Jackfruit Talks

To Let Go

2012-01-18T03:12:00.000+05:30

Few weeks back over a lazy weekend we watched two beautifulmovies. Adaminde makan Abu(AMA) and Pranayam. Both were sad but stillfeel-good movies, oozing with goodness and love. Both have sober theme. The twomovies are about people in difficult situation, but does not go over board withsentiments. In spite of the inherent situational and natural tragedy it highlightsthe goodness and hope in human mind.

I generally do not like or empathize with most of the tearjerk movies that try milk tragedies (like Akashadooth).But then there are others like AMA and Pranayam that I have enjoyed in spite ofall the tears and difficulties depicted. Few I can think of now are Koshish,kaazcha,TaareZameen Par and few English movies like one flew over the cuckoo’s nest, rain man etc.

But these movies get me thinking on how people handle situations thatare really out of control. Have you ever felt helpless in front of life’snatural tragedies? Where you fight with all might and still fail or even worsewhen you know you will fail and even worse when you know you cannot even fight.Every person has his or her on way of handling these impossible situations. Iwould call it the “on-edge reaction”. Some choose self destructive on-edgereaction, where as other may have an escapist strategy. Few others may gospiritual.

My on-edge reaction is based on my belief that a one’s life hasmultiple parallel tracks or roles. Broadly classified as professional, family,social and spiritual. And each of these broad tracks has narrower sub tracks.So when I hit an absolute dead end at one or more tracks. I just let it go. Andcompensate by traversing other tracks on full speed. The progress on otherfacets brings some positive energy to life. And the helpless situation eitherwithers away with time or shows me a way to fight back or worst case I get usedto it or it becomes insignificant in a bigger picture.

So I say, when things are really out ofcontrol just take a deep breath and let go

How green is clean

2011-11-14T22:57:00.003+05:30

Saw a paper napkin advertisement on TV. One guy uses his cloth napkin to dust something, and our hero explains he may later use the same cloth napkin to wipe his face and explains the virtue of using a paper napkin instead of the cloth one he is using. Well no doubt use and throw paper napkins are more hygienic than cloth but are they green enough. Every time I have travelled out to US, I have noticed the almost all toilets have paper towels for sure and I confess I love then. Paper napkins are used quite lavishly. Even Indian cities are catching up to this wasteful but convenient trend.

Similarly hand wash advertisements show kids washing hand in running water for couple of minutes to clean off all the germs. It reminds me of my dad who used to suggest using mug of take water for washing and shaving, so that water is not wasted.

Parents today are paranoid about keeping their kids clean and healthy. But there is increasing number of experts who suggest that it is our preoccupation with cleanliness which is weakening our body’s inherent defenses. This is causing increasing allergies and asthma (One such article here).

Cleanliness is overrated. Get Dirty Save Earth.

Art called food

2011-07-06T21:50:00.002+05:30

This post originated from a discussion over coffee with an artist friend. Basically it was on how can a simple thing like coffee be so costly?

That made me think, is not food an amazing art? Quite a complex one at that. After all it takes more than one sense organ to admire food. Good food should not just taste good, it should smell good, look good and feel good too.

Not just the food, the ambience too adds to the taste of the food. An amazing coffee would not taste so good if you at a stinking place. The amount of science, maths, experience, skill and patience that goes into any plate of food makes it great. Food is an art which can adds flavor to any activity that we couple with it. Say listening to good music or even a good movie goes so well with food, each complementing the other. Above all food have memories. How many times have you taken a mouth full of food and then got drowned in countless memories associated with it?

Like any other art not everyone appreciate the same food, and unless you have a taste, eye, nose and touch for it you cannot differentiate Rs. 5 coffee from Rs 50 coffee.

I confess I not just love eating, but also love reading and watching food.

Its not that bad

2011-06-24T22:27:00.004+05:30

It is not all negative about corruption, it is an indicator of a healthy democracy after all.

I came through a small extract from a talk by Noam Chomsky on corruption, it was quite an interesting thought.

“ -- Corruption is a very positive sign of government. You should always be in favor of corruption. If people are interested in enriching themselves or in sex or something like that, then they are not interested in power. And the most dangerous thing is the guys that want power.

Furthermore, corruption has a way of being exposed for quite simple reasons. When people are corrupt, they are usually robbing other rich people. Therefore they are going to block people and when corruption gets exposed it weakens power. And so that's one of the ways you can defend yourself-- ”

On the same note it is interesting to see government's fight against the “crusaders against corruption”. Success is evident from the amount of distrust people have against Baba Ramdev’s protest. Otherwise does Baba Ramdev’s religion or economic status matter? And how does his religion or money stop him raising his voice against black money. Or even if he is a proxy for BJP does that make his crusade bad? After all its duty of a responsible opposition party to highlight the shortcoming of a government.

Liked this (four-tips-to-end-corruption-in-india) article with some nice thoughs on corruptoin

Sensitivities of an Insensitive nation

2011-04-23T07:18:00.004+05:30

It is heartening and frightening to see Anna Hazare and a lot of people supporting him taking to street for a crusade against corruption.

It is heartening to see that we insensitive Indians are so sensitive about corruption and want to do something about it. Some day when Gandhi moved on to sathyagraha many would have wondered what a single man can do. But the millions of people who were moved by him made the change possible. Who knows if Anna Hazare too inspires a million? I am sure many would have argued what Gandhi did was illegal and blackmail.

It is frightening to see a whole lot of people supporting a cause they do not really understand and care for. Once you have thrown away your dress, it is a disaster if you do not have a new one to wear.

But I personally feel it’s a change of attitude that is required the most. There are two instances that were etched into my mind. One was around 12th standard. I was introduced to a relative saying “he works in so and so office, he need not even ask for bribe, it reaches his house” and that person stood there nodding his affirmation. The second was a discussion among elders in my house about a guy who was suspended for taking bribe. An uncle explained “Poor guy his house construction is in progress, kaashinu aavisham kaanum (would be in need for money)”.
Also reminds me of a much successful Malayalam movie, Traffic. In the movie a traffic constable is suspended for taking bribe. And in the end they show that his sister needed money, it was for her that he took the money, hinting at justifying it.
I remember my mother telling me not to take any other persons pencil/rubber when she send me to nursery school, I remember her teaching me not to steal etc. But I don’t think she ever told me not to take a bribe (However unlikely, if my mother reads this post some day and feels that she told me that, I will let you guys know :)).

Every time we break some traffic rule, don’t we invariably try to offer half the fine amount to the cop who stopped us?

I would say in true malayali style. Till we are like this, our country too will be like this only

Democratic Kingdom of India

2011-04-10T21:46:00.004+05:30

Election season in kerala, TamilNadu and few other states so there is a lot of politics in air. Makes me wonder how much of a democracy India is.

1. In a kingdom King rules over the state. His family is actively involved in governance. After the kings time his kids take over. At times kids fight it out among them to decide the heir.

In Indian democracy many states are controlled by one powerful family or the other, there are dynasties in center too

2. In Kingdom performers perform in front of the kings and when happy with their performance, the king spontaneously and impulsively declares a reward. Ofcourse bills are paid by the Tax paid by peoples.

In Indian democracy watch out for all state CMs declare lavish gifts for the world cup winning Cricket team. I always wish they were equally spontaneous in helping out poor people in their states. But then only relief is the hope that the CMs are equally insincere to the cricketers. I am sure the rich Indian cricketers are not waiting for the gifts though

3. In kingdom state poets write songs in praise of the King.

In India news channels are the greatest spokes persons of various leaders. Often owned by the politicians themselves, they are strongly support their patrons. In Indian democracy there are quite a few poets write in praise of politicians too

4. In kingdom the kings pictures/statues are placed predominantly across the kingdom so the history should not miss them and their statues should remind every coming generations to be thankful and support the kings heirs

In India every party when in power goes on an overdrive to install statues of their past, at times even present glorious leaders. lest we forget. I feel better about hospital/school build and named after leaders than having status. With the condition of roads in India, I can understand if they are reluctant about naming roads after them.

Hoping the best for India.

Best friend’s best friend

2011-03-12T11:35:00.010+05:30

Preface: Unlike the previous love story, this is in my regular style so read at your own risk.

Her father always wanted a girl child. With 2 boys before her, she heard from her mother that he fasted for 41 days and went to Shabarimala to pray for a girl child the year she was born. It was her father who named her Indira. She was named after late Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Like Indira Gandhi her father wished her to be famous, intelligent, brave and able. Her father treated her at par with his boys, if not better. So when she completed 10th standard she was sure she was headed to the popular boarding school, away from home. The school was popular for bagging most of the top 100 ranks in Kerala engineering and medical entrance exam.

The first experience away from home was tougher than what she had expected. At hostel she missed her mother to wake her up in the morning. There was no tooth brush with paste, hot water and warm towel ready, nor was it a sparkling clean bathroom. No one asked her what she would like to have for breakfast and it was a 5 minutes walk to hostel mess. She had to manage laundry, essential shopping and house keeping on her own. There were no protective brothers or familiar friends.

Mridula was her room mate, the only kid for her NRI parents. She was in Dubai with her parents till 10th standard. She too was staying away from home for the first time. Both of them became great friends, it was just a matter of hours. Other than their frameless spectacles and Timex watches they had their love for jackfruit chips, gossips, movies, Prithviraj (Malayalam movie actor) and boys in common. Within weeks they were fondly called Siamese Irattakal(twins) in their class and they never missed sharing all their unimportant important things.

There is something about best friends they make us feel surrounded with a crowd of loving people. Getting up in the morning and getting ready was less tiresome with Mridula yapping endlessly about school (previous and present), her plans, suggestions, movies, food etc. They realized food tasted better with Mridula talking about her Dubai experiences at KFC, Pizza corner, Starbucks, TGIF etc. They talked endlessly on how stupid Annie looked with all the makeup on or how invisible after sunset Swetha should have been named before she was born. After classes, in between assignment and studies they talked about anything and everything under the sun. Late nights were for discussions, from biology text to Howard Roark to Mr. Knightley. Every Sunday Mridula’s uncle and her grandparents would visit her, replenishing their stock of chips, biscuit and Halwa.

That year her parents were visiting Kerala during Christmas Vacation. And they bought her a Nokia express music mobile phone and a post paid connection. Phone number XXX6743852, was etched in Indira’s mind even before, it got saved in here dad’s mobile. She was excited. Her dad had not allowed her to get a mobile phone, but now her roommate had one. Now her parents did not have to call the common hostel landline to contact her. Now her parents did not have to try for hours before they got the line free. She did not have to dress up and rush to the phone in the common room when someone informed her that she had a phone call from home. She too was going to be connected to her class friends all the time. Then there was the camera, the mp3 player and the Radio Mango FM to entertain both of them.

Back after Christmas the mobile phone did bring more changes than expected. Every morning started with Mridula’s mothers wake up call. She would put on her hands free head set and her mother gave her instructions for the day, as she brushed her teeth. After classes between study breaks she would get calls from dad, mom, cousins, uncles, aunts and grand parents. Indra’s parents soon realized it was easier to get the common landline free, than to get her roommate’s phone free. Mridula would be furiously texting as they studied. Only discussions were about assignments, that too often monosyllables. Indra would wait for Mridula to be off the phone to go for breakfast or dinner.
“edi Maaye 9 mani aayi, ippol poyillengil rathri pattiniya … najan oru 5 minuteil vilikam” So the meals too became a hurried affair. There was no more incessant chatter to go with beans thoran.

Late nights they did not discussed why Thomas hardy’s Giles Winterborne was more viable in present day India. Late nights were for her friends from Dubai. Indira came to know that Mridula had a lot of friends. Minu, Jayesh, Moris, Jomol, Laya, Rijesh, Jayanth, Anu, Salim, Tina, Noyel and many more would call between unending SMSs. Indra would spend more and more time with books, as her best friend paced around the room talking to her phone.
Every unimportant important thing was shared with the phone even before they were shared with Indra or often not shared with Indra. Her roommate celebrated, mourned, laughed and cried with the phone. There was so much of fun, friendship, laughter and joy in the room, but Indra felt lonely. She was alone in a crowd.

They still ate, studied and lived together but still the magic that existed couple of months back was missing. She realized her best friend had a new best friend.

P.S. This story was written some time back. And is related to a very old blog (this blog: Connectivity) :)

Are you a hacker?

2011-03-10T22:26:00.005+05:30

I wish this quote is terribly wrong
“If you are a genius you should have proved it to the world by 30”

Recently read a collection of questions to ask an entrepreneur, to judge how successful she/he would be. One of the questions that I liked was

Q: Quote an instance when you have hacked any system?

Hacking need not be breaking in into someone’s mail account and system need not be a computer. Basically it can be any instance where you found the normal functioning is inefficient, and came up with alternate way. It needs to be somewhat ethical (bribing, cybercrime, etc to be excluded, though I agree many criminals are genius). For example found an efficient new way of doing something or found undocumented/unintentional functionality in a tool/software or used a feature that is for a certain purpose for entirely different purpose, etc.

I feel as students of science/technology we should all ask ourselves this question to judge how passionate we are about technology. Could be a nice yardstick

Happy New Year

2011-01-01T09:16:00.003+05:30

Just another Saturday Morning. But the date makes it special. A date that is just a reference to a day on calender system, nothing really changes as an year ends and a new one starts. We would not have celebrated a new year if we on an island with no calender or communication to remind us that some crazy notation of time is beginning.

But it the idea that its a new beginning, that makes people happy and celebrate. It is hope to leave the failures of previous year. It is the hope to start afresh and its all in the mind.

So for this year I wish you all, that you enjoy the beginning everyday and celebrate a New Day Every Day.
I wish that you leave your forts and enjoy the fun that comes your way.

Stressed out by lack of stress!

