A concoction called life...

nowhere to go

2011-11-14T09:22:00.005+05:30

I don't think I know my India any more
And that hurts

there are things which came into being after I left,
and now it takes a while for me to make sense of things...
And that hurts

It's like something you owned, and it owned you.
something you identified yourself with.
now that seems to be moving on, leaving you behind.
And that hurts

with time, they say, things are forgotten.
But I am not a thing.
When with every morning light, I open 'The Hindu' and call home
Home is still somewhere in India, but I seem to be losing my place
And that hurts.

Over the past years, as I came far away,
got stuck in the puzzles of life, struggle everyday,
In the struggle to grow with time, both of us seem to be too busy to catch up
And that hurts.

New roads have come about. New cell phone companies.
Nokia is no longer the leader, and new ways to make money
I feel like a stranger, looking at a foreign land... once my home.
I don't seem to belong to anywhere anymore.
And that hurts.

Discussing Rahul Gandhi and Mayawati over dinner on weekends
and playing Antakshari every 'potluck',
going to pooja every 'Thanksgiving',
it seems we are somewhere stuck
By the time we force our way out,
there would be nowhere to go
And that hurts.

The rise of Indian entrepreneurship: An outsider's perspective

2011-02-02T01:31:00.001+05:30

Well to begin with, I do not want to be an outsider on this for long. But be that as it may, I am not involved and hence the topic...

I am excited to see that the bumbling energy in India about entrepreneurship is shining bright. Bright enough to be visible to me sitting in the US. I think if there has to be a healthy way of life in India, it has to come from the society and not the government. Especially when people are so cynical about what the government does. Anyways its beyond the competence of a few minds to think up the growth strategy for the entire country! Lets the collective wisdom do the evolution of thought. The government should just sit back and create an environment where the society is able to do that.

What makes me this excited is that I can see this simple process in action now:

Common people, with all the humility in the word common, face issues in their daily lives.
Common people hence know what problems irk them more
Common people think of solutions
Common people come up with enterprises to solve the issue
Other common people consume the service and compensate the service/good provider

And hence the circle of an issue and its solution was completed, with no visible sign of a government intervention. No matter how big/small the issue is, someone might want to earn a living out of fixing a problem. A win-win, where someone gets to earn money while reducing one issue in the society and everyone moves ahead!

I have begun to see an entrepreneurship fervor in India, which I see here in the US. Anyone who wants to open a startup/enteprise can work hard and open one! and thats a biig change from the erstwhile India. what is more exciting is the nature of startups. Many of these are about things which at best can be thought of as unusual, at least for India...

Here are 3 such startups I think are interesting. This list is in no way complete or exhaustive.

http://www.tulliho.com : This is an awesome idea for people who wanna get Tulli! (drunk) a yelp-esque website catering to people in Indian cities, helping them find good bars and pubs.
http://saleraja.com : Another site catering to the shopping needs of people, where you can get to know about sales going on in different places.
http://www.babyoye.com : this site helps you buy stuff for your new kids. Sort of reinventing the buying experience with the web
http://windchimes.co.in : A social media company for Indian companies to use socail media advertising

None of these companies are using the 'outsourcing' model. Its democracy at its best: for the people by the people. They are interesting because what they offer would have been laughed at some years ago. I can just imagine friends, parent just yelling 'are you out of your mind' etc etc..

I guess not anymore :)

puraani photos

2011-01-30T02:23:00.000+05:30

कुछ तो बात है इन पुरानी photos में
की दिल में कहीं एक चोट कर जाती हैं
किसी गुज़रे हुए ज़माने की कोई बात याद दिला जाती हैं

वक़्त के हाथों जब उनका रंग फीका पड़ जाता है
तो वक़्त के ही बुने हुए sweater में अपने आप सी जाती हैं

कैसा था वो पल जो हमने इस फोटो में कैद कर लिया
एक हसीन वाकया जिसको हमने इतने सालो बाद फिर से जी लिया

गौर से देखें तो सिलवटें भी दिखेंगी उस फोटो पर
जो उसे संभाल के रखने के बाद भी उसपर पड़ गयीं
शायद तबसे आज तक की जी हुई ज़िन्दगी की दूरियां भी उसी तरह बढ़ गयीं

खैर, चलो एक बार औए कोई याद तो संजोये
और कल शायद उसो भी देख के मिल कर हसें, मिल कर रोयें...

Simple pleasures of life

2011-01-29T02:59:00.001+05:30

Just remembered this small thing. It's not everyday that you get to notice your kid brother grow up, he just does! and when you look back at pictures from 10 years ago, you realise you have come a long way...

When we both were kids (I am 5 years elder to my brother), I used to tell bedtime stories to my brother up until when my brother came into 5th grade. Funny stories, filled with jokes which I knew my brother found funny. For many years, night after night, I will tell him stories of Hari or Raju or Nainsukh and their daily lives.. The stories weren't necessarily stories but a string of slapstick jokes woven together. And by brother would every time burst out laughing on silly slapstick jokes with people slipping over spilled milk or trash on the road, random bicycle accidents and of rats fighting and what not. This went on for years and I really didn't have to change much content. Just a new name and a new way of narrating a slapstick story...
and my brother would gradually slip into sleep happily...

