Indian Hockey and the Lost Glory !!!

Now there is huge hue & cry on all media on the state of affairs in Indian Hockey.. Everyone is firing in all guns! Some even went upto say National Shame. Whom is the shame for? Players? Administrators? Media? All of us?

I belive each one of us is. Yes I understand that the playing team is responsible for defeat. But we are the ones responsible for that playing team. We are the ones who made a mess of the Hockey administration in India, selection process is a laughing stock in India. The media has always been treating hockey as a lesser popular game.True its not a crowd puller as Cricket, Tennis. Who made cricket & Tennis crowd pullers? Apart from some brilliants to likes of kapil, Gavaskar, Sachin, Saurav, Dravid & Dhoni, etc. It’s the media again.

Everyone sidelined Hockey yet none is bothered. but we want India to win. We do all politics & favoritism, regionism when we choose talent. Amidst all this nonsense we get talents to the likes of Dhanraj, Dileep Tirkey, Prabjoth and some more. But then selectors are never at peace. Most players have constant fear of being thrown out team.

The fate of coaches is left alone than spoken. The great IHF (Indian Hockey Federation ) feels even 12 months is too long a term. Ridiculous you may shout. But it is the fact. Coaches have been instated & fired at the whims & fancies of the board within matter of months. Yet none complained, questioned. But when failure is obvious we don’t spare blaming anyone. But it all ends at that. Tomorrow is the same again. We still have one dictator Mr.Gill at the helm of affairs who believes “Team has lost but not I" ( its his words, mind you) who refuses to give up and literally dictated hockey in India. None dares to question him. And remind you we are sport loving democratic country whose national game is hockey.

if we sit back think, india lost the advantage as and when the match was being played on astro-turf which was new to Indian. We were used to playing on ground while this artificail turf was unknown and speed conquered technique. Yet Indians didn’t budge and believed in not adopting. And here is the result. Not even qualifying to Olympics after 80+ years of Hockey and being invincible in the Hockey with 8 consecutive golds at Olympics! It’s too true to be believed!

Even today India is strong in technique while erstwhile world believes in strategy and speed. We dribble for hours while opponents score with a quick pass and penalty conversion! Is it a rocket science to learn these tactics? Not at all ( atleast thatz what i believe. Given the fact that we have plenty of players with technique, temprament and power and all the other things comes secondary which can be learnt easily). Having said that all we need now is commitment and will to do it. Why not hire some one who knows it all and coach the team? Someone who has the commitment to bring past glory that truely belongs to India! I am talking of an able coach ( be it the great Ric Charlesworth or whoever)

Some people blame cricket for Hockey's downfall. why blame another game. Give as much importance as cricket to hockey and I wouldn’t be surprised to see the same young brigade cheering Hockey as well. It’s all in the approach and way media is managed, a game is marketed to the audience. if you can market Hockey league the way ICL or IPL ( Both cricket) is marketed, then there is nothing like it.

Its all in the appraoch and management of the game. Beginnings are always tough and we may feel we are fighting a loosing battle. but i believe in the end Hockey emerges a winner and so shall we!

A planetary life or death struggle is unfolding

A brutal life or death struggle is taking place each day everywhere on this planet.

At times, it is invisible, as when a plant species, with its set of irreplaceable genes, disappears forever from an Amazon forest. Other times, it is painfully visible: a man chokes to death in a City subway, killed by a pollution-triggered asthma attack; the face of a City woman is disfigured by skin cancer, one of 200,000 such cases predicted to occur over the next decades by the thinning of the protective ozone layer around the Earth. turning into dust. One million species may be extinct by the year 2020 ; a cure for AIDS or cancer or heart attacks may be lost forever with their genes. Who Knows !!!

What is Knowledge Management? A definition & KM faq !!!

Knowledge is a tool to achieve strategic objectives of any organization.

Why we should manage our or organization's knowledge?

To identify or define knowledge management we must answer three questions.

1. What is the knowledge in the context of the organization?
2. What are the strategic objectives of the organization?
3. What is required to be done to facilitate learning, innovation and sharing to achieve the above objectives?

