Recently I attended a talk about whether death is inevitable now i have some rather strong feelings on death. However that is a matter for a different day. But even to me, stalling death seemed unreal, something out of Harry Potter, Isaac Asimov. Now obviously the first thing to do when someone is spouting such ridiculous theories is to get their head checked. However,imagine my surprise when this erstwhile prophet had been a professor at Cambridge. So this made me think that fair enough he must have some brains then. One does not become a Cambridge professor, if one does not have brains.

Anyway, further to the discussion, it actually made me queasy, this didn't seem like some sort of wonderful panacea. The whole process felt like pulling teeth. Even without the theological implications, the technical implications, and thet whole mess of crap that came along with it. The whole idea just felt plain wrong, a couple of my friends felt the exact same way. The consensus seem to be 'when my time is up, id like to go peacefully'. However, as the man himself said, before the Wright Brothers took off from Kitty Hawk that fateful day, man made flight was thought impossible. I sit here on the picadilly line, typing this out on my phone, I never thought even 5 years ago that this would happen.

But then again, I wonder when people started speculating about this things, did those things ever feel fundamentally wrong. From my discussions with other people, I don't seem to be alone this, will this technology ever come to pass, and if it does which route will it take, the Internet, Abortion or GM food. Internet, Abortion or GM food.

Gaurav Nayak

A confession of sorts...

I would describe myself as quite a religious person, I definitely believe that God exists, and it’s something that I have dedicated time and thought too.

But recently, I had been caught in a bit of religious turmoil; I was facing one of the trickiest issues in my life, the issue of converting. Now, you always hear of people converting to Islam, Christianity, or Judaism to marry someone or the other. But, somehow I don’t get the feeling, that those people are hard core believers, who would love to shout out the Glory of God to passers-by, as I would like to, if I thought it made a difference, but anyway I digress. Those of you know me quite well, will know I’ve got a lot of Christian friends, well I guess, it’s more like one prominent one, and several acquaintances who I guess I could call friends. Anyway, the issue of our different religions had always been a subtle issue, but nothing really had ever come from it.

Now it just so happens, that at a particular Christian event that I had gone to, there were several attractive girls there, I got to talking, and I guess as time passed, and I don’t know, if we grew closer, or not, but started talking to each other a bit more frequently. The issue of ‘conversion’ cropped up again; since I had heard Christian girls only go out with Christian guys, so it was almost like if I converted, I had a chance.

To tell you the truth, the thing that bothered me the most, was that because of this, I started considering conversion more and more, than I had when my friend had been trying to convince me. I really don’t think, it’s something that I wanted to face, that I could be this shallow in my belief, or in my personality that I would even consider changing my religion over something as trivial as a girl. I even tried thinking of new ways of trying to align my old belief structure, and the new one, and trying to make them combine in some way, so that I wouldn’t feel like I was abandoning anything.

I really don’t know, but a great thing happened on my train ride back home, I started talking to this guy, who was a Zoroastrian, and his belief was quite similar to mine. Literally, all roads lead to God, let everyone do what they want, you believe in what you believe, and I felt really good, I must say. I really don’t know why I had been torturing myself over this stuff. But, moreover I looked back on all of this with an objective eye, and I realized that I really didn’t want to convert; I wanted to get the fringe benefits, and try and not feel guilty of not actually believing. The very same girl actually said on the train “Yeah, you can fool all of us, but you can’t fool God”. I remember, yeah but at least now, I get all the good stuff, but then I was just like, yeah, it’s true, I’m here, ready to give my beliefs, the thing that I believe has carried me through to where I am today for a chance with a girl.

So I sit here writing this down, not because I wanted expose myself bare on a public forum, but to lay my thoughts down, and remind myself that God, and religion is not something to just be toyed with for the fringe benefits, as well as for the obvious cathartic benefits. I also wanted to ask you guys who read this, (without me looking over your shoulder), what’s your take on the situation, is it really abhorrent to you, as is slowly become apparent to me. Or could you understand where I’m coming from.

Gaurav (at peace now)