Until one day when I was telling him about how Haria fell on the road while riding his cycle over a banana peel, my brother didn't laugh. Instead he noted, "Dada your sense of humor is very crass". I paused for a second to take in what had just happened. All of a sudden my kid brother seemed to have grown. Grown out of the age he had forever been in, and grown into the next stage of life. I frantically tried to make up a new story line with new humor style, but he didn't laugh. I tried again with something else, but he still didn't find that funny enough. After a few tries he got bored and went to sleep.

And I lay in my bed realizing that I had just noticed a very simple, yet very profound thing. Things change. People change. Even your kid brother. And my brother was taking his next steps in this world. And with a smile on my face, I fell asleep... Happily..

Bye bye my ancestral house...

2011-01-22T04:34:00.000+05:30

Yes. the house in which my I, my brother, my cousins, my uncles, my father grew up is going to go. The house in which I think (I am not sure) my great grand father moved in, and my grandfather lived his complete life, with his brothers, who later branched out into a similar house somewhere else in Lucknow. The house will be demolished, a new development will come about. A new cycle of great grand fathers, grand fathers, brothers, sisters will start. Life will come a full circle...

The Lalbagh house as we call it, has been around since 1859. University of Illinois, where I work, was established in 1867. So much has happened in Lalbagh that

Its going to be difficult to shift. It's 60+ years of stuff that needs to be sorted. Stuff we had forgotten existed. stuff which we lived around, but had grown out of. The small bed which was my favorite as a child, has been lying broken now for years with no energy and urgency in anyone to fix it. Then there are calenders for the past 60 years which we stumbled upon. not at one place, but sorta everywhere... one was in the grain room, some others were in the poultry room, etc etc. Oh we found an album too! from waay back when I was born.. it had gone missing so long ago that I forgot it existed. I don't even know if I should categorize that as new memories or really old ones.

The guava trees, in the front verandah would have to be cut, and places where we rode our tricycles would be all a part of our memories only...

I have had all emotions in Lalbagh. Love, hate, rage, excitement, sadness, cluelessness, laziness. The excitement at the prospect of samosa jalebi in the morning. the fun of running from one corner of the house to the other and panting heavily in the process. You can get actually forget the world once you are in Lalbagh. I have spent many days just watching TV. all day...

This is the view of the terrace from the inner courtyard. I always found this view particularly spooky in the night. as you can see in the picture on the right.

It's sort of humbling to see the circle of life on your own. Something which was a little bigger than all of us in the family will be gone. To pave way for new. Funny, but I feel maybe this is the best parting gift Lalbagh could give me.


the passage I have always been		scared of

the passage to the terrace


the ceiling of the living hall..

How much forest does a man need

2010-10-21T05:09:00.001+05:30

If you flew over Delhi around june 2010, one thing would be kinda clear. That you couldn't see anything clearly at all from the window. Well, part of it could have been because most of the city was dug up for Commonwealth games, but there was a major part ascribed to plain dust in the air. Maybe it was due to scorching summer and lack of humidity in the air too.

But then the question comes, if there was so much dust in the atmosphere, wouldn't everyone be inhaling it? And with lax industry laws, there of course are many pollutants in the air too! And all of them simply, pretty much forcibly just get into your lungs!

The next question is why are people not doing anything about it? Well, I think that's because people, mostly, are not empowered to do anything beyond their own backyard. And the people who are empowered, are either so dumb to not see the issue, or plain and simple ignorant, or just too busy minting money to see that this effects everyone! including the PM and the President. Well, only when they are out in the open...

So then how do we actually see how bad the picture is? For one, every one could take a flight in to Delhi, which, for obvious reasons isn't the most economical way of conducting a study. So I thought I should do the next best thing. Take pictures from high above and paste them here.

Thanks to google maps and jing technologies, I was able to put these pics here:

Lucknow, India

Hyderabad suburbs, India

Nerul, Navi Mumbai, India

Noida, India

Schaumburg, US


Nice, France


Tooting, London, UK

I tried to compare apples to apples by keeping the resolution level the same. I also tried to consider only what I thought were suburbs, since they seem to have a better control over land and hence tree cover.

What is clearly visible is that number of trees in the captured area are faar less for Indian cities, no matter where they are, when compared to, suburbs in US or Europe.

This is not a research study, so I am sure the sample data I am looking at would be flawed after a point. But I definitely wanted to put up some comparison between what Indian cities are doing, vs the 'better' cities of US/Europe. Also, since these are suburbs, in both cases (India or others) they were settled down into, rather recently.

We all have known that tree cover is said to be beneficial for MANY things, including water table restoration, reduction in free dust just flying around in the air, reducing average temperature of the areas, and keeping the land healthier in general.

Given this, I wanted to hit at at least one problem. That of awareness in people in India about the shoddy state of their green cover. Only 12% of land mass in India is covered with forests, as compared to 33% in the US, 30% over the world, 34% in Canada, 22% in China and so on.

I think the green cover is especially more important in city areas given the concentration of pollutants in general.

Maybe we should start from where we do have control. Our backyard. And then move up from there. Otherwise the average life expectancy in our cities will continue to be low and maybe drop lower with new industrialization and growth happening...

Why should India try to be a sporting nation?

2010-10-12T04:05:00.000+05:30

Here is a video from NDTV about sporting culture in India.