Any system, which can address all the above issues we can call it knowledge management. We can't create a platform to address the third question without knowing the strategic objectives of the organization. Similarly we must try to identify the knowledge of the organization and then design the tools to answer the points.

What is the knowledge in the context of the organization?

What knowledge today the organization has in terms of its tacit and explicit knowledge to perform its day today works? We may go for a knowledge audit to identify it. Here care is to be taken that eighty percent of the organization knowledge is tacit. A knowledge audit will identify the knowledge inventory of the organization and a knowledge map can be created. This would facilitate in identifying the future knowledge requirements of the organization to achieve its strategic objectives.

What are the strategic objectives of the organization?

Any knowledge Management system has to address the strategic objectives of the organization. Future knowledge requirements are to be planed to address those goals or objectives. The chief knowledge officer ( CKO ) and his / her team has to create or design tools or platforms to facilitate learning, innovation, sharing to achieve those strategic objectives. The simple question to ask is “What we want to be ( or achieve) in future? What knowledge is required to achieve that? How to acquire that knowledge?

What is required to be done to facilitate learning, innovation and sharing to achieve the above objectives?

What tool to design to create a platform where knowledge can be generated to achieve future objectives of the company. Here it is very common that we end of with a IT solution but any tool must address the above issues. Type of business process, people issue and other environment is to be considered while creating a
platform. Some standard tools like Community of practice (COP) can be deployed in a manufacturing company. COP does not require IT much unless it is a virtual community. IT plays and important role in creating virtual community where members are distributed geographically in a wide area.

Let us now define knowledge management.

Knowledge Management is a system to facilitate learning, innovation and sharing to achieve the strategic objectives of an organization.

Black and white

Shadows,
So dark,
So cold,
Sky so pale remembering better days,
Sun barly penatrating the cloud,
Barbed wire fences from indentations in my mind,
Thinking back to these bad,
Scary days,
Now so quiet and so serien,
Tears sting my eyes as I think back.

This beautiful sky

I am in love with the sky
I travel down this road of life
my head is toward heaven
My breath is stolen away
the diamonds in the sky reflect into the darknesses of my soul
my eyes open to the size of child's spirit
my memories run marathons
as they tingle to my very nerve ends
and I am home
I don't look at the sky enough anymore.

Deafening !!!

Deafening silence
send chills through my pale skin
the seasoned hands with which i write
tremble and shake as i write
are stilled when you walk in

wishing i could tell you
why i stain your shirt with my mascara'd tears
i have been torn by the deep blue night
consumed by the quiet of the deep blue night
nightmares of the broken mirrors

when the world is dark
my eyes are wide open and i can't hear
raging fear and frustration as blood drips from my ears
surreal pain envelopes me as blood drips from my ears
crimson trails of realized fears

in secret dreams
where the glass is shattered in my mind
is where i come from when i crumble like aged stone in your hands
is where i come from as i cry, as i bleed, as i beg
in your hands

SORRY MOM !!!

Someone else had wrote this somewhere.. but i think it holds good for me too...

Sorry I'm not good enough mom,
Sorry I don't make you happy
Sorry I'm not perfect mom,
And i don't do all the things you want.
Sorry I disapoint you mom I always try my best.
Sorry I make you sad sometimes mom
I try so hard to be good.
Sorry I make so many mistakes mom
But why can't you accept me for who I am !!

Summer In Disguise

As a child...
Remembering those warm summer days,
Waking up to a fresh scent in the air,
With sunlight shining on your face,
Knowing of the big day ahead of you,
Yet an even bigger life.
The refreshingness of the water lapping up against your skin,
With friends in your nearby pool,
The pool, with waters calm,
The direct opposite of life to come,
Life being one huge wave of emotions,
Which can crash down on you when least expected.
Playing games of trades, your annual trip to the beach,
Making summertime carefree and fun,
When you were little...carefree, joyful,
Sitting there...your feet buried within the scorching sand,
Mixing the sugar with your chilled tea,
Watching it disintegrate.
Which brings you back to life, the real world,
Where nothing's as it seems to be anymore.
You, your life, your focus...disintegrating,
Disappearing before your weary eyes.
Theres nothing you can do.
You're in too deep.
Sit back,
Watch your life crumble into nothing.

