government.
[23 Sep, 2008 1950hrs IST]
Rohit Jain, Bangalore, says: Mr. Minister, i guess you are invoking the workers, have you ever run a big scale industry like that? this kind of statement is really bad for the big companies. What do you except the management to do? beg them and do the job for what they are already being paid? if few people which are not doing the job company has full rights to THROW THEM OUT. Killing the CEO what does that mean?
[23 Sep, 2008 1949hrs IST]
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Ashish, Hong Kong, says: Highly irresponsible statement that favours taking law in our own hands. Pathetic As a Labor minister, the discontent of workers is the ministers problem and the fact the workers went to this extent is a failure on ministers duty. Of course no one is pointing that out
[23 Sep, 2008 2001hrs IST]
Harpreet Kandra, Noida, says: This is horrendous, the Minister is talking in a typical manner of a Trade Union Leader. Is he trying to justify the killing of the CEO by the labour class who simply does not want to work but want free salaries. How atrocious, this man is sick and he alongwith others who think in the same manner should be sent to Mental Asylum. What message is he giving out to the world??? Why worry about Religion terrorism being the biggest problem India is facing today, the real threat is from such Ministers having terrorising thoughts. Oh God please do something to save my country which otherwise will reach for its doom much faster if such people live and rule us.
[23 Sep, 2008 1958hrs IST]
hemant, bangalore, says: And he is a Federal minister ???? Is it the government of same manmohan singh who started the reform ? A bunch of crooks, liars and incompetent person call themselves ministers and issue such a ridiculuos statement. He must be fired from the government.
[23 Sep, 2008 1958hrs IST]
Ben, MN, USA, says: A most irresponsible statement from the minister, that hooligans and murderers should be dealt with compassion. Soon India will become Somalia, where injustice is cause enough to pick up the gun and seek rambo style justice. Are we not a country of laws? This should be a warning to all multinationals, not to invest in lawless India. As it is, India is one of the most corrupt nations in the world and has lower productivity than Bangladsh and Pakistan. Most US companies prefer to source textiles from these countries and only add India as a fall back position. If stability should come to India's neighbour they will take business away. I am amazed some people on this board are supporting the statement of the minister. No wonder Indian workers are slowing being shunned in the Gulf. You don't like the job move on, don't murder the CEO. Nothing justifies killing anyone. No human being has the right to do so.
[23 Sep, 2008 1957hrs IST]
vikram, delhi, says: way to go Mr. Fernandes, maybe its time we lead a lynch mob against you politicians. just goes on to prove that the only qualification needed to be a mantri is loads of chamchagiri and ZERO talent
[23 Sep, 2008 1956hrs IST]
Satyajeet, Bangalore, says: Thanks Man, We have now got the right to Kill Politicians.
[23 Sep, 2008 1954hrs IST]
Gundu Swamy, Singapore, says: OSCAR FERNANDES HAS TO GO !!!!! There cannot be any excuse to make such an irresponsible statement. If the PM wants his govt to represent all right minded Indians, Oscar Fernandes MUST be made an example and SACKED IMMEDIATELY.
[23 Sep, 2008 1954hrs IST]
Sanjeev Prasad Mishra, San Jose, says: Reading the comments here, I can clearly see the class divide. Here we have a bunch of netizens, who were fortunate enough to born in well to do families, had good education and have a good "white collar" job. It is therefore easy to assume that they would not know as to in what conditions do the workers have to work under in physical labour intensive jobs. Those who are calling workers criminals, i want to see them doing the same back breaking job. I bet 80% of these people would not even survive a day at work. Karl Marx was so true. Though I regret the death of the company's CEO, but we need to find out what made workers so aggressive? Did CEO say something provocative? Did he threaten them? I know people who have defused "dynamite" situation with elan and sorted the things out. I am left wondering how come 300 workers be fired for "non-performance"? Nah, their firing was more to do with "cost-cutting" and "maximising profit margins".
[23 Sep, 2008 1954hrs IST]
Praveen, Hyderabad, says: How can a minister makes such a irresponsible statement? The days are numbered for Congress government.
[23 Sep, 2008 1950hrs IST]
Rohit Jain, Bangalore, says: Mr. Minister, i guess you are invoking the workers, have you ever run a big scale industry like that? this kind of statement is really bad for the big companies. What do you except the management to do? beg them and do the job for what they are already being paid? if few people which are not doing the job company has full rights to THROW THEM OUT. Killing the CEO what does that mean?
[23 Sep, 2008 1949hrs IST]
Readers Opinions
k .madhukar, b, says: Making stupid statements is nothing new to this minister.He is one of those loyal errand boys of congress high command rewarded with a ministerial position even though he lost his election .First they tried him as Minister for statistics now minister for labour.He says nothing significant except what he thinks pleases Sonia gandhi.Press reporters and aam admi are wasting thier time listening to him
[23 Sep, 2008 2019hrs IST]
Surya, USA, says: Irresponsible statement, what is he talking about. The industry should insist on minister to clarify his comment.
[23 Sep, 2008 2018hrs IST]
SS, India, says: Killing a CEO in broad daylight is a clear sign to the investors. What is this communist talking about? If you want to help labourers, enact better labour laws.
[23 Sep, 2008 2005hrs IST]
Anil, Mumbai, says: The Minister is condoning the death of the CEO. He is out of his mind. If the workers are dis-satisfied, will they kill the CEO. Government servants too are dis-satisfied with many policies of the government. Should the Secretaries and Ministers be killed? If Oscar's logic is taken to its logical conclusion, they have every right to kill them. It is a shame that we have stooped so low in our appeasement policy.
[23 Sep, 2008 2005hrs IST]
r, a, says: do anyone of you have the idea how workers are being treated in private sector, its like slavery of old times, you will be hired and fired at the will of management. Boss is the supreme power in priviate sector, however I agree that such statement from minister in public is not apt.
[23 Sep, 2008 2004hrs IST]
Rahul, Pune, says: This is an irresponsible and typical political statement from a minister probably with an eye on the future elections. He seems to be justifying the mob mentality of people and blaming the management for the unfortunate event. Workers definitely have a right to protest if there has been injustice, but this can be done via negotiations. You don't need to beat up a person if he isn't giving you what you need. Who's to compensate for the injustice done to his family now ? And after all this, our dear minister comes out with his lame statement which is far from reassuring to other businesses or future enterpreneurs. God help India in the presence of such leaders!!
[23 Sep, 2008 2003hrs IST]
shriram, Bangalore, says: Even after 2 days of reporting the incident, there is no reason given for firing the workers. Its curious to say the least. Wake up media, there's a job to be done. Oscar Fernades must be appointed lifetime PR spokesman for Congress. It will hasten Congress' demise.
[23 Sep, 2008 2003hrs IST]
Rakesh, Gurgaon, says: What a GREAT NONSENSE statement coming out from a Minister.From country context Management=POLITICIANS and Employee=Public. So what Mr Minister is essentially hinting that the Indian public has an option of beating the inefficient politicians to ...... GOD BLESS OUR COUNTRY
[23 Sep, 2008 2001hrs IST]
B Suresh, Chennai, says: Difficult to understand how the minister is so insensitive to this horrible act by the so called workers. Does he mean the workers are extremely correct in their murder of the CEO. Total iresponsible and dangerous statement by the minister. God Save India
[23 Sep, 2008 2001hrs IST]
ravi, India, says: There is a lot of discontent against the UPA ..is this person aware of that?
[23 Sep, 2008 2001hrs IST]
[23 Sep, 2008 2019hrs IST]
Surya, USA, says: Irresponsible statement, what is he talking about. The industry should insist on minister to clarify his comment.
[23 Sep, 2008 2018hrs IST]
SS, India, says: Killing a CEO in broad daylight is a clear sign to the investors. What is this communist talking about? If you want to help labourers, enact better labour laws.
[23 Sep, 2008 2005hrs IST]
Anil, Mumbai, says: The Minister is condoning the death of the CEO. He is out of his mind. If the workers are dis-satisfied, will they kill the CEO. Government servants too are dis-satisfied with many policies of the government. Should the Secretaries and Ministers be killed? If Oscar's logic is taken to its logical conclusion, they have every right to kill them. It is a shame that we have stooped so low in our appeasement policy.
[23 Sep, 2008 2005hrs IST]
r, a, says: do anyone of you have the idea how workers are being treated in private sector, its like slavery of old times, you will be hired and fired at the will of management. Boss is the supreme power in priviate sector, however I agree that such statement from minister in public is not apt.
[23 Sep, 2008 2004hrs IST]
Rahul, Pune, says: This is an irresponsible and typical political statement from a minister probably with an eye on the future elections. He seems to be justifying the mob mentality of people and blaming the management for the unfortunate event. Workers definitely have a right to protest if there has been injustice, but this can be done via negotiations. You don't need to beat up a person if he isn't giving you what you need. Who's to compensate for the injustice done to his family now ? And after all this, our dear minister comes out with his lame statement which is far from reassuring to other businesses or future enterpreneurs. God help India in the presence of such leaders!!
[23 Sep, 2008 2003hrs IST]
shriram, Bangalore, says: Even after 2 days of reporting the incident, there is no reason given for firing the workers. Its curious to say the least. Wake up media, there's a job to be done. Oscar Fernades must be appointed lifetime PR spokesman for Congress. It will hasten Congress' demise.
[23 Sep, 2008 2003hrs IST]
Rakesh, Gurgaon, says: What a GREAT NONSENSE statement coming out from a Minister.From country context Management=POLITICIANS and Employee=Public. So what Mr Minister is essentially hinting that the Indian public has an option of beating the inefficient politicians to ...... GOD BLESS OUR COUNTRY
[23 Sep, 2008 2001hrs IST]
B Suresh, Chennai, says: Difficult to understand how the minister is so insensitive to this horrible act by the so called workers. Does he mean the workers are extremely correct in their murder of the CEO. Total iresponsible and dangerous statement by the minister. God Save India
[23 Sep, 2008 2001hrs IST]
ravi, India, says: There is a lot of discontent against the UPA ..is this person aware of that?
[23 Sep, 2008 2001hrs IST]
Readers Opinions: 'CEO death should serve as warning for managements'
Readers Opinions
Raj Singh, Los Angeles, says: Why is the minister talking like this? Why is he justifying the murder of a CEO by workers? He justifies that because of the discontent among workers this has happened. Well guess what, there is simmering discontent among the general public for all the politicians and minsiters, should the public start lynching them ??
[23 Sep, 2008 2029hrs IST]
dom, bangalore, says: Oscar should be given an oscar award for his stupendous statement. He has gone nuts to justify the killing of CEO. It is high time Oscar is sent for some counselling. It goes on to prove that this country is run by the goons.
[23 Sep, 2008 2025hrs IST]
Shiva IYER, Sydney Australia, says: There is also another angle here. While the workers are struggling over rising costs and inflation, the last thing they want is to get fired. And all this when CEOs are making atrocious salaries of more than a million Rupees per month.. Welcome to globalization and now one can see what happens when massive credit crunches occur in the capitalist mecca USA...What would happen in India if we also follow suit. The first thing is WE HAVE TO PUT AN END TO THESE ASTRONOMICAL CEO SALARIES...
[23 Sep, 2008 2025hrs IST]
vij, usa, says: such a stupid defence of killers by a minister!!! Murder can be no basis for the redeeming the discontentment.
[23 Sep, 2008 2024hrs IST]
Dharmashankar, USA, says: I feel that the statement by the Union minister is not only ridiculous but dangerous. This shows the weakness of the government to punish people who have no value for human life. Instead of pressing for punishment for people who did such a barbaric act, this irresponsible minister chose to blame the management. This is not the question of who is right or who is wrong. Even if the management was wrong, the workers dont have any right to even touch the other person.They have legal ways of fighting if incase injustice is done. I cannot believe this is happening in India. I got chills just thinking about it. I hope all the culprits get severe punishment and nobody should take law in their own hands. It seems to me the Mr. Oscar Fernandes doesn't get it.
[23 Sep, 2008 2024hrs IST]
Nitin, New Delhi, says: I think our Honable Minsiter is trying to justify the heinous act of the workers.
[23 Sep, 2008 2023hrs IST]
Indian , India, says: Hey what he said is really cool. What about the 'simmering discontent' on the politics on India, so I think he's authorizing common man to take law into our hands ! So why not start with him ;-)
[23 Sep, 2008 2022hrs IST]
One, Singapore, says: Yet once again, a lose statement, the fact is that the law and order enforcement is ZERO in 60 yrs of Congress raj, which gives self approval authority to take things in own hands. All 136 people arrested should be charged and culprits be hanged to death. Wont be repeated then.
[23 Sep, 2008 2022hrs IST]
Nitin, Delhi, says: I think our Honable minister is trying to justify the heinous act of the workers.
[23 Sep, 2008 2021hrs IST]
ASingh, USA, USA, says: This is the state of India, the so-called global super power. The Govt. condoning a murder. Is India an independent country? If the ans. is yes, then what stops the Govt from changing laws in favour of workers? Why blame management? Tomorrow, the common men on the streets will take law into their hands and murder thieves and even corrupt police or politicians...then what will the Govt say? The basic problem is that Indians DO NOT know how to live by rules and law. They enjoy breaking rules and teach their children to do the same from childhood. Just wait and see...india will soon become like some of teh african countries. Private armies, slum-lords etc will run cities.
[23 Sep, 2008 2020hrs IST]
Raj Singh, Los Angeles, says: Why is the minister talking like this? Why is he justifying the murder of a CEO by workers? He justifies that because of the discontent among workers this has happened. Well guess what, there is simmering discontent among the general public for all the politicians and minsiters, should the public start lynching them ??
[23 Sep, 2008 2029hrs IST]
dom, bangalore, says: Oscar should be given an oscar award for his stupendous statement. He has gone nuts to justify the killing of CEO. It is high time Oscar is sent for some counselling. It goes on to prove that this country is run by the goons.
[23 Sep, 2008 2025hrs IST]
Shiva IYER, Sydney Australia, says: There is also another angle here. While the workers are struggling over rising costs and inflation, the last thing they want is to get fired. And all this when CEOs are making atrocious salaries of more than a million Rupees per month.. Welcome to globalization and now one can see what happens when massive credit crunches occur in the capitalist mecca USA...What would happen in India if we also follow suit. The first thing is WE HAVE TO PUT AN END TO THESE ASTRONOMICAL CEO SALARIES...
[23 Sep, 2008 2025hrs IST]
vij, usa, says: such a stupid defence of killers by a minister!!! Murder can be no basis for the redeeming the discontentment.
[23 Sep, 2008 2024hrs IST]
Dharmashankar, USA, says: I feel that the statement by the Union minister is not only ridiculous but dangerous. This shows the weakness of the government to punish people who have no value for human life. Instead of pressing for punishment for people who did such a barbaric act, this irresponsible minister chose to blame the management. This is not the question of who is right or who is wrong. Even if the management was wrong, the workers dont have any right to even touch the other person.They have legal ways of fighting if incase injustice is done. I cannot believe this is happening in India. I got chills just thinking about it. I hope all the culprits get severe punishment and nobody should take law in their own hands. It seems to me the Mr. Oscar Fernandes doesn't get it.
[23 Sep, 2008 2024hrs IST]
Nitin, New Delhi, says: I think our Honable Minsiter is trying to justify the heinous act of the workers.
[23 Sep, 2008 2023hrs IST]
Indian , India, says: Hey what he said is really cool. What about the 'simmering discontent' on the politics on India, so I think he's authorizing common man to take law into our hands ! So why not start with him ;-)
[23 Sep, 2008 2022hrs IST]
One, Singapore, says: Yet once again, a lose statement, the fact is that the law and order enforcement is ZERO in 60 yrs of Congress raj, which gives self approval authority to take things in own hands. All 136 people arrested should be charged and culprits be hanged to death. Wont be repeated then.
[23 Sep, 2008 2022hrs IST]
Nitin, Delhi, says: I think our Honable minister is trying to justify the heinous act of the workers.
[23 Sep, 2008 2021hrs IST]
ASingh, USA, USA, says: This is the state of India, the so-called global super power. The Govt. condoning a murder. Is India an independent country? If the ans. is yes, then what stops the Govt from changing laws in favour of workers? Why blame management? Tomorrow, the common men on the streets will take law into their hands and murder thieves and even corrupt police or politicians...then what will the Govt say? The basic problem is that Indians DO NOT know how to live by rules and law. They enjoy breaking rules and teach their children to do the same from childhood. Just wait and see...india will soon become like some of teh african countries. Private armies, slum-lords etc will run cities.