These guys were discussing why isn't India a sporting nation. The arguments I heard were like:

lack of infrastructure
cricket cricket cricket
risk of failure, which in absence of govt support can leave you hungry and poor
there is simply not enough money in the country to support sportsmen
culture(something like shaastra was mentioned in the video) doesn't give sports any place in our lives

etc etc. While I think these are the tangible reasons why Sports don't flourish in India, but these by themselves aren't the problem. I think all these guys sort of missed the main point. Sports is a tremendous character builder. It teaches one to accept defeat but not be a loser or have a defeatist attitude.

Another thing, on a very basic level, was also missed was that sports keep us much healthier and hence increase the happiness in people! lesser instances of diseases in people, better lifestyle choices etc all come in to make a country healthy, happy and eventually prosperous.

I think most of our leaders were unlucky enough to not see this perspective, which all developed countries( and societies) follow so well! I live in the US and I see people running at any time during the day! they are MUCH more healthier than most of the affluent Indians I know!

It's not about playing sports for the professional value of it, its about playing sports whatever your profession is, so that you are healthy enough to make most of what your body has to offer.

On a different note. The debate by itself was so much of an opinion-based discussion. If experts were called in, why weren't empirical data based examples given? why can't a sound argument be made to support what they say?

In addition to the sporting culture, we also need a good debating culture :)

An interesting and very quick baked fish recipe

2010-09-30T01:09:00.001+05:30

I have been trying a new baked fish recipe recently, courtesy Anjali. It's very easy to make and tastes awesome! As for the name, lets call it "Fraud Mallu Fish"

So here are the ingredients you need:

fish: We use Salmon fillets
Thyme: around 2 tbsp
Basil: 2 tbsp
garlic powder
Try Maggi Masala powder: half of the packet
Olive Oil
Balsamic vinegar
cooking red wine

Steps:

Pre heat oven to 400 degrees
get a piece of whole fish fillet. You can cut it into smaller pieces if you want, we make it as one piece. If you are using the fish as a whole, poke it with a fork to create holes through which oil etc will seep in.
sprinkle the Thyme, Garlic powder and Basil on the top of the fish, use enough quantity to cover the entire fish well
mix Balsamic vinegar, cooking red wine and Olive oil in a small cup and pour evenly over the fish. The herbs and spices used in step 3 will help hold the liquid on top of the fish
bake the fish for about 15-20 mins, testing for whether it has cooked or not
Once cooked, sprinkle maggi masala on top of it and enjoy

This is healthy, and tasty and takes only 25 odd mins to make!

Commonwealth games: My reaction

2010-09-23T22:04:00.001+05:30

I know I am a little frustrated... well ok, a lot frustrated at this colossal failure of CWG, but here is a letter I wanted to write to Manmohan Singh...

Dear Mr. Prime Minister,

Thank you.

I think these commonwealth games were a blessing in disguise for us. And thank you for making sure that they have shown such a miserable face of India. I think this is going to help all of us to march ahead on the path of development.

Much like the historic Chicago fire, these commonwealth games have been able to redevelop delhi from scratch. There could not have been any other excuse to dig up the whole of the city. So much so that one cannot even see the city under the dust cloud from a flight.

Thank you for allowing your officials to effectively admit that Indians are unclean. Not that it was a secret, but at least now people might wake up and think about cleanliness around them. In addition, for Indians living abroad, this will embrace them to be mentally strong when they hear racist catcall about you 'filthy Indians' etc. Mental strength is very much needed for progress.

I also want to thank you for approving the material for fallen bridge. You see, bridges/buildings (another building recently just fell somewhere) fall rather often in India. It was just that bureaucracy didn't care about fellow Indians. And since foreign lives matter much more to the top govt officials and ministers, at least we will have ONE bridge built right, where people can travel without fearing for their life.

Also, thank you for the overall shoddy quality of everything made from falling roof tiles, to wires submerged in water. Indian companies will now have to try extra hard to win international clients'
trust. This will help them focus much more on their PR, needing extra expenditure. And we needed money flow in the markets right? Seems like an awesome master plan to increase public spending.

Oh and above and beyond, thanks for clearing this for me personally. I always was confused whether an authoritative China minus-the-supposed-political-freedom was better or India with its fledgling democracy. After all, most of the human development indices seem to be better off in China than India.
Next time I meet a Chinese here in the US, I will humbly submit to the superior race/country.

One less problem to deal with...

Oh, here is a link for pics from the CWG: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/commonwealth_games/delhi_2010/9025907.stm

Perfect fit

2010-08-07T04:38:00.000+05:30

Scores of things came, and scores went on

But this one seems to be walking with me, maybe she'll hang around

She covers my steps, every tiny bit

She seems like a dress with a perfect fit

Like an after-rain breeze that swirls around

or maybe like a pillar that holds its ground

She quells my fears, every tiny bit

She seems like a dress with a perfect fit

When I feel trodden, dead and dust

when everything around me has all gone bust

She weeps my tears, every tiny bit

She seems like a dress with a perfect fit

All that I own, and all that I call mine

no matter how earthly, no matter how divine

She shares my world, every tiny bit

She feels like a dress with perfect fit

An idea a day keeps the doctor away

2010-07-22T10:11:00.001+05:30

I think I am obsessed with the idea of creating new ideas. Since my undergrad days, when a mere look at a stepper motor interface made me think of the numerous possibilities there were to make something cool with it, I have been fantasizing about the next cool thing I could make with the basic building blocks I have at hand.