For the unborn child

your world of darkness
your world of dreams
protecting you
it's all you know

you know nothing of the world
that waits for you
where afflatus await
your song and dance

one magic day
you will find your way
as stars are flung afar
to your heavens
to your life

reflecting the sea
in newborn eyes
rose blushes
in innocent countenance
in all your innocence
you will be blessed

you will find your soul
set your spirit free
you will dance your tune
orchestrate your life
no-one decides which way you go
but you

I'm so confused !!!

Its like I'm going no where
everytime I think I've finally moved on
some song comes on or someone says something
and all my feelings and thoughts of you come
into place and I go back to everything we ever shared.
Though there are many good things that come
with that, there is also alot of pain and suffering.
I'm starting to think that I'll never move on
I've been in relationships after relationships
but everytime i compare the guy with you and
they just aren't good enough.
In my heart no one can amount to what you and I had.

Ippo naan yenna seyya - What am i supposed to do now ??

i took a trip to the hospital today
to see where that would put me
all i got from it was an experience
i didn't want to live
a bottle of pills
poped them all at once
then some alcohol to wash it all down
a life so messed up
a life so profound
i didn't want to live anymore
maybe i was being selfish and unkind
but the pain i was feeling hurt so badly inside
now my stomach hurts
my head is throbing and it won't stop
i feel so sick
i'm losing my breath
No one really cares that much
all my friends could give a shit
about where i've been or done
they don't seem to care to much
espically when i want to give up
sure they have been there time and again
but when i really needed them
they seemed to fanish and grow dim
my family was there for me everytime when i wanted to end my life
but they wouldn't understand
all the pain i've faught every single night
they don't know the tears i've cried when i'm all alone
what i feel inside
how i've grown so cold
how i've grown alone
they woulnd't understand
cuz they can't understand me
sure they know me, but it doesn't go that deep
all my relashionships seemed to fail
and my heart broke everytime
healed then shattered
seems like it never had an end
music was an escape from all the wild insanity
that drove me to my death
or my drugs.. just another escape
another way out
a place i could go and hide
when i didn't want to figure things out
it got so late some nights
when i would just crawl into a ball and cry
thinking, what am i living for at all
then your voice came to me
like it use to do at night
you use to sing me to sleep
tell me everything would be alright
but then i have to stop
and think really hard
cuz every since you left me
everything has been so hard
so difficult to cope with
to hard to just get by
cuz every since you died
my life has been empty and deprived
so what am i to do now?
just give up, and watch myself die
leave everything i once knew to wither and dry
or am i suppose to watch myself grow older
and try to be real strong
but see i've tried that
i've tried for so long
i just can't take it anymore
i just can't take the pain
but inside, i know i'll have to live another day
so what am i suppose to do now...?

Lyrics - stairway to heaven !!!

Its not one of my poems... its the lyrics of my famous song by Led Zepplin !!!

There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold
And she's buying a stairway to heaven.
When she gets there she knows, if the stores are all closed
With a word she can get what she came for.
Ooh, ooh, and she's buying a stairway to heaven.

There's a sign on the wall but she wants to be sure
'Cause you know sometimes words have two meanings.
In a tree by the brook, there's a songbird who sings,
Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven.
Ooh, it makes me wonder,
Ooh, it makes me wonder.

There's a feeling I get when I look to the west,
And my spirit is crying for leaving.
In my thoughts I have seen rings of smoke through the trees,
And the voices of those who standing looking.
Ooh, it makes me wonder,
Ooh, it really makes me wonder.

And it's whispered that soon if we all call the tune
Then the piper will lead us to reason.
And a new day will dawn for those who stand long
And the forests will echo with laughter.

If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, don't be alarmed now,
It's just a spring clean for the May queen.
Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run
There's still time to change the road you're on.
And it makes me wonder.