2010-11-22T23:55:00.005+05:30

Do you feel more stressed when you are not at all in stress and less stressed when stressed out? Do you feel stressed out by lack of stress? Do you feel stressed that everyone around you are so stressed out and so worked up that you suddenly feel embarrassed about being not in stress? Do you make more use of an hour break you get between the two design reviews than the 24 hours you get on an off day?

Probably those who have some pressure at work (at least in moderation) have greater sense of accomplishment and greater work satisfaction than people who have lesser work pressure.

Ending with a thought from the black comedy movie “World’s Greatest Dad”

"I though the saddest thing in life was to be lonely, but I found that the saddest thing is to be in a crowd of people who make you feel lonely... "

The Talent Within

2010-01-28T22:23:00.003+05:30

Second of the article motivated more by 3 idiots/five point someone and I am not surprised. It is accepted since the movie/book is on my second most passionate topic education.

The easiest way for an average IQ guy with not much real talent to earn some good money and live an honest life is to study and study hard. You may not file 100 patents or invent a bulb, but in my mother’s classic words “Ration ari medikan oru vazhi kittum”(Will get a way to buy Rice from Govt. Ration store)

If you have Gautham Menon in you no Mechanical Engineering Degree from NIT Trichi can stop you from becoming an Ace director. This is my parent’s philosophy rather than my own original. It is probably the philosophy of most of the middle class parents in our country.

Every time I wanted to sleep that extra hour, every time I wanted to play that extra hour, every time I wanted to watch that movie the day before exams, my parents nagged me or often forced me to study. And I am sure they did not kill any budding Sachin Tendulkar or Gautham Menon.

Right from early school days teacher after teacher, book after book, friend after friend talked in length about that talent within each of us. For some time I too looked for it within me. At times I felt sad that I could not find that talent with in me. Around me I did see few people who were hugely talented. But then I do wonder is it necessary that we should have some big talent within?

This talk of everyone having some hidden talent and allowing that talent to come out etc is true for select few. But majority like me are born just normal. As a kid I did not have any original Ambition. Even today I feel that if allowed the choice to do what I love rest of my life, I would probably sleep to death. This late in life I am still searching for that hidden talent. So I am thankful to this world for making me what I am today.

Somehow I do not believe everyone is born with some talent, some talent that if understood would make you one in a million, rich and famous. I rather believe there can be average men/women, who shall lead average life, earn a decent living doing an honest days work where they may not excel but still do the best they can and live happy.

Anyone could be among those average and they need not be ashamed or unhappy about the missing talent that will make them great. Better be happy and content about being average than being unhappy and un-content searching for that missing talent

3 idiots & guru devo bhava

2010-01-10T21:43:00.007+05:30

This is not a review of the movie 3 idiots – I liked the movie a lot

This is not a comment on 3 Idiots and ragging controversy – hmmm… too much!!!

This is not a comment on Chetan Bhagat – 3 idiots team controversy (to add, I am on Chethan Bhagat’s side :D. There a bit too much Five point someone in 3 idiots to put his credit in the end credit roll, below all artists in a small, easy to not notice font. But I also mention that screenplay writer Abhijat Joshi did a couple of cool changes to save the movie from ending up being a documentary. And I am not referring to all the “original” jokes in the movie which even a canteen boy in every engineering college would have heard)

But Professor Viru Shastrabudhe of the movie got me thinking. This blog is more about arrogance with which Prof Virus announce to a student’s parents on phone that their son is not graduating this year. It is so typical of most engineering college.

Recently I had the good fortune of interacting with few teachers of a reputed private engineering college. And I should say the teachers were a bunch of arrogant people. The tutor (junior most) was arrogant, the professor was more arrogant and the department head was the most arrogant. I think teachers in the government college where I studied were angels when compared to them.

I was wondering what made teachers so rude. Then I heard these colleges are what are called deemed universities, especially the kind of ones mushrooming in all of south India. These colleges have huge funds and resources and are owned by wealthy and powerful, which is also why they easily get the deemed status. With deemed status comes opportunity to set industry standard syllabus, do international standard research, to impart international standard training, freedom to start classes on time, freedom to conduct exam on time, set relevant exam questions, correct exam papers in house without delay and a lot more. This is tried, tested and successful higher education model followed all over the developed world. But when this freedom is mixed with “greed for power” that we Indian’s have, it becomes dangerous. The typical faculty and management is interested is power that deemed status brings. “The Power to write the destiny of a student”

The faculty is not mature enough to handle all the power that comes into their hand. The power to set exam papers, correct them and give marks or grades is the most used feature here. Teachers openly blackmail students, force students to submission, demand respect, become arrogant and boss around kids. Students are literally afraid of opposing anything because in the end whether you walk out of the institution with a degree or not is entirely up to the professors. The students who meekly submit to all the arrogance and wag their tail to make professors happy are rewarded with good marks. The colleges also rig the exams to show the quality of education imparted as very high to aspiring engineering students and their parents. It has also started interesting classification of colleges in south, like some colleges are good for some particular religion and some are good for some particular caste and so on.

How to help this situation? I don’t know. But will for sure like to hear from you.

Probably

Mandatory specialized personality training and counseling for teachers

An audit process for education system and grading

Some central student’s grievances redressing system

College Politics … !!!! (Although I am not much for this, I remember a lot of Anti-Autonomy strikes and protests by left front students group in our college)

To end … a recent favorite song from 3 idiots

Lyricist: Swanand Kirkire did a rocking job here :D

Saari umar hum

Mar mar ke jee liye

Ek pal to ab humein

Jeene do Jeene do

Na na na….Na na na….Na na na….Na na nana na….

Give me some sunshine

Give me some rain

Give me another chance

I wanna grow up once again

..........

Bachpan to gaya

Jawani bhi gayi

Ek pal to ab humein

Jeene do jeene do

..........

Happy New Year

2010-01-03T18:55:00.002+05:30

Another year end and time for another appraisal.

This year end appraisal shows more changes on personal front than on professional. At office I got some free time this year to retrospect on my career. But I do confess the more I tried to put my thought in order, the more I got tangled in it. It felt like trying to put back a tangled mess of unwound audio cassette tape. So at least for now I have let myself go with the flow.

One of my tutors in engineering entrance coaching class used to give generous amount of philosophical tips along with his tips on solving mathematics problems. He used to say while praying you should only thank god for what he has already given, only thing you should ask for is good health for you and your family.

He used to say, everything else that you want, can be earned. He used to give some interesting advice every day. I could list out only few tips which were more unique

Eat curd and rice every night

Apply oil on your head everyday

And finally, secret of success according to him – Hardwork with Honesty and Dedication

So my wish for all of you on this new year day is

“Wish You a Healthy New Year”

A proposal - PART4

2009-10-22T12:38:00.007+05:30

Links – PART1; PART2; PART3

PART 4 - The Sunday (Last Part)

Next morning there was an uneasy silence between us. We were lost in our own thought. As we reached the Koramangala Sukh Sagar Jovin and Mithun were already there. Jovin had become more handsome. Mithun had put on a some weight. But for a second it was old times again.

We sat around a Table in one corner. There were six chairs around the teak wood table. I, Jovin and Mithun sat on one side, Arun at one corner on other side. He was lost in his own world. Priya was the last to join. She took the other corner, with an empty seat between her and Arun. Priya was as beautiful as ever. That ever lasting smile, at times I too fall in love with her. Especially like that day, when she does not over do it. She looked a bit tense. Arun was concentrating too hard on the menu card, his mind was else where. I saw him stealing a few secret glances at Priya. Only Mithun and Jovin were taking unaware of the smoke and fire in the minds around them. Priya was looking at her phone very often, like she was desperately waiting for that one call from prime minister of India.

“Don’t you think these 3 guys are unnaturally quite” Jovin asked Mithun.

They had noticed that only two of them were talking for a quite long time. Among the rest there was an uneasy calm. The silence was most conspicuous on Arun. He was looking drained out.
All three of us looked at each other for a second. And then Priya got a call and she got up and moved out to talk. She looked more excited as she came back.

“Dear friends …” Priya started, clearing her throat and holding an imaginary mike infront of her. She did this at college to catch our attention.

“This is to help our friend Arun who is chocking with all the secrets he is holding within him. For your information, I proposed to Arun day before yesterday …”
Atleast 2 of us were surprised and shocked.

“And the bigger shock is …” she continued, today she was at her best.
“Our Arun is in love with his colleague called Neena, and is planning to get married…”
Now atleast 3 of us were shocked.

“And Vishnu came to know about this from Arun’s parents just a few days back. Since Arun had kept a big thing like his love story a secret from us, his best friends, he decided teach him a lesson. So he decided to play a small practical joke on him …”

“A joke that had become too serious…”. I thought silently. Arun was sitting shell shocked.

She continued “So Vishnu called me up and told me the story and the plan of action. As per the plan I called up Arun on Friday and proposed to him. And that is the reason for this embarrassed face …” she said pointing to Arun’s face. Arun was staring at me dumbstruck. He quickly signaled me to silence.

There was a moment of silence on the table and then every one burst out laughing, including Arun and me. But I could see the tears in Arun’s eyes. I could see his heart, feel his pain.

“And the surprise is not yet over. I introduce you to Neena” and then Priya made a call and Neena walked in, she took the seat between Priya and Arun.

On Saturday night I had got Neena’s number and send it to Priya.

It appeared like a perfect get-together then on. Arun and I kept a bit abnormally quite.

As both the Girls left after breakfast, as four of us stood silently, I remembered what Arun had written secretly on the last page of Priya’s final year project report on the last day at our college.

When the tiring sun sets
When the wandering mind is set free
When you think of the people you love
Please remember me.

Priya or Neena never knew about the Saturday night discussion. Ever

A proposal – PART 3

2009-10-21T13:18:00.007+05:30

Links - PART1; PART2

PART3 - A Long Weekend, Saturday

It was a long weekend as Monday was May 1st. All four of us were to meet in Bangalore that weekend. Mithun and I reached Bangalore on Saturday morning by bus and Jovin was to reach Bangalore from Hyderabad by 6.30 am by Bangalore Express.

I was staying with some school friends for the first day, Jovin and Mithun were meeting up some family friends and our plans together were from Sunday morning. Around 6’Clock I got a call from Arun. He wanted to meet me it was something urgent. He sounded different, he always sounded different when his brain was working. Only other time he had sounded like this was in college, when on way to hostel from city market on his bike, police had stopped him for a routine license check and caught his favorite movie collection (a bunch of pirated movie CDs and DVDs) and demanded Rs.200 bribe to let him go. This was sure urgent. In one hour I was with him in his 2nd floor 2 bed room rented apartment. Two of his other 3 flat mates were in Kerala for the long weekend. ) One was in office

Aliya Aake kalip aayi… (brother-in-law its trouble…). He said

I couldn’t help smiling. After all three years the same opening dialog, reminded me of the hostel days.
It was then that he broke the news of his love with Neena and his upcoming wedding plans. I acted as if surprised. I had got the news a few days back. But the problem was not that. Friday afternoon Priya had called Arun and asked if they could meet to buy a gift for Jovin. They met after office at the Forum Mall. Priya looked more beautiful than ever. She was happy but a bit differently happy that day. She was chirpy like ever but her mind was somewhere else. They walked around Forum Mal, bought an iPod nano from Forum 2nd Floor Apple store (quite an odd gift for a guy going onsite to US) and a greeting card from the ground floor Archies store. Then they went for an early dinner to KFC. It was here that Arun first smelled the smoke of fire that was burning within Priya’s mind. She was tense and silent but the smile was intact on her face, it makes her look cute. And according to Arun what followed were the longest few minutes in his life. Priya said she had come to know of Arun’s love for her (through me) a few months back and she was pleasantly surprised. Right from college she too had a soft corner for him. Not for the silent, shy and reserved Arun he was when she was around but the talkative, cheerful and active Arun he was to all the other girls in the class. Priya’s love for Arun she said was a secret among her ladies hostel gang as his was in our gang. She had though about it over last few months and had lost hope that Arun would muster enough courage to propose to her and so she was taking the initiative. As Priya knew the kind of indecisive soul he was and she had given him a week’s time to think over it and give her a reply.

As Arun completed the narration a few minutes long silence followed. Both of us just sat looking at each other. I was more surprised by the Arun’s emotion and reaction, than by the news it self. It was for the first time I was seeing tear in his eyes, but it was not going to be for the last time. The silence grew unbearable.

So what did you decide? I asked
"I know dad and mom will go crazy. They were really not very happy with my plans with Neena itself. Now when they come to know I am leaving her to get married to someone else they are going to be mad. But it has to be so. I haven’t slept a bit since yesterday. But I realize that Priya is my real love, I have always loved her. It was Neena only because I felt Priya was impossible. I know I shall break Neena's heart. But it will be cheating if I still get married to Neena with full realization that I love Priya."

Now things were getting out my control. As I opened my mouth to say something, he continued.
"I need to set this right soon. First I will talk to Priya first thing tomorrow morning. I will tell her about Neena, and what my plans are. Then I go to meet Neena and explain everything to her. I want you to be with me when I talk to Neena. Hope she will forgive me for being cruel to her. If not today someday at least she shall understand that what I did was the best for both of us. Then I need you to talk to my parents, tell them I am sorry for being such a looser. I never understood myself well, then how could I understand a girl. I know my parents trust you for your practical and radical thinking. I trust your assertiveness and skills to convince people."
You sure have to trust in my skill at convincing people, for I could convince someone to get you in this mess, I thought silently.

Before I could open my mouth, there was a knock on the door. It was his roommate Jeevan who was back from office.

“No more discussing this infront of Jeevan” and he got up to open the door.

Damn his secrets. I thought silently. For sure none of his roommates had any idea of his plans. We did not discuss anything more that night.

“Don’t go ahead with your plan till tomorrow morning breakfast” I said to Arun as we wished goodnight and slept.