Only with time, my building blocks evolved and became a mix of technology pieces, business concepts and social issues. Thats a great concoction though! But with more information in my head, I guess my idle time goes into thinking about new things to make, new companies to start and a new world to live in...

Most of the times I get out of my day dreaming and move on with my life... but the idea sticks on as a 'Could have been the next revolution' Sometimes I have actually realized that someone made a killing out of it :)

here is a small list of a few of those ideas.. These are in no particular order DO NOT judge me on this!

Automatic pet fish feeding system
SaaS based Supply Chain Management system (Patented by IBM I think)
An earth based car positioning, and guiding system which I proposed to Reva the electric car company. (they shot it down)
An advertising system based on ring back tones on mobile phones ( too late on this one )
A virtual of Chai ki Dukaan (Road side tea shop) where people get together and gossip, discuss new ideas or understand the world, Office politics, course curriculum, or their love life.. This is still a very potent idea, if the Chai ki Dukaan ambience is successfully implemented.
A local area customer - vendor handshake platform for services. So you can get a local plumber/carpenter/nanny without having to hunt for one.
A concept similar to batchmates.com but much before batchmates.com came about
Setting up a Sabji Mandi in US to promote healthy food
Opening recharge stations for electric cars in India.
Opening a p2p shop rating system, which is accessible through mobile phones.
And a fresh one.. A doctor rating system!!

Well the list is longer... but you get the gist.. and yes you are free to implement any of these.. it's open source now :)

Yoga to fight greedy capitalism

2010-07-20T04:49:00.000+05:30

I was watching 'Capitalism A Love Story' yesterday. Well, call it a totally senseless conclusion, but after watching it, I decided I need to start doing Yoga. And here are the dots connecting the movie to Yoga :)

The movie propounded that in a place like the US, people always spoke very vehemently and passionately about Capitalism, Free-markets... A place where enterprises were always easy to open, where competition was fair, and where everyone was prospering because of this healthy atmosphere for people to follow their dreams and live out their american lives...

and then the economic crisis happened.... something, which according to Micheal Moore, was calibrated and executed very well by people in the US govt, colluding with people from Wall St. The movie is made with enough emotional sequences to floor you before driving home the point that when someone else is making decisions and telling you to do something, or invest in something etc etc, he has his foremost capitalistic (read profit making) intensions in his mind.

So much so, that in some places children were unjustly kept in juvenile homes when they never needed to, at the behest of a judge colluding with a private juvenile home operator. Similarly, other examples were given to show ( or rather prove) that capitalism in its current form cannot be trusted, coz everything from money markets, food markets (meaning what is sold in your next door grocery store and what's not... have you thought about why there is just soooooo much more orange juice than any other?)

When you let someone else choose for you, through the means of consulting, agents etc, you let them decide for you. Maybe we are trained to do that. To let the specialist do his job, coz we know much less than him! and also that it is NOT our job to know as much as the specialist does....

Think about healthcare. Primarily in US. I have been to docs enough number of times here to see that most of the times, I get the answer, 'I don't know what this is!' so please get a test done, and then get an X Ray, etc etc... For my carpal tunnel syndrome tests (which they didn't even prove in the end) they got me to do an MRI, an EMG (which another doc then said that it was a useless test), 4 X rays. 2 blood tests for everything in the body and 5 visits to the doc. And in the end, I was at the same place as I was before. I even solved the problem myself by getting a new keyboard!

Now. I would have always let the doc do his job. But this, and other cases which stunk of money mindedness in the medical profession, made me rethink...

If you put capitalism and your complete submission of yourself to someone else, you are giving him the power to take you for a ride as he wants to. And in the process, possibly defer your speed of getting healthy again.. same applied to the housing loans with sharks out there to shave that extra bit of profit from you. etc etc.

So I thought, I must take charge of my own life much more than I do right now. Instead of 'take me there' approach of current service oriented industry, I want to move to a Do it Yourself. A familiar term, but not really implemented anywhere beyond building/fixing home/cars etc

And to begin with, let me start with reducing my dependence on external medicine.. and a possible way of that is to start doing Yoga...

the new and improved The Hindu

2010-04-13T21:55:00.000+05:30

I just saw a news article on The Hindu and realized that it is turning itself into a great knowledge repository for people to use for their own research...

The Hindu now makes available downloadable resources for people.. something very different from what other news sites like ibnlive or ndtv offer. this is a good differentiator for them I think...

have a look at this link... you will see the link for resources on the right side:

The Hindu: Obama welcomes Indian offer

I think eventually The Hindu will turn into somewhat of a 'place to go' to find good articles to read up on matters and get materials one can use as references...

Why don't Indian companies take their web presence seriously?

2010-02-10T03:17:00.001+05:30

My friend Gaurav Sharma (name changed for privacy) asked this question. He is the CEO of a leading Indian web solutions company, so his question has got to have a good mix of bewilderment, frustration, anxiety and most worryingly, facts behind it...

This is an interesting question, and when I began exploring it, it unravelled into a many folds of Indian society, and economics which I think we all see, but maybe overlook. I come from a unique (remember everyone is unique? :) ) background of Anthropologist father, Zoologist mother, Bachelors in Engineering and MsBA in Technology Management. So I tend to have diff perspectives (which more often than not, confuse me more than anyone else) on issues close to my heart. This one sure is: after all, it is things like these that make India look technologically inferior, and not up with the rest of the world etc etc.