Your head is humming and it won't go, in case you don't know,
The piper's calling you to join him,
Dear lady, can you hear the wind blow, and did you know
Your stairway lies on the whispering wind.

And as we wind on down the road
Our shadows taller than our soul.
There walks a lady we all know
Who shines white light and wants to show
How everything still turns to gold.
And if you listen very hard
The tune will come to you at last.
When all are one and one is all
To be a rock and not to roll.

And she's buying a stairway to heaven.

Feeling happy - Musings !!!

What does it take to make anyone feel happy ???

Not loads of money, or not lots of great things, and certainly not the pleasures we kneel for. Its more than often just small simple things that make you happy

I feel very happy and my face automatically lights up

When I see a small kid - color, creed, caste, religion definetly no bar - when it smiles its innocent smile, the whole world turns to be very bright.
When I see a dog frolicking around
When I see on stage the coparticipants smile at one another sharing some private joke - it shows how much they are part of a team
When I see a flower opening up its petal
When I feel the rain falling down on me
When I feel the wind on my face
When I see a friend
When I see a good deed done by any one
Like this I can go on, it is not something is special about me, for every one all simple matters also make them feel happy, but they dont realise that, they think and feel that only big events or great things bring out happiness.

I am blessed tobe born as what I am. I am thankful to the Lord for giving me all things I want, wanted and may be wanting and not giving me those things that I dont deserve. yes at times, I have felt that God has let me down, when what I have prayed for hasnt been granted. But is only later that I realise that God has only taken care of me. I feel very special because I am beign taken care of in a very soft manner. Even in the worst times of my life, He has handled me a delicate flower, protecting me all the time, making life bearable or giving me the strength to bear the toughest challenge and come victorious out of that situation. I am truly grateful to him for always keeping me in his palm and taking care of me in a very special way.

A News article that disturbed me !!!

Few days ago in Economic Times News paper I read an article about AP govt annoucning a scheme for christians to go to Israel on Pilgrimage. This is to be modelled on the lines of Haj Pilgrimage to Mecca. Here I dont even want to go into whether every Christian in the country wants to go to Israel or not.

It is not per se the act that is causing me this anguish, but what the government is doing for one of the religions in the country. There are several religions in the country and if for each of them, the government is going to do a similar act like this, the only thing that will happen as soon as the new government is formed is to work on the strategy for conducting such tours to Kasi, Golden Temple, Budh Gaya, etc.

What is happening in our country? Is this the right way to do the governing? Instead of concentrating on the upliftment of the society, why are we going into their religious practices? Is this what is meant by Secular state of India. For me, my religion stops just outside the door of my house, beyond which I am just an Indian. Why cant the Governemnt do the same way.

Please, let the government see the future consequences of this kind of act and scrap this before it becomes an act of the State Government.

Just for this morning - A beautiful poem written by a father to his daughter

A beautiful poem written by a father to his daughter

I dont stand for the veracity of this poem which came as a part of the email that I receive everyday. But I felt touched the spirit of this poem and I am cut pasting it from the email body. I leave it to the readers choice to do what they want. (sorry I didnt do anything that the email wanted me to do it, as in this world "believing anything and everything" has become a casualty of our times. I also get different varieties of such mail. The last para lets you know the true intention of this blog psoting.

TO MY CHILD
Just for this morning, I am going to smile when I see your face and laugh when I feel like crying.
Just for this morning, I will let you choose what you want to wear,and smile and say how perfect it is.
Just for this morning, I am going to step over the laundry and pick you up and take you to the park to play.
Just for this morning, I will leave the dishes in the sink, and let you teach me how to put that puzzle of yours together.
Just for this afternoon, I will unplug the telephone and keep the computer off, and sit with you in the backyard and blow bubbles.
Just for this afternoon, I will not yell once, not even a tiny grumble when you scream and whine for the ice cream truck, and I will buy you one if he comes by.
Just for this afternoon, I won't worry about what you are going to be when you grow up, or second guess every decision I have made where you are concerned.
Just for this afternoon, I will let you help me bake cookies, and I won't stand over you trying to fix them.
Just for this afternoon, I will take us to McDonald's and buy us both a Happy Meal so you can have both toys.
Just for this evening, I will hold you in my arms and tell you a story about how you were born and how much I love you.
Just for this evening, I will let you splash in the tub and not get angry.
Just for this evening, I will let you stay up late while we sit on the porch and count all the stars.
Just for this evening, I will snuggle beside you for hours, and miss my favourite TV shows.
Just for this evening when I run my finger through your hair as you pray, I will simply be grateful that God has given me the greatest gift ever given.