[23 Sep, 2008 2020hrs IST]
10 best ways to impress men
Tuesday, 23 September , 2008, 16:04
London: Want to impress a man? Well, those fabulous looks are not enough to make him fall for you.
A woman needs to have a lot of qualities, like a good sense of humour, intelligence and a great personality to attract a man, reports the Independent.
And in case these qualities are not enough, here’s a compete list that may help you impress him.
1. Personality
Men like women who have a great personality.
2. Sense of humour
A good sense of humour in women can boost their chances of impressing men.
Sexually active girls suffer from depression
3. Honesty
Honesty is good for any relationship and if you stay loyal to your man, he”ll be flattered.
4. Someone easy-going who doesn’t obsess with her body
Men don’t like obsessive women, they like them easy going.
5. Intelligence
A good sense of humour doesn’t come without intelligence. Men want someone he can test himself against on the sofa next to him.
10 best ways to impress women revealed
6. Kindness, being lovely, charming, being able to cope with her beauty
Men go for women who are kind, loving and charming. They like women who can deal wit their beauty.
7. She must be somewhat attractive, athletic, fun
Men like women who are somewhat attractive, athletic, and fun to be with.
8. One with a non-pretentious smile but with fire in her eyes
Men usually fall for women with a non-pretentious smile and who have fire in their eyes.
9. Consistency
Women who are extremely faithful are impressive in the eyes of men.
10. Good hygiene, sincere
Women should be sincere and stay clean.
Tuesday, 23 September , 2008, 16:04
London: Want to impress a man? Well, those fabulous looks are not enough to make him fall for you.
A woman needs to have a lot of qualities, like a good sense of humour, intelligence and a great personality to attract a man, reports the Independent.
And in case these qualities are not enough, here’s a compete list that may help you impress him.
1. Personality
Men like women who have a great personality.
2. Sense of humour
A good sense of humour in women can boost their chances of impressing men.
Sexually active girls suffer from depression
3. Honesty
Honesty is good for any relationship and if you stay loyal to your man, he”ll be flattered.
4. Someone easy-going who doesn’t obsess with her body
Men don’t like obsessive women, they like them easy going.
5. Intelligence
A good sense of humour doesn’t come without intelligence. Men want someone he can test himself against on the sofa next to him.
10 best ways to impress women revealed
6. Kindness, being lovely, charming, being able to cope with her beauty
Men go for women who are kind, loving and charming. They like women who can deal wit their beauty.
7. She must be somewhat attractive, athletic, fun
Men like women who are somewhat attractive, athletic, and fun to be with.
8. One with a non-pretentious smile but with fire in her eyes
Men usually fall for women with a non-pretentious smile and who have fire in their eyes.
9. Consistency
Women who are extremely faithful are impressive in the eyes of men.
10. Good hygiene, sincere
Women should be sincere and stay clean.
Monday, September 22, 2008
South African couple killed after being hit by train while having sex
From Wikinews, the free news source you can write!
Monday, September 22, 2008
The incident took place in the Mpumalanga Province
A South African couple has died after being hit by a freight train while having sexual intercourse on railroad tracks. The couple, who are yet to be identified, were having intercourse on the tracks in the Mpumalanga Province of the African country. The engineer yelled warnings at the couple to move, but according to him, they ignored them. South Africa's national freight railway is called Transnet.
The man, in his thirties, was dismembered and died at the scene. The women, in her twenties, was transported to a local hospital but later died from her injures.
An investigation is taking place to determine if the women was being raped or if she was having intercourse out of her own free will. One witness states that she may have been a prostitute. Anyone with information on the couple and who they might have been are to contact authorities.
Monday, September 22, 2008
The incident took place in the Mpumalanga Province
A South African couple has died after being hit by a freight train while having sexual intercourse on railroad tracks. The couple, who are yet to be identified, were having intercourse on the tracks in the Mpumalanga Province of the African country. The engineer yelled warnings at the couple to move, but according to him, they ignored them. South Africa's national freight railway is called Transnet.
The man, in his thirties, was dismembered and died at the scene. The women, in her twenties, was transported to a local hospital but later died from her injures.
An investigation is taking place to determine if the women was being raped or if she was having intercourse out of her own free will. One witness states that she may have been a prostitute. Anyone with information on the couple and who they might have been are to contact authorities.
Men's 10 best ways to impress women revealed
Monday, 22 September , 2008, 18:11
Last Updated: Monday, 22 September , 2008, 18:14
London: No matter how much you hate it, but if you want to impress a woman, just help her carry those shopping bags.
And in case that's not enough to flatter your lady, below are 10 best ways that will surely make them fall for you, reports the Independent.
1. Ask questions
Over dinner, in a restaurant, nothing beats a good question or two.
For instance "How was your day?"
2. Stop asking questions
After you have asked enough questions, particularly the right ones, there will come a time when you should stop - when you're in bed together.
More offbeat stories
3. Call me back straightaway
Verbose, over-worked text messages just look keen and girly. Be a man and say it in 350 characters or don't say it at all.
4. Don't be tight
When it comes to small change, taxi fares, coffee money, tips and treats, penny-pinching is a huge turn off.
5. Carry bags
If they're heavy, please don't make a fuss about it, just do it.
6. Don't hide your appreciation
There is no girl alive who doesn't want a priapic response to a new dress.
7. ''No'' to:
Clammy hands, grunting in public, salivating into earholes, ''sexy'' tickling, jokes about love handles and twanging bras.
8. ''Yes'' to:
A firm touch and a smooth hand, a frank attitude to nudity, evident and matter-of-fact carnal enjoyment, and an attentive approach to often overlooked areas of the female body.
9. Talk about ex-girlfriends
Too much detail about ex-girlfriends is as harmful as not talking about them at all.
10. Criticism
Say what you like about her friends, work, flat, table manners.
Last Updated: Monday, 22 September , 2008, 18:14
London: No matter how much you hate it, but if you want to impress a woman, just help her carry those shopping bags.
And in case that's not enough to flatter your lady, below are 10 best ways that will surely make them fall for you, reports the Independent.
1. Ask questions
Over dinner, in a restaurant, nothing beats a good question or two.
For instance "How was your day?"
2. Stop asking questions
After you have asked enough questions, particularly the right ones, there will come a time when you should stop - when you're in bed together.
More offbeat stories
3. Call me back straightaway
Verbose, over-worked text messages just look keen and girly. Be a man and say it in 350 characters or don't say it at all.
4. Don't be tight
When it comes to small change, taxi fares, coffee money, tips and treats, penny-pinching is a huge turn off.
5. Carry bags
If they're heavy, please don't make a fuss about it, just do it.
6. Don't hide your appreciation
There is no girl alive who doesn't want a priapic response to a new dress.
7. ''No'' to:
Clammy hands, grunting in public, salivating into earholes, ''sexy'' tickling, jokes about love handles and twanging bras.
8. ''Yes'' to:
A firm touch and a smooth hand, a frank attitude to nudity, evident and matter-of-fact carnal enjoyment, and an attentive approach to often overlooked areas of the female body.
9. Talk about ex-girlfriends
Too much detail about ex-girlfriends is as harmful as not talking about them at all.
10. Criticism
Say what you like about her friends, work, flat, table manners.
Pamela: “My boobs had a career, I was there for the ride”
London, Sept 22: Canadian actress Pamela Anderson has revealed that it was her boobs that had a career all along, and that she was there just for the ride.
From having appeared in movies and posed in some ads, to being the centerpiece in the Playboy magazine, Anderson sure thinks highly of her breasts.
“Apparently, I’ve nicknamed my breasts Pancho and Lefty. But that’s just not true, sadly,” the Daily Mail quoted her as saying.
“In the flesh, I don’t think they’re that magnificent at all, but something happens when they appear on screen – it’s like they expand or something.
“But that’s it for them now, I think. I wouldn’t get anything done to them again, because I tend to think about my health a lot more now than I ever did before.
“When I first got a boob job it was because everyone else was getting theirs done, and I didn’t put a great deal of thought into the whole process.
“Then I got the implants removed after my divorce (from Lee) in a kind of ‘I’ll show him’ way, except I really missed them myself, so I put them back in. But all in all, I’d say they’ve had a pretty good career. I’ve basically been tagging along for the ride,” she added.
From having appeared in movies and posed in some ads, to being the centerpiece in the Playboy magazine, Anderson sure thinks highly of her breasts.
“Apparently, I’ve nicknamed my breasts Pancho and Lefty. But that’s just not true, sadly,” the Daily Mail quoted her as saying.
“In the flesh, I don’t think they’re that magnificent at all, but something happens when they appear on screen – it’s like they expand or something.
“But that’s it for them now, I think. I wouldn’t get anything done to them again, because I tend to think about my health a lot more now than I ever did before.
“When I first got a boob job it was because everyone else was getting theirs done, and I didn’t put a great deal of thought into the whole process.
“Then I got the implants removed after my divorce (from Lee) in a kind of ‘I’ll show him’ way, except I really missed them myself, so I put them back in. But all in all, I’d say they’ve had a pretty good career. I’ve basically been tagging along for the ride,” she added.
Sexually active girls more likely to suffer from depression
Monday, 22 September , 2008, 19:53
Melbourne: A new study has found that young girls who are sexually active are far more likely to suffer from depression than those who remain virgins.
Researchers found that teenage sex leaves many girls with feelings of guilt and low self-esteem, reports the Daily Telegraph.
After conducting a study of more than 14,000 US teens aged between 14 and 17, researchers said the feelings could be directly ascribed to sexual activity, rather than outside influences.
The study found that having sex doubled the chances of girls becoming depressed, with 19 per cent of those who had sex exhibiting symptoms of depression, compared with 9.2 per cent who had abstained.
Researchers also found that the mental health of boys in the same age group did not correlate with sexually active.
Christian Medical Fellowship chairman Dr Trevor Stammers said the study showed that most girls, "retrospectively showed regret about early intercourse."
The study is published in the Journal of Health Economics.
Melbourne: A new study has found that young girls who are sexually active are far more likely to suffer from depression than those who remain virgins.
Researchers found that teenage sex leaves many girls with feelings of guilt and low self-esteem, reports the Daily Telegraph.
After conducting a study of more than 14,000 US teens aged between 14 and 17, researchers said the feelings could be directly ascribed to sexual activity, rather than outside influences.
The study found that having sex doubled the chances of girls becoming depressed, with 19 per cent of those who had sex exhibiting symptoms of depression, compared with 9.2 per cent who had abstained.
Researchers also found that the mental health of boys in the same age group did not correlate with sexually active.
Christian Medical Fellowship chairman Dr Trevor Stammers said the study showed that most girls, "retrospectively showed regret about early intercourse."
The study is published in the Journal of Health Economics.
Sweet smells foster sweet dreams
Smells may influence the emotion of the dream
Sleep with flowers in your bedroom if you want sweet dreams, work suggests.
When the smell of roses had been wafted under the noses of slumbering volunteers they reported experiencing pleasant emotions in their dreams.
An odour of rotten eggs had the opposite effect on the 15 sleeping women, the German scientists found.
They told a Chicago meeting of the American Academy of Otolaryngology that they now plan to study people who suffer from nightmares.
Sweet dreams
It is possible that exposure to smells might help make their dreams more pleasant, believe Professor Boris Stuck and his team from the University Hospital Mannheim.
They waited until their subjects had entered the REM phase of sleep, the stage at which most dreams occur, and then exposed them to a high dose of smelly air for 10 seconds before waking them up one minute later.
Smell is the only sense that doesn't 'sleep'
Professor Tim Jacob, an expert in smell and taste at Cardiff University
The volunteers were then quizzed about the content of their dreams and asked how it made them feel.
The sleeping women hardly ever dreamed of smelling something. Nevertheless, the emotional tone of the dream did change depending on the stimulation.
Previous research has shown that other types of stimulation, such as sound, pressure or vibration, can influence the content and the emotional tone of dreams.
Dr Irshaad Ebrahim of The London Sleep Centre said: "The relationship between external stimuli and dreaming is something we are all at some level aware of.
"This initial research is a step in the direction towards clarifying these questions and may well lead to therapeutic benefits."
Professor Tim Jacob, an expert in smell and taste at Cardiff University, said: "Smell is the only sense that doesn't 'sleep'. Information continues to reach the limbic system of the brain and that includes the hippocampus, or memory area and the amygdala, that is involved with emotional response.
"Other senses have to pass through the 'gate' of the thalamus, which is closed when we sleep."
Sleep with flowers in your bedroom if you want sweet dreams, work suggests.
When the smell of roses had been wafted under the noses of slumbering volunteers they reported experiencing pleasant emotions in their dreams.
An odour of rotten eggs had the opposite effect on the 15 sleeping women, the German scientists found.
They told a Chicago meeting of the American Academy of Otolaryngology that they now plan to study people who suffer from nightmares.
Sweet dreams
It is possible that exposure to smells might help make their dreams more pleasant, believe Professor Boris Stuck and his team from the University Hospital Mannheim.
They waited until their subjects had entered the REM phase of sleep, the stage at which most dreams occur, and then exposed them to a high dose of smelly air for 10 seconds before waking them up one minute later.
Smell is the only sense that doesn't 'sleep'
Professor Tim Jacob, an expert in smell and taste at Cardiff University
The volunteers were then quizzed about the content of their dreams and asked how it made them feel.
The sleeping women hardly ever dreamed of smelling something. Nevertheless, the emotional tone of the dream did change depending on the stimulation.
Previous research has shown that other types of stimulation, such as sound, pressure or vibration, can influence the content and the emotional tone of dreams.
Dr Irshaad Ebrahim of The London Sleep Centre said: "The relationship between external stimuli and dreaming is something we are all at some level aware of.
"This initial research is a step in the direction towards clarifying these questions and may well lead to therapeutic benefits."
Professor Tim Jacob, an expert in smell and taste at Cardiff University, said: "Smell is the only sense that doesn't 'sleep'. Information continues to reach the limbic system of the brain and that includes the hippocampus, or memory area and the amygdala, that is involved with emotional response.
"Other senses have to pass through the 'gate' of the thalamus, which is closed when we sleep."
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Lawyer accepts nude dance as fee, suspended
Sunday, 21 September , 2008, 19:47
Chicago: An attorney was suspended for more than a year for accepting nude dances from a stripper as partial payment for the legal fees she owed him.
The Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission said Scott Robert Erwin would begin serving a 15-month suspension for misconduct next month.
Erwin, who practises in the northern Illinois city of DeKalb, and his client mutually agreed that she'd perform nude dances for him in his office as a way to reduce her legal fees, the commission's report said.
Prostitutes in Italy to dress like nuns after skimpy clothing ban!
He credited her for $534 toward his bill for services of various legal matters, the report said.
While she agreed to the performances, the client contended he touched her inappropriately during those dances, and she went to police in 2002 with sexual assault allegations.
Erwin denied any inappropriate touching happened, and he was never charged criminally, the report said. He declined to comment on the panel's decision Thursday.
The woman no longer works as a stripper.
Chicago: An attorney was suspended for more than a year for accepting nude dances from a stripper as partial payment for the legal fees she owed him.
The Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission said Scott Robert Erwin would begin serving a 15-month suspension for misconduct next month.
Erwin, who practises in the northern Illinois city of DeKalb, and his client mutually agreed that she'd perform nude dances for him in his office as a way to reduce her legal fees, the commission's report said.
Prostitutes in Italy to dress like nuns after skimpy clothing ban!
He credited her for $534 toward his bill for services of various legal matters, the report said.
While she agreed to the performances, the client contended he touched her inappropriately during those dances, and she went to police in 2002 with sexual assault allegations.
Erwin denied any inappropriate touching happened, and he was never charged criminally, the report said. He declined to comment on the panel's decision Thursday.
The woman no longer works as a stripper.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Types of boozers
ANI | Wednesday, 17 September , 2008, 17:14
London: If you think that alcohol drinkers are of only two kinds, that is, normal and alcoholics, then here’s a piece of informaThe nine personalities of heavy drinkers
tion: Britain’s health bosses have identified nine different personality types.
The Brit government researchers have analysed the social and psychological characteristics of people who regularly drink twice the recommended guidelines of alcohol.
They found that the personality types ranged from depressives who drink at home alone, to macho exhibitionists who spend almost every evening in the pub.