All four of us were to meet at Koramangala Sukh Sagar, A south Indian vegetarian restaurant. Priya too was to join.

A proposal – PART 2

2009-10-20T12:37:00.003+05:30

Links -- PART 1

PART 2 - Life After

They say life is like a river, it flows on.

After college all of us stated with our software job. One year into our first job we all realized that a bunch of true friends, that was the all that we had picked up from the educational super market. After learning Electrical and Electronics for four year most of us were working for software giants, writing software codes in java and C for banks, retail chains, telecom majors etc. It had nothing even remotely electrical or electronic about it.

Good Friends change you when they are with you and but the best among them change you even as they leave you. Life had destined us to make more friends and change. In spite of sincere effort all four of us ended up in different IT companies different cities. As we parted company we changed in our own ways. Away from the careless, talent wasting and criminally lazy gang of ours Mithun discovered the genius with in him. Two years on Mithun was a well established expert and a genius in embedded software, often spotted in big conferences. Brought away from the romantically challenged, slightly jealous and female reflecting gang Jovin found the suppressed Casanova within him. Couple of years later when I met Jovin at Forum mall in Bangalore he was with three beautiful girls. That was not all, to his own good he was also a testing lead for a team of 6 girls in his company.

After college far away in different parts of the world, thanks to gtalk, yahoo, skype etc we still remained the same close knit gang. Meeting on rare occasions set by office needs or friends traveling onsite for long-term. Although far away, this circle of friends did have a huge but not often explicit impact on the thought pattern even career moves each made.

Moving away from the gang did bring one positive change into Arun’s life. Arun and Priya were the in Bangalore. Thrown into a silicon valley of India, Bangalore, alone away from our prying eyes he got to slowly build on his friendship with Priya. The love part was well hidden with just friendship at the forefront. She too had a good impact on him. She helped him increase his confidence with girls and horning his romance skills. That influence could explain his new girl friend Neena. She was his talkative, straight haired, lean, anemic and ever smiling colleague. They were in different projects but on same 7th floor of their office tower. Friendship started when they met at a tree planting drive in a social service club in the company and grew over a period of 3 year over tea, lunch, weekend movies, shopping and travel to kerala for vacations. From a mutual friend who is also Arun’s and Neena’s colleague told even the office gang who were with the couple through out never knew of it and were surprised when they announced their marriage plans. The love was again a well guarded secret (There are a few who say Neena was the one to propose marriage). Even I got to know of this a lot later under some special circumstances.

That year the get-together was in Bangalore. Jovin was hosting the party, as he was going onsite to US for a year.

A proposal - PART 1

2009-10-16T12:35:00.001+05:30

PREFACE: This part is specifically for ones who know me personally. Please do not try to find any correlation with real life. I was curious if I could write a college based love story, so I wrote this. I selected 4 friends (not 3 or 5) because as you know 4 is my lucky number :D. All characters are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental. More over finding correlation is also doubting my ability to cook up stories :D:D

This story is to be posted in 4 parts.

PART1 - Four Years and a Degree

It was his father that I noticed first, one of those dominating father figures who imparted their worldly wisdom even to unsuspecting strangers. His father told me “college is like a super market. It has a lot of things on the sale, but it is up to you to pick up what you want” It was then that I noticed Arun almost eclipsed by his dads imposing figure. He was fair, lean and tall with straight hair falling on his forehead, almost hiding it, in a pair of jeans and half sleeves shirt un-tucked. The only time I saw him dressed otherwise in the whole five year was for Infosys campus interview. Losers have an eye for other losers and with in no time we were friends.

The vast campus had a mixture of new modern looking and old colonial looking building. Buildings painted with yellow and white, class rooms with high roof, large wooden windows with broken glass widow panes and a larger than life history of a 100 year, the engineering college was intimidating for freshers. At the entrance was a big banner, in big red letters on white cloth it announced “College of Engineering Welcomes Fresheres”. Coming from different backgrounds and different schools with different dream, all we had in common was a bit of excitement and lot of anxiety. The men’s hostel was a three story building in form of a spanner. It was located at one corner of the college campus and diagonally opposite to the women’s hostel which was in shape of hexagonal nut.

At the college hostel we got to share the room with two other roommates. Ragging by seniors that involved various physical and cultural activities at odd hours formed the perfect glue that brought us together. The life away from home, hostel food and excitement of exploring the new city too was a catalyst in forming the lifelong bond.

Mithun was the brightest of us all. The curly haired, short, chubby guy from kerala’s culture capital Thrissur had nothing cultural about him. He single handedly was the reason for our grades in all exams, our project work, assignments or anything even remotely academic. It was our combined effort that kept him away from the brilliant grades he was capable of. Jovin was tall, fair and handsome, knew Bollywood dance and could crack jokes that made girls laugh (and only girls, we cried on his jokes). And the only reason he did not have dozens of girl friends was that we kept him busy with our extra curricular activities. Arun was the nearest to what we call romantically challenged. His heart went out to all girls in college, but somehow he seemed invisible to girls.

The first year involved a lot of ragging, football, kathi (Malayalam for knife, pet name for unending discussions) on girls, football, cricket and gossips, classes, assignments and studies starting couple of weeks before exams. The second year had lot of football, late night kathi, movies, copying assignments and studies a week before exam. By third year we had our own computer and it was a year of unending computer games, movies, kathi, football and very few classes and studies a couple of days before exam. Forth year Arun and Mithun bought motorbikes and there was a lot of roaming around, no classes with projects as excuse, kathi, football, movies and studies just on the day of exams.

One of the hottest topic for late night kathi was girls and love. In the early days Arun’s interest in talkative, straight haired, lean, anemic and ever smiling Priya, our classmate also formed the highlight of the late night discussions. Here too he lacked the incentive. She was the reason for all the activities he did which were very much unlike him. She was the main motivation when he joined a social service club in college where he never did any service. She was the reason he religiously attended all technical festivals and conferences although he slept through all of it. But he was the last among us to talk to her. The fear that if he opens his mouth, he may give away his feeling for her kept the most talkative one of our gang silent in her presence. Being in hostel and given the extrovert Priya was she did become a part of our gang, rather I would say the closest any girl got to the boys gang. This was more by chance than by design.

And This story began where most campus stories ended ...

Youth in Indian Government

2009-10-13T18:42:00.001+05:30

It is said that India has a youth bulge. About 31% of its 1.17 billion populations are below 14 years of age and about 50 % is below 35 year of age. In all the major Indian political parties there is a huge talk about youth in power. Media is all mad about Young-istan. But is this Young-istan really taking the country to a new level of success? A large amount of youth is not even sufficiently skilled to earn a decent living, forget about actively contributing to nation building. And the few who are skilled have their focus elsewhere. Looking around there are very few youngsters who are really into doing something for the country.

This prompted me to do some search some time back (actually this was supposed to be my Aug 15th post) to find out

* How much youth power was involved in politics and governance?

* To understand better the “youth” in government.

We can have a look at our Central ministry of UPA government. It has 33 Cabinet ministers and 38 Minister of state.

Only six of the 79 members of the council of ministers are below 40. These 6 members are much talked about, with tons of pride by politicians, media and even common man. They are hailed as representatives of India’s youth.

37-year-old Jyotiraditya Scindia (Commerce and Industry)
Son of late Shri Madhavrao Scindia – political big shot

34-year-old Jitin Prasada (Petroleum and Natural Gas)
Son of late Late Shri Jitendra Prasada – political big shot

28-year-old Agatha Sangma (Rural Development)

Daughter of Shri P. A. Sangma – political big shot

31-year–old Sachin Pilot (Communications and Information Technology)

Son of late Shri Rajesh Pilot – political big shot

35-year-old Arvind Yadav (Youth Affairs and Sports) and

Son of Subhash Yadav (deputy CM of MP) – political big shot

36-year-old Prateek P Patil (Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises)

Son of Vasantdada Patil (former CM Maharashtra) – political big shot

Atleast the list above looks more like a list of representatives of a few Indian political families rather than representatives of 0.58 billion youth. But in Indian politics probably below 40 is a kid and below 60 is young and above 60 is senior (still not old). So to be a kid and a minister probably you need have it in your blood.

So we can also have a look at the 40s. There are a dozen in this age group. Following are the people in the list

On fast track due to parents in politics:
R P N Singh, Daggubati Purandeswari, M M Pallam Raju, Tusharbhai Chaudhary, Dayanidhi Maran, Selja Kumari

On fast track due to Uncles in politics:

D Napolean, Ajay Maken

All is not that bad after all. At least in 40s there are a few
who come otherwise:
S Gandhiselvan, Pradeep Kumar Jain, Vincent Pala

But then the joy was short lived. These people had their own specialties like - lot of money, influential friends or caste to support them.

But is it that bad? If one of us takes it as our life’s mission to be a part of building India will it be impossible? Is Indian politics all about having the right family?

Answer is probably a NO.

Every election India does get a few great leaders who started from the scratch, without any god fathers. Often they are already in their 50s or 60s when they make it big and those are the few who help me be proud when I call India a democracy.

References

http://www.indianexpress.com/static/leaderProfile2/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Cabinet_of_India

http://164.100.47.5/council/rankwiselist.aspx

http://india.gov.in/govt/cabinet.php

(Actually a lot more)

** The data/information is mostly from Internet and while I try to be accurate but agree that there could be mistakes. So if any corrections please feel free to let me know.

** With the new editor I am not able to upload picture!

A generation’s confusion

2009-10-01T18:29:00.005+05:30

Each generation lives with its own confusions, complexities and fears. And this generation too has its own share. I should say confusions make life memorable, unpredictable and fun.

I am trying to list out some topics which I have discussed for significant amount of time with significant amount of people. The topics were (I think this is specific to India)
* Which college?
* Private or Public sector job
* India or Abroad
* Love or Arranged marriage
(Any more or any less to this list, do let me know :D)

It appearing to be “marriage and divorce” sort of season around, Love and Arranged marriages are the hottest topics I should say. So here I list some of the interesting things I learned

1. Parents always surprise you when they accept the partner you choose. The more conservative and arranged marriage supporters they appeared to be, the more surprised you would be when you announce the partner you have chosen (could be the case of hindi proverb ‘miya bivi raazhi tho kya karega haaji’ **).

2. Chances of arranged marriages working has come down with both partners “working”. With GenX becoming more realistic, all the funda of family support making arranged marriages work don’t hold true.

3. Never say no or sacrifice your love for the happiness of your family. Both you and family will be sad in the end.

Quoting from my favorite “loVe in the time of Cholera”

“Even if you are dying of fear, even if you are sorry later, because whatever you do, you will be sorry all the rest of your life if you say no.”

4. Love or arranged, either way marriages require a lot of work to be successful.
(But they are fun, Try atleast one)

5. Relax after all you have arranged marriage as an option…!!!! Even if you do not have girl/boy friend, never worry too much and enjoy the peace of mind :D. (Arranged marriages are definitely not bad :D)

On one of my travel (long time back), I met a US guy who said “At least you Indian do not have to be stressed up about one thing... you won’t die a virgin even if you do not find a date … in case you fail your parents will succeed.”

Also on the same note, somewhere I once read “Love is one place ‘where never tried it’ is better than ‘tried it and failed’ … ”

** roughly means: if husband and wife agree then others can’t anything about it.

I love to blog

2009-09-18T12:56:00.003+05:30

I returned to blog after a long break. Long break is due to some technical problems which are due to some personal changes. And one thing I am sure is that I love to blog.

Below is the list of all the internet tools/stuff that I use, in decreasing order of liking
1. Reader: (mostly I use Google Reader. This has significantly changed the way I read and what I read. I have fallen in love with following friends and reading the interesting stuff they share)
2. Blog: (How much ever I let it go. It keeps coming back. I write blogs, read blogs, browse blogs and love blogs. Well I am not much into personal rants but)
3. Groups –yahoo/google: All gangs have groups and especially the school one is really active.
4. Social networking sites - Orkut/facebook etc: (I have got a bit bored of it. Now I use it only to track events/changes in life of friends/acquaintance and not much for actual keeping in contact)
5. Twitter: (Tried it but just not falling in love with it. Think my limited internet connectivity could be one reason I don’t like it much)
emails: Well I am not even mentioning in this list for that is one thing which is very basic and I will be handicapped without it.

As it is after a long hiatus I checked out the blog statistics and realized that almost 98 % of the people wandering into my blog from search engines are here looking for team outing games and team outing locations and that is because of the “Team Outing” blog.

A small note to help them out a bit more :D. We also visited a resort “Olde Bangalore” recently and it had nice ambience and good food, although the location (near to BIA) was bit too far from city. Although the location can be its advantage too, depends on what your needs are.

Friends

2009-06-15T23:35:00.003+05:30

I liked A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini quite a bit, at time a bit less than Kite Runner but at times even more. Although the book is more about hypocrisy of men, their MCP and treacherous ways, some thing sweet about men too did catch my eye.

“Laila learned that boys differed from girls in this(friendship) regard. They didn’t make a show of friendship. They felt no urge, no need for(show of) ……. Boys Laila came to see treated friendship the way they treated the sun. Its existence undisputed, its radiance best enjoyed not beheld directly.”

This is definitely a tribute to all those sun like friends around who bring about all the light in our life and are really unobtrusive about it. They play along celebrating our success, laughing at failures, showing us the lighter side of even the most terrible events and often adding a new colorful perspective to life. When they are far and out of sight they may remain out of mind too. But when we meet, we find to our own pleasure that there is no love lost.

We need no miss-you card
Nor we need any sweet word
For all the decades since we met
Just a big warm bear hug
And a kick on the butt is all we need
To gets life started from where it left.

Nostalgia - Too much

2009-06-15T23:31:00.001+05:30

This post is based on a comment from my office friend AS on the post Nostalgia.