I will think about the mothers and fathers who are searching for their missing children, the mothers and fathers who are visiting their children's graves instead of their bedrooms. The mothers and fathers who are in hospital rooms watching their children suffer senselessly and screaming inside that little body And when I kiss you goodnight I will hold you a little tighter, a little longer. It is then,that I will thank God for you, and ask him for nothing, except one more day.............

Hi! I am a 29-year-old father. My wife and I have had a wonderful life together. God blessed us with a child too. Our daughter's name is Rachel and she is 10 months old. Not long ago did the doctors detect brain cancer in her little body.There is only one way to save her and that is an operation. Sadly we don't have the money for the operation. AOL and Zdnet (in Zimbabwe )have agreed to help us.The only way they can help is this: If you send this email to other people<>AOL will track this email and count how many people get it. Every person that opens this email and sends it to at least 3 people will give us 32c. (in Zimbabwe dollars) Please help us.--HAMDEALI HATIM KANTHAWALACELL:- 9821040412TEL:- 23726856 / 23753137FAX:- 23778581

My opinion is that why should we wait for a tragedy to bring out our love and affection. Why cannot we pause in our life now and then and take a deep breath and enjoy our family. Lets all do it today itself so that our children get the best of us all the times

Knowledge equation - An article by APJ in his Billion Beats.