The information will be used to devise public health campaigns to target those who are putting themselves at risk of alcohol-related illnesses that cost the NHS in England about 2.7 billion pounds a year.
Sarah Palin has a penchant for sun tans
“This will be a tough one to crack. Research found many positive associations with alcohol among the general public - even more so among those drinking at higher-risk levels,” Telegraph quoted a DoH spokesman, as saying.
“For these people alcohol is embedded in their identity and lifestyle so much so that challenging this behaviour results in high levels of defensiveness, rejection or even outright denial,” the rep added.
'Toddlers can help parents out of tight spots'
The nine personality types of heavy drinkers are:
1 “De-stressed drinkers” use alcohol to regain control of life and calm down.
2 “Conformist drinkers” are driven by the need to belong and seek a structure to their lives.
3“Boredom drinkers” consume alcohol to pass the time, seeking stimulation to relieve the monotony of life.
4 “Depressed drinkers” may be of any age, gender or socioeconomic group.
5 “Re-bonding drinkers” are driven by a need to keep in touch with people who are close to them.
6 “Community drinkers” are motivated by the need to belong.
7 “Hedonistic drinkers” crave stimulation and want to abandon control. They are often divorced people with grown-up children, who want to stand out from the crowd.
8 “Macho drinkers” spend most of their spare time in pubs.
9 “Border dependents” regard the pub as a home from home.
London: If you think that alcohol drinkers are of only two kinds, that is, normal and alcoholics, then here’s a piece of informaThe nine personalities of heavy drinkers
tion: Britain’s health bosses have identified nine different personality types.
The Brit government researchers have analysed the social and psychological characteristics of people who regularly drink twice the recommended guidelines of alcohol.
They found that the personality types ranged from depressives who drink at home alone, to macho exhibitionists who spend almost every evening in the pub.
The information will be used to devise public health campaigns to target those who are putting themselves at risk of alcohol-related illnesses that cost the NHS in England about 2.7 billion pounds a year.
Sarah Palin has a penchant for sun tans
“This will be a tough one to crack. Research found many positive associations with alcohol among the general public - even more so among those drinking at higher-risk levels,” Telegraph quoted a DoH spokesman, as saying.
“For these people alcohol is embedded in their identity and lifestyle so much so that challenging this behaviour results in high levels of defensiveness, rejection or even outright denial,” the rep added.
'Toddlers can help parents out of tight spots'
The nine personality types of heavy drinkers are:
1 “De-stressed drinkers” use alcohol to regain control of life and calm down.
2 “Conformist drinkers” are driven by the need to belong and seek a structure to their lives.
3“Boredom drinkers” consume alcohol to pass the time, seeking stimulation to relieve the monotony of life.
4 “Depressed drinkers” may be of any age, gender or socioeconomic group.
5 “Re-bonding drinkers” are driven by a need to keep in touch with people who are close to them.
6 “Community drinkers” are motivated by the need to belong.
7 “Hedonistic drinkers” crave stimulation and want to abandon control. They are often divorced people with grown-up children, who want to stand out from the crowd.
8 “Macho drinkers” spend most of their spare time in pubs.
9 “Border dependents” regard the pub as a home from home.
UK identifies 9 types of boozers
18 Sep 2008, 0000 hrs IST,AFP
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LONDON: Britain has identified nine types of problem drinkers, from depressed solo tipplers to macho boozers, as part of efforts to fight the country's notorious binge-drinking culture, officials said on Wednesday.
Authorities hope an information campaign, being launched first in England's northwest, will help counter the attitude that a good night out must involve getting excessively drunk.
The types of problem drinker identified include: "de-stress drinkers" - those who use alcohol to calm down at the end of a hard day; "community drinkers" - those driven by the need to belong; "hedonistic drinkers" - those who want to lose control and "macho drinkers" - those who tend to spend most of their spare time in pubs. Others include "re-bonding drinkers" who use drink to keep in touch with friends and "conformist drinkers" who driven by the need to belong and seek structure.
Alcohol-related illnesses and accidents cost the National Health Service (NHS) in England some £2.7 billion.
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LONDON: Britain has identified nine types of problem drinkers, from depressed solo tipplers to macho boozers, as part of efforts to fight the country's notorious binge-drinking culture, officials said on Wednesday.
Authorities hope an information campaign, being launched first in England's northwest, will help counter the attitude that a good night out must involve getting excessively drunk.
The types of problem drinker identified include: "de-stress drinkers" - those who use alcohol to calm down at the end of a hard day; "community drinkers" - those driven by the need to belong; "hedonistic drinkers" - those who want to lose control and "macho drinkers" - those who tend to spend most of their spare time in pubs. Others include "re-bonding drinkers" who use drink to keep in touch with friends and "conformist drinkers" who driven by the need to belong and seek structure.
Alcohol-related illnesses and accidents cost the National Health Service (NHS) in England some £2.7 billion.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
China’s mask comes off
Venkatesan Vembu
Sunday, September 14, 2008 03:58 IST
The NSG waiver for India upsets China’s geo-strategic position, and it will do anything to protect it, says Venkatesan Vembu from Hong Kong
In traditional Chinese opera, performers employ a theatrical device known as bian lian or “face-changing”, where the artist wears layers of masks and, with every flip of his head, changes his mask in rapid succession to reveal a seamless range of emotions.
Last fortnight in Vienna, China demonstrated that face-changing isn’t a dying art. After indicating for months that it would pose no hurdle to India’s attempts to secure a waiver at the NSG, China ‘changed its face’ and attempted at the last minute to ambush the deal; but sensing the emerging consensus view in favour of the waiver, it flipped its mask again and fell in line. Analysts believe that since the NSG decision has skewed China’s geo-strategic calculus, it will do whatever it takes to protect its interests - even if the mask comes off. “To the extent that the nuclear deal has brought India and the US strategically closer, China has reason to worry,” says DS Rajan, director of the Chennai Centre for China Studies.
Strategic journals in China have been taking a hawkish line projecting “India’s nuclear policy” as a “threat to China’s security” and challenge to the non-proliferation regime.
“China tried to derail the deal because it sees it as an anti-China arrangement,” says Gordon G. Chang, author of The Coming Collapse of China. “But it was not in a position to stop it.” Chang reckons that China will now do its best to get the US Congress to spike the deal. “Although China doesn’t have much leverage in Congress, the non-proliferation lobby in the US does, and China will be looking to fund that lobby.”
Sunday, September 14, 2008 03:58 IST
The NSG waiver for India upsets China’s geo-strategic position, and it will do anything to protect it, says Venkatesan Vembu from Hong Kong
In traditional Chinese opera, performers employ a theatrical device known as bian lian or “face-changing”, where the artist wears layers of masks and, with every flip of his head, changes his mask in rapid succession to reveal a seamless range of emotions.
Last fortnight in Vienna, China demonstrated that face-changing isn’t a dying art. After indicating for months that it would pose no hurdle to India’s attempts to secure a waiver at the NSG, China ‘changed its face’ and attempted at the last minute to ambush the deal; but sensing the emerging consensus view in favour of the waiver, it flipped its mask again and fell in line. Analysts believe that since the NSG decision has skewed China’s geo-strategic calculus, it will do whatever it takes to protect its interests - even if the mask comes off. “To the extent that the nuclear deal has brought India and the US strategically closer, China has reason to worry,” says DS Rajan, director of the Chennai Centre for China Studies.
Strategic journals in China have been taking a hawkish line projecting “India’s nuclear policy” as a “threat to China’s security” and challenge to the non-proliferation regime.
“China tried to derail the deal because it sees it as an anti-China arrangement,” says Gordon G. Chang, author of The Coming Collapse of China. “But it was not in a position to stop it.” Chang reckons that China will now do its best to get the US Congress to spike the deal. “Although China doesn’t have much leverage in Congress, the non-proliferation lobby in the US does, and China will be looking to fund that lobby.”
Seditious articles on Kashmir criticised
Anil Anand
Friday, September 19, 2008 03:29 IST
NEW DELHI: Top personalities from diverse fields have, in a signed statement, criticised the recent airing of seditious views in the media in relation to Jammu & Kashmir.
The signatories, led by Subhash Chandra, chairman of the Essel group and one of the promoters of DNA, include voices associated with the bureaucracy, the armed forces, and the media, among others.
The statement, while affirming the media’s right to air different views, is emphatic that “freedom of expression does not mean unbridled licence to flout the law of the land by airing or fanning seditious views. Such views also do a disservice to the people of Kashmir. We call upon the intelligentsia that has the power to shape public opinion to use their power with wisdom and maturity.”
The statement comes in the wake of “stray voices” in the TV and print media which openly supported the secession of Kashmir from India, in violation of a unanimous parliament resolution of 1994 which affirms J&K as an integral part of India and also asks for the return of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
“Some stray voices in media have been questioning, with surprising nonchalance and lack of depth, the wisdom and expediency of retaining Kashmir as a part of India. This matters not because such voices reflect any growing view in our country but because they play into the hands of the enemies of the nation. Their suggestions embolden subversive forces both within and outside the country, and encourage our adversaries to entertain the hope that with a little more effort, Kashmir will secede from India,” the statement says.
Friday, September 19, 2008 03:29 IST
NEW DELHI: Top personalities from diverse fields have, in a signed statement, criticised the recent airing of seditious views in the media in relation to Jammu & Kashmir.
The signatories, led by Subhash Chandra, chairman of the Essel group and one of the promoters of DNA, include voices associated with the bureaucracy, the armed forces, and the media, among others.
The statement, while affirming the media’s right to air different views, is emphatic that “freedom of expression does not mean unbridled licence to flout the law of the land by airing or fanning seditious views. Such views also do a disservice to the people of Kashmir. We call upon the intelligentsia that has the power to shape public opinion to use their power with wisdom and maturity.”
The statement comes in the wake of “stray voices” in the TV and print media which openly supported the secession of Kashmir from India, in violation of a unanimous parliament resolution of 1994 which affirms J&K as an integral part of India and also asks for the return of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
“Some stray voices in media have been questioning, with surprising nonchalance and lack of depth, the wisdom and expediency of retaining Kashmir as a part of India. This matters not because such voices reflect any growing view in our country but because they play into the hands of the enemies of the nation. Their suggestions embolden subversive forces both within and outside the country, and encourage our adversaries to entertain the hope that with a little more effort, Kashmir will secede from India,” the statement says.
First Google Android phone to cost $199
18 Sep, 2008, 0837 hrs IST, REUTERS
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NEW YORK: The first mobile phone to use Google Inc's Android mobile operating software will cost $199, the Wall Street Journal reported on its website on Wednesday.
The phone, which features a slide-out keypad, is being manufactured by Taiwan's HTC Corp and will be sold by Deutsche Telekom's, T-Mobile USA unit, which plans to unveil the device at an event in New York on Sept 23.
AT&T Inc, the only US operator selling Apple Inc's iPhone, set the price of the latest version at $199 in July, setting a benchmark for smartphones that can surf the Web, manage email and other multimedia features.
The Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, said T-Mobile USA plans to release new data service plans in conjunction with the Google phone that will be "aggressively priced."
Google, HTC and T-Mobile USA declined comment on the pricing for the phone.
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NEW YORK: The first mobile phone to use Google Inc's Android mobile operating software will cost $199, the Wall Street Journal reported on its website on Wednesday.
The phone, which features a slide-out keypad, is being manufactured by Taiwan's HTC Corp and will be sold by Deutsche Telekom's, T-Mobile USA unit, which plans to unveil the device at an event in New York on Sept 23.
AT&T Inc, the only US operator selling Apple Inc's iPhone, set the price of the latest version at $199 in July, setting a benchmark for smartphones that can surf the Web, manage email and other multimedia features.
The Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, said T-Mobile USA plans to release new data service plans in conjunction with the Google phone that will be "aggressively priced."
Google, HTC and T-Mobile USA declined comment on the pricing for the phone.
Australia issues first license to clone human embryos
18 Sep 2008, 0714 hrs IST,REUTERS
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SYDNEY: The Australian government has issued its first license allowing scientists to create cloned human embryos to try and obtain embryonic stem cells.
The in vitro-fertilization firm Sydney IVF was granted the license and reportedly has access to 7,200 human eggs for its research.
If the firm is successful it would be a world first, the Australian government's National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), which granted the license, said on Wednesday.
Scientists in other countries have made stem cells they believe are similar to embryonic cells using a variety of techniques, but none have been able to extract embryonic stem cells from cloned human embryos.
An Australian ban on the research, known as therapeutic cloning or somatic cell nuclear transfer, was lifted in December 2006 after a rare conscience vote in the national parliament.
But the use of excess IVF embryos and the creation and use of other embryos in research is restricted by law through national legislation. Human cloning for reproductive purposes is banned.
Chair of the NHMRC's licensing committee, Dr John Findlay, said Sydney IVF's research would be closely monitored.
"They have been given a license to do therapeutic cloning," Findlay said, adding the scientists are not licensed to reach the fetal stage.
"They can go to the stage called blastocyst. They must stop at that point," he said. The blastocyst is a very early-stage embryo not yet implanted into the womb.
Findlay said scientists will try and create stem cells from patients who have abnormalities or create stem cell lines which will be compatible with patients which have given the cells.
Initially, any stem cells extracted would be used to test new drugs to fight diseases such as muscular dystrophy and Huntington's disease, and later therapeutic cloning would be used to produce body tissue matched to patients.
The director of Australians for Ethical Stem Cell Research, David van Gend, criticised the issuing of the license, saying new technology meant cloning was no longer necessary.
"We have regulations in Australia such that the abuses of cloning wouldn't happen here, we will not get live birth cloning," he told local radio.
"We won't get cloning right through to the fetal stage in order to use them for organ transplants, but if we teach the world how to clone you can be quite sure it will be used in less rigorous jurisdictions."
Somatic cell nuclear transfer is a technique in which DNA from the nucleus of an unfertilized egg is removed and replaced with the nucleus of an adult cell such as a skin cell.
The technique can be used to create cloned embryos in order to derive embryonic stem cells for therapeutic purposes, but can also be used for reproductive cloning.
There are several types of stem cells. Embryonic stem cells, made from days-old embryos, are considered the most powerful because they can give rise to all the cell types in the body.
Sydney IVF said only eggs that were unusable for IVF because they were immature or had not been fertilized properly, and which donors had given consent for, would be used in the research.
The firm said it will use three different types of cells, embryonic stem cells, cumulus cells attached to the collected eggs, and skin cells, to produce the cloned embryos.
Sydney IVF was the first, in 2004, to extract stem cells from Australian IVF embryos, and has since extracted and grown 10 more colonies of embryonic stem cells this way.
Print EMail Bookmark/Share
Save Write to Editor
SYDNEY: The Australian government has issued its first license allowing scientists to create cloned human embryos to try and obtain embryonic stem cells.
The in vitro-fertilization firm Sydney IVF was granted the license and reportedly has access to 7,200 human eggs for its research.
If the firm is successful it would be a world first, the Australian government's National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), which granted the license, said on Wednesday.
Scientists in other countries have made stem cells they believe are similar to embryonic cells using a variety of techniques, but none have been able to extract embryonic stem cells from cloned human embryos.
An Australian ban on the research, known as therapeutic cloning or somatic cell nuclear transfer, was lifted in December 2006 after a rare conscience vote in the national parliament.
But the use of excess IVF embryos and the creation and use of other embryos in research is restricted by law through national legislation. Human cloning for reproductive purposes is banned.
Chair of the NHMRC's licensing committee, Dr John Findlay, said Sydney IVF's research would be closely monitored.
"They have been given a license to do therapeutic cloning," Findlay said, adding the scientists are not licensed to reach the fetal stage.
"They can go to the stage called blastocyst. They must stop at that point," he said. The blastocyst is a very early-stage embryo not yet implanted into the womb.
Findlay said scientists will try and create stem cells from patients who have abnormalities or create stem cell lines which will be compatible with patients which have given the cells.
Initially, any stem cells extracted would be used to test new drugs to fight diseases such as muscular dystrophy and Huntington's disease, and later therapeutic cloning would be used to produce body tissue matched to patients.
The director of Australians for Ethical Stem Cell Research, David van Gend, criticised the issuing of the license, saying new technology meant cloning was no longer necessary.
"We have regulations in Australia such that the abuses of cloning wouldn't happen here, we will not get live birth cloning," he told local radio.
"We won't get cloning right through to the fetal stage in order to use them for organ transplants, but if we teach the world how to clone you can be quite sure it will be used in less rigorous jurisdictions."