“If you extremely wish to re-live the past then you are not doing enough to love the present”

Well I agree with him a happy smile on the face as you recollect past is fine and healthy. If you find yourself longing excessively for the past and remembering the past brings in a huge sense of loss then definitely you have lost you soul somewhere after that past. Looking back 10 years on from now you will have nothing to remember this day.

It is true we should live in the present. Move on in life, make new friends, try new things, and learn. After all it is important to forget too.

The Cool and The Careless

2009-06-02T21:54:00.005+05:30

This post is born from a discussion with a friend about movie Jab We Met and about being “cool”. The movie was quite philosophical is a really non-preachy way. The leading lady is running away from home to marry her love and to escape from the arranged marriage with a childhood friend for whom she has no sentiments now. And the hero a very mature and serious guy who is a guest at ladies house has to accompany her.

The hero (the kind of practical guy he is) is shocked and advices her to think before doing such a stupid and risky thing and asks to be a bit serious about life. And girl with all her cool attitude talks about the importance of thinking less. Afterall problems even happen to people who are serious about life she reasons. This movie has been a catalyst for mushrooming of a few Jab We Met motivated cool young guys and girls around.

I believe there is a very fine line between a real cool one and a careless looser.

Majority of the cool guys I see are plain careless looser acting to be cool. Most of these so called cool people thrive on running away from or ignoring anything even remotely looking like a problem. Neither do they have an aim nor do they take up any responsibility. The emptiness inside them is often packaged in attractive covers, garnished with 3 table spoon of smile, a table spoon of luck, a pinch of sense of humor and traces of attitude.

But then I have also had the fortune of being with some real cool ones, chronic optimists, with a huge attitude and surprising confidence to take any problem at hand with right sense of humor.

Talking about problems and challenges in life, I feel all of us share one boon with King Bali. King Bali in epic Ramayana had this cool boon that any enemy he fights looses half of his strength which gets added to Bali’s own. So the stronger the enemy the stronger he gets. In the same way bigger the challenge we face, out comes the best within us.

Traffic

2009-04-19T14:24:00.003+05:30

Traffic was getting stuck early in the morning. An autoriksha driver had stopped in the middle of the road for some unknown reason. Behind him the white and blue BMTC city bus driver was trying to squeeze in through some imaginary space between the auto and the median but realized the futility and started honking. All this was at a T junction was not helping the matters. The Toyota quails call-center cab driver who wanted to turn right on to main road from the cross road had to stop. With him the traffic in other direction too came to a standstill. And in between all this there were motorbikes trying to squeeze through. Together they had made up a huge zigzag pile of vehicles on the road. Vehicles of all sizes, from Bikes to Buses were stopped at various angles forming unimaginable patterns. Bangalore was having its usual traffic snarls on an unusually warm Monday morning.

He was out of his house early in the morning. His wife had got his clean, crisp starched white dress ready. He had to drop his grand daughter at nearby primary school. The little flower school was at walkable distance. He did not have to worry about traffic today. But the traffic block was making him uneasy, he shouted out to the auto driver to move to the side. The auto driver gave him an indifferent look but still moved on. This irreverence from common auto drivers was new to him. The lack of prompt reaction from the driver irritated him. With a brief instruction not to move, he left his grand daughter on the footpath and moved in to stop the traffic coming into the main road from the cross road. Slowly the traffic on the main road started moving. He could see his grand daughter worried look, urging grandfather to move on. After all it was no more his duty. The change from the traffic cops white shirt to a retired man’s white shirt was too big. Even well anticipated and planned change is a change after all. The first day of his retired life after a long stint as a traffic cop was feeling stranger than he had expected.

With in a few minutes the traffic flow was back to normal. He felt a sense of satisfaction. With an inconspicuous smile on his face he continued his walk to the school with the kid in tow. As he passed by the nearby local fast food center he saw the duty traffic cop having Rava dosa and tea. It was the traffic cop's daily quota of free breakfast turning a blind eye on parking violations by hotels patrons.

Horror has a neW address

2009-04-16T23:55:00.002+05:30

I was walking into PVR to watch new Madhavan movie13B. I went to the PVR directly from gym and had my sneakers and gym dress in the bag. Thanks to all the terrorists you can’t walk into any decent place with a bag and without some stranger peeking into it.

So at PVR too we had this nice gentleman, who happily opened my bag poked probingly at the shoes and the dress. And then he looked amused

“Sir aap gym jaate hai” (Sir do you go to gym)

“Yes” (being a “busy” IT engineer I was quite proud of that feat)

“Dekhke to nahi lagtha” (Looking at you I don’t feel so.!!!!)

“What the f*** #@#%@@~!!!” (in my mind)

Well I should say the tag line of the movie 13B came true “horror has a new address”

Also I have really encouraging friends. After seeing my blog a friend forwarded a really encouraging quote to me.

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self : Cyril Connolly

Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be

2009-03-16T23:43:00.004+05:30

I always liked stories. I always looked for stories in my life and in life around me. And I am a big fan of nostalgia.

When friends meet up the best moments are when we browse through the chapters of our memory and there is a flow of funny and interesting stories. Often with a sweet surpise we realize there was more to the stories than what we knew. Many of these moments were probably not so funny then. It is sad to feel that we would have already forgotten a lot of those funny or sadistically funny things about life.

It is fascinating to know how much this world has changed. Not those big changes that become history, but small changes that go unnoticed. I loved the old time stories my dad and mom told me as a kid. I liked the old time stories my brother told me. Then in school and college I liked the stories that seniors told me. It is sad that as our worn out brain forgets or even worse when old bones go to the graveyard we loose all those stories and memories.

And so I liked the very idea of a site for Nostalgia. Actually it’s a site on the way things were. It is fun. Check it out.

Link: The Way Things Where

It would be greater fun if we could make up some kind of a book or a website about all those fun moments from school and college and life there after that I could read and enjoy.

I also like the comment that came along “Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be”

loVe In the Time of Recession

2009-03-14T18:59:00.006+05:30

It was the second time that I had the chance to read “loVe in the time of Cholera”. First time few years back, I rejected the book because of the name. I felt it had nothing for me. Then this time my room mate brought it. After hearing the abstract of this book after he had read it, both of us wondered how important Cholera was in this book. But after completing I am convinced Cholera is really important part of the story. So some of my favorite lines.

But his examination revealed that he had no fever, no pain anywhere, and that his only concrete feeling was urgent desire to die. All that was needed was shrewd questioning, first of the patient and then of his mother, to conclude once again that the symptoms of love were the same as those of cholera.

“The only disease my son ever had was cholera” She had confused cholera with love.

Few more

One night she came back from her daily walk stunned by the revelation that one could be happy not only without love, but despite it.

His professor of children’s clinical medicine had recommended pediatrics as the most honest specialization, because children became sick only when in fact they are sick, and they cannot communicate with the physicians using conventional words but only with concrete symptoms of real disease. After a certain age, however, adults either had the symptoms without the disease or, what was worse, serious diseases with the symptoms of minor one.

Amazing advice on accepting love proposal.

“Tell him yes” she said. “Even if you are dying of fear, even if you are sorry later, because whatever you do, you will be sorry all the rest of your life if you say no.”

At last at least one on real love

Only regret I will have in dying is if it is not for love

Next on my to read list is “hundred years of solitude” :D

An Old Beggar

2009-02-14T00:21:00.004+05:30

I was coming out of the restaurant after my meal. I could see the regular old beggar sitting on the foot path in front of the restaurant. Exit of the restaurants should be the second most lucrative location for begging. After god in the heart (or mind) it is food in stomach that makes people dig into their purse and part with well earned money.

There is also something about old people begging on Bangalore streets. These old and wrinkled faces, brought closer to earth by the hunch gifted by old age, having difficulty to move their arthritic joints do strike our conscience. They evoke more sympathy in Bangalore than in Kerala, as we see them shivering in Bangalore’s colder climate, often the worn out blankets not providing enough warmth.

I saw him from a distance as I was walking down the steps of the second floor restaurant. Hands instinctively checked both the back pockets of the blue jeans which were my usual storehouse of change. They were empty. With no change on me, I took a route farthest possible from him, making an effort to avoid any eye contact and started walking away. Suddenly he called out to me in English and that too in an accent that would put to shame any average Indian government employee “Hey man, I am a beggar, I need your help, Please give me something and go.” I looked back shocked and he gave me the final blow with his warm toothless pleasant smile.

Quite a marketing gimmick I should agree. He managed to extract from me the most lavish donation I ever gave a beggar.

Pic: From some forwarded mail :)

Common men uncommon wisdom

2009-01-30T22:54:00.001+05:30

Words of wisdom from my friends
"its becomes a monologue where you have to force the other one to talk"
“I would be lying if I say I am putting in my 100% because I am putting in 110”

Beautiful Nights

2009-01-14T21:22:00.004+05:30

I was always fascinated by nights but it was the hostel life that made me a real night person. So now I live by the principle “Problems starts with the day and end at night”. This love of nights also gave me three hobbies. It made me a fan of reading, dreaming and sleeping in the class the next day. It also made me a part of many thought provoking discussions at school and college hostels.

It is the beautiful sound of the night that interested me in school and home. The crocking of the frogs, the chirping of cricket, the cicada songs, fluttering of bats having a busy night, the sound of bugs that hit the widow panes like missiles directed by the light inside the room, the friendly neighborhood cat chasing rats, street dogs on night patrol etc. The entire feel gets better with monsoon. The frogs get more active. The rain and occasional thunder adds to the orchestra. The drizzle gives a small humming sound and the thunderstorm overpowers all other sounds. The heavy downpour with thunder also gives a feeling of happiness mixed with fear and respect. Water dripping into the small puddles as the rain stops gives a clinging sound. Then the inevitable power cut happens. Mostly due to some tree that has fallen on the power lines. The sound of night seems amplified as the fan stops working. There is the occasional humming of mosquitoes as they get into action. We can hear people twisting and turning restlessly in sleep.

Night time in Bangalore has a very different feel. The nights are more silent. Only things I can hear is my flat mate snoring or an occasional sound of a car or bike zooming past or some neighbour playing the TV loud. It used to be different at school and is different at home. The second best part of staying up late is to sit lazily reading a book, often reading between the lines and dreaming.

But the best part comes next day morning. The best part of staying late is to get up late in the morning and realize that I am the last to start working.

The News on Paper

2009-01-11T20:57:00.005+05:30

Some time back I read Three Mistakes of My life by Chetan Bhagat. Well I never felt anything special about the Book. I should say Chetan Bhagat is yet to repeat a quality one like Five Point Someone.

But anyway, I remember a few lines from the book every time I read a news paper nowadays “Why do old people love news papers so much? They love reading the news but what do they do about it? ...”
Well at least old people have something to look out for in Obituary. Youngsters do not even need to look for that, anyway they are also mostly non-reactive elements of our society.

The Times of India guys definitely figured that out even before it dawned to Govind. So they make the newspaper less depressing by adding colorful pictures and a not to mention my favorite Bangalore Times supplement with Calvin & Hobbes and Garfield.

Also the protagonist Govind is not like me after all, if Chetan Bhagat was to write on me he would have to Call it 300 Mistakes of My life.

Happy New Year 2009

2008-12-31T10:09:00.005+05:30

My public Wish list after a year when Santa brought pink slips is more on a defensive side. Anyway here are the top 4

Put some sense into Terrorists.
Defeat of all regionalist forces in general election
Let the markets stabilize and let there be more jobs
Get another Mahatma for our country

And private wish list has more which is out of this blog’s context.

Anyway friends my wishes for a prosperous New Year 2009

Let this New Year bring you wisdom
Let you be hale and healthy all through
May this New Year bring you happiness
May you see your dreams come true
Let 2009 get you all hidden treasures

Thought of the blog: “Not all treasure is silver and gold” Capt Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean

Feeling Vs decision

2008-12-27T17:30:00.004+05:30

... Love is therefore a "decision". Not just a feeling. You can "make" love ...

I got a forwarded mail long time back which had this comment. And I got this again sometime last week. And even before I had got these mails I was firm believer of this philosophy. I should call it really unromantic but true :). Epics, history, poets, writers, movies and everyone like to call it a spontaneous felling.

In the same line, I also logically have a problem with love at first sight. I think love at first sight happens when you already have made a sketch of your partner in mind and you see someone who fits the bill. So in this case the decision to love was mostly taken earlier itself. At times this is so much in the unconscious mind that one does not realize the decision taken.

I feel that I have a congenital knack for giving out-of-place examples or comparisons. Continuing with that tread, first thing that came to my mind when I saw this line was my bike :). I had a bike. It was not fast, had poor pickup, it was not sporty, it was not good looking, it was too common and was popularly described as old men’s bike in college. And I was not too excited when my dad bought it for me. But once I had it I decided to love it. Soon I loved this thing much more than I expected and religiously fought any friend who called it a junk :) and any day I could state 101 good points about it.

Blogs and Recession

2008-12-24T09:08:00.003+05:30

Recession and its effect on blogs have been on my mind for some time now. I use google reader extensively and most of the blogs are updated on weekdays or atleast updated more frequently on weekdays. Same is the case about reading blog. Even in my blog which has a very limited and select reader group (I know almost all the readers personally :D) most visits to the blog are on weekdays. Curious to know details about this I googled a bit on this. Most of professional statistics too point this (as here).

Maximum number of blog readers read blogs from office. Also many bloggers pen their blog or atleast post them from office. We may be motivated to think that with no job we have more time and this will convert to more hits on blogs. But because of office blog reading, with recession for sure the readership of the blogs should go down.

But before this low there will also be a high period when many people are on bench (reserve work force). With not much work to do these people will read blogs, increasing the hits. Bloggers on bench will write more blogs. This period may also increase the time spend on the site and revisits to older posts. This is the calm before the storm.