This is the article written by him in his february edition of Billion Beats, for those who haven't read any plz visit his website...

~~~~~~~~~~

I would like to share an inspirational call from Hazrat Mohammad Sahib's Hadeeth (peace be upon him).

"When you speak, speak thetruth.
Perform what you promise.
Discharge your trust.
Withhold your hand from striking and taking,
That which is unlawful and bad."
Let us follow this path
and lead a noble life.

I would like to recall a great clarion call of indomitable spirit, which was given by Sir C. V. Raman, at the age of 82. The message is still reverberating in my mind:

"I would like to tell the young men and women before me not to lose hope and courage. Success can only come to you by courageous devotion to the task lying in front of you. "I can assert without fear of contradiction that the quality of the Indian mind is equal to the quality of any Teutonic, Nordic or Anglo-Saxon mind. What we lack is perhaps courage, what we lack is perhaps driving force, which takes one anywhere. "We have, I think, developed an inferiority complex. I think what is needed in India today is the destruction of that defeatist spirit. We need a spirit of victory, a spirit that will carry us to our rightful place under the sun, a spirit, which will recognize that we, as inheritors of a proud civilization, are entitled to a rightful place on this planet. If that indomitable spirit were to arise, nothing can hold us from achieving our rightful destiny." Hence friends, knowledge is equal to the equation: Knowledge = creativity + righteousness + courage + indomitable spirit.

The combination of these characteristics can generate enlightened citizens.

And then there was nothing !!!

When I was in high school, what seems like 100 years ago, I wrote a short story called "And Then There Was Nothing..." The "moral" of this horrifying little gem was that those who strive for perfection end up with nothing at all. The plot involved two overachieving high school students trying to do well in Chemistry accidentally inventing something that blows up the world. As was my typical style at that time, the characters were based on students I knew and particularly despised for their perfectionist tendancies.

I was 14. Give me a break.

Anyway, for some reason I'm thinking about that story today.

Very Funny

Came through mail, a funny one but worth reading...

A little boy wanted Rs.50 very badly and prayed for weeks, but nothing happened. Finally he decided to write God a letter requesting the Rs.50.When the postal authorities received the letter addressed to God, INDIA, they decided to forward it to the President of the India as a joke. The President was so amused, that he instructed his secretary to send the little boy Rs.20. The President thought this would appear to be a lot of money to a little boy, and he did not want to spoil the kid. The little boy was delighted with Rs.20, and decided to write a thank you note to God, which read: "Dear God: Thank you very much for sending the money. However, I noticed that you sent it through the Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi, and those donkeys deducted Rs.30 in taxes.

101 Atheist Quotes

101 Atheist Quotes

The following 101 quotes are some that I have stumbled upon on the web, or seen in books / popular culture. Each quote was either written by an atheist, or is about atheism in general.

1. The fact that a believer is happier than a sceptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality. - George Bernard Shaw
2. Faith means not wanting to know what is true. - Friedrich Nietzsche
3. I believe in God, only I spell it Nature. - Frank Lloyd Wright
4. We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes. - Gene Roddenberry
5. To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today. - Isaac Asimov
6. A man is accepted into a church for what he believes and he is turned out for what he knows. - Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
7. Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful. - Seneca the Younger
8. Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned. - Anonymous
9. Not only is there no god, but try getting a plumber on weekends. - Woody Allen
10. If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God, and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul. - Isaac Asimov

11. Belief in the supernatural reflects a failure of the imagination. - Edward Abbey
12. With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg
13. I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of confidence. - Doug McLeod
14. The world holds two classes of men - intelligent men without religion, and religious men without intelligence. - Abu'l‐Ala al Ma'arri
15. Since the Bible and the church are obviously mistaken in telling us where we came from, how can we trust them to tell us where we are going? - Anonymous
16. I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires. - Susan B. Anthony
17. The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike. - Delos B. McKown
18. Two hands working can do more than a thousand clasped in prayer. - Anonymous
19. Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all of which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, even if religion vanished; but religious superstition dismounts all these and erects an absolute monarchy in the minds of men. - Francis Bacon
20. The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. - Richard Dawkins
21. A God who kept tinkering with the universe was absurd; a God who interfered with human freedom and creativity was tyrant. If God is seen as a self in a world of his own, an ego that relates to a thought, a cause separate from its effect. he becomes a being, not Being itself. An omnipotent, all‐knowing tyrant is not so different from earthly dictators who make everything and everybody mere cogs in the machine which they controlled. An atheism that rejects such a God is amply justified. - Karen Armstrong
