Why do people say 'Bless you', when you sneeze?

Have heard a lot of reasons. Here are a few of my favorite ones -

1. When you sneeze, you heart temporally stops. . . It's an insignificant amount of time that your heart stops, but most consider when your heart stops that you've temporarily died. Therefore, it is polite to "Bless" someone when they have died.

2. Out of compassion for the sneezer and to wish him / her not to be infected with any illness

3. The phrase is used when someone sneezes, since in many cultures it is believed that the soul leaves the body during a sneeze, and God is called on to protect the sneezer from evil spirits at such a vulnerable time.

4. A sneeze is one of the devil's many evil deeds. His goal is to make us sneeze and spread disease or to sneeze while our neck is turned so we break our heads off. I've broken 2 ribs sneezing before. So yea, GOD BLESS YOU the devil is poking you!!

5. There is also a theory that during the Dark and Middle Ages, a violent sneeze was often a precursor of dreaded diseases such as the plague. Whenever someone sneezed, those closest to him or her issued an immediate "Bless you" to ward off the evil forces which led to disease and suffering.

New prepaid phone

Shuchi has her own cell phone now! And what's more, she was supposed to get 450 minutes for her plan, but somehow their system messed up (in other words did a wonderful job) and gave her 870 minutes and a validity of more than 14 months :-). TracFone guys...you are the best :-)

Going to NY again this weekend. traveling to NY always seems so hectic... probably because its so close yet it takes so much time to get there. Well at least on the maps its very close!

Both Noida and Jaipur are getting houses renovated, whitewashed and cleaned up. Preparing for their darling Shuchi to land?

Does this qualify as a conspiracy?

Bush promised to push India's case at the Nuclear Committee and India promised to take delayed steps to control Rupee depreciation.
You scratch my back...i scratch yours.

Oil is falling below $100 per barrel not because Ike did not do the damage as expected, but because speculators at investment banks like Bear Sterns and Lehman are either going bankrupt or have no spare money to play with anymore!

250GB hosting free for life!

So here's a great deal - Get 250 GB of online hosting free for life! Click on this link filesavr.com to get the offer.

If you've been following the Hurricanes in US, this site will be of interest to you - StormPulse.com. It tracks all current and past Hurricanes, their trajectories and intensities over time. Really cool.

Life going fine.
Most recent excitement - Akshia's apartment fire! Yeah, a certain portion of his apartment caught fire, and I got to make my 2nd 911 call (yippee!). The firemen were there in a jiffy, even in the highly crowded NewPort area...that was amazing. Thanks to our neighbors (who had a fire extinguisher) we were able to put off the fire before it did any major harm! Although, the pasta inside the oven that caught fire...did not survive :p

Working hard for another attempt at the elusive MBA. I think, inside my head I have my goals sorted out. Just need to write it all down and fit into 400 words now!

Shuchi has started volunteering. She might join the board of directors of the Shoreline Lliteracy Volunteers committee!