This thought may also motivate you to think about the reasons for increased number of posts on my Blog too. :D

Toss and Decide

2008-12-23T08:18:00.005+05:30

Quite early in my life I started tossing a coin to decide. The earliest I remember is tossing a coin to decide if I should eat my packed lunch or throw it away as early as 3rd standard.

But at certain juncture of time someone slightly changed the way I made decision after the toss. I really don’t remember if I read this somewhere or was it word of mouth. But since then toss was a slightly more serious affair

The theory was that you could do a toss when you could not decide between two options by weighing the pros and cons. The starting steps are as usual, fix one option each on head and tail. Toss the coin and you will have your decision. Now for the slight change part…
* If at knowing the result of the toss. You say “oh shit”, or there is slight pinch in the heart. Do the opposite of what the toss said
* If the result brings a smile on your face or you feel some relief, go with the toss
* If neither of the two above happened then certainly you should let the toss decide and go with it.

And then there are more serious things where not time taken to decide but the decision itself is more critical. For this there is an extension called “devils advocate”. Here you go with decision you have got in the above process. Fight for it, reason for it and live it for a week. At the end of one week you could again do analysis on how you feel about the decision and then pick the final one. And of-course this option has the side effect of being called mad if you end up changing your decision at the end of the week.

But probably the most important part is that once the decision is made there is no looking back “fight to death to make the decision a success”

pic source: here

local KERALA liquor shop

2008-11-12T08:52:00.005+05:30

Not a picturesque “Kallu shaap” (local liquor shop) in Kerala but the advertisement of “SOMANY Tiles” on the Wall made this interesting to me. SOMANY - that it is an integral part of Kerala's culture/cuisine. They have "Kallu" (alcohol) shops on almost each street.

SOMANY - that Kerala has the largest per capital consumption of Alcohol at 8.3 liters (Kerala is a state were 30 % of population believes in a religion that forbids even going to a place that serves Alcohol). Not bad at all.

SOMANY that they also have Kerala Booze lovers Association. - Kerala Booze lovers association Kerala is also a land of Association. Anyone and everyone have associations. And all associations have meeting. And all meetings serve Alcohol (If it is a religious or political meeting alcohol is served unofficially)
Also of interest will be this link on "Vellamadi Singing" -- Mallu's not only add soda or Ice but also add plenty of music to their drinks.

On Bench at work

2008-10-31T18:43:00.004+05:30

Thanks to all the local Malayalam news papers “being on a bench” in an IT company has become a common term even to small town flocks. Although I suspect how well they understand the concept.

At home in Kerala for a vacation I got trapped in a local road side meeting of who’s-who of our town. An elderly gentleman who’s kid happened to be working for a reputed IT company in Bangalore, commenting on why his kid did not want to relocate to a branch of his company nearer to home town said “Avanu bench-il irikan vaiyya atha natileku sthalam maatam medikathathu (he does not want to sit on the bench, so he does not want to get transferred to home town”. Following this comment was a discussion on how miserable the working conditions of workers in IT field was and how important it was to have a CPI-CPIM lead workers union for the IT field.
Another gentleman who had the information that I was one among the exploited IT engineers and also an NRK (Non Resident Keralite, courtesy my dad’s central government job that kept me traveling around India) with limited proficiency in writing Malayalam had worse opinion about my state of affairs. According to him unfortunate souls like me had life worst. We could not even write a PSC (Public Service Commission) test and get a clerical job as Malayalam was mandatory for that. Of-course the status of a man who does an honest days job to live is much below anyone who has a job that can get him bribe.
And now we at IT companies had to sit on benches. My parents were visibly worried by this information. Back home my parents were of the opinion that I should buy my own chair with good backrest and not sit on bench as that was bad for my back. Grandmother was overheard giving free career advice for her friends grandchildren “Engineers are not like they used to be in our days. It is no more a respectable job. They sit on benches and are worked like slaves”. Her friend too seemed to agree. She knew a boy who learned electronics in far away places for long years and now makes chips for a living. Her son-in-law had never gone to college and could still make the best banana chips in town. They concluded the discussion with a pinch of sympathy for the young “Pillerude kariyam kashtam thanne”.

Also read this from yahoo.news. A very popular forward now-a-days about marriage prospects of IT engineers.

pic: From some forwarded mail

Mails, Friends and Friend's Mails

2008-10-30T20:30:00.005+05:30

For a long time now personal mails in my inbox are alarmingly low. Even the forwarded nonsense mails are hard to come by. The enthusiasm that friends had to forward mails as fresher in the IT industry (mostly 100% entertainment 0% brain) has dropped significantly. Numerous funny and trying to be funny forwards, the Good Morning mails, and in some extreme cases even good afternoon and good night mails were an after effect of sudden uninterrupted access to mail and mail clients like Outlook.

Now these forwards are a trickle, to make things worse the amount of official mails received and even worse official mails needing replies has gone higher. Probably this increase in official mails has lead to the decline in forwards.

The set of mails that I get now-a-days can be easily classified

Span: We really don’t know why we are getting this.

Official Junk: We know why we are getting this, but have no use of it. But cannot stop it because we fear some day it might bring us some news.

Sleeping pills: These boring mails come regularly. And we are paid to read this. These are mails we know are on their way to us. They mostly say what we already know, but still we read it carefully and try to find some news. All status updates/reports/etc are a part of this.

PIMA: Pain in my A**. These include all escalations, customer queries, bugs reported, explanations requested etc. These generally come from managers or are copied to managers. These require instant replies.

CC’ed mails: These are important mails we can ignore after a quick drill. Drill involves browsing for any remote mention of our name. If these mails have greater than 5 lines, we use the search option to look for any mention. Safely ignore the mail if our name is absent.

Tsunami: Now these are mails that we pray to god every night that we should not get. In fact there is a group of people in our life who are unpopular for sending these. You see a mail from this group and you know it can’t be good news. These are also examples of “Murphy’s Law”. “You are fired” mail in un-challenged entry to this list.

Payroll: Well this is a different category altogether (I wait 30 days for it. But not read it when I get it. Unless some unexpected number shows up in my bank statement) and yes we get understandably worried if this fails to come.

Marriage invitations: No comments!!!!!

But the ones that I would like to get more often are

Breezers: These give essential breaks from hectic work. These are extremely funny, entertaining, and informative but also brief. They come mostly from friends and occasionally from the HR or Admin department.

Time-Pass: Entertaining but long and tiring. But can be of great help when we have no work.

SuryaTV Hollywood special: These are like Hollywood movies shown in SuryaTV (English movie dubbed in Malayalam). The contents are interesting often. But reading Malayalam written in English can be pain (but at times funny too).

It was among all this “personal mail recession” that a gang of my college friends started planning a weekend tour. With this I thankfully noticed that there is an increased personal mail flow to and from my inbox. In the end not only did I enjoy the trip but also enjoyed the planning phase and all the related mails in my inbox.

I value all friend's mails so stand by the thought “One can never be too busy to not reply to a friend’s mail"

Clean Indians

2008-08-22T09:41:00.004+05:30

This is one of the many posters that have appeared in the office as part of a noble move to educate us on keeping our rest rooms neat.

I feel these were long due. We Indians feel that we are a great race. We teach our children big things about spirituality, politics, history, morals etc. But miss out on very basics. There is a lot of talk about need of sex education in school, but it is classes on cleanliness that we Indian need the first. Working at an Indian software major I do not understand what is that stops a well educated man from flushing the toilets after use or what is it that makes him spill water all over as he washes his hand or leave big food particles in sink to make it clog. We can also notice this on international flights. The Indian leg of any flight will be dirtier than the international one.

Most of us expect “some poor chap” to clean after us. But yes it is not entirely our fault. For centuries now we have been used to open spaces and green toilets. A sink and a tap which you need to be press to get the water flowing can no way replace a river or a pond. These cramped toilets probably are a crime against us.

As you can judge a man by his shoes, you can judge a house and its inmates by the toilet

Needed Tree-huggers

2008-08-21T09:38:00.002+05:30

Cutting a tree to save 20 minutes of someone’s office commute time is understandable. But cutting it off from where it was harm less seems tough to digest. But I might be wrong in calling the tree harmless. The local astrologer might have found that the tree is responsible of slowdown in Indian economy.

Probably Bangalore too needs some tree huggers.

2008-07-17T22:50:00.005+05:30

Browsing through some regular blogs came across this. Probably 'reaset' came the nearest to reason why I am not regular to blog anymore.

On our way forward

2008-06-02T20:07:00.002+05:30

Thoughts at end of a Day at office

We have a duty to correct our mistake
But it is our right to make that mistake

We have a duty to get that picture perfect
But it is our right to retake on that defect

Blog swami

2008-05-30T19:56:00.004+05:30

During a long phone discussion with a dear friend he enquired about the absence of blogs for long.
That reminded me of a chapter in CBSE Hindi text about Tansen and one of his guru (I believe Swami Haridas). It talked about being a sangeet samrat (roughly music king) and sangeet swami (roughly music god). While Tansen was sangeet “king” and sang for the king. Guru was a sangeet “god” and sang for god. Tansen sang to entertain the king and was paid and taken care of well by the king as a jewel in King’s court. Guru sang for himself and god, and god paid in terms of job satisfaction. It probably talked about the greatness of being god.

Being a god might be great, but being a king is tough. God as a customer is easy to please but king is a tough one.

Something like that, being “blog swami” is easier than being a “blog samrat”. Writing blogs for one’s own pleasure is much easier than being a bolgger who writes for a reader group.
After all a blog samrat can’t afford to be silent for long.
I am a blog swami although not by choice. But yes I envy all the really entertaining and though provoking blog samrats out there.

pic: from here

I chose to be Busy

2008-05-23T22:09:00.002+05:30

I have been too busy as usual. Probably it is entirely a personal choice to be busy or not. Just a look around and we can always see a lot of things that can be done, whether at work (clean up this one document we had missed, read that one article we missed, review something or other) or at home (clean up this part, fix that switch, arrange that shelf). But we have the choice to do or not to do.

On the same line of thought I believe “One can never be too busy to not reply to a friend’s mail or call”

But me being busy is definitely not the reason for not updating my blog for past 56 days. The reason was something else, which I don’t know. Probably I just got bored of my own blog.

Defence

2008-03-28T14:13:00.000+05:30

I love all comments negative, positive, encouraging or discouraging. But due to technical reasons I would be censuring few comments now on.
By this I am just trying to remove any spam or malicious links (intentional or unintentional). This step has been taken considering a few complaints about some links in the comments that surprised a few friends.

Pension, Insurance and Family

2008-03-27T21:06:00.000+05:30

Personal Insurance business has caught up well in India. Insurance companies make such a great living out of basic animal traits like insecurity, fear and ego that they are growing day-by-day. On the positive side insurance companies are nearest to socialists in a capitalist economy.

But this also reminds of rapidly dying family relation which was India’s own form of Insurance and social security. “Insuring a better future”, “50 Years of Trust…”, “Zindagi ke saath bhi, Zindigi ke baadh bhi (with you in life and after life)” all these catch phrases of Insurance companies draw some parallels to family relations.

Friends and extended family helping the sick formed the medical insurance for Indians. The added incentive was the breakfast, lunch and dinner package with all hospitalization. Parents were well cared for by children was India’s pension scheme. Here the added incentive was absence of loneliness of staying alone. But then a few people claim that friends and family “may” not be happy to spend when you are in need. But we can be assured that the insurance company “is definitely” not happy to spend for you. Over and above they spend a fortune on people who find innovative ways not to spend any money on you. Above all the family relations come with lesser number of hidden stars (* conditions apply).

Possibly in future some business houses may come up with innovative thoughts like Insurance against loneliness, Insurance against lack of love, Insurance against a sad day, Hands to comfort scheme etc.

Until then a strong family relation is the best that we can have.

Life of Pi

2008-03-26T17:15:00.000+05:30

It is after long three months that I am reading a book and that is a long time by my standards. The “life of Pi” has been in my room for long and I never read it. Of late the internet has caught up with me and I have started reading more on internet.

The book is low on thrills and frills, bit high on facts and philosophy. None the less I like it a lot. Half way thorough the book, toping my “favorite thoughts chart” is the one below.

“I know zoos are no longer in people’s good graces. Religion faces the same problem. Certain illusions about freedom plague them both”. Life of pi – Yann Martel

Indian constitution gives us the right to freely profess, practice and propagate religion. But then people may be right when they say that preaching one religion is against other religion’s right to practice.
Not only freedom of religion but freedom in every sense is dogged by certain illusions.
Discipline and justice often conflict with freedom. Discussing freedom and rebels with a group of friends, one friend commented “All my friends smoke and drink but I don’t, so I am the real rebel. All my friends oppose parents and teachers authority but I confirm, so I am the real rebel”.

At times freedom becomes very dictatorial. In this case you lose the freedom of not exercising that freedom.

picture: copied of-course.

Driving on Indian Roads

2008-02-29T20:48:00.000+05:30

Browsing through some random Blogs I ran into this Blog by Adhiraj Joglekar. He has come up with a blog to educate at least the net browsing Indian population. Now this is something that I appreciate a lot.

Please Visit this blog and also try to follow some of it. Driving-India

Even before I had visited any foreign country I had seen better driving etiquettes in one area with in India. Early part of my life was in various Air-force stations. Inside the camps it was absolute order and outside I always noticed the conspicuous absence of traffic order. After traveling outside India I notice the sorry state of affairs in India even more (and the worse part is I enjoy it to some extend).

Terms like blind spot, defensive driving etc were an essential part of driving lessens that I got from my father. From him I heard how the driving instructors in Army/Air force stressed on driving etiquettes. And for sure educating the drivers and some strongly enforced rules can make even Indians drive sanely (Definitely proved inside the Air Force Camps). Probably that is what we need through out India. For sure it can make Indian road a slightly better and safer place for us.