Somatic cell nuclear transfer is a technique in which DNA from the nucleus of an unfertilized egg is removed and replaced with the nucleus of an adult cell such as a skin cell.
The technique can be used to create cloned embryos in order to derive embryonic stem cells for therapeutic purposes, but can also be used for reproductive cloning.
There are several types of stem cells. Embryonic stem cells, made from days-old embryos, are considered the most powerful because they can give rise to all the cell types in the body.
Sydney IVF said only eggs that were unusable for IVF because they were immature or had not been fertilized properly, and which donors had given consent for, would be used in the research.
The firm said it will use three different types of cells, embryonic stem cells, cumulus cells attached to the collected eggs, and skin cells, to produce the cloned embryos.
Sydney IVF was the first, in 2004, to extract stem cells from Australian IVF embryos, and has since extracted and grown 10 more colonies of embryonic stem cells this way.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Ten top techniques of seduction revealed
Tuesday, 16 September , 2008, 01:21
London: Want to win over your date? A new book by Leil Lowndes titled How to Make Anyone Fall in Love With You offers some tips that would help seduce, and make anyone fall in love with you.
* The winning formula for seducing your date requires nothing but looking into his or her eyes and stay glued to a little longer than necessary. This is a good technique for men, as women always want to feel that a man is absolutely fascinated by them.
* A simple smile can be most effective way to win over your date. A soft smile would be most appropriate to seduce him or her.
* For men, taking your date to an expensive restaurant with an elegant, upbeat, atmosphere would work tremendously as women tend to judge a man on the first place he takes them, reports The Independent.
More offbeat stories | Also read: Dateless Aussies taking to billboards to find love
* How to get dressed for the date is crucial. Men must be coordinated and dress affluently, as women love good quality clothes on men. On the other hand women need to dress alluringly but not in a vulgar way.
* While chatting with your date, let your eyes do some travelling - but only on safe ground at first- over his or her face, concentrating on their eyes.
* Before going on a date, first find out what pulls your date's strings and then plan an adventurous date.
* To impress your date, you need to share his or her convictions and show that you feel them deeply. Watch his or her reactions to outside activities, then show the same emotions - shock, disgust, humour, compassion, etc.
Also read: Italian husband catches wife in bed with local priest! | Meet the parrot who politely tells you to f*** off!
* The most valuable tip for men, whatever your date is discussing, simply ask her, "How do you feel about that?" Women love to talk about how they feel and will nearly always respond enthusiastically.
* Another important technique for women, make sure you laugh at your quarry's jokes and, when in a group, be the first to laugh. It brings you closer together
* For men the ideal time to ask a woman for a date is when she has said something relevant to her personality. For example, if she says something spiritual, say that you'd love to hear more about that, perhaps over dinner.
London: Want to win over your date? A new book by Leil Lowndes titled How to Make Anyone Fall in Love With You offers some tips that would help seduce, and make anyone fall in love with you.
* The winning formula for seducing your date requires nothing but looking into his or her eyes and stay glued to a little longer than necessary. This is a good technique for men, as women always want to feel that a man is absolutely fascinated by them.
* A simple smile can be most effective way to win over your date. A soft smile would be most appropriate to seduce him or her.
* For men, taking your date to an expensive restaurant with an elegant, upbeat, atmosphere would work tremendously as women tend to judge a man on the first place he takes them, reports The Independent.
More offbeat stories | Also read: Dateless Aussies taking to billboards to find love
* How to get dressed for the date is crucial. Men must be coordinated and dress affluently, as women love good quality clothes on men. On the other hand women need to dress alluringly but not in a vulgar way.
* While chatting with your date, let your eyes do some travelling - but only on safe ground at first- over his or her face, concentrating on their eyes.
* Before going on a date, first find out what pulls your date's strings and then plan an adventurous date.
* To impress your date, you need to share his or her convictions and show that you feel them deeply. Watch his or her reactions to outside activities, then show the same emotions - shock, disgust, humour, compassion, etc.
Also read: Italian husband catches wife in bed with local priest! | Meet the parrot who politely tells you to f*** off!
* The most valuable tip for men, whatever your date is discussing, simply ask her, "How do you feel about that?" Women love to talk about how they feel and will nearly always respond enthusiastically.
* Another important technique for women, make sure you laugh at your quarry's jokes and, when in a group, be the first to laugh. It brings you closer together
* For men the ideal time to ask a woman for a date is when she has said something relevant to her personality. For example, if she says something spiritual, say that you'd love to hear more about that, perhaps over dinner.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Meet the parrot who politely tells you to f*** off!
Monday, 15 September , 2008, 20:32
London: An African Grey parrot’s filthy accent is leaving the zoo visitors go red in the face, as it tells them to "f*** off."
The previous owner had donated the parrot named Max, after he was fed up with his chatter.
The five-year-old bird also mimics car alarms, and mobile phone ring tones.
Keeper Peter Hansom at South Park birdhouse in Darlington, Co Durham, blamed local school-children for teaching Max the obscenity.
More offbeat stories | Also read: Dateless Aussies taking to billboards to find love
“He’s a bright chap and easily picked it up. There’s no knowing when he’ll blurt it out. I hold my breath when parents stand with small children at his cage,” The Sun quoted him as saying.
“Sometimes he will just say ‘hello’ or ‘bye’ but as often as not it’s ‘f*** off’.
“It’s usually when people are walking away and least expect it.
“His favourite trick is to stick his head in a tin cup in his cage and then swear. He seems to know it makes a louder sound,” he added.
London: An African Grey parrot’s filthy accent is leaving the zoo visitors go red in the face, as it tells them to "f*** off."
The previous owner had donated the parrot named Max, after he was fed up with his chatter.
The five-year-old bird also mimics car alarms, and mobile phone ring tones.
Keeper Peter Hansom at South Park birdhouse in Darlington, Co Durham, blamed local school-children for teaching Max the obscenity.
More offbeat stories | Also read: Dateless Aussies taking to billboards to find love
“He’s a bright chap and easily picked it up. There’s no knowing when he’ll blurt it out. I hold my breath when parents stand with small children at his cage,” The Sun quoted him as saying.
“Sometimes he will just say ‘hello’ or ‘bye’ but as often as not it’s ‘f*** off’.
“It’s usually when people are walking away and least expect it.
“His favourite trick is to stick his head in a tin cup in his cage and then swear. He seems to know it makes a louder sound,” he added.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
The True Story of the Taj Mahal
The True Story of the Taj Mahal
By P. N. Oak
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The story of the Taj Mahal that most of us have known about may not be the real truth. Herein Mr. P. N. Oak presents an interesting set of proofs that show a completely different story. Contrary to what visitors are made to believe the Tajmahal is not a Islamic mausoleum but an ancient Shiva Temple known as Tejo Mahalaya which the 5th generation Moghul emperor ShahjahanShahjahan commandeered from the then Maharaja of Jaipur. The Taj Mahal, should therefore, be viewed as a temple palace and not as a tomb. That makes a vast difference. You miss the details of its size, grandeur, majesty and beauty when you take it to be a mere tomb. When told that you are visiting a temple palace you wont fail to notice its annexes, ruined defensive walls, hillocks, moats, cascades, fountains, majestic garden, hundreds of rooms archaded verendahs, terraces, multi stored towers, secret sealed chambers, guest rooms, stables, the trident (Trishul) pinnacle on the dome and the sacred, esoteric Hindu letter "OM" carved on the exterior of the wall of the sanctum sanctorum now occupied by the cenotaphs. For detailed proof of this breath taking discovery, you may read the well known historian Shri. P. N. Oak's celebrated book titled " Tajmahal : The True Story". But let us place before you, for the time being an exhaustive summary of the massive evidence ranging over hundred points:
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NAME
1.The term Tajmahal itself never occurs in any mogul court paper or chronicle even in Aurangzeb's time. The attempt to explain it away as Taj-i-mahal is therefore, ridiculous.
2.The ending "Mahal"is never muslim because in none of the muslim countries around the world from Afghanistan to Algeria is there a building known as "Mahal".
3.The unusual explanation of the term Tajmahal derives from Mumtaz Mahal, who is buried in it, is illogical in at least two respects viz., firstly her name was never Mumtaj Mahal but Mumtaz-ul-Zamani and secondly one cannot omit the first three letters "Mum" from a woman's name to derive the remainder as the name of the building.
4.Since the lady's name was Mumtaz (ending with 'Z') the name of the building derived from her should have been Taz Mahal, if at all, and not Taj (spelled with a 'J').
5.Several European visitors of Shahjahan's time allude to the building as Taj-e-Mahal is almost the correct tradition, age old Sanskrit name Tej-o-Mahalaya, signifying a Shiva temple. Contrarily Shahjahan and Aurangzeb scrupulously avoid using the Sanskrit term and call it just a holy grave.
6.The tomb should be understood to signify NOT A BUILDING but only the grave or centotaph inside it. This would help people to realize that all dead muslim courtiers and royalty including Humayun, Akbar, Mumtaz, Etmad-ud-Daula and Safdarjang have been buried in capture Hindu mansions and temples.
7.Moreover, if the Taj is believed to be a burial place, how can the term Mahal, i.e., mansion apply to it?
8.Since the term Taj Mahal does not occur in mogul courts it is absurd to search for any mogul explanation for it. Both its components namely, 'Taj' and' Mahal' are of Sanskrit origin.
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TEMPLE TRADITION
9.The term Taj Mahal is a corrupt form of the sanskrit term TejoMahalay signifying a Shiva Temple. Agreshwar Mahadev i.e., The Lord of Agra was consecrated in it.
10.The tradition of removing the shoes before climbing the marble platform originates from pre Shahjahan times when the Taj was a Shiva Temple. Had the Taj originated as a tomb, shoes need not have to be removed because shoes are a necessity in a cemetery.
11.Visitors may notice that the base slab of the centotaph is the marble basement in plain white while its superstructure and the other three centotaphs on the two floors are covered with inlaid creeper designs. This indicates that the marble pedestal of the Shiva idol is still in place and Mumtaz's centotaphs are fake.
12.The pitchers carved inside the upper border of the marble lattice plus those mounted on it number 108-a number sacred in Hindu Temple tradition.
13.There are persons who are connected with the repair and the maintainance of the Taj who have seen the ancient sacred Shiva Linga and other idols sealed in the thick walls and in chambers in the secret, sealed red stone stories below the marble basement. The Archaeological Survey of India is keeping discretely, politely and diplomatically silent about it to the point of dereliction of its own duty to probe into hidden historical evidence.
14.In India there are 12 Jyotirlingas i.e., the outstanding Shiva Temples. The Tejomahalaya alias The Tajmahal appears to be one of them known as Nagnatheshwar since its parapet is girdled with Naga, i.e., Cobra figures. Ever since Shahjahan's capture of it the sacred temple has lost its Hindudom.
15.The famous Hindu treatise on architecture titled Vishwakarma Vastushastra mentions the 'Tej-Linga' amongst the Shivalingas i.e., the stone emblems of Lord Shiva, the Hindu deity. Such a Tej Linga was consecrated in the Taj Mahal, hence the term Taj Mahal alias Tejo Mahalaya.
16.Agra city, in which the Taj Mahal is located, is an ancient centre of Shiva worship. Its orthodox residents have through ages continued the tradition of worshipping at five Shiva shrines before taking the last meal every night especially during the month of Shravan. During the last few centuries the residents of Agra had to be content with worshipping at only four prominent Shiva temples viz., Balkeshwar, Prithvinath, Manakameshwar and Rajarajeshwar. They had lost track of the fifth Shiva deity which their forefathers worshipped. Apparently the fifth was Agreshwar Mahadev Nagnatheshwar i.e., The Lord Great God of Agra, The Deity of the King of Cobras, consecrated in the Tejomahalay alias Tajmahal.
17.The people who dominate the Agra region are Jats. Their name of Shiva is Tejaji. The Jat special issue of The Illustrated Weekly of India (June 28,1971) mentions that the Jats have the Teja Mandirs i.e., Teja Temples. This is because Teja-Linga is among the several names of the Shiva Lingas. From this it is apparent that the Taj-Mahal is Tejo-Mahalaya, The Great Abode of Tej.
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DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE
18. Shahjahan's own court chronicle, the Badshahnama, admits (page 403, vol 1) that a grand mansion of unique splendor, capped with a dome (Imaarat-a-Alishan wa Gumbaze) was taken from the Jaipur Maharaja Jaisigh for Mumtaz's burial, and the building was known as Raja Mansingh's palace.
19. The plaque put the archealogy department outside the Tajmahal describes the edifice as a mausoleum built by Shahjahan for his wife Mumtaz Mahal , over 22 years from 1631 to 1653. That plaque is a specimen of historical bungling. Firstly, the plaque sites no authority for its claim. Secondly the lady's name was Mumtaz-ulZamani and not Mumtazmahal. Thirdly, the period of 22 years is taken from some mumbo jumbo noting by an unreliable French visitor Tavernier, to the exclusion of all muslim versions, which is an absurdity.
20. Prince Aurangzeb's letter to his father,emperor Shahjahan,is recorded in atleast three chronicles titled `Aadaab-e-Alamgiri', `Yadgarnama', and the `Muruqqa-i-Akbarabadi' (edited by Said Ahmed, Agra, 1931, page 43, footnote 2). In that letter Aurangzeb records in 1652 A.D itself that the several buildings in the fancied burial place of Mumtaz were seven storeyed and were so old that they were all leaking, while the dome had developed a crack on the northern side.Aurangzeb, therefore, ordered immediate repairs to the buildings at his own expense while recommending to the emperor that more elaborate repairs be carried out later. This is the proof that during Shahjahan's reign itself that the Taj complex was so old as to need immediate repairs.
21. The ex-Maharaja of Jaipur retains in his secret personal `KapadDwara' collection two orders from Shahjahan dated Dec 18, 1633 (bearing modern nos. R.176 and 177) requestioning the Taj building complex. That was so blatant a usurpation that the then ruler of Jaipur was ashamed to make the document public.
22. The Rajasthan State archives at Bikaner preserve three other firmans addressed by Shahjahan to the Jaipur's ruler Jaising ordering the latter to supply marble (for Mumtaz's grave and koranic grafts) from his Makranna quarris, and stone cutters. Jaisingh was apparently so enraged at the blatant seizure of the Tajmahal that he refused to oblige Shahjahan by providing marble for grafting koranic engravings and fake centotaphs for further desecration of the Tajmahal. Jaising looked at Shahjahan's demand for marble and stone cutters, as an insult added to injury. Therefore, he refused to send any marble and instead detained the stone cutters in his protective custody.
23. The three firmans demanding marble were sent to Jaisingh within about two years of Mumtaz's death. Had Shahjahan really built the Tajmahal over a period of 22 years, the marble would have needed only after 15 or 20 years not immediately after Mumtaz's death.
24. Moreover, the three mention neither the Tajmahal, nor Mumtaz, nor the burial. The cost and the quantity of the stone also are not mentioned. This proves that an insignificant quantity of marble was needed just for some supercial tinkering and tampering with the Tajmahal. Even otherwise Shahjahan could never hope to build a fabulous Tajmahal by abject dependence for marble on a non cooperative Jaisingh.
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EUROPEAN VISITOR'S ACCOUNTS
25. Tavernier, a French jeweller has recorded in his travel memoirs that Shahjahan purposely buried Mumtaz near the Taz-i-Makan (i.e.,`The Taj building') where foriegners used to come as they do even today so that the world may admire. He also adds that the cost of the scaffolding was more than that of the entire work. The work that Shahjahan commissioned in the Tejomahalaya Shiva temple was plundering at the costly fixtures inside it, uprooting the Shiva idols, planting the centotaphs in their place on two stories, inscribing the koran along the arches and walling up six of the seven stories of the Taj. It was this plunder, desecrating and plunderring of the rooms which took 22 years.
26. Peter Mundy, an English visitor to Agra recorded in 1632 (within only a year of Mumtaz's death) that `the places of note in and around Agra, included Taj-e-Mahal's tomb, gardens and bazaars'.He, therefore, confirms that that the Tajmahal had been a noteworthy building even before Shahjahan.
27. De Laet, a Dutch official has listed Mansingh's palace about a mile from Agra fort, as an outstanding building of pre shahjahan's time. Shahjahan's court chronicle, the Badshahnama records, Mumtaz's burial in the same Mansingh's palace.