22. It is not as in the Bible, that God created man in his own image. But, on the contrary, man created God in his own image. - Ludwig Feuerbach
23. People ask me what I think about that woman priest thing. What, a woman priest? Women priests. Great, great. Now there's priests of both sexes I don't listen to. - Bill Hicks
24. All the biblical miracles will at last disappear with the progress of science. - Matthew Arnold
25. Blind faith is an ironic gift to return to the Creator of human intelligence. - Anonymous
26. Be thankful that you have a life, and forsake your vain and presumptuous desire for a second one. - Richard Dawkins
27. What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof. - Christopher Hitchens
28. In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point. - Friedrich Nietzsche
29. It will yet be the proud boast of women that they never contributed a line to the Bible. - George W. Foote
30. On the first day, man created God. - Anonymous
31. I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours. - Stephen Roberts
32. You do not need the Bible to justify love, but no better tool has been invented to justify hate. - Richard A. Weatherwax
33. What's "God"? Well, you know, when you want something really bad and you close your eyes and you wish for it? God's the guy that ignores you. - Steve Buscemi (From the movie "The Island")
34. As far as I can tell from studying the scriptures, all you do in heaven is pretty much just sit around all day and praise the Lord. I don't know about you, but I think that after the first, oh, I don't know, 50,000,000 years of that I'd start to get a little bored. - Rick Reynolds
35. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime; give a man religion and he will die praying for a fish. - Anonymous
36. Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color. - Don Hirschberg
37. God should be executed for crimes against humanity. - Bryan Emmanuel Gutierrez
38. To say that atheism requires faith is as dim-witted as saying that disbelief in pixies or leprechauns takes faith. Even if Einstein himself told me there was an elf on my shoulder, I would still ask for proof and I wouldn't be wrong to ask. - Geoff Mather
39. I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it. - Mark Twain
40. Of all religions the Christian is without doubt the one which should inspire tolerance most, although up to now the Christians have been the most intolerant of all men. - Voltaire
41. And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence. - Bertrand Russell
42. Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? - Epicurus
43. I'm a polyatheist - there are many gods I don't believe in. - Dan Fouts
44. If it turns out that there is a God, I don't think that he's evil. But the worst that you can say about him is that basically he's an underachiever. - Woody Allen
45. A lie is a lie even if everyone believes it. The truth is the truth even if nobody believes it. - David Stevens
46. Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a God superior to themselves. Most Gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child. - Robert A Heinlein
47. I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing. - Douglas Adams
48. It ain't the parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand. - Mark Twain
49. He that will not reason is a bigot; he that cannot reason is a fool; he that dares not reason is a slave. - William Drummond
50. Remember, Jesus would rather constantly shame gays than let orphans have a family. - Steven Colbert
51. Which is it, is man one of God's blunders or is God one of man's? - Friedrich Nietzsche
52. Religion does three things quite effectively: Divides people, Controls people, Deludes people. - Carlespie Mary Alice McKinney
53. Religion has caused more misery to all of mankind in every stage of human history than any other single idea. - Anonymous
54. When a man is freed of religion, he has a better chance to live a normal and wholesome life. - Sigmund Freud
55. They felt that science would be corrosive to religious belief and they were worried about it. Damn it, I think they were right. It is corrosive to religious belief and it's a good thing. - Steven Weinberg
56. Take from the church the miraculous, the supernatural, the incomprehensible, the unreasonable, the impossible, the unknowable, the absurd, and nothing but a vacuum remains. - Robert G. Ingersoll
57. History teaches us that no other cause has brought more death than the word of god. - Giulian Buzila
58. Atheism is a non-prophet organization. - George Carlin
59. We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins
60. A believer states everything must have a creator but fail to say how he was created. - Anonymous
61. "There are no atheists in foxholes" isn't an argument against atheism, it's an argument against foxholes. - James Morrow
62. People will then often say, 'But surely it's better to remain an Agnostic just in case?' This, to me, suggests such a level of silliness and muddle that I usually edge out of the conversation rather than get sucked into it. (If it turns out that I've been wrong all along, and there is in fact a god, and if it further turned out that this kind of legalistic, cross-your-fingers-behind-your-back, Clintonian hair-splitting impressed him, then I think I would choose not to worship him anyway.) - Douglas Adams
63. Properly read, the bible is the most potent force for Atheism ever conceived. - Isaac Asimov
64. If all the Christians who have called other Christians "not really a Christian" were to vanish, there'd be no Christians left. - Anonymous
65. An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support. - John Buchan
66. Gods dont kill people. People with Gods kill people. - David Viaene
67. If God were suddenly condemned to live the life which He has inflicted upon men, He would kill Himself. - Alexandre Dumas
68. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make when in the presence of religious dogma. - Sam Harris