Happy and safe driving to all

Achieving Childhood Dreams - Part 2

2008-02-27T20:32:00.001+05:30

This is in continuation of this post. (Note: It is not mandatory to have read previous post to read this post).

After 9 years of aging was approximately the time I started having more serious dreams (Or rather started claiming that I have serious dreams). Looking back there are a few I did not achieve and a few I achieved and many that I may achieve in future. Few dreams that I failed to achieve made me achieve a few other dreams. But I would not be writing in detail about those here. Those are for my autobiography which I would write if I become famous and successful enough and feel that my story can motivate a few (and on a lighter note this is called positive attitude).

My problem with the dreams after 9 years is that I doubt its originality.

I never felt the need to think what I would do when I grow up. Some overzealous people did ask me what I would be when I grow up. It was probably this that got me thinking. At times on seeing the nice car the doctor had I wanted to be a doctor, seeing pilots fly I wanted to be a pilot, watching Sholay I want to be a thief like Amitabh Bachan. But all this asking had some effect on me by the time I reached high school. The constant questions on “Your Ambition/Dream” made me come up with some presentable dreams.
Now how much do I own these dreams? -- I am not sure.
The dreams are so gelled into my mind that I cannot differentiate the ones that are genuinely mine and the once that got in due to environmental factors.

Probably this is also true about great people like Professor Randy Pausch (Professor in Carnegie Mellon University) who talk about their childhood dreams and importance of achieving it (and empowering others to achieve it). Link here (Note: it is not mandatory to have seen this video to go ahead and reading this blog).

When we grow up and are successful and interested in telling out story to the world we have already forgotten a lot of our genuine dreams. What we remember are the dreams we had as a child which are at least remotely related to the field we got successful in. And then of course few others are just cooked up dreams. As a child we have so diverse set of dreams that often it is impossible to be truthful and claim that we have achieved all.
But yes we should agree it is important to talk about the dreams that we strove hard to achieve. Who knows we may be motivating another Sachin Tendulkar or Abdul Kalam.

Achieving Childhood Dreams - Part 1

2008-02-26T17:59:00.000+05:30

Due to internet the world has become a highly interconnected place. One of the examples of this is the forwarded mails that we get. When ever there is some good forwarded mail doing its rounds in internet savvy generation of ours we get multiple copies of the same mail. I get a copy of the same mail from my family group, school friends group, college friends group, room-mates group and office group of friends.

Recently I was forwarded a speech by Professor Randy Pausch (Professor in Carnegie Mellon University). This was a nice one on achieving our childhood dreams and empowering others to achieve theirs.

Link here (Note it is not mandatory to have seen this video to go ahead and reading this blog)

This made me look back on my childhood dreams. The first confusion was what is defined as childhood dream. So I decided on below 18years. Now again I had to split this period to below 9 years and above 9 years. This post is about my dreams below 9 years of age
Below 9 years all my dreams were very small and genuinely mine. Some I still remember are
1. To get the window seat in train while going to Kerala for summer vacation.
2. To buy half kg jilebi and half kg chocolate and eat it.
3. To buy a piano and tape recorder with my first salary.
4. To read every issue of champak, chacha chaudhary and Tinkle.
5. To sleep till noon.
6. To watch all Mohanlal and Amitabh’s action movies.

I achieved the 1st one every train journey without fail. The 5th one I achieved first when I was in school hostel and then on multiple times and still do that once in a while. But it never gave me a sense on accomplishment; it feels just like another day.
2nd, 3rd, 4th and 6th were the dreams that just got too old as I grew. All these were dreams that I no longer wanted to achieve when I was in a position to achieve them. As I grew up I lost my dominant love for sweet. Hot and sour food took over my dominant sweet tooth or at least matched up to it. By the time I reached high school I lost my interest in piano probably lost interest in learning or owning any musical instrument (Except for a brief time after watching Desperados when I wanted to learn Guitar). To read probably I did a lot but definitely by high school I was really intolerant to the kind of books I wanted to read before. The Sheldon, Archer, Blyton etc really caught on to me. On the 6th one, I started hating action movies. The Mohanlal or Amitabh kind of action movies were villains fly as the hero swings his hands were promoted to “pay me to watch” movies list. Movies with some good theme/story and comedy started to fill my favorite lists.

I believe Dreams too have a shelf life. It is not just important to have dreams but it is even more important to achieve those then and there. Probably everyone has some small dreams which they think they can achieve some other day. We always think “let this get completed then I will do that”, “Once I take care of things there I will do things here” etc. But when we are ready to achieve these small things we may no more want to do that small thing. As an example (although slightly unrelated), I have a lot of blogs noted down at different places as and when I feel. I always think I will post it once I have completed doing some other work and by the time I complete the work I would have lost the drive to complete and post what I had started.

Picture: from rediff movie review.

Back home

2008-02-20T18:36:00.000+05:30

I am back in Bangalore after a longer than usual outside India travel. “Hell is full I am back” … I wish I had a t-shirt with this message, I could have worn that around (although the trip was good and I enjoyed a lot). Not much has changed anywhere. No one messed up with my office too. It looked the same as I had left it.

By around 6 pm jet lag was catching up with me. But some urgent work still kept me around till 8.30 pm. I ran to the bus yard to catch the 8.30 shuttle home. The first to start buses were already moving. Then I realized that I had forgotten something important in these three months period. The magic bus number N23, N6, N8, etc written on the busses no more made any sense to me. I was finding it difficult to find the bus route I needed. And the arrangement of busses had changed a lot since I last took 8.30 shuttles. Time was running out. The first two people I asked gave me the universal right answer - “Sorry, I don’t know.”
Now this sounded like trouble, the next shuttle was an hour away. Then looking around I saw her, one of those hard to forget beautiful nameless faces. It was the familiar face that reassured me every morning that I had not missed my office shuttle as I came running to my bus stop (Being late and running to catch the bus is of-course my idea of healthy living). Now things were easy I followed her into the bus. Took an empty seat, and put on my mobile’s ear phone and tuned into 104 FM. Everything went on smoothly till the bus took that unexpected turn. It was then that I realized that she has shifted her house. I stood up and shouted for an out of schedule stop. The driver murmured his disagreement and followed it up with a curse for all stupid engineers and stopped a few hundred meters ahead. That was his way of sweet revenge.

A lot has changed I thought as I got an autorickshaw back home.

Work Work Work

2008-01-28T10:32:00.000+05:30

Dropping dead on the bed after completing work for the day. Getting up only when the alarm has reached its maximum volume. Missing the 10 AM coffee break. Getting a new idea as I bite into Buritto for lunch. Getting more work just when I was thinking life can’t get busier.

Weather has been joining my mood. It has been raining. Days are darker than usual. There is chill in air. Nights are windy. There are people all around coughing and sneezing. I am having a round of usual sour throat. Black tea and hot water has replaced the chilled juices and soda.

But soon the rains will be gone. Sun shall be back and it will be warm again. I shall have fixes for all the problems or I might just get lucky trying out things. At these times it surprises me how much perseverance I have.

Why Astrology?

2007-12-26T12:28:00.000+05:30

After the past blog been thinking of Astrology and why we still read this nonsense. Passion to understand future has been a constant companion for mankind ever since its existence on earth. Even in this scientific age, lot of self made and confident youngsters enjoy reading astro predictions. Probably this is another thing that brings out the fear, love and desires in depths of our heart. Reading a 500 word yearly prediction we mostly see our mind highlighting our own plans (hidden or open) within the depths of our mind.
Reading (this) yearly predictions with a friend who shares the same sun sign, while I was excited about fatter paychecks and better work, which were in line with my plans. He noted that he could get married this year, as were his plans.

Anyway a happy NEW YEAR to all.

A kid’s New Year thoughts…
New Year may make me a star
New Year may take me that far
Leaving behind the toys that are old
Travelling far in search of that gold
Or it might get me that new car
The car that will take me that far

If that one is bad you could try this. some one forwarded it to me.

Don't know why poetry should be big and complex to be called good. A poem is often said to be good if you were to grab the dictionary 10 times and still not understand most of it. But 10 line long simple poems have a beauty of there own.

It is true "Simplicity of expression is a manifestation of profound depth and clarity in thought"

Nostradamus Vs History

2007-12-23T14:06:00.000+05:30

It appears that people with sun sign as Scorpio (October 23 - November 21) are most interested in Astrology. This thought came after touring a few book stores where they sell separate yearly horoscopes booklets for each star sign. It is seen that it is Scorpio that is sold most. Recently in a store in US noticed that the Scorpio booklet was sold out. I remember reading horoscope right from the time I started reading newspapers. And with every new year comes a flood of forwards from friends predicting the year ahead.
But year-end is also a good time for looking back. I would call it a kind of self appraisal. So I looked back at some of the common horoscope that I check out. A few that were forwarded to me by friends were also reviewed. Most of them had a common trend.

General

What they said: Passion carries you far this year in the realms of creativity and expression. You understand what motivates people to do a good job and will find yourself in situations where people want your advice. You have a very good support system in both your career and home life, and will learn that perfect order is taking place in your life at this time. Since your career has gotten off to such a great start this year, by summer time you will have more time on your hands to become romantically involved in a new relationship (or rekindling of old), which you've been thinking about for quite some time.

How it came: Passion has carried me far in 2007. But not too far that it shows. It was another mediocre year where there were no earthquakes that shook me neither there were triumphs that are worth mentioning. Career was on fast lane and summers or winter I did take good pit stops. Another special thing about this year was that maximum of my college classmates took career making/changing decisions many left job to do MS some for MBA, few in India and a few abrode. A large number of my School friends got married too. With all these changes I did grow insecure about the lack of drastic changes in my life.

Career & Finance

What they said: Transformation is at your doorstep this year, and new opportunities await you. You are proud of your ideas and very good at expressing them. Your thinking is creative and you have a smooth management style. You could enjoy spending time traveling to foreign lands and be drawn to observing others' ideas and cultures. You love to study. You need to get away from routine to feel comfortable and satisfied. Your career seems challenging at times this year. There may be times you feel that you're giving too much to your career and that achieving your goals is being delayed. You'll definitely achieve success from all your efforts and will be reaping many spiritual and material rewards by the end of the year.

How it came: Career wise 2007 had been quite good. I tried quite a few new things. Definitely took another step towards becoming a jack of all trades master of none that every engineer in India becomes. Also took another step away from technical stuff by taking up some people responsibility. One thing that came true was the travel part. Traveled out of India quite a few times and many times time on transit was more than time in visiting office. As a sadistic joke goes I am “The One” among my friends circle who has used toilets in largest number of airports. Also did someone say something about materialistic reward?

Love & Relationship

What they said: With such a loving personality, you will certainly attract romance and passion into your life this year. When in a close relationship, you are intuitive, sensitive and psychic, and have a good sense of what other people's motives are. You will find that your relationship gives you lots of space to breathe, and yet you still have lots of spare time to take care of your own needs as well. You will find much appreciation for the finer things in life. You'll realize the importance of sharing passionate moments with your partner.

How it came: Year after year this one has disappointed me. The rosier it looks in horoscope the worse it is in reality. Another year went past without much happening on my side. Friend after friend got busy on phone with girlfriends. I still depend on a tele-marketer to hear my latest ring tone. Anyway one line came true this time “your relationship (or lack of it!) gives you lots of space to breath and yet you have lots of spare time to take care of your own needs as well”.

References

1. Picture copied from some random website, I don't remember which one.

2. Horoscope: extracts from multiple horoscope.

Tried to bring out things that more than two sources were trying to predict.

The Past, Present and Future

2007-12-15T14:49:00.000+05:30

Probably you love your country more when you are away from it. I am writing this post from US. I am writing because I saw this video from YouTube on a dear friends Orkut account, who again happens to be doing MS in US.

Link to the Video

Back home I met a retired gulf returnee, who was into social work and petty local politics. He said "I had some of my most spirited thoughts for India at your age. I used to dream about a better India, better education, equality and stuff, but then I never acted. Then family responsibilities caught on with me and now age".

It made me sad to think that this cycle will continue. As I grow old I may tell a young stranger the same lines. And that stranger may put a similar post and sleep for the day.

A Useful Handicap - The Unsaid

2007-12-03T08:38:00.000+05:30

On first thought I was to put this along with the “A Useful handicap” post. But on a second thought I did not post it. Now on third lack of thought it is here.

It is my strength that touches the sky like the shoot
But it is my weaknesses that hold me strong like the root
It is the not the moon that is a beautiful
It is the darkness around it that makes it beautiful

Around the world in a week

2007-11-16T19:10:00.000+05:30

Around the world is an exaggeration, but at-least I traveled to other side of the world (US of A) and back in a week. It was like 4 days on transit and 6 days in US.
When your time is counted …You make the most of it. We did try to prove that, we hired a car and tried to savor as much of San Diego and LA could in 36 hours. And I should say I loved “Apna desh” as US is called back in office (with love).

The modus operandi at all the places we visited was to approach the help desk, give them the map and ask them to chalk out the best plan for us with the limitation of time and preference for action packed rides. And the helpdesk did a fabulous job of planning it out, something that the friendly helpdesk at Wonder-la in Bangalore cannot even dream of. One of the places we visited was Sea World in San Diego. It was interesting how they involved the visitors in all the action around the place. Here was the famous Dolphin show which I had till then seen only on TV (my favorite “Travel and Living”). In the show a small kid (6-7 years old probably and sorry kid I forgot your name) and his father were invited to be a part of the performance. Brave he was I should agree, at his age I would not stand in front of a fried fish in my dinner plate and he was standing among a couple of dolphins. The trainer asked him to touch the Dolphin and explain how it felt. The kid gave one of the most original comments I have ever heard, he said “It felt like a Sausage”। Even the trainer agreed it was one of the best answers she ever got.