So back to the question. I will try and put out my reasons for the question in separate posts: to save you from information (read opinion) overload, but I hope it makes an interesting read.

Perspective 1:

Lets begin with an example.

Any person who grew up in South Delhi would know of Lodhi Sports. This is a shop we respected as one of the few 'up market' sports showrooms in Delhi. In the early 90's it was rare to see exercise equipment in many shuttered shops. This one was all glass and had a wide range of exercise equipment. 20 years later, Lodhi Sports has expanded to many shops around Delhi, in big shopping malls etc. Now look at their current site: http://www.lodhisports.in . It doesn't even open currently.

Now, its target market very much overlaps the active internet users category in Delhi, so I think it does make sense to at least have a functioning site! That leaves us with two options, either the provider is off the track of the consumer doesn't want it. As in most cases, I think its the chicken and egg problem.

Reason 1: Coming of age of Indian consumer.. A little more distance to go...

Generally this is what I think other people call as maturing of a market, and I agree. Indian consumers have only recently begun taking a computer for granted in their living rooms, and fewer of them, between 3-8 crores have begun accessing the net actively. The definition of active here is using the internet at least once a month. It is pointless to say that if a person is only 'accessing' the net once in a month, he/she is definitely not comfortable looking at it as a utility. It seems more like a picnic; once a month, to try out something 'new'. Hence, it seems, that an average Indian internet user is still not getting on to the net to use it for transactions, and information gathering for purchases. That, will take time. Maybe something similar to plastic money and time taken for its traction in India.

Perspective 2:

But then I think internet and cell phones came up almost at the same time in India. And there is no points guessing who won the race. So whats the deal there? The utility of cell phones, and initial investment for cell phones is much clearer to people. And hence, the reception to cell phones is like a raging forest fire. And people indeed are benefiting from it! Whether Internet provides the same amount of value to Indian people is something I cannot comment on. I think it does, given the kind of stuff people in other parts of the world have done from it, but then one can disagree very well on this.

So then why nature chose cell phones over Internet? I think first because every thing about cell phone was very well modularized and tangibly managed. prepaid cards made it easy, compact, hassle free, and decoupled from any kind of red tape, for people to start making calls cheap. Internet revenues on the other hand still depend on credit card swiping. The infrastructure needed for cell phone companies to work on was revolutionized into the 'Indian model' now so widely studied across the globe. Internet however, could not come up with its own India strategy. Maybe all the smart brains were still busy making money from the cell phone market. Then the content delivered on cell phones was inherently local, unless of course you call an international 'talk to me' lines. Here too, Internet lagged much farther behind, because of its 'broadcasting' model vs. the peer to peer nature of phone calls.

Reason 2: Lack of macro-environment support and luck?

2 technologies, equally promising, but ultimately having very different paths...

Ultimately, while cell phones transformed themselves into the Indian context very well by providing cheap calls to lower costs, lightening speed information on prices for farmers, cheap way of keeping in touch for long distance relationship lovers, for moms to check up on their 'in school and not bunking' kids, and free sms etc etc, Internet couldn't really strike the same chord in the daily lives of Indians. It could not go much beyond educated, and computer literate people to the non english speaking housewives, moms, lalajis, and Gangu Bai for the betterment of their daily lives.

Does it mean Internet is irrelevant to India? Absolutely not; it just needs to wear colors of India over it, and ultimately go beyond rediff and naukri. The sites like Saleraja.com, mouthshut.com are getting into different spheres of our lives, beyond the traditional demographic which was being served...

To be continued :)

Would you like to pay for your surf?

2010-02-04T09:29:00.000+05:30

A normal professional's work day today begins in the morning clamoring to get to work. Once there, there is this cooling off period, although varying, but there for sure to begin to look at news, sports, email etc. A lot of websites are 'favorites' and browsers like chrome do put them up for your easy retrieval on a new tab.

A basic assumption there is that most of this material is free. Yes there are those ads, but either we don't care about them, or we just install a browser plugin to remove all the ads from a page. And of course Google makes its billions from all the ad revenue you can think of.

And then recently New York Times announced that it will begin charging for its online content. Wall Street already has a subscription model around its online content, and we've been hearing all the stuff about SaaS business models where everyone charges for everything they sell.

So is this the beginning of the end of free stuff? Is the advertising model kinda running out of steam?

I think this is the next wave of evolution on the internet. This appears to be the common ground that the e-world would have to come to with the traditional world. A world where you get what you pay for. A world where money has to be earned.

I don't have anything against the advertising model. I think it is great for a certain types of the websites, where the content is pretty much commoditized, and a subset of the internet population comes there. But if a service is differentiated and there is a demand for it, the company now seems to be in a position to charge premium for it.

A major reason for this is the huge growth in internet users from across the globe, and their increasingly varying needs from the internet. Going forward, Internet will begin to resemble our own real world. where some things are free, and some you gotta pay for.

So I think its time for us to get ready to make that choice. Do you want to pay for your surf or get what you don't want to pay for? I'd say, brace yourself. The internet is evolving into a new more self aware beast, and there is no more free lunch...