28. Bernier, a contemporary French visitor has noted that non muslim's were barred entry into the basement (at the time when Shahjahan requisitioned Mansingh's palace) which contained a dazzling light. Obviously, he reffered to the silver doors, gold railing, the gem studded lattice and strings of pearl hanging over Shiva's idol. Shahjahan comandeered the building to grab all the wealth, making Mumtaz's death a convineant pretext.
29. Johan Albert Mandelslo, who describes life in agra in 1638 (only 7 years after mumtaz's death) in detail (in his `Voyages and Travels to West-Indies', published by John Starkey and John Basset, London), makes no mention of the Tajmahal being under constuction though it is commonly erringly asserted or assumed that the Taj was being built from 1631 to 1653.
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SANSKIRT INSCRIPTION
30. A Sanskrit inscription too supports the conclusion that the Taj originated as a Shiva temple. Wrongly termed as the Bateshwar inscription (currently preserved on the top floor of the Lucknow museum), it refers to the raising of a "crystal white Shiva temple so alluring that Lord Shiva once enshrined in it decided never to return to Mount Kailash his usual abode". That inscription dated 1155 A.D. was removed from the Tajmahal garden at Shahjahan's orders. Historicians and Archeaologists have blundered in terming the insription the `Bateshwar inscription' when the record doesn't say that it was found by Bateshwar. It ought, in fact, to be called `The Tejomahalaya inscription' because it was originally installed in the Taj garden before it was uprooted and cast away at Shahjahan's command.
A clue to the tampering by Shahjahan is found on pages 216-217, vol. 4, of Archealogiical Survey of India Reports (published 1874) stating that a "great square black balistic pillar which, with the base and capital of another pillar....now in the grounds of Agra,...it is well known, once stood in the garden of Tajmahal".
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MISSING ELEPHANTS
31. Far from the building of the Taj, Shahjahan disfigured it with black koranic lettering and heavily robbed it of its Sanskrit inscription, several idols and two huge stone elephants extending their trunks in a welcome arch over the gateway where visitors these days buy entry tickets. An Englishman, Thomas Twinning, records (pg.191 of his book "Travels in India A Hundred Years ago") that in November 1794 "I arrived at the high walls which enclose the Taj-e-Mahal and its circumjacent buildings. I here got out of the palanquine and.....mounted a short flight of steps leading to a beautiful portal which formed the centre of this side of the `COURT OF ELEPHANTS" as the great area was called."
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KORANIC PATCHES
32. The Taj Mahal is scrawled over with 14 chapters of the Koran but nowhere is there even the slightest or the remotest allusion in that Islamic overwriting to Shahjahan's authorship of the Taj. Had Shahjahan been the builder he would have said so in so many words before beginning to quote Koran.
33. That Shahjahan, far from building the marble Taj, only disfigured it with black lettering is mentioned by the inscriber Amanat Khan Shirazi himself in an inscription on the building. A close scrutiny of the Koranic lettering reveals that they are grafts patched up with bits of variegated stone on an ancient Shiva temple.
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CARBON 14 TEST
34. A wooden piece from the riverside doorway of the Taj subjected to the carbon 14 test by an American Laboratory, has revealed that the door to be 300 years older than Shahjahan,since the doors of the Taj, broken open by Muslim invaders repeatedly from the 11th century onwards, had to b replaced from time to time. The Taj edifice is much more older. It belongs to 1155 A.D, i.e., almost 500 years anterior to Shahjahan.
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ARCHITECHTURAL EVIDENCE
35. Well known Western authorities on architechture like E.B.Havell, Mrs.Kenoyer and Sir W.W.Hunterhave gone on record to say that the TajMahal is built in the Hindu temple style. Havell points out the ground plan of the ancient Hindu Chandi Seva Temple in Java is identical with that of the Taj.
36. A central dome with cupolas at its four corners is a universal feature of Hindu temples.
37. The four marble pillars at the plinth corners are of the Hindu style. They are used as lamp towers during night and watch towers during the day. Such towers serve to demarcate the holy precincts. Hindu wedding altars and the altar set up for God Satyanarayan worship have pillars raised at the four corners.
38. The octagonal shape of the Tajmahal has a special Hindu significance because Hindus alone have special names for the eight directions, and celestial guards assigned to them. The pinnacle points to the heaven while the foundation signifies to the nether world. Hindu forts, cities, palaces and temples genrally have an octagonal layout or some octagonal features so that together with the pinnacle and the foundation they cover all the ten directions in which the king or God holds sway, according to Hindu belief.
39. The Tajmahal has a trident pinncle over the dome. A full scale of the trident pinnacle is inlaid in the red stone courtyard to the east of the Taj. The central shaft of the trident depicts a "Kalash" (sacred pot) holding two bent mango leaves and a coconut. This is a sacred Hindu motif. Identical pinnacles have been seen over Hindu and Buddhist temples in the Himalayan region. Tridents are also depicted against a red lotus background at the apex of the stately marble arched entrances on all four sides of the Taj. People fondly but mistakenly believed all these centuries that the Taj pinnacle depicts a Islamic cresent and star was a lighting conductor installed by the British rulers in India. Contrarily, the pinnacle is a marvel of Hindu metallurgy since the pinnacle made of non rusting alloy, is also perhaps a lightning deflector. That the pinnacle of the replica is drawn in the eastern courtyard is significant because the east is of special importance to the Hindus, as the direction in which the sun rises. The pinnacle on the dome has the word `Allah' on it after capture. The pinnacle figure on the ground does not have the word Allah.
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INCONSISTENCIES
40. The two buildings which face the marble Taj from the east and west are identical in design, size and shape and yet the eastern building is explained away by Islamic tradition, as a community hall while the western building is claimed to be a mosque. How could buildings meant for radically different purposes be identical? This proves that the western building was put to use as a mosque after seizure of the Taj property by Shahjahan. Curiously enough the building being explained away as a mosque has no minaret. They form a pair af reception pavilions of the Tejomahalaya temple palace.
41. A few yards away from the same flank is the Nakkar Khana alias DrumHouse which is a intolerable incongruity for Islam. The proximity of the Drum House indicates that the western annex was not originally a mosque. Contrarily a drum house is a neccesity in a Hindu temple or palace because Hindu chores,in the morning and evening, begin to the sweet strains of music.
42. The embossed patterns on the marble exterior of the centotaph chamber wall are foilage of the conch shell design and the Hindu letter "OM". The octagonally laid marble lattices inside the centotaph chamber depict pink lotuses on their top railing. The Lotus, the conch and the OM are the sacred motifs associated with the Hindu deities and temples.
43. The spot occupied by Mumtaz's centotaph was formerly occupied by the Hindu Teja Linga a lithic representation of Lord Shiva. Around it are five perambulatory passages. Perambulation could be done around the marble lattice or through the spacious marble chambers surrounding the centotaph chamber, and in the open over the marble platform. It is also customary for the Hindus to have apertures along the perambulatory passage, overlooking the deity. Such apertures exist in the perambulatories in the Tajmahal.
44. The sanctom sanctorum in the Taj has silver doors and gold railings as Hindu temples have. It also had nets of pearl and gems stuffed in the marble lattices. It was the lure of this wealth which made Shahjahan commandeer the Taj from a helpless vassal Jaisingh, the then ruler of Jaipur.
45. Peter Mundy, a Englishman records (in 1632, within a year of Mumtaz's death) having seen a gem studded gold railing around her tomb. Had the Taj been under construction for 22 years, a costly gold railing would not have been noticed by Peter mundy within a year of Mumtaz's death. Such costl fixtures are installed in a building only after it is ready for use. This indicates that Mumtaz's centotaph was grafted in place of the Shivalinga in the centre of the gold railings. Subsequently the gold railings, silver doors, nets of pearls, gem fillings etc. were all carried away to Shahjahan's treasury. The seizure of the Taj thus constituted an act of highhanded Moghul robery causing a big row between Shahjahan and Jaisingh.
46. In the marble flooring around Mumtaz's centotaph may be seen tiny mosaic patches. Those patches indicate the spots where the support for the gold railings were embedded in the floor. They indicate a rectangular fencing.
47. Above Mumtaz's centotaph hangs a chain by which now hangs a lamp. Before capture by Shahjahan the chain used to hold a water pitcher from which water used to drip on the Shivalinga.
48. It is this earlier Hindu tradition in the Tajmahal which gave the Islamic myth of Shahjahan's love tear dropping on Mumtaz's tomb on the full moon day of the winter eve.
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TREASURY WELL
49. Between the so-called mosque and the drum house is a multistoried octagonal well with a flight of stairs reaching down to the water level. This is a traditional treasury well in Hindu temple palaces. Treasure chests used to be kept in the lower apartments while treasury personnel had their offices in the upper chambers. The circular stairs made it difficult for intruders to reach down to the treasury or to escape with it undetected or unpursued. In case the premises had to be surrendered to a besieging enemy the treasure could be pushed into the well to remain hidden from the conquerer and remain safe for salvaging if the place was reconquered. Such an elaborate multistoried well is superflous for a mere mausoleum. Such a grand, gigantic well is unneccesary for a tomb.
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BURIAL DATE UNKNOWN
50. Had Shahjahan really built the Taj Mahal as a wonder mausoleum, history would have recorded a specific date on which she was ceremoniously buried in the Taj Mahal. No such date is ever mentioned. This important missing detail decisively exposes the falsity of the Tajmahal legend.
51. Even the year of Mumtaz's death is unknown. It is variously speculated to be 1629, 1630, 1631 or 1632. Had she deserved a fabulous burial, as is claimed, the date of her death had not been a matter of much speculation. In an harem teeming with 5000 women it was difficult to keep track of dates of death. Apparently the date of Mumtaz's death was so insignificant an event, as not to merit any special notice. Who would then build a Taj for her burial?
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BASELESS LOVE STORIES
52. Stories of Shahjahan's exclusive infatuation for Mumtaz's are concoctions. They have no basis in history nor has any book ever written on their fancied love affairs. Those stories have been invented as an afterthought to make Shahjahan's authorship of the Taj look plausible.
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COST
53. The cost of the Taj is nowhere recorded in Shahjahan's court papers because Shahjahan never built the Tajmahal. That is why wild estimates of the cost by gullible writers have ranged from 4 million to 91.7 million rupees.
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PERIOD OF CONSTRUCTION
54. Likewise the period of construction has been guessed to be anywhere between 10 years and 22 years. There would have not been any scope for guesswork had the building construction been on record in the court papers.
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ARCHITECTS
55. The designer of the Tajmahal is also variously mentioned as Essa Effendy, a Persian or Turk, or Ahmed Mehendis or a Frenchman, Austin deBordeaux, or Geronimo Veroneo, an Italian, or Shahjahan himself.
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RECORDS DON'T EXIST
56. Twenty thousand labourers are supposed to have worked for 22 years during Shahjahan's reign in building the Tajmahal. Had this been true, there should have been available in Shahjahan's court papers design drawings, heaps of labour muster rolls, daily expenditure sheets, bills and receipts of material ordered, and commisioning orders. There is not even a scrap of paper of this kind.
57. It is, therefore, court flatterers,blundering historians, somnolent archeologists, fiction writers, senile poets, careless tourists officials and erring guides who are responsible for hustling the world into believing in Shahjahan's mythical authorship of the Taj.
58. Description of the gardens around the Taj of Shahjahan's time mention Ketaki, Jai, Jui, Champa, Maulashree, Harshringar and Bel. All these are plants whose flowers or leaves are used in the worship of Hindu deities. Bel leaves are exclusively used in Lord Shiva's worship. A graveyard is planted only with shady trees because the idea of using fruit and flower from plants in a cemetary is abhorrent to human conscience. The presence of Bel and other flower plants in the Taj garden is proof of its having been a Shiva temple before seizure by Shahjahan.
59. Hindu temples are often built on river banks and sea beaches. The Taj is one such built on the bank of the Yamuna river an ideal location for a Shiva temple.
60. Prophet Mohammad has ordained that the burial spot of a muslim should be inconspicous and must not be marked by even a single tombstone. In flagrant violation of this, the Tajamhal has one grave in the basement and another in the first floor chamber both ascribed to Mumtaz. Those two centotaphs were infact erected by Shahjahan to bury the two tier Shivalingas that were consecrated in the Taj. It is customary for Hindus to install two Shivalingas one over the other in two stories as may be seen in the Mahankaleshwar temple in Ujjain and the Somnath temple raised by Ahilyabai in Somnath Pattan.
61. The Tajmahal has identical entrance arches on all four sides. This is a typical Hindu building style known as Chaturmukhi, i.e.,four faced.
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THE HINDU DOME
62. The Tajmahal has a reverberating dome. Such a dome is an absurdity for a tomb which must ensure peace and silence. Contrarily reverberating domes are a neccesity in Hindu temples because they create an ecstatic dinmultiplying and magnifying the sound of bells, drums and pipes accompanying the worship of Hindu deities.
63. The Tajmahal dome bears a lotus cap. Original Islamic domes have a bald top as is exemplified by the Pakistan Embassy in Chanakyapuri, New Delhi, and the domes in the Pakistan's newly built capital Islamabad.
64. The Tajmahal entrance faces south. Had the Taj been an Islamic building it should have faced the west.
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TOMB IS THE GRAVE, NOT THE BUILDING
65. A widespread misunderstanding has resulted in mistaking the building for the grave.Invading Islam raised graves in captured buildings in every country it overran. Therefore, hereafter people must learn not to confound the building with the grave mounds which are grafts in conquered buildings. This is true of the Tajmahal too. One may therefore admit (for arguments sake) that Mumtaz lies buried inside the Taj. But that should not be construed to mean that the Taj was raised over Mumtaz's grave.
66. The Taj is a seven storied building. Prince Aurangzeb also mentions this in his letter to Shahjahan. The marble edifice comprises four stories including the lone, tall circular hall inside the top, and the lone chamber in the basement. In between are two floors each containing 12 to 15 palatial rooms. Below the marble plinth reaching down to the river at the rear are two more stories in red stone. They may be seen from the river bank. The seventh storey must be below the ground (river) level since every ancient Hindu building had a subterranian storey.
67. Immediately bellow the marble plinth on the river flank are 22 rooms in red stone with their ventilators all walled up by Shahjahan. Those rooms, made uninhibitably by Shahjahan, are kept locked by Archealogy Department of India. The lay visitor is kept in the dark about them. Those 22 rooms still bear ancient Hindu paint on their walls and ceilings. On their side is a nearly 33 feet long corridor. There are two door frames one at either end ofthe corridor. But those doors are intriguingly sealed with brick and lime.
68. Apparently those doorways originally sealed by Shahjahan have been since unsealed and again walled up several times. In 1934 a resident of Delhi took a peep inside from an opening in the upper part of the doorway. To his dismay he saw huge hall inside. It contained many statues huddled around a central beheaded image of Lord Shiva. It could be that, in there, are Sanskrit inscriptions too. All the seven stories of the Tajmahal need to be unsealed and scoured to ascertain what evidence they may be hiding in the form of Hindu images, Sanskrit inscriptions, scriptures, coins and utensils.
69. Apart from Hindu images hidden in the sealed stories it is also learnt that Hindu images are also stored in the massive walls of the Taj. Between 1959 and 1962 when Mr. S.R. Rao was the Archealogical Superintendent in Agra, he happened to notice a deep and wide crack in the wall of the central octagonal chamber of the Taj. When a part of the wall was dismantled to study the crack out popped two or three marble images. The matter was hushed up and the images were reburied where they had been embedded at Shahjahan's behest. Confirmation of this has been obtained from several sources. It was only when I began my investigation into the antecedents of the Taj I came across the above information which had remained a forgotten secret. What better proof is needed of the Temple origin of the Tajmahal? Its walls and sealed chambers still hide in Hindu idols that were consecrated in it before Shahjahan's seizure of the Taj.
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PRE-SHAHJAHAN REFERENCES TO THE TAJ
70. Apparently the Taj as a central palace seems to have an chequered history. The Taj was perhaps desecrated and looted by every Muslim invader from Mohammad Ghazni onwards but passing into Hindu hands off and on, the sanctity of the Taj as a Shiva temple continued to be revived after every muslim onslaught. Shahjahan was the last muslim to desecrate the Tajmahal alias Tejomahalay.
71. Vincent Smith records in his book titled `Akbar the Great Moghul' that `Babur's turbulent life came to an end in his garden palace in Agra in 1630'. That palace was none other than the Tajmahal. 72. Babur's daughter Gulbadan Begum in her chronicle titled `Humayun Nama' refers to the Taj as the Mystic House.