As they say “setting the world on fire” …wild fires almost crippled whole of San Diego day after we left (more on this here). Luckily all my friends there managed without much loss

A Useful Handicap

2007-11-01T18:27:00.000+05:30

The common bathrooms and toilets in a government college hostel are unchallenged in lack of cleanliness. The misery of the place starts with the careless way the contractor built it. Then walk in the students who use it with equal disrespect and carelessness. The bathrooms in our college hostels too were dark and dingy places considered as unavoidable mess by students and cleaning staff. Floors littered with soap covers and pieces of clothing left over by seemingly busy but actually careless users. The constant use and lack of proper drainage of water and ventilation left the walls damp. Green algae has grown out in places where the tiles had given away or worn out. Floors remain slippery. Then there is the damp unclean smell mixed with smell of a variety of soaps and shampoos. Big spiders would have made there webs at safer heights where the students would not care to disturb and the good old cleaner would not bother to clean. The doors were creaking and wet. The doors need some brain and brawn to handle.

In my Floor in college hostel there was this one bathroom with an added handicap. It had a mal-functioning tap. Courtesy the lack of water, this one was not used by anyone. It remained dry. It got time to remain dry which ensured the well being of the bathroom floors. The green algae never bothered the white tiled walls. Worried that he has not done anything for this bathroom the cleaner always looked up and cleaned the cobwebs in this one. It was not cluttered by various junk the students leave by.

By accident I found out that a precise 3 turns and pull upwards made this tap work. It remained free for my private use then on. At regular intervals few others too inspected the tap, on failing to operate it they moved on, with few words of curse. But I always felt this was the best in the entire hostel.

"Kambakth Ishq"

2007-10-19T16:10:00.000+05:30

Every time we wish one of our friends a happy Journey we add a little wish “hope you get a beautiful girl for company” (aptly changed as “handsome boy for company” for girls). When traveling in train the first thing to do on reaching the railway station is to check the railway reservation chart for those magic lines.

XXXXXX YYY F 24 12 TVM CHE

But of-course it always happens that there are no girls around in my compartment. It is probably a case of “Murphy’s Law”. And even if there are few, I appear to be invisible to them. But by now I have become mature enough not to expect much. But that optimism never dies off. But this week-end traveling from Chennai to Bangalore by VOLVO bus things were different. I was getting on the bus from the midway and not from the starting point. As I entered, the bus was almost full already. People were at different stages of sleeping. I walked in looking for seat number 20 and it was near a girl. Now this is very rare in bus and often means trouble. The girl will insist that it is a ladies seat and I will be send off further back in the bus to enjoy the bumpy ride home. But today is a different day I thought as the girl gave a minimal smile minus the eye contact as she moved her hand bag to clear my aisle seat. I remembered a lady’s comment “Girls hate strangers infiltrating to their comfort zone, especially in the bus”. “Ok lady you have your comfort zone and thanks for not pushing me into that stupid last seat” I thought. What if I got a chance to break the Ice, although unlikely at 11pm? What if this story does not end with this journey? What if she gave me her mobile number and we became great friends? What if …?

“Excuse me” … some guy had interrupted me from the seat behind. I turned back
“yes”
“Do you mind, exchanging places? so that I could sit with my friend (he said pointing to young girl sitting a few row behind us).”
“ok, I don’t mind (hmmm…) ”
“Thank a lot” … you are not welcome I thought in mind.

What followed was bit complex permutation and combination which involved four people. Making into my new seat and settling into a comfortable posture, I thought with a smile, in my case there are no exceptions to Murphy’s Law. I put on my ear-phones and my k750i played a romantic number from Malayalam film “Akale”. I turned back for a quick glance, the couple where cuddled together sharing ear-phone from some mp3 player. I thought silently “Kambakth Ishq …”

About some Alien words

2007-09-22T17:14:00.000+05:30

I was thinking about some alien words like license, copyright and plagiarism after seeing a post and comments following in this rearset blog that I visit.

Plagiarism in our life probably started in school when we first copied English and math assignment from our best friends. Then we copied our senior’s project work and that was copied by our juniors. I enjoyed Hindi movies that were shamelessly copied from English (including the scripts). I grew up enjoying songs with tunes and lines copied f rom other languages.
We grew up reading pirated novels sold on footpaths. Then came the computer revolution. We joined the revolution with pirated OS in our new computers. Heard unlicensed songs downloaded from internet. We watched movies on pirated dvds/vcds which could be rented from every other shop around. We played pirated computer games.

Probably we cannot stop copying. It is human nature. And this definitely comes as a proof for “Darwin’s theory”. Humans have inherited this ability to copy or I would call it disability to avoid copying from monkeys.

Also note the license info I added on my blog. But of-course on a lighter note, who the heck would care to copy contents from my blog?

Electronic Forgetting

2007-09-14T15:12:00.000+05:30

Forgetting things is such an important part of our life. If I was not forgetting things I would still be remembering the scientific names of those rare plants which I mugged up in 12th standard. I would still remember the phone numbers that don’t exist now. I may even remember what I had planned to do this day 4 years back.

Now my memory is extended from the memory I carry inside my head to the electronic memory of my computer and mobile. I always wish for software that remembers only the information that can be reused and clears the rest. Now I do the “electronic forgetting” manually once in 3-4 months.

Just like on a lazy rainy day I sit alone in my room browsing through those bitter-sweet memories, today on a rainy day I sat in front of my computer going through my electronic memory. Sorting, deleting or restoring a few memories. And somewhere I found these.

Forget me in your gain
Remember me in your pain
I am not the mighty ship which can sail your life
But am the humble needle which can stitch your life

Mind-Wander Marks

2007-09-07T17:33:00.000+05:30

At school hostel we had two hour study time daily. Talking, discussion and all other extra-curricular activities were bared during this time. Teachers were entrusted with the “Mission Impossible” read as: make students use this time to study.
One of my beloved teachers on “Mission Impossible” was perturbed by the fact that people day dreaming were the hardest to detect and correct. I also noticed, what makes things worse is that there is no bookmark during dreaming, i.e. daydreams always starts from the beginning instead of starting from where we stopped. From school to college then to work the show has changed but the show stopper has remained the same.

Day dreams often are like the “Mirror of Erised” mentioned in “Harry potter and philosophers stone”. Dumbledore explains to Harry “It shows us nothing more or less than the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts........ Men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they have seen, or been driven mad, not knowing if what it shows is real or even possible"

Our teacher too gave us a “funda” about wasting time. He felt a lot of useful time is spent in day dreaming. As a remedy every time our mind drifted from studies we were to draw small vertical line/mark (like tally mark) on the paper and get back to study. I call it mind-wander marks. It is noticed that the frequency of lines drawn goes down exponentially. It is quite an innovative idea for ones like me, who have nomadic mind. Actually it is wrong to call it lack of concentration, but rather call it excess of concentration on activities other than what we are doing. As the situation changed from controlled environment of school to less controlled environment of home and work, theory was extended by me for external interferences too.

Once again day before yesterday, it was a day when I could not afford to waste time and the “mind-wander marks” reappeared at my desk and it was september 5th “Teachers day”

Harry Potter - 7

2007-08-07T16:07:00.000+05:30

Being a Harry Potter fan I finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows with in a week of release. Harry potter series has been like the protagonist himself "simple yet powerful". At many points it enthralled me with the great thoughts embedded in less significant incidents. I was pleased to see this one thought that had raised my curiosity articulated in the final book.

In the book great headmaster Dumbledore had these words of wisdom for Harry
"It is a curious thing, ... , but perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it. Those who, like you, have leadership thrust upon them, and take up the mantle because they must, and find to their own surprise that they wear it well."

First in my Alma matter and then in college politics and hostel student leaders, I felt this tread. At times I saw people being forced or wandering into responsible positions, by more of chance than intension and these leaders-by-chance turn out to be most innovative and different leaders. The politics and mental preparation that seasoned leaders take up when they plan and scheme to become a leader brings a certain amount of pretence in their style and action. The seasoned leaders have an addiction for power and fear of committing mistakes which the leaders-by-chance lack. Even worse is the myopic view of realities and disability to accept mistakes the seasoned leaders have.

Probably dear India too needs a few "leaders-by-chance" those who are best suited for power and driven by love.

pic source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/22/Harry_potter_stamps.jpg

Blogging

2007-07-26T23:06:00.000+05:30

A friend asked me why I blog even when no one is reading. I have been thinking about about an answer.

One day I may become rich and famous then people may be interested in knowing more about me. They may want to know my opinion. This blog may become the window to my thoughts.

This may even be the stepping stone and I may write a Harry Potter. Someone said everyone can write one best seller and that is his autobiography. I will name mine "Abnormally Normal". First I should wait for google to start free publishing. Then like I do after every blog, I would send a mail to all my beloved friends – “I have written an autobiography please read”.

Someday I may learn to write interesting things and my blog shall have thousands of hits per day and then I shall make some money out of ads on my blog. Times of India may find my thoughts interesting and invite me to write editorial. It may also die out someday. Some religious organization may call my blog hurting their sentiments and smash my computer or even send in a suicide squad. Government may find my blog causing mental agony to youth and ban it. My room mates may blackmail me to stop this nonsense or leave the house. But most probably some day I may get too bored to write any more blogs and I will stop for good.

Then having dinner at a nearby Sukh Sagar I got the right answer. He was talking to himself answering unasked questions. He was reasoning the unreasonable. He was questioning with out expecting an answer. He was talking without expecting to be listened. He was mad.

Opportunity

2007-07-21T00:31:00.000+05:30

“every blessing ignored becomes a curse”.
Polo Cohello in Alchemist

Quite true I should agree. All average men live with these curses. But there have been times in our life when we let go of an opportunity after a lot of thought.

At school I had an opportunity to visit Lakshadweep at a huge concession rate. I always loved travel. This was my great chance. But on the flip side this meant I will miss my much awaited Christmas vacation. Ten days spend with my parents, meeting my brother. My friends reasoned that I will not miss home in all the excitement of the trip. But yes my home shall miss me. I gave it a miss. I enjoyed that vaccation the most and back from vacation I felt great.

There are few “well thought” misses we give to opportunities in life. People may state those as our failures. But these well thought missed opportunities are an important factor that define what you are.

But then I agree there are some misses that are curses too.

Strolling through the path of time
With idle thoughts that are mine
I saw her pass by
She was my dream, my life’s golden lane
To her I cried out in wane
Why did you have to leave me in pain
With empathy she wined
I had given you a chance
It was you who left with just a glance

Never Talk to Strangers

2007-07-13T10:29:00.000+05:30

I was having Dosa at SKC. It is one good south Indian restaurant around, famous for Tamil food. He walked in and occupied the place near me. As I repositioned myself to give him more space, he looked at me and gave a warm smile. Now it is against my principle not to return a smile. So I smiled back.

X: The Dosa here is good. Right?
Another way to start a conversation, good, I thought.
Me: oh yes. It is good.
X: I am Sailesh. I work for infosys. I stay in 15th B Main. Where do you work?
Me: Wipro

He was young, stylish and looked like a typical software engineer. He is a neighbour too after all I thought.
Here it stated and then went on. Topics moved from work, to VLSI, then Hosur road, then traffic, infrastructure in Bangalore, Delhi, travel, then to Kerala. I finished my dinner by the time he finished a cup of filter coffee. As we walked back home he offered me his visiting card. He got my mobile number.
I had forgotten the whole story by the time I reached back home. As usual, life went on. Then after two days I got a call.

S: Hi, how are you?
Me: Hello, who is this?
S: Hi buddy, this is Sailesh. Forgot? How are you?
I did not even remotely think of storing his number. I have his visiting card I thought as I slowly build up his case file in my mind.
Me: Hi Sailesh, great to hear from you. How are you? How is life?
S: doing great yaar. Btw I have started a small business of my own. And that too is doing well. I manage that in the free time that I have and make decent money too.
Me: that is great.

Curiosity got the better of me and I committed the crime of asking what the business was.
S: Oh. It is quite interesting and simple too. I will meet you today evening and explain in detail.

Did I ask for this? Anyway let me be-positive and after all there is no harm in giving a patient listening to some one. So we did meet in the evening. He was an Amway Business Owner. It was a kind of money chain. And he was hunting for people to join his chain. Then it was a one hour long great talk show, where I added background scores like yes, ok, fine. At the end I politely informed of my disinterest.

S: you should meet my friend. He can explain things better. He earns in near to lakhs from this. Once you talk to him you will be dying to join Amway. I am sure. Give it a try buddy. After all what is the harm in just listening?

So we met this big boss. There was a whole gang of Amway members at his place. The boss explained that he had resigned his private company job to manage his Amway work full time. He got out a whole set of forms.

Big boss: So which plan are you joining? 20 or 30 thousand. You just have sign in the following places. Sailesh will give you all the guidance. And congrajs.

Excuse me. I did not even say I am joining. Things were moving very fast. I wanted to get up and run. He thrust the set of forms and pen into my hand. This was it. I had wasted enough time. With a lot of conviction and a pleasant smile I got up.

Me: thanks. But I will not join. Good night.

I made a conscious effort not to run as I waked out of the room. The whole thing has left me a bit irritated but still amused. I was dying to tell the story to my friends. Dinner first, I thought as I walked to my favorite SKC. I occupied an empty table and ordered my Dosa. Then this young man walked and took the chair near me. This time I had become more careful. I concentrated hard on my Dosa. He ordered a plate of Idly.

X: Hi, nice spectacles. Where did you get this? I was looking for one last weekend but did not find a good one.
Bloody hell, another Amway guy, it is definitely not my day.
Me: Thanks, I got it from Eye Sense near to Forum Mall.
X: I am Praveen. I work for IBM.
Not again my friend I thought silently. I cannot handle one more today.
Me: Hi, I am Sailesh, I work for Infy.

Then it went on the usual way. As we said good bye he offered me his card. I got Sailesh’s card from my purse and handed it over to him. I safely tucked his card into my purse. After all I may meet more of them.