Nice guys finish last

2010-02-03T23:41:00.001+05:30

That's not true. Its not the nice guys, but the guys who thought they were nice, but realized mid way that they kinda caught the wrong train.

Now, catching train is something entirely dependent on you. You bought the tickets, you looked up the train name on the display, you misread the platform number, and you didn't check if it was finally the right train to have caught.

Now all this while you thought you could never catch the wrong train, and you were soo damn proud of it. Call it the law of mortality catching up with you. So now, even when you never had the intention of catching the wrong train, you pretty much laid your own trap. by doing the things you did.

Like Monica says in friends: "What were you thinking!!!" and I agree. What was the nice-guy-who-never-caught-the-wrong-train thinking when he actually himself caught the wrong train!?? There is no answer I think. I guess, he should have known better.

So even if he didn't want to, even if he never thought all along the way that this is what he is doing, he still did it! and the only person responsible for him landing up in the wrong train is him!!!

So whats the end result? he had to catch another train back, buy a new ticket, and return to the platform, and this time, at least try to catch the right train. And in the process, he finishes last.

Q.E.D.

Saamna: Another loong back written poem

2010-02-03T03:59:00.000+05:30

पिछले कुछ दिनों से, नाजाने मुझे कुछ होने लगा है...

जब से पतझड़ का नाग मेरे सूखे पत्तों को डसने लगा है

तब से शायद मुझे कुछ होने लगा है...

यह शीश मेरा, जो पहले नादानी में सदा ही ऊंचा रहता था,

अब ना जाने क्यों उसके सामने झुकने लगा है..

हाँ... शायद मुझे कुछ होने लगा है..

वो सुबह के सूरज की लाली

वो रात के चाँद की चांदनी

वो सागर के गहरे, नीले, विशाल रंग के बजाय

अब धरती का फीका भूरा रंग मुझको दिखने लगा है...

ज़रूर मुझे कुछ होने लगा है...

वो कागज़, जिसपर पहले सपनों के महल बना करते थे,

अब उसी कागज़ पे - कभी लाल, तो कभी पीली स्याही से

मेरे दिल का हाल बयान होने लगा है..

क्यूँ ऐसा मुझे होने लगा है?

लेकिन जब खेलने लगता हूँ इन्ही ख्यालों को गोद में लेकर,

तब समझ में आता है कि और कुछ नहीं,

बस ज़िन्दगी से मेरा सामना होने लगा है...

हाँ... बस यही तो मुझे होने लगा है.

Photo Album

2009-12-10T04:52:00.001+05:30

This is a poem I wrote sometime back. I was inspired by the way Gulzar writes, and was trying his style. Ofcourse there is no comparison, but listen to it on its own merit :)

Vacuuming the house

2009-12-09T04:24:00.002+05:30

Finally the weekend came when I thought I should get around vacuuming the house. Mine is a carpeted apartment. Grey colored... And you know what they say about grey right? That there are many shades of it. And every shade says something, shows something and hides something...

In fact, if you vacuum long enough, it will take you to forgotten stains and patches. Patches that you had at some time so painstakingly put into place. Just so that the carpet remains intact. Coz you see, replacing the carpet is a very difficult job, and usually it happens only when you move out of the apartment. Long after you are gone, and before the next incumbent steps in, the realtor takes care of that...

Back to the vacuuming. I began with my living room. This is the room I use the most, and naturally had a lot of dust around. As the vacuum moved around, sucking up the dust, the original color of carpet came out. And with it came a nice smell of the fragrance that I has sprayed on it long time back, but it had been suppressed by the dust that kept all the fragrance somewhere deep inside. And overtime I had pretty much forgotten about it too. within a few minutes, all the dust was gone and I had a neat smile on my face. As if I had regained my lost glory...

Excited now, I moved to my bedroom. I don't let many people in there, so its much more of a private place. The room itself is an absolute replica of what I am. Sort of untidy, but very functional. You will find anything you need on a daily basis. Not luxurious though; my bed is a very modest attempt at keeping me at 3 ft height from the ground, but there is a coffee machine, an over-the-bed table lamp, a study table, extension chord for power supply, wireless headphones, a small home exercise machine which can be tucked under the bed, full size mirror behind the door, etc etc. Basically everything to make you feel equipped.

I begin vacuuming there, and slowly slowly some stains begin to show up. These were not normal living room stains. They had some very special characteristics. Firstly, they were not normal dust colored. Some were slight transparent yellowish, some were sort of red, and some looked as if I had at some time tried very very hard to remove, but never succeeded, despite my sincerest efforts. Even the carpet showed signs of wearing off with my relentless rubbing, but the stain had stuck on... The dust had kinda hidden it from my daily notice. But now, here it was right there staring right back at me.

A little to the right of this stain was another thing. I didn't quite figure out what that was, but as the vacuum sucked away the covering on it, it too came out clear. It was a patch work. It had happened some time back when I had accidentally spilled coffee on it. And knowing that my mom would yell at me, I had tried beyond measure to remove that stain. But what a branded coffee that was! Not only the after taste remained on my taste buds for a while, but the stain it had caused never budged from its place.

And it was then that I decided to cut that piece of carpet off, and throw it away. Sad moment though, It was my bedroom's carpet! And I do like my bedroom! But be that as it may, I cut that piece off, and got another, rather unmatched piece of cloth to replace that. The carpet didn't quite look the same after that, but I guess it was worth it. I hated the patchwork. It looked ugly! it looked like some forced insertion of stuff that kinda didn't belong there. But as time passed, dust settled in, and gradually made the whole carpet look the same.