73. Babur himself refers to the Taj in his memoirs as the palace captured by Ibrahim Lodi containing a central octagonal chamber and having pillars on the four sides. All these historical references allude to the Taj 100 years before Shahjahan.
74. The Tajmahal precincts extend to several hundred yards in all directions. Across the river are ruins of the annexes of the Taj, the bathing ghats and a jetty for the ferry boat. In the Victoria gardens outside covered with creepers is the long spur of the ancient outer wall ending in a octagonal red stone tower. Such extensive grounds all magnificently done up, are a superfluity for a grave.
75. Had the Taj been specially built to bury Mumtaz, it should not have been cluttered with other graves. But the Taj premises contain several graves atleast in its eastern and southern pavilions.
76. In the southern flank, on the other side of the Tajganj gate are buried in identical pavilions queens Sarhandi Begum, and Fatehpuri Begum and a maid Satunnisa Khanum. Such parity burial can be justified only if the queens had been demoted or the maid promoted. But since Shahjahan had commandeered (not built) the Taj, he reduced it general to a muslim cemetary as was the habit of all his Islamic predeccssors, and buried a queen in a vacant pavillion and a maid in another idenitcal pavilion.
77. Shahjahan was married to several other women before and after Mumtaz. She, therefore, deserved no special consideration in having a wonder mausoleum built for her.
78. Mumtaz was a commoner by birth and so she did not qualify for a fairyland burial.
79. Mumtaz died in Burhanpur which is about 600 miles from Agra. Her grave there is intact. Therefore ,the centotaphs raised in stories of the Taj in her name seem to be fakes hiding in Hindu Shiva emblems.
80. Shahjahan seems to have simulated Mumtaz's burial in Agra to find a pretext to surround the temple palace with his fierce and fanatic troops and remove all the costly fixtures in his treasury. This finds confirmation in the vague noting in the Badshahnama which says that the Mumtaz's (exhumed) body was brought to Agra from Burhanpur and buried `next year'. An official term would not use a nebulous term unless it is to hide some thing.
81. A pertinent consideration is that a Shahjahan who did not build any palaces for Mumtaz while she was alive, would not build a fabulous mausoleum for a corpse which was no longer kicking or clicking.
82. Another factor is that Mumtaz died within two or three years of Shahjahan becoming an emperor. Could he amass so much superflous wealth in that short span as to squander it on a wonder mausoleum?
83. While Shahjahan's special attachment to Mumtaz is nowhere recorded in history his amorous affairs with many other ladies from maids to mannequins including his own daughter Jahanara, find special attention in accounts of Shahjahan's reign. Would Shahjahan shower his hard earned wealth on Mumtaz's corpse?
84. Shahjahan was a stingy, usurious monarch. He came to throne murdering all his rivals. He was not therefore, the doting spendthrift that he is made out to be.
85. A Shahjahan disconsolate on Mumtaz's death is suddenly credited with a resolve to build the Taj. This is a psychological incongruity. Grief is a disabling, incapacitating emotion.
86. A infatuated Shahjahan is supposed to have raised the Taj over the dead Mumtaz, but carnal, physical sexual love is again a incapacitating emotion. A womaniser is ipso facto incapable of any constructive activity. When carnal love becomes uncontrollable the person either murders somebody or commits suicide. He cannot raise a Tajmahal. A building like the Taj invariably originates in an ennobling emotion like devotion to God, to one's mother and mother country or power and glory.
87. Early in the year 1973, chance digging in the garden in front of the Taj revealed another set of fountains about six feet below the present fountains. This proved two things. Firstly, the subterranean fountains were there before Shahjahan laid the surface fountains. And secondly that those fountains are aligned to the Taj that edifice too is of pre Shahjahan origin. Apparently the garden and its fountains had sunk from annual monsoon flooding and lack of maintenance for centuries during the Islamic rule.
89. The stately rooms on the upper floor of the Tajmahal have been striped of their marble mosaic by Shahjahan to obtain matching marble for raising fake tomb stones inside the Taj premises at several places. Contrasting with the rich finished marble ground floor rooms the striping of the marble mosaic covering the lower half of the walls and flooring of the upper storey have given those rooms a naked, robbed look. Since no visitors are allowed entry to the upper storey this despoilation by Shahjahan has remained a well guarded secret. There is no reason why Shahjahan's loot of the upper floor marble should continue to be hidden from the public even after 200 years of termination of Moghul rule.
90. Bernier, the French traveller has recorded that no non muslim was allowed entry into the secret nether chambers of the Taj because there are some dazzling fixtures there. Had those been installed by Shahjahan they should have been shown the public as a matter of pride. But since it was commandeered Hindu wealth which Shahjahan wanted to remove to his treasury, he didn't want the public to know about it.
91. The approach to Taj is dotted with hillocks raised with earth dugout from foundation trenches. The hillocks served as outer defences of the Taj building complex. Raising such hillocks from foundation earth, is a common Hindu device of hoary origin. Nearby Bharatpur provides a graphic parallel.
Peter Mundy has recorded that Shahjahan employed thousands of labourers to level some of those hillocks. This is a graphic proof of the Tajmahal existing before Shahjahan.
93. At the backside of the river bank is a Hindu crematorium, several palaces, Shiva temples and bathings of ancient origin. Had Shahjahan built the Tajmahal, he would have destroyed the Hindu features.
94. The story that Shahjahan wanted to build a Black marble Taj across the river, is another motivated myth. The ruins dotting the other side of the river are those of Hindu structures demolished during muslim invasions and not the plinth of another Tajmahal. Shahjahan who did not even build the white Tajmahal would hardly ever think of building a black marble Taj. He was so miserly that he forced labourers to work gratis even in the superficial tampering neccesary to make a Hindu temple serve as a Muslim tomb.
95. The marble that Shahjahan used for grafting Koranic lettering in the Taj is of a pale white shade while the rest of the Taj is built of a marble with rich yellow tint. This disparity is proof of the Koranic extracts being a superimposition.
96. Though imaginative attempts have been made by some historians to foist some fictitious name on history as the designer of the Taj others more imaginative have credited Shajahan himself with superb architechtural proficiency and artistic talent which could easily conceive and plan the Taj even in acute bereavement. Such people betray gross ignorance of history in as much as Shajahan was a cruel tyrant ,a great womaniser and a drug and drink addict.
97. Fanciful accounts about Shahjahan commisioning the Taj are all confused. Some asserted that Shahjahan ordered building drawing from all over the world and chose one from among them. Others assert that a man at hand was ordered to design a mausoleum and his design was approved. Had any of those versions been true Shahjahan's court papers should have had thousands of drawings concerning the Taj. But there is not even a single drawing. This is yet another clinching proof that Shahjahan did not commision the Taj.
98. The Tajmahal is surrounded by huge mansions which indicate that several battles have been waged around the Taj several times.
99. At the south east corner of the Taj is an ancient royal cattle house. Cows attached to the Tejomahalay temple used to reared there. A cowshed is an incongruity in an Islamic tomb.
100. Over the western flank of the Taj are several stately red stone annexes. These are superflous for a mausoleum.
101. The entire Taj complex comprises of 400 to 500 rooms. Residential accomodation on such a stupendous scale is unthinkable in a mausoleum.
102. The neighbouring Tajganj township's massive protective wall also encloses the Tajmahal temple palace complex. This is a clear indication that the Tejomahalay temple palace was part and parcel of the township. A street of that township leads straight into the Tajmahal. The Tajganj gate is aligned in a perfect straight line to the octagonal red stone garden gate and the stately entrance arch of the Tajmahal. The Tajganj gate besides being central to the Taj temple complex, is also put on a pedestal. The western gate by which the visitors enter the Taj complex is a camparatively minor gateway. It has become the entry gate for most visitors today because the railway station and the bus station are on that side.
103. The Tajmahal has pleasure pavilions which a tomb would never have.
104. A tiny mirror glass in a gallery of the Red Fort in Agra reflects the Taj mahal. Shahjahan is said to have spent his last eight years of life as a prisoner in that gallery peering at the reflected Tajmahal and sighing in the name of Mumtaz. This myth is a blend of many falsehoods. Firstly,old Shajahan was held prisoner by his son Aurangzeb in the basement storey in the Fort and not in an open,fashionable upper storey. Secondly, the glass piece was fixed in the 1930's by Insha Allah Khan, a peon of the archaelogy dept.just to illustrate to the visitors how in ancient times the entire apartment used to scintillate with tiny mirror pieces reflecting the Tejomahalay temple a thousand fold. Thirdly, a old decrepit Shahjahan with pain in his joints and cataract in his eyes, would not spend his day craning his neck at an awkward angle to peer into a tiny glass piece with bedimmed eyesight when he could as well his face around and have full,direct view of the Tjamahal itself. But the general public is so gullible as to gulp all such prattle of wily, unscrupulous guides.
105. That the Tajmahal dome has hundreds of iron rings sticking out of its exterior is a feature rarely noticed. These are made to hold Hindu earthen oil lamps for temple illumination.
106. Those putting implicit faith in Shahjahan authorship of the Taj have been imagining Shahjahan-Mumtaz to be a soft hearted romantic pair like Romeo and Juliet. But contemporary accounts speak of Shahjahan as a hard hearted ruler who was constantly egged on to acts of tyranny and cruelty, by Mumtaz.
107. School and College history carry the myth that Shahjahan reign was a golden period in which there was peace and plenty and that Shahjahan commisioned many buildings and patronized literature. This is pure fabrication. Shahjahan did not commision even a single building as we have illustrated by a detailed analysis of the Tajmahal legend. Shahjahn had to enrage in 48 military campaigns during a reign of nearly 30 years which proves that his was not a era of peace and plenty.
108. The interior of the dome rising over Mumtaz's centotaph has a representation of Sun and cobras drawn in gold. Hindu warriors trace their origin to the Sun. For an Islamic mausoleum the Sun is redundant. Cobras are always associated with Lord Shiva.
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FORGED DOCUMENTS
109. The Muslim caretakers of the tomb in the Tajmahal used to possess a document which they styled as "Tarikh-i-Tajmahal". Historian H.G. Keene has branded it as `a document of doubtful authenticity'. Keene was uncannily right since we have seen that Shahjahan not being the creator of the Tajmahal any document which credits Shahjahn with the Tajmahal, must be an outright forgery. Even that forged document is reported to have been smuggled out of Pakistan. Besides such forged documents there are whole chronicles on the Taj which are pure concoctions.
110. There is lot of sophistry and casuistry or atleast confused thinking associated with the Taj even in the minds of proffesional historians, archaelogists and architects. At the outset they assert that the Taj is entirely Muslim in design. But when it is pointed out that its lotus capped dome and the four corner pillars etc. are all entirely Hindu those worthies shift ground and argue that that was probably because the workmen were Hindu and were to introduce their own patterns. Both these arguments are wrong because Muslim accounts claim the designers to be Muslim,and the workers invariably carry out the employer's dictates.
The Taj is only a typical illustration of how all historic buildings and townships from Kashmir to Cape Comorin though of Hindu origin have been ascribed to this or that Muslim ruler or courtier.
It is hoped that people the world over who study Indian history will awaken to this new finding and revise their erstwhile beliefs.
Those interested in an indepth study of the above and many other revolutionary rebuttals may read this author's other research books.
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Tajmahal The True Story authored by Shri P.N. Oak can be ordered from :
A. Ghosh Publisher, 5720 W. Little York # 216, Houston, Texas 77091
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By P. N. Oak
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The story of the Taj Mahal that most of us have known about may not be the real truth. Herein Mr. P. N. Oak presents an interesting set of proofs that show a completely different story. Contrary to what visitors are made to believe the Tajmahal is not a Islamic mausoleum but an ancient Shiva Temple known as Tejo Mahalaya which the 5th generation Moghul emperor ShahjahanShahjahan commandeered from the then Maharaja of Jaipur. The Taj Mahal, should therefore, be viewed as a temple palace and not as a tomb. That makes a vast difference. You miss the details of its size, grandeur, majesty and beauty when you take it to be a mere tomb. When told that you are visiting a temple palace you wont fail to notice its annexes, ruined defensive walls, hillocks, moats, cascades, fountains, majestic garden, hundreds of rooms archaded verendahs, terraces, multi stored towers, secret sealed chambers, guest rooms, stables, the trident (Trishul) pinnacle on the dome and the sacred, esoteric Hindu letter "OM" carved on the exterior of the wall of the sanctum sanctorum now occupied by the cenotaphs. For detailed proof of this breath taking discovery, you may read the well known historian Shri. P. N. Oak's celebrated book titled " Tajmahal : The True Story". But let us place before you, for the time being an exhaustive summary of the massive evidence ranging over hundred points:
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NAME
1.The term Tajmahal itself never occurs in any mogul court paper or chronicle even in Aurangzeb's time. The attempt to explain it away as Taj-i-mahal is therefore, ridiculous.
2.The ending "Mahal"is never muslim because in none of the muslim countries around the world from Afghanistan to Algeria is there a building known as "Mahal".
3.The unusual explanation of the term Tajmahal derives from Mumtaz Mahal, who is buried in it, is illogical in at least two respects viz., firstly her name was never Mumtaj Mahal but Mumtaz-ul-Zamani and secondly one cannot omit the first three letters "Mum" from a woman's name to derive the remainder as the name of the building.
4.Since the lady's name was Mumtaz (ending with 'Z') the name of the building derived from her should have been Taz Mahal, if at all, and not Taj (spelled with a 'J').
5.Several European visitors of Shahjahan's time allude to the building as Taj-e-Mahal is almost the correct tradition, age old Sanskrit name Tej-o-Mahalaya, signifying a Shiva temple. Contrarily Shahjahan and Aurangzeb scrupulously avoid using the Sanskrit term and call it just a holy grave.
6.The tomb should be understood to signify NOT A BUILDING but only the grave or centotaph inside it. This would help people to realize that all dead muslim courtiers and royalty including Humayun, Akbar, Mumtaz, Etmad-ud-Daula and Safdarjang have been buried in capture Hindu mansions and temples.
7.Moreover, if the Taj is believed to be a burial place, how can the term Mahal, i.e., mansion apply to it?
8.Since the term Taj Mahal does not occur in mogul courts it is absurd to search for any mogul explanation for it. Both its components namely, 'Taj' and' Mahal' are of Sanskrit origin.
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TEMPLE TRADITION
9.The term Taj Mahal is a corrupt form of the sanskrit term TejoMahalay signifying a Shiva Temple. Agreshwar Mahadev i.e., The Lord of Agra was consecrated in it.
10.The tradition of removing the shoes before climbing the marble platform originates from pre Shahjahan times when the Taj was a Shiva Temple. Had the Taj originated as a tomb, shoes need not have to be removed because shoes are a necessity in a cemetery.
11.Visitors may notice that the base slab of the centotaph is the marble basement in plain white while its superstructure and the other three centotaphs on the two floors are covered with inlaid creeper designs. This indicates that the marble pedestal of the Shiva idol is still in place and Mumtaz's centotaphs are fake.
12.The pitchers carved inside the upper border of the marble lattice plus those mounted on it number 108-a number sacred in Hindu Temple tradition.
13.There are persons who are connected with the repair and the maintainance of the Taj who have seen the ancient sacred Shiva Linga and other idols sealed in the thick walls and in chambers in the secret, sealed red stone stories below the marble basement. The Archaeological Survey of India is keeping discretely, politely and diplomatically silent about it to the point of dereliction of its own duty to probe into hidden historical evidence.
14.In India there are 12 Jyotirlingas i.e., the outstanding Shiva Temples. The Tejomahalaya alias The Tajmahal appears to be one of them known as Nagnatheshwar since its parapet is girdled with Naga, i.e., Cobra figures. Ever since Shahjahan's capture of it the sacred temple has lost its Hindudom.
15.The famous Hindu treatise on architecture titled Vishwakarma Vastushastra mentions the 'Tej-Linga' amongst the Shivalingas i.e., the stone emblems of Lord Shiva, the Hindu deity. Such a Tej Linga was consecrated in the Taj Mahal, hence the term Taj Mahal alias Tejo Mahalaya.
16.Agra city, in which the Taj Mahal is located, is an ancient centre of Shiva worship. Its orthodox residents have through ages continued the tradition of worshipping at five Shiva shrines before taking the last meal every night especially during the month of Shravan. During the last few centuries the residents of Agra had to be content with worshipping at only four prominent Shiva temples viz., Balkeshwar, Prithvinath, Manakameshwar and Rajarajeshwar. They had lost track of the fifth Shiva deity which their forefathers worshipped. Apparently the fifth was Agreshwar Mahadev Nagnatheshwar i.e., The Lord Great God of Agra, The Deity of the King of Cobras, consecrated in the Tejomahalay alias Tajmahal.