Connectivity

2007-07-03T19:41:00.000+05:30

With mobile and internet, we have moved closer to people far away from us physically and moved farther from people closer to us physically.

Jalsa, Junoon Restaurant

2007-06-25T20:34:00.000+05:30

I am not a critic but good food and different atmosphere is something that I should appreciate without fail.
This weekend we tried out this new Mughal cuisine restaurant in Outer Ring road near Marathahalli. I was impressed by the ambience, good service and good food. Food was served in this “Durbar” in a Mughal style and reasonable Mughal period settings while pre-1980 Bollywood music played in the background. A big screen played music videos from the same period, setting the ambience to perfection. Overall it was “An entertaining fancy-dress and good food if you can spend around 500 Rs. per person” For more serious reads you can see here or here.

Check out the interiors

The hospitality team

From outside

Food and happiness

2007-06-24T17:37:00.000+05:30

Deleting some old mails ran into this again ... As food is one of my major love this one deserves a special mention here.

"You cannot have a happy ending without a banquet in the last scene."

Asterix comics.

When Time Matters

2007-06-11T20:22:00.000+05:30

With my mobile camera I am trying out more. It is said beauty lies in eye of the beholder. And while capturing beauty on camera "the time too matters". It matters more when you are using a less hi-tech camera like one on mobile phones.

In the evening just before sunset.

When it got darker

At noon

Reading more on lighting, many experts believe that the better time for nature photography is evening just before sunset and morning just after dawn. These are the times when you get the best of the colours, more of it and in greater variety.

Ofcourse I find it difficult to get up just after dawn so generally prefer just before sunset time. Things get better if it has just rained. Things look fresher and water droplets give a richer colour effects and contrasts.

An Electronic Clutter ...

2007-04-20T18:48:00.000+05:30

With my K750i I have started another of common software engineer style hobby … “Photography”. Now the camera has become the second most used feature, and ofcourse radio/mp3 player is the most used feature in my mobile phone. As friends suggest it is criminal misnomer to call that device a mobile phone. It is sad I call that device name that gives fifty percent weighting to the least used feature.

I have been looking around for a good picture to depict my state of mind. Above is one. I call it "An Electronic Clutter"

Colour of the Sky

2007-03-22T20:58:00.000+05:30

My two and a half year old nephew was busy doing his daily quota of colouring. I sat near him reading editorial form The Hindu, also giving him some vital consulting in his task. Some time into colouring the scenery in his colouring book, he stopped and asked me what is the colour of the Sky. I spontaneously opened my mouth to say blue, but then I thought of acting like a smart guy. So I motivated him to paint the sky as he saw it when he was outside. He painted the sky red, yellow and orange, with grey clouds.
I was pleased. I had just stopped from misdirecting him. His sky shall remain colourful red, orange and yellow till an enlightened kinder garden teacher or a smart friend corrects him. Then on he too will paint the sky as blue. All through my life too a lot of people form parents, teachers to friends played a huge role in painting my world. And now many things around me might have wrong colours. But I have been well trained to be colour blind :-)

Laziness is the mother of MANY inventions

2007-03-20T18:25:00.000+05:30

As a software engineer some of the shortest and smartest codes I have written are just because I was lazy to write bigger code or lazy to search the internet to find if there is a tried and tested way of solving the problem.
Facing a problem I have two options
1. Google (or read) and find out the by-book way of doing it.
2. Adjust with the commands I already know. And this lazy adjustment has made me do a lot of tricky things in life. In this process I have many a times thought
“Wheel should have been invented by a very lazy guy who was tired of lifting things”

But putting forward this argument to friends, I noticed conspicuous absence of the 3rd choice in my list
3. Not solving the problem at all and leaving it for others to solve. :-)

So I noted lazily that the absence of third option is also important.

To the CENTER OF THE WORLD and back

2007-02-20T19:52:00.000+05:30

I cherish this trip as it is not common that you get to visit ISRAEL. It is place that was visited by most number of invaders than any place on earth. English ruled India for spices and gold, US invaded Iraq for oil, and many other places were ravaged for its riches or military advantage, fertile land etc. But what brought all these invaders to Jerusalem which had no fertile land, no gold or oil was the first question our guide to Jerusalem asked. My answer was the obvious one that “it was the sacred place of three religions”, but then it could not explain the interest shown by impious like Alexander the great and others.

Thus explains the Traditional Theory:
As it was considered to be a flat world, Israel was considered the center of the world and ruling it was important to rule the world, and to rule the world was one desire that all the invaders had in common.

Just 7.1 million strong Israel has seen many more wars than India. It has left India far behind in development in the same 60 years of independence. It presents visitors a great amalgam of Historic and Modern structures. The extensive use of Jerusalem stone (or limestone like stones) gives most of it cities specially Jerusalem a golden yellow hue. It does look like a place out of history books. I thought India was the most religiously confused place before I saw Jerusalem. Like here the same building contains Tomb of David on ground floor (sacred to Jews), the last supper hall on first floor (sacred to Christianity) and the building itself is a Mosque. Courtesy its conflict stained history and present, security at all places is quite strict often to dismay of tourist but they do compensate by recruiting all beautiful girls :-) . The well timed rains(irony ofcourse ...!) did stop me from enjoying beauties of/on the beaches to full :-(. Definitely the Mall culture has caught up too much with Israel. Food probably due to Arab influence does looks similar to India at places. I tried a different place or a different dish everyday and that most people understood English made it easier to place the order :-) .

And I did find MALLUS even there.

Ref : Internet and wikipedia and "word of mouth" info from friends in Israel

I Miss You

2007-02-05T01:02:00.000+05:30

It is said Boys grow to become Big Boys. This blog is dedicated to one author who brought me from boys gang to big boys in reading.

For avid readers the genre of book one reads marks that period of life. Life started with color nursery story books, then to Champak, Chaca Choudhari and Tinkle (Courtesy my fathers Air force job which kept me away form kerala, Balarama and poompata took a late entry into my life). This was the kids section. Then came the days of secret seven, famous five and hardy boys.

But one author who brought me to the Big Boys gang in reading was sidney sheldon. He caught me with his book “Master of the Game” (but Jamie McGregor and not kate was my favorite in it…). Strong protagonist and equally competent adversaries, fast pace, good, simple narration, sense of direction and enough of Masala ( :-) :-) has any of his book ever missed it..!!!). This was the beginning of my tryst with all different categories of books from history, to science fiction. As life passes by I may still wander about trying more flavours (Bhagavath geetha, and Ramaya after sometime... ;-) ). But still I can never get a Sidney Sheldon to pass by me unread. He has definitely made an indispensable position in my “I READ list”.

As the golden era of his came to an end on 30 January (Author Sidney Sheldon dead), it has left a huge gap in my favourite list.

26 January: Euphoric REPUBLIC DAY

2007-01-25T20:31:00.000+05:30

Happy Birthday to my first love "The Republic of India"

Your beauty charmed me

Your passion doused me

Your yore filled me with reverence

Your simple complexity is a trance

Mighty is my luck for this chance
Proud to be born an INDIAN

* pic copied from some forwarded mail

Resurgence

2007-01-24T18:44:00.000+05:30

I am reviving my blog
Reason peer pressure ... :-):-) ... My flat-mate has started a blog, so I am motivated.

Check it out http://maneeshisms.blogspot.com

So I would say, like Jackfruit ... my blog too is seasonal ... ;-)

Team Outing

2006-04-21T22:02:00.001+05:30

For more on team outings visit TEAM4OUTDOOR

‘Great teams are build in resorts’ this is the company policy. So this year too we went to a resort (Shakthi hill) for our team building.

Location
BEML Layout, Rajarajeshwarinagar, Off. Mysore Road,
For Details of resort you can visit http://shakthiresorts.com/

We started for Shakthi hill from Madiwala office at 9am Indian standard time as decided, unlike all SemiIP (my team) activity which starts at SemiIP standard time. SemiIP standard time is 1Hrs lagging from Indian standard time. Ride is fine except for usual problems of Bangalore road. During bus journey the competition is who makes maximum noise and sings the worst. I always feel I can be the best at it with some effort.
All team outing starts with confusion for starter and this one was not any different. So our gang got into analyzing the place, of course hearty laugh, cosmetic smiles, comment, and grumbling, swearing all is a part.
Then started the games. The resort promises big grounds and facilities like indoor shuttle court, table tennis and other indoor games. But the ground is a small patch on top of hill and first tennis ball was lost in the first minute. Some of us who were awed by the crowed in the small cricket ground started the trip to find the shuttle, TT courts. This took us around 2 km away down hill to some remote place. It was some club rented by the resort. It one those clubs you see once in life time. It had a small shuttle court placed in some awkward manner in an irregularly shaped room with low walls. TT table were in basement room with toilet attached (named so because of the smell). But all this was just the dull part of it.
Fortunately they arranged a big ‘plot of land’ nearby (probably this was the 2nd ground they meant). And then as heat got unbearable we got back to the resort and jumped into the pool. Pool was the one of the best part of it. Then came the lunch. Bird flu took some glam off the lunch. Food arranged was average with fish and mutton for non-veg. Then was the best change of this outing. The usual corporate team building games were not there. It always a pain to see sorry faces singing and sad faces telling jokes when forced during such game. Worse is the realization that the next joker could be you. After some voluntary performances we got back to playing, swimming pool etc. And then they also had a small trek with attraction like hanging bridge, caves, waterfall etc. Although it failed to attract many of us, it was not very bad. In the evening we converted the stage to our dance floor and had a hearty dance. Although the DJ there was not great some of us made thing better by seconding as DJ. Song were good enough to bring even the non-pub going otherwise “sedentary” team mates to the dance floor.
Over all the place is not too great but reasonable enough if the group you are with is lively. After completion of the development work in progress is done at the resort, It will be quite a place to arrange get-together.

The Jackfruit

2006-02-24T23:00:00.000+05:30

As a kid N K Pillai often traveled home to Kerala form gulf for summer vacation. It was in one such trip that Jackfruit caught his imagination.
Till that day he thought he had deciphered one logic in gods creations. God kept big things near to earth and small things on top. Like sparrows, crows fly and Ostrich does not. Pumpkins grow close and mangoes grow far. At times he felt lazy and kept even small things close to earth but with Jackfruit god chose to keep the huge fruit high up on tree. He got the sample of the edible part of the fruit form one of those visiting ‘unknown aunts’ who asked the same introductory question “Auntine Ormayundo mone?” .Question roughly converts to “do you remember me son?”. Ofcourse he always suspected even his mother got some secret help from Grandmother to recognize these guests. Then the sweet taste and smell of jackfruit again caught his attention. Looking at a big one high up on the tree he made up his mind to get it down. He put forward his plan to his two cousins. First time in that vacation both took out their school books. Next was his brother, equally impressed by the taste jumped out to his help. One look at the tree, second look at the fruit on top, and then I saw him getting ready for a bath like an obedient son. Some are overwhelmed by thoughts of hardship, few other turn back at sight of it. Kids lack guts he thought.

He put forward the plan to his mother and aunt. Mother went to prepare tea. Aunt taught him many new things. Jackfruits are bad for diabetes. Bananas are better for health. Jackfruits make good food for cattle. It is popular only among poor. She does not like it. Her kids never even taste jack fruits. Implicitly she was not getting into this mess.
So his next target was a group centered on his father. And this group was into real serious stuff. Local politics, international events, great promises and greater letdowns were the hot topics. He put forward his action plan. Father was quick to react. He suggested trying something less messy. The resin from jackfruit is unpopular enough to shy away any reasonable dressed person. They leave indelible stain on dress of the person who tries to handle it. It leaves our hand stained and smelly. It requires a lot of work, cleaning with coconut oil and dry cloth to clean our hand.

In addition to word of caution he also got from the group the way to his aim. He was showed a big bamboo long enough to reach the jackfruit. He managed to drag it to action area. He looked up contemplating the next step. Then he spotted the great Moni (the village coconut tree climber) on a top of a coconut tree. The small muscular man seeing NKP’s effort came down and helped him bring down the big fruit. With some effort he cut the fruit brought out the edible parts and laid it neatly on a big banana leaf. By this time NKP was looking dirty enough. He was send to his mother’s custody to be cleaned. His clean brother made the first attack on the fruit. Soon the studious cousins followed. Next was the aunt who hated jackfruits. The group of nation builders led by his father felt it fit to have a snack break. And then of course NKP. Moni uncle who cleaned up all the inedible part got that waste as a gift as it made good food for his cows. The effort built in N K Pillai a big love for the sweet, common and undervalued fruit. The effort taught him some things more than getting jackfruits down. It gave him valuable lessons he always carried.
1. If the desire is strong enough help comes form the top of coconut tree.
2. You cannot be honest and enjoy Jackfruit without getting your hands dirty.
3. You can have Jackfruits without getting your hands dirty provided some fool dirties his hand for you

An Empty Mind

2006-02-24T19:19:00.000+05:30

Empty mind is devils workshop…
but I differ.....I believe
Empty mind is a creative workshop.
The result of a creative activity can be beautiful like Taj Mahal or dirty as slums. This blog is also result of a partially empty mind. A tribute to aimless hours I spend with my desktop at home and office. Work in IT has one thing in common with monsoon in my home town Kerala. Like monsoons have incessant rain with hot and humid breaks, IT has seemingly unending toil with regular project-less warm periods.
Read on and give me your valuable comments…And let me introduce you to the protagonist in this blog. He is N K Pillai . Narayanan K. Pillai a young Indian. He is at times similar to me but differs at many junctions. Quite a simple complicated person and very similar to every other person you meet on a normal day. I call him Abnormally Normal.

Thought on Jackfruits

2006-02-06T18:42:00.000+05:30

Jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus: scientific name for biology geeks) has always caught my imagination. Thus the blog was named.