But that changed today. Vacuum cleaner made sure that all the stains and all the patchwork that had sort of faded away in my carpet, come back to life. And I was jolted back to the times when I had felt awful about putting those stains, and then tried to remove them from there.

And then I kinda thought, maybe it isn't the best thing to vacuum. Maybe I should have just let it be...

She

2009-11-21T09:30:00.001+05:30

A naughty smile and pursed lips

in between the nibbles and the tiny sips

One white hair that clearly shows

A little out of shape, and this she knows

Forever wanting me to be there

and then plundering me with no stone to spare

Gifts costing her a fortune, or her priceless looks

or even when she is lost in between her books

Where ever I go where ever I roam

When I get back, she feels like home...

911 vs 100

2009-11-16T10:29:00.003+05:30

Yes. I plan to compare the two numbers. There are many factors to look at, and I will try to sum them up as precisely as possible...

Ask any American, or watch enough Hollywood movies and you will see that 911 is something that Americans use very frequently, for things as small as sticking your hand to something very embarrassing (in American Pie) to something much bigger as in Die Hard... But you get the picture... as soon as there is any situation of any kind and severity, 911 is one of the first things they will think of. Efficiency of this system is so good that you are almost assured a response in minutes wherever you are in the country. There is proper research done while making roads, to ensure that any part of a city is reachable in 2-10 minutes from the nearest Police patrol ( my ex roommate was working for a firm that did this research)

100 on the other hand usually has a fleeting reference in the heads of Indians. Should something go wrong, the first set of people we think about are our neighbors, or friends. In some cases, we probably don't even want to get involved with the police. Like Hollywood in previous case, if you watch enough Bollywood movies, you will see that people do not usually want the police to get involved, or the police any how comes only when the hero has beaten the crap out of the villain, despite the absence of police. what I imply from this is that police is at least considered inept, or inconsiderate, or untrustworthy.

But if I think deeper about this, the differences don't just stay as mere facts and jokes as above... They begin to show the vast difference that exists between the two countries.

To implement a system like 911, a few basic things are needed. First it needs to be such a dependable system, that time and again, anywhere, anyhow, should there be an emergency, some help should be able to reach the victim. It is only then that a person will trust this 3 digit number so much to remember, and call, this number when their life is in danger. In addition, this number should be able to give you the warmth that you would have no inhibitions in trusting them for any situation of any sort. Third, the versatility of this number should be such that any kind and severity of situation can be handled by this number.

These are just a few components that go into making this system work. Any person in Process Management would tell you that this calls for operational efficiency, and that too of a very very high standard. Coz it deals with lives of people. Implementing this, even in a small society of 200 apartments is such a huge pain. I can tell you this by my experience in getting an electrician to fix a power cut in my apartment in Delhi.

Now imagine implementing this at the level of a nation. One of the world's biggest nations by land size and population. But this has been implemented here in the US. And everytime I think of this system, and dare to compare it to 100, I first get awestruck, and then get upset.

Why can't India implement a system like that? What's stopping us? Don't we deserve to have such a system to help us lead a better life? Must our loved ones die waiting for help to arrive? Or worse still. die waiting coz the PM is visiting the Hospital?

It needs will. Easy to say, much much more difficult to implement. Political, bureaucratic or whatever. Will. But all these are dependent on how strongly people ask for this, and make this (instead of speaking marathi in maharashtra) a political issue. And that comes from social awareness. That is VERY different from education, which is again VERY different from literacy... A nation of 1 billion, with most people not even knowing the significance/value of such a system. And I think the most critical role here is to be played by the middle class in India. I belong to it, and by having studied in US now, I know what we lack. There are many more middle class students who have been lucky enough to see and understand the difference between the two systems. Now that we are 'aware' we must pass this on, and strive to make everyone aware of this.

It is only when people are aware of this that leaders will rise, and take this issue further, and even take it on to them to implement this. And then we will have someone to vote for. Then we could also look at appointment of competent officers in implementing this system, and much more importantly, sustaining it.

The best way to resolve our issues is to move bottom up. And for that we need to be aware...

Indian Software Industry's pangs

2009-11-15T11:24:00.002+05:30

If you throw a random stone in bangalore, it will either hit a dog or a software engineer...

This is what I was told in 2000 when I began my software engineering. It was a weirdly funny joke, coz I did laugh at it, but I certainly did not like our comparison with dogs. Not only because it is derogatory (similar to the lines of objections on slum'dog' millionare) but also because engineers are by the very definition of the term, very well educated.

umm well educated? but as soon as I say this, I see my head screaming out against it. So something has to be wrong somewhere...

Some engineers are downright called 'unemployable' by the multinationals. But lets face it, passing 4 years in an engineering college would atleast have taught them basic levels of coding. Although this was not quite true in my case ( I probably wrote my first respectable software program only at my first job, but that taught me a lot, and hence this post...), but I would say that most of the software engineers would at least know how to code.

So whats the problem? its like a student who knows the alphabets well, but has no clue about how to form sentences with them. On top of it, forming understandable sentences from it is mostly just a dream. As more and more Indian software companies claim to provide 'best in the industry solutions' to the world outside (through getafreelancer.com, rentacoder.com and what not), particularly the western economies, their cracks begin to show. For they claim to know how to make software, but they actually just know how to code. And the bubble bursts...