17.The people who dominate the Agra region are Jats. Their name of Shiva is Tejaji. The Jat special issue of The Illustrated Weekly of India (June 28,1971) mentions that the Jats have the Teja Mandirs i.e., Teja Temples. This is because Teja-Linga is among the several names of the Shiva Lingas. From this it is apparent that the Taj-Mahal is Tejo-Mahalaya, The Great Abode of Tej.
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DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE
18. Shahjahan's own court chronicle, the Badshahnama, admits (page 403, vol 1) that a grand mansion of unique splendor, capped with a dome (Imaarat-a-Alishan wa Gumbaze) was taken from the Jaipur Maharaja Jaisigh for Mumtaz's burial, and the building was known as Raja Mansingh's palace.
19. The plaque put the archealogy department outside the Tajmahal describes the edifice as a mausoleum built by Shahjahan for his wife Mumtaz Mahal , over 22 years from 1631 to 1653. That plaque is a specimen of historical bungling. Firstly, the plaque sites no authority for its claim. Secondly the lady's name was Mumtaz-ulZamani and not Mumtazmahal. Thirdly, the period of 22 years is taken from some mumbo jumbo noting by an unreliable French visitor Tavernier, to the exclusion of all muslim versions, which is an absurdity.
20. Prince Aurangzeb's letter to his father,emperor Shahjahan,is recorded in atleast three chronicles titled `Aadaab-e-Alamgiri', `Yadgarnama', and the `Muruqqa-i-Akbarabadi' (edited by Said Ahmed, Agra, 1931, page 43, footnote 2). In that letter Aurangzeb records in 1652 A.D itself that the several buildings in the fancied burial place of Mumtaz were seven storeyed and were so old that they were all leaking, while the dome had developed a crack on the northern side.Aurangzeb, therefore, ordered immediate repairs to the buildings at his own expense while recommending to the emperor that more elaborate repairs be carried out later. This is the proof that during Shahjahan's reign itself that the Taj complex was so old as to need immediate repairs.
21. The ex-Maharaja of Jaipur retains in his secret personal `KapadDwara' collection two orders from Shahjahan dated Dec 18, 1633 (bearing modern nos. R.176 and 177) requestioning the Taj building complex. That was so blatant a usurpation that the then ruler of Jaipur was ashamed to make the document public.
22. The Rajasthan State archives at Bikaner preserve three other firmans addressed by Shahjahan to the Jaipur's ruler Jaising ordering the latter to supply marble (for Mumtaz's grave and koranic grafts) from his Makranna quarris, and stone cutters. Jaisingh was apparently so enraged at the blatant seizure of the Tajmahal that he refused to oblige Shahjahan by providing marble for grafting koranic engravings and fake centotaphs for further desecration of the Tajmahal. Jaising looked at Shahjahan's demand for marble and stone cutters, as an insult added to injury. Therefore, he refused to send any marble and instead detained the stone cutters in his protective custody.
23. The three firmans demanding marble were sent to Jaisingh within about two years of Mumtaz's death. Had Shahjahan really built the Tajmahal over a period of 22 years, the marble would have needed only after 15 or 20 years not immediately after Mumtaz's death.
24. Moreover, the three mention neither the Tajmahal, nor Mumtaz, nor the burial. The cost and the quantity of the stone also are not mentioned. This proves that an insignificant quantity of marble was needed just for some supercial tinkering and tampering with the Tajmahal. Even otherwise Shahjahan could never hope to build a fabulous Tajmahal by abject dependence for marble on a non cooperative Jaisingh.
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EUROPEAN VISITOR'S ACCOUNTS
25. Tavernier, a French jeweller has recorded in his travel memoirs that Shahjahan purposely buried Mumtaz near the Taz-i-Makan (i.e.,`The Taj building') where foriegners used to come as they do even today so that the world may admire. He also adds that the cost of the scaffolding was more than that of the entire work. The work that Shahjahan commissioned in the Tejomahalaya Shiva temple was plundering at the costly fixtures inside it, uprooting the Shiva idols, planting the centotaphs in their place on two stories, inscribing the koran along the arches and walling up six of the seven stories of the Taj. It was this plunder, desecrating and plunderring of the rooms which took 22 years.
26. Peter Mundy, an English visitor to Agra recorded in 1632 (within only a year of Mumtaz's death) that `the places of note in and around Agra, included Taj-e-Mahal's tomb, gardens and bazaars'.He, therefore, confirms that that the Tajmahal had been a noteworthy building even before Shahjahan.
27. De Laet, a Dutch official has listed Mansingh's palace about a mile from Agra fort, as an outstanding building of pre shahjahan's time. Shahjahan's court chronicle, the Badshahnama records, Mumtaz's burial in the same Mansingh's palace.
28. Bernier, a contemporary French visitor has noted that non muslim's were barred entry into the basement (at the time when Shahjahan requisitioned Mansingh's palace) which contained a dazzling light. Obviously, he reffered to the silver doors, gold railing, the gem studded lattice and strings of pearl hanging over Shiva's idol. Shahjahan comandeered the building to grab all the wealth, making Mumtaz's death a convineant pretext.
29. Johan Albert Mandelslo, who describes life in agra in 1638 (only 7 years after mumtaz's death) in detail (in his `Voyages and Travels to West-Indies', published by John Starkey and John Basset, London), makes no mention of the Tajmahal being under constuction though it is commonly erringly asserted or assumed that the Taj was being built from 1631 to 1653.
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SANSKIRT INSCRIPTION
30. A Sanskrit inscription too supports the conclusion that the Taj originated as a Shiva temple. Wrongly termed as the Bateshwar inscription (currently preserved on the top floor of the Lucknow museum), it refers to the raising of a "crystal white Shiva temple so alluring that Lord Shiva once enshrined in it decided never to return to Mount Kailash his usual abode". That inscription dated 1155 A.D. was removed from the Tajmahal garden at Shahjahan's orders. Historicians and Archeaologists have blundered in terming the insription the `Bateshwar inscription' when the record doesn't say that it was found by Bateshwar. It ought, in fact, to be called `The Tejomahalaya inscription' because it was originally installed in the Taj garden before it was uprooted and cast away at Shahjahan's command.
A clue to the tampering by Shahjahan is found on pages 216-217, vol. 4, of Archealogiical Survey of India Reports (published 1874) stating that a "great square black balistic pillar which, with the base and capital of another pillar....now in the grounds of Agra,...it is well known, once stood in the garden of Tajmahal".
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MISSING ELEPHANTS
31. Far from the building of the Taj, Shahjahan disfigured it with black koranic lettering and heavily robbed it of its Sanskrit inscription, several idols and two huge stone elephants extending their trunks in a welcome arch over the gateway where visitors these days buy entry tickets. An Englishman, Thomas Twinning, records (pg.191 of his book "Travels in India A Hundred Years ago") that in November 1794 "I arrived at the high walls which enclose the Taj-e-Mahal and its circumjacent buildings. I here got out of the palanquine and.....mounted a short flight of steps leading to a beautiful portal which formed the centre of this side of the `COURT OF ELEPHANTS" as the great area was called."
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KORANIC PATCHES
32. The Taj Mahal is scrawled over with 14 chapters of the Koran but nowhere is there even the slightest or the remotest allusion in that Islamic overwriting to Shahjahan's authorship of the Taj. Had Shahjahan been the builder he would have said so in so many words before beginning to quote Koran.
33. That Shahjahan, far from building the marble Taj, only disfigured it with black lettering is mentioned by the inscriber Amanat Khan Shirazi himself in an inscription on the building. A close scrutiny of the Koranic lettering reveals that they are grafts patched up with bits of variegated stone on an ancient Shiva temple.
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CARBON 14 TEST
34. A wooden piece from the riverside doorway of the Taj subjected to the carbon 14 test by an American Laboratory, has revealed that the door to be 300 years older than Shahjahan,since the doors of the Taj, broken open by Muslim invaders repeatedly from the 11th century onwards, had to b replaced from time to time. The Taj edifice is much more older. It belongs to 1155 A.D, i.e., almost 500 years anterior to Shahjahan.
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ARCHITECHTURAL EVIDENCE
35. Well known Western authorities on architechture like E.B.Havell, Mrs.Kenoyer and Sir W.W.Hunterhave gone on record to say that the TajMahal is built in the Hindu temple style. Havell points out the ground plan of the ancient Hindu Chandi Seva Temple in Java is identical with that of the Taj.
36. A central dome with cupolas at its four corners is a universal feature of Hindu temples.
37. The four marble pillars at the plinth corners are of the Hindu style. They are used as lamp towers during night and watch towers during the day. Such towers serve to demarcate the holy precincts. Hindu wedding altars and the altar set up for God Satyanarayan worship have pillars raised at the four corners.
38. The octagonal shape of the Tajmahal has a special Hindu significance because Hindus alone have special names for the eight directions, and celestial guards assigned to them. The pinnacle points to the heaven while the foundation signifies to the nether world. Hindu forts, cities, palaces and temples genrally have an octagonal layout or some octagonal features so that together with the pinnacle and the foundation they cover all the ten directions in which the king or God holds sway, according to Hindu belief.
39. The Tajmahal has a trident pinncle over the dome. A full scale of the trident pinnacle is inlaid in the red stone courtyard to the east of the Taj. The central shaft of the trident depicts a "Kalash" (sacred pot) holding two bent mango leaves and a coconut. This is a sacred Hindu motif. Identical pinnacles have been seen over Hindu and Buddhist temples in the Himalayan region. Tridents are also depicted against a red lotus background at the apex of the stately marble arched entrances on all four sides of the Taj. People fondly but mistakenly believed all these centuries that the Taj pinnacle depicts a Islamic cresent and star was a lighting conductor installed by the British rulers in India. Contrarily, the pinnacle is a marvel of Hindu metallurgy since the pinnacle made of non rusting alloy, is also perhaps a lightning deflector. That the pinnacle of the replica is drawn in the eastern courtyard is significant because the east is of special importance to the Hindus, as the direction in which the sun rises. The pinnacle on the dome has the word `Allah' on it after capture. The pinnacle figure on the ground does not have the word Allah.
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INCONSISTENCIES
40. The two buildings which face the marble Taj from the east and west are identical in design, size and shape and yet the eastern building is explained away by Islamic tradition, as a community hall while the western building is claimed to be a mosque. How could buildings meant for radically different purposes be identical? This proves that the western building was put to use as a mosque after seizure of the Taj property by Shahjahan. Curiously enough the building being explained away as a mosque has no minaret. They form a pair af reception pavilions of the Tejomahalaya temple palace.
41. A few yards away from the same flank is the Nakkar Khana alias DrumHouse which is a intolerable incongruity for Islam. The proximity of the Drum House indicates that the western annex was not originally a mosque. Contrarily a drum house is a neccesity in a Hindu temple or palace because Hindu chores,in the morning and evening, begin to the sweet strains of music.
42. The embossed patterns on the marble exterior of the centotaph chamber wall are foilage of the conch shell design and the Hindu letter "OM". The octagonally laid marble lattices inside the centotaph chamber depict pink lotuses on their top railing. The Lotus, the conch and the OM are the sacred motifs associated with the Hindu deities and temples.
43. The spot occupied by Mumtaz's centotaph was formerly occupied by the Hindu Teja Linga a lithic representation of Lord Shiva. Around it are five perambulatory passages. Perambulation could be done around the marble lattice or through the spacious marble chambers surrounding the centotaph chamber, and in the open over the marble platform. It is also customary for the Hindus to have apertures along the perambulatory passage, overlooking the deity. Such apertures exist in the perambulatories in the Tajmahal.
44. The sanctom sanctorum in the Taj has silver doors and gold railings as Hindu temples have. It also had nets of pearl and gems stuffed in the marble lattices. It was the lure of this wealth which made Shahjahan commandeer the Taj from a helpless vassal Jaisingh, the then ruler of Jaipur.
45. Peter Mundy, a Englishman records (in 1632, within a year of Mumtaz's death) having seen a gem studded gold railing around her tomb. Had the Taj been under construction for 22 years, a costly gold railing would not have been noticed by Peter mundy within a year of Mumtaz's death. Such costl fixtures are installed in a building only after it is ready for use. This indicates that Mumtaz's centotaph was grafted in place of the Shivalinga in the centre of the gold railings. Subsequently the gold railings, silver doors, nets of pearls, gem fillings etc. were all carried away to Shahjahan's treasury. The seizure of the Taj thus constituted an act of highhanded Moghul robery causing a big row between Shahjahan and Jaisingh.
46. In the marble flooring around Mumtaz's centotaph may be seen tiny mosaic patches. Those patches indicate the spots where the support for the gold railings were embedded in the floor. They indicate a rectangular fencing.
47. Above Mumtaz's centotaph hangs a chain by which now hangs a lamp. Before capture by Shahjahan the chain used to hold a water pitcher from which water used to drip on the Shivalinga.
48. It is this earlier Hindu tradition in the Tajmahal which gave the Islamic myth of Shahjahan's love tear dropping on Mumtaz's tomb on the full moon day of the winter eve.
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TREASURY WELL
49. Between the so-called mosque and the drum house is a multistoried octagonal well with a flight of stairs reaching down to the water level. This is a traditional treasury well in Hindu temple palaces. Treasure chests used to be kept in the lower apartments while treasury personnel had their offices in the upper chambers. The circular stairs made it difficult for intruders to reach down to the treasury or to escape with it undetected or unpursued. In case the premises had to be surrendered to a besieging enemy the treasure could be pushed into the well to remain hidden from the conquerer and remain safe for salvaging if the place was reconquered. Such an elaborate multistoried well is superflous for a mere mausoleum. Such a grand, gigantic well is unneccesary for a tomb.
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BURIAL DATE UNKNOWN
50. Had Shahjahan really built the Taj Mahal as a wonder mausoleum, history would have recorded a specific date on which she was ceremoniously buried in the Taj Mahal. No such date is ever mentioned. This important missing detail decisively exposes the falsity of the Tajmahal legend.
51. Even the year of Mumtaz's death is unknown. It is variously speculated to be 1629, 1630, 1631 or 1632. Had she deserved a fabulous burial, as is claimed, the date of her death had not been a matter of much speculation. In an harem teeming with 5000 women it was difficult to keep track of dates of death. Apparently the date of Mumtaz's death was so insignificant an event, as not to merit any special notice. Who would then build a Taj for her burial?
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BASELESS LOVE STORIES
52. Stories of Shahjahan's exclusive infatuation for Mumtaz's are concoctions. They have no basis in history nor has any book ever written on their fancied love affairs. Those stories have been invented as an afterthought to make Shahjahan's authorship of the Taj look plausible.
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COST
53. The cost of the Taj is nowhere recorded in Shahjahan's court papers because Shahjahan never built the Tajmahal. That is why wild estimates of the cost by gullible writers have ranged from 4 million to 91.7 million rupees.
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PERIOD OF CONSTRUCTION
54. Likewise the period of construction has been guessed to be anywhere between 10 years and 22 years. There would have not been any scope for guesswork had the building construction been on record in the court papers.
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ARCHITECTS
55. The designer of the Tajmahal is also variously mentioned as Essa Effendy, a Persian or Turk, or Ahmed Mehendis or a Frenchman, Austin deBordeaux, or Geronimo Veroneo, an Italian, or Shahjahan himself.
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RECORDS DON'T EXIST
56. Twenty thousand labourers are supposed to have worked for 22 years during Shahjahan's reign in building the Tajmahal. Had this been true, there should have been available in Shahjahan's court papers design drawings, heaps of labour muster rolls, daily expenditure sheets, bills and receipts of material ordered, and commisioning orders. There is not even a scrap of paper of this kind.
57. It is, therefore, court flatterers,blundering historians, somnolent archeologists, fiction writers, senile poets, careless tourists officials and erring guides who are responsible for hustling the world into believing in Shahjahan's mythical authorship of the Taj.
58. Description of the gardens around the Taj of Shahjahan's time mention Ketaki, Jai, Jui, Champa, Maulashree, Harshringar and Bel. All these are plants whose flowers or leaves are used in the worship of Hindu deities. Bel leaves are exclusively used in Lord Shiva's worship. A graveyard is planted only with shady trees because the idea of using fruit and flower from plants in a cemetary is abhorrent to human conscience. The presence of Bel and other flower plants in the Taj garden is proof of its having been a Shiva temple before seizure by Shahjahan.