69. I don't believe in God because I don't believe in Mother Goose - Clarence Darrow
70. No philosophy, no religion, has ever brought so glad a message to the world as this good news of Atheism. - Annie Wood Besant
71. I refuse to believe in a god who is the primary cause of conflict in the world, preaches racism, sexism, homophobia, and ignorance, and then sends me to hell if I'm 'bad'. - Mike Fuhrman
72. Faith does not give you the answers, it just stops you asking the questions. - Frater Ravus
73. Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-o, and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have. - Penn Jillette
74. Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power but absolute power is corrupt only in the hands of the absolutely faithful. - Anonymous
75. Gods are fragile things; they may be killed by a whiff of science or a dose of common sense. - Chapman Cohen
76. The inspiration of the bible depends on the ignorance of the person who reads it. - Robert G. Ingersoll
77. When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion. - Robert Pirsig
78. I wonder who got the shit job of scouring the planet for the 15000 species of butterfly or the 8800 species of ant they eventually took on board Noah's Ark. But at least we got that magical rainbow for all their trouble. - Azura Skye
79. I have no need for religion, I have a conscience. - Anonymous
80. Man has always required an explanation for all of those things in the world he did not understand. If an explanation was not available, he created one. - Jim Crawford
81. I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world. - Richard Dawkins
82. What has been Christianity's fruits? Superstition, Bigotry and Persecution. - James Madison
83. The characters and events depicted in the damn bible are fictitious. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. - Penn and Teller
84. If god is the alpha and the omega. The begining and the end, knows what has passed and what is to come, like it states in the bible, why do people pray and think it will make any difference. - Mark Fairclough
85. The finality of death is the coldest truth one must face. Religion makes the perfect distraction. - Anonymous
86. Religion is the opiate of the masses. - Karl Marx
87. If God created the world, then who created god? and who created whoever created god? So somewhere along the line something had to just be there. So why can't we just skip the idea of god and go straight to earth? - Ryan Hanson
88. If we expect God to subscribe to one religion at the exclusion of all the others, then we should expect damnation as a matter of chance. This should give Christians pause when expounding their religious beliefs, but it does not. - Sam Harris
89. Atheists will celebrate life, while you're in church celebrating death. - Anonymous
90. Animals do not have gods, they are smarter than that. - Ronnie Snow
91. I have observed that the world has suffered far less from ignorance than from pretensions to knowledge. It is not skeptics or explorers but fanatics and ideologues who menace decency and progress. No agnostic ever burned anyone at the stake or tortured a pagan, a heretic, or an unbeliever. - Daniel Boorstin
92. I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious ideas of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God. So far as religion of the day is concerned, it is a damned fake… Religion is all bunk. - Thomas Edison
93. Fundamentalism, of any type, due to its prerequisite lack of intelligent thought, could prove to be the worst weapon of mass destruction, of all. - David J. Constable
94. To really be free, You need to be free in the mind. - Alexander Loutsis
95. Most religions prophecy the end of the world and then consistently work together to ensure that these prophecies come true. - Anonymous
96. Jesus hardly made the greatest sacrifice. He knew he would be resurrected anyway. - Anonymous
97. Religion is like a virus that affects the behaviour of its host in such a way as to propagate itself further. - Jack Pritchard
98. Religions are like pills, which must be swallowed whole without chewing. - Thomas Hobbs
99. Today's religion will be the future's mythology. Both believed at one time by many; but proved wrong by the clever. - Steven Crocker
100. The Bible - A Fairytale book of rules brainwashing millions. Obliviously used to help create war, kill, hate, judge and discriminate. - Anonymous
101. Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too? - Douglas Adams

Please feel free to comment on these quotes, and inform me of the authors of any I have misquoted or marked as "Anonymous". There are so many sources for these quotes it's hard to keep track of who really said what!

Subramania Bharati - The jewel of stars.

I was influenced by poet Percy Bysshe Shelley.
This is how he sang of Mother Bharat at the dawn of the independence movement: "She has thirty crores of faces, but her heart is one; she speaks eighteen languages, yet her mind is one"; he is considered to be the father of modern style in Tamil literature so much so that creative writing in Tamil during the last seven decades owes its existence to his revolutionary style of transforming spoken rhythms to a written format; he was one of the foremost poets to compose and sing songs on India as one entity; his powerful prose and poetry emphasized the urgent need for national integration and shun parochial mentality; he envisioned a glorious future for India, a nation united on the common grounds of shared culture and history; and his vision marks the dawn of India's national unity movement during [the] freedom struggle, and was aptly referred to as the national poet - Subramanya Bharati (1882-1921).

The jewel of stars.
Moonlight, the stars and the wind,

By placing them in front

And drinking the honey thereof-

A poetic frenzy seizes us;

That atomic thing called Mind-

We shall let it roam free.

Should one wonder at the bee

that sings While imbedded in a tasty fruit?

Oh, Mind! Go hence to join The jewel of stars.