59. Hindu temples are often built on river banks and sea beaches. The Taj is one such built on the bank of the Yamuna river an ideal location for a Shiva temple.
60. Prophet Mohammad has ordained that the burial spot of a muslim should be inconspicous and must not be marked by even a single tombstone. In flagrant violation of this, the Tajamhal has one grave in the basement and another in the first floor chamber both ascribed to Mumtaz. Those two centotaphs were infact erected by Shahjahan to bury the two tier Shivalingas that were consecrated in the Taj. It is customary for Hindus to install two Shivalingas one over the other in two stories as may be seen in the Mahankaleshwar temple in Ujjain and the Somnath temple raised by Ahilyabai in Somnath Pattan.
61. The Tajmahal has identical entrance arches on all four sides. This is a typical Hindu building style known as Chaturmukhi, i.e.,four faced.
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THE HINDU DOME
62. The Tajmahal has a reverberating dome. Such a dome is an absurdity for a tomb which must ensure peace and silence. Contrarily reverberating domes are a neccesity in Hindu temples because they create an ecstatic dinmultiplying and magnifying the sound of bells, drums and pipes accompanying the worship of Hindu deities.
63. The Tajmahal dome bears a lotus cap. Original Islamic domes have a bald top as is exemplified by the Pakistan Embassy in Chanakyapuri, New Delhi, and the domes in the Pakistan's newly built capital Islamabad.
64. The Tajmahal entrance faces south. Had the Taj been an Islamic building it should have faced the west.
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TOMB IS THE GRAVE, NOT THE BUILDING
65. A widespread misunderstanding has resulted in mistaking the building for the grave.Invading Islam raised graves in captured buildings in every country it overran. Therefore, hereafter people must learn not to confound the building with the grave mounds which are grafts in conquered buildings. This is true of the Tajmahal too. One may therefore admit (for arguments sake) that Mumtaz lies buried inside the Taj. But that should not be construed to mean that the Taj was raised over Mumtaz's grave.
66. The Taj is a seven storied building. Prince Aurangzeb also mentions this in his letter to Shahjahan. The marble edifice comprises four stories including the lone, tall circular hall inside the top, and the lone chamber in the basement. In between are two floors each containing 12 to 15 palatial rooms. Below the marble plinth reaching down to the river at the rear are two more stories in red stone. They may be seen from the river bank. The seventh storey must be below the ground (river) level since every ancient Hindu building had a subterranian storey.
67. Immediately bellow the marble plinth on the river flank are 22 rooms in red stone with their ventilators all walled up by Shahjahan. Those rooms, made uninhibitably by Shahjahan, are kept locked by Archealogy Department of India. The lay visitor is kept in the dark about them. Those 22 rooms still bear ancient Hindu paint on their walls and ceilings. On their side is a nearly 33 feet long corridor. There are two door frames one at either end ofthe corridor. But those doors are intriguingly sealed with brick and lime.
68. Apparently those doorways originally sealed by Shahjahan have been since unsealed and again walled up several times. In 1934 a resident of Delhi took a peep inside from an opening in the upper part of the doorway. To his dismay he saw huge hall inside. It contained many statues huddled around a central beheaded image of Lord Shiva. It could be that, in there, are Sanskrit inscriptions too. All the seven stories of the Tajmahal need to be unsealed and scoured to ascertain what evidence they may be hiding in the form of Hindu images, Sanskrit inscriptions, scriptures, coins and utensils.
69. Apart from Hindu images hidden in the sealed stories it is also learnt that Hindu images are also stored in the massive walls of the Taj. Between 1959 and 1962 when Mr. S.R. Rao was the Archealogical Superintendent in Agra, he happened to notice a deep and wide crack in the wall of the central octagonal chamber of the Taj. When a part of the wall was dismantled to study the crack out popped two or three marble images. The matter was hushed up and the images were reburied where they had been embedded at Shahjahan's behest. Confirmation of this has been obtained from several sources. It was only when I began my investigation into the antecedents of the Taj I came across the above information which had remained a forgotten secret. What better proof is needed of the Temple origin of the Tajmahal? Its walls and sealed chambers still hide in Hindu idols that were consecrated in it before Shahjahan's seizure of the Taj.
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PRE-SHAHJAHAN REFERENCES TO THE TAJ
70. Apparently the Taj as a central palace seems to have an chequered history. The Taj was perhaps desecrated and looted by every Muslim invader from Mohammad Ghazni onwards but passing into Hindu hands off and on, the sanctity of the Taj as a Shiva temple continued to be revived after every muslim onslaught. Shahjahan was the last muslim to desecrate the Tajmahal alias Tejomahalay.
71. Vincent Smith records in his book titled `Akbar the Great Moghul' that `Babur's turbulent life came to an end in his garden palace in Agra in 1630'. That palace was none other than the Tajmahal. 72. Babur's daughter Gulbadan Begum in her chronicle titled `Humayun Nama' refers to the Taj as the Mystic House.
73. Babur himself refers to the Taj in his memoirs as the palace captured by Ibrahim Lodi containing a central octagonal chamber and having pillars on the four sides. All these historical references allude to the Taj 100 years before Shahjahan.
74. The Tajmahal precincts extend to several hundred yards in all directions. Across the river are ruins of the annexes of the Taj, the bathing ghats and a jetty for the ferry boat. In the Victoria gardens outside covered with creepers is the long spur of the ancient outer wall ending in a octagonal red stone tower. Such extensive grounds all magnificently done up, are a superfluity for a grave.
75. Had the Taj been specially built to bury Mumtaz, it should not have been cluttered with other graves. But the Taj premises contain several graves atleast in its eastern and southern pavilions.
76. In the southern flank, on the other side of the Tajganj gate are buried in identical pavilions queens Sarhandi Begum, and Fatehpuri Begum and a maid Satunnisa Khanum. Such parity burial can be justified only if the queens had been demoted or the maid promoted. But since Shahjahan had commandeered (not built) the Taj, he reduced it general to a muslim cemetary as was the habit of all his Islamic predeccssors, and buried a queen in a vacant pavillion and a maid in another idenitcal pavilion.
77. Shahjahan was married to several other women before and after Mumtaz. She, therefore, deserved no special consideration in having a wonder mausoleum built for her.
78. Mumtaz was a commoner by birth and so she did not qualify for a fairyland burial.
79. Mumtaz died in Burhanpur which is about 600 miles from Agra. Her grave there is intact. Therefore ,the centotaphs raised in stories of the Taj in her name seem to be fakes hiding in Hindu Shiva emblems.
80. Shahjahan seems to have simulated Mumtaz's burial in Agra to find a pretext to surround the temple palace with his fierce and fanatic troops and remove all the costly fixtures in his treasury. This finds confirmation in the vague noting in the Badshahnama which says that the Mumtaz's (exhumed) body was brought to Agra from Burhanpur and buried `next year'. An official term would not use a nebulous term unless it is to hide some thing.
81. A pertinent consideration is that a Shahjahan who did not build any palaces for Mumtaz while she was alive, would not build a fabulous mausoleum for a corpse which was no longer kicking or clicking.
82. Another factor is that Mumtaz died within two or three years of Shahjahan becoming an emperor. Could he amass so much superflous wealth in that short span as to squander it on a wonder mausoleum?
83. While Shahjahan's special attachment to Mumtaz is nowhere recorded in history his amorous affairs with many other ladies from maids to mannequins including his own daughter Jahanara, find special attention in accounts of Shahjahan's reign. Would Shahjahan shower his hard earned wealth on Mumtaz's corpse?
84. Shahjahan was a stingy, usurious monarch. He came to throne murdering all his rivals. He was not therefore, the doting spendthrift that he is made out to be.
85. A Shahjahan disconsolate on Mumtaz's death is suddenly credited with a resolve to build the Taj. This is a psychological incongruity. Grief is a disabling, incapacitating emotion.
86. A infatuated Shahjahan is supposed to have raised the Taj over the dead Mumtaz, but carnal, physical sexual love is again a incapacitating emotion. A womaniser is ipso facto incapable of any constructive activity. When carnal love becomes uncontrollable the person either murders somebody or commits suicide. He cannot raise a Tajmahal. A building like the Taj invariably originates in an ennobling emotion like devotion to God, to one's mother and mother country or power and glory.
87. Early in the year 1973, chance digging in the garden in front of the Taj revealed another set of fountains about six feet below the present fountains. This proved two things. Firstly, the subterranean fountains were there before Shahjahan laid the surface fountains. And secondly that those fountains are aligned to the Taj that edifice too is of pre Shahjahan origin. Apparently the garden and its fountains had sunk from annual monsoon flooding and lack of maintenance for centuries during the Islamic rule.
89. The stately rooms on the upper floor of the Tajmahal have been striped of their marble mosaic by Shahjahan to obtain matching marble for raising fake tomb stones inside the Taj premises at several places. Contrasting with the rich finished marble ground floor rooms the striping of the marble mosaic covering the lower half of the walls and flooring of the upper storey have given those rooms a naked, robbed look. Since no visitors are allowed entry to the upper storey this despoilation by Shahjahan has remained a well guarded secret. There is no reason why Shahjahan's loot of the upper floor marble should continue to be hidden from the public even after 200 years of termination of Moghul rule.
90. Bernier, the French traveller has recorded that no non muslim was allowed entry into the secret nether chambers of the Taj because there are some dazzling fixtures there. Had those been installed by Shahjahan they should have been shown the public as a matter of pride. But since it was commandeered Hindu wealth which Shahjahan wanted to remove to his treasury, he didn't want the public to know about it.
91. The approach to Taj is dotted with hillocks raised with earth dugout from foundation trenches. The hillocks served as outer defences of the Taj building complex. Raising such hillocks from foundation earth, is a common Hindu device of hoary origin. Nearby Bharatpur provides a graphic parallel.
Peter Mundy has recorded that Shahjahan employed thousands of labourers to level some of those hillocks. This is a graphic proof of the Tajmahal existing before Shahjahan.
93. At the backside of the river bank is a Hindu crematorium, several palaces, Shiva temples and bathings of ancient origin. Had Shahjahan built the Tajmahal, he would have destroyed the Hindu features.
94. The story that Shahjahan wanted to build a Black marble Taj across the river, is another motivated myth. The ruins dotting the other side of the river are those of Hindu structures demolished during muslim invasions and not the plinth of another Tajmahal. Shahjahan who did not even build the white Tajmahal would hardly ever think of building a black marble Taj. He was so miserly that he forced labourers to work gratis even in the superficial tampering neccesary to make a Hindu temple serve as a Muslim tomb.
95. The marble that Shahjahan used for grafting Koranic lettering in the Taj is of a pale white shade while the rest of the Taj is built of a marble with rich yellow tint. This disparity is proof of the Koranic extracts being a superimposition.
96. Though imaginative attempts have been made by some historians to foist some fictitious name on history as the designer of the Taj others more imaginative have credited Shajahan himself with superb architechtural proficiency and artistic talent which could easily conceive and plan the Taj even in acute bereavement. Such people betray gross ignorance of history in as much as Shajahan was a cruel tyrant ,a great womaniser and a drug and drink addict.
97. Fanciful accounts about Shahjahan commisioning the Taj are all confused. Some asserted that Shahjahan ordered building drawing from all over the world and chose one from among them. Others assert that a man at hand was ordered to design a mausoleum and his design was approved. Had any of those versions been true Shahjahan's court papers should have had thousands of drawings concerning the Taj. But there is not even a single drawing. This is yet another clinching proof that Shahjahan did not commision the Taj.
98. The Tajmahal is surrounded by huge mansions which indicate that several battles have been waged around the Taj several times.
99. At the south east corner of the Taj is an ancient royal cattle house. Cows attached to the Tejomahalay temple used to reared there. A cowshed is an incongruity in an Islamic tomb.
100. Over the western flank of the Taj are several stately red stone annexes. These are superflous for a mausoleum.
101. The entire Taj complex comprises of 400 to 500 rooms. Residential accomodation on such a stupendous scale is unthinkable in a mausoleum.
102. The neighbouring Tajganj township's massive protective wall also encloses the Tajmahal temple palace complex. This is a clear indication that the Tejomahalay temple palace was part and parcel of the township. A street of that township leads straight into the Tajmahal. The Tajganj gate is aligned in a perfect straight line to the octagonal red stone garden gate and the stately entrance arch of the Tajmahal. The Tajganj gate besides being central to the Taj temple complex, is also put on a pedestal. The western gate by which the visitors enter the Taj complex is a camparatively minor gateway. It has become the entry gate for most visitors today because the railway station and the bus station are on that side.
103. The Tajmahal has pleasure pavilions which a tomb would never have.
104. A tiny mirror glass in a gallery of the Red Fort in Agra reflects the Taj mahal. Shahjahan is said to have spent his last eight years of life as a prisoner in that gallery peering at the reflected Tajmahal and sighing in the name of Mumtaz. This myth is a blend of many falsehoods. Firstly,old Shajahan was held prisoner by his son Aurangzeb in the basement storey in the Fort and not in an open,fashionable upper storey. Secondly, the glass piece was fixed in the 1930's by Insha Allah Khan, a peon of the archaelogy dept.just to illustrate to the visitors how in ancient times the entire apartment used to scintillate with tiny mirror pieces reflecting the Tejomahalay temple a thousand fold. Thirdly, a old decrepit Shahjahan with pain in his joints and cataract in his eyes, would not spend his day craning his neck at an awkward angle to peer into a tiny glass piece with bedimmed eyesight when he could as well his face around and have full,direct view of the Tjamahal itself. But the general public is so gullible as to gulp all such prattle of wily, unscrupulous guides.
105. That the Tajmahal dome has hundreds of iron rings sticking out of its exterior is a feature rarely noticed. These are made to hold Hindu earthen oil lamps for temple illumination.
106. Those putting implicit faith in Shahjahan authorship of the Taj have been imagining Shahjahan-Mumtaz to be a soft hearted romantic pair like Romeo and Juliet. But contemporary accounts speak of Shahjahan as a hard hearted ruler who was constantly egged on to acts of tyranny and cruelty, by Mumtaz.
107. School and College history carry the myth that Shahjahan reign was a golden period in which there was peace and plenty and that Shahjahan commisioned many buildings and patronized literature. This is pure fabrication. Shahjahan did not commision even a single building as we have illustrated by a detailed analysis of the Tajmahal legend. Shahjahn had to enrage in 48 military campaigns during a reign of nearly 30 years which proves that his was not a era of peace and plenty.
108. The interior of the dome rising over Mumtaz's centotaph has a representation of Sun and cobras drawn in gold. Hindu warriors trace their origin to the Sun. For an Islamic mausoleum the Sun is redundant. Cobras are always associated with Lord Shiva.
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FORGED DOCUMENTS
109. The Muslim caretakers of the tomb in the Tajmahal used to possess a document which they styled as "Tarikh-i-Tajmahal". Historian H.G. Keene has branded it as `a document of doubtful authenticity'. Keene was uncannily right since we have seen that Shahjahan not being the creator of the Tajmahal any document which credits Shahjahn with the Tajmahal, must be an outright forgery. Even that forged document is reported to have been smuggled out of Pakistan. Besides such forged documents there are whole chronicles on the Taj which are pure concoctions.
110. There is lot of sophistry and casuistry or atleast confused thinking associated with the Taj even in the minds of proffesional historians, archaelogists and architects. At the outset they assert that the Taj is entirely Muslim in design. But when it is pointed out that its lotus capped dome and the four corner pillars etc. are all entirely Hindu those worthies shift ground and argue that that was probably because the workmen were Hindu and were to introduce their own patterns. Both these arguments are wrong because Muslim accounts claim the designers to be Muslim,and the workers invariably carry out the employer's dictates.
The Taj is only a typical illustration of how all historic buildings and townships from Kashmir to Cape Comorin though of Hindu origin have been ascribed to this or that Muslim ruler or courtier.
It is hoped that people the world over who study Indian history will awaken to this new finding and revise their erstwhile beliefs.
Those interested in an indepth study of the above and many other revolutionary rebuttals may read this author's other research books.
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Tajmahal The True Story authored by Shri P.N. Oak can be ordered from :
A. Ghosh Publisher, 5720 W. Little York # 216, Houston, Texas 77091
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