Bigger companies like Infosys, TCS etc charge the western world enough money to send these new s/w engineering grads to almost a year of training, which makes them at least employable. But people who don't/couldn't make it into these are basically 'let loose' out in the big bad world, having nothing more than a vague imprint of 'Let's C,C++ by Yashwant Kanitkar)...

The point being, there is a lot more to software engineering than just code.

To begin with, there has to be an understanding of the context in which this software is being written. Without this understanding of context (business sense in other words) a software engineer is nothing more than an automated code generator (and they are usually crappy). A lot of this happens purely out of lack of exposure to good business practices and incompetent business acumen. But both of these can be acquired; latter even quicker.

This has to be coupled with acceptable levels of communication skills. And communication skills DO NOT mean using a thesaurus on every word and writing the most impressive word. It is about CLEARLY stating what you want to communicate, and making sure that the reader/listener has understood it well, and then confirm it.

Third is diligence. Remember that your aim is to get the work done. Not to get money to procrastinate the work for as long as possible. The client is not a fool to let this go on forever, more so for smaller project based companies where lock-in is very minimal. If a software company wants to sustain its business for longer than a few years, it has to finish the work ON TIME. if not in time.

The basic point being, a lot of small Indian software companies are coming out as promising something and delivering something much below the acceptable standards.

One of the ways in which the problem can be fixed is by having both business and technical expertise in a company. Only a bunch of engineers running day to day business will be a bad decision. Hiring an employable Technology Management MBA could be a step in the right direction.

Its the system at fault... so what?

2009-11-10T04:11:00.003+05:30

we say this every time something goes wrong and we are frustrated about it. Bombay attacks, power cuts, unsafe cities, irregular power cuts, bad roads and all that...

And yes it is the system as a whole that is wrong more than right, and it effects every one of us.

In its own little way, it makes us pay for its shortcomings, and we have to just adjust.

Of course everyone wants to change it, but how? and thats where it all gets stuck, we we take a deep sigh and move on, fighting among each other in a traffic jam, and cursing the govt for horrible roads and reduce our average life time... studies have shown that mumbaikars life is 7 years lesser than India's average.

So what do we do? keep living/dying everyday? maybe if we can start cleaning our own sub modules in the 'system', we could clean it up some day... make sure our sphere of influence is better day by day and we will gradually get out of this mess... after all, its our nation!

Percussions

2009-11-09T03:54:00.002+05:30

Percussions... My latest craze...

Just jump into the world of beats.. small taps, kiss of chalk, a faint hiss behind your ear, sudued drums, sounds of tabla..

Just close your eyes and you will feel as if you are in the middle of the first rain of the season, in between woods, alive, fresh.. with eyes closed, you can feel these small drops dancing on your skin, taking it into a trance of its own...

Listen to Tabla Beat Science, Ananda Shankar and State of Bengal, Trilok Gurtu and others you find...

Avial: A must follow band

2009-10-01T08:11:00.001+05:30

The one thing that has hit me straight in the face after coming to (and living in) the US since fall 2007 is the emphasis on originality. There are many facets to it, but I will concentrate on the music scene for now.

I am at the University of Illinois. This is a place far in between the happening west coast or the progressive east coast. This is the mid west, as they call it. The point being that there is no sizable influence of any structured institution like Hollywood, or Disneyland or any such thing in between.

Maybe this is the reason that most of the music I hear here is mostly original. This is in stark contrast to what we used to do in our college in Bangalore. A good quality music piece among our friends was usually decided by how close we were to the original. Be it a college fest, where a vastly popular band will dole out well practiced renditions of GNR, Pink Floyd, and Dire Straits, or a quiet gathering of friends where one super guitar player will play any of those songs deftly.

Somehow it was given and accepted that there is no scope (or need) of originality. (You are welcome Anu Malik and Preetam). Not only does this reflect on our inability to think, but also on our appetite of accepting new ideas in general. No wonder we dont have too many inventions coming out of India I guess...

And then I came across Avial. A Mallu band that plays ROCK in something other than English! Not only that, their music is a mix of traditional folk songs in the rock avatar. And its not as if they anglicize the folk songs, they give it the Indian touch on rock music instruments.

Have a look at some of their songs here:

And this..

I think this is a band that somehow resonates with me and I can relate to it.

Lemme know what you think...

Code is poetry

2009-09-12T03:28:00.004+05:30

Only a passionate programmer would know what I mean, and how does it feel to say that your code flows like poetry...

I recently found that written on a wordpress plugin page..

So when does code look like poetry? When its logic flows from one case to another in a seamless manner.. like a river, gracefully accepting whats thrown its way, making amends for them and happily moving ahead.

It doesn't happen always though.. I've written enough code to know when my code flowed like a calm river meandering through its path towards the ocean ... much like a poem..

Like my ex boss's car sticker said, mocking at the big bad world, "I'd rather code" ...

eBay's "Shop directly from USA" campaign

2009-09-11T20:34:00.003+05:30

Have a look at this campaign from eBay:

Now isn't this a smart way of doing the following:

get rid of your redundant, superfluous inventory in one country
increase sales in another part of the world that is still growing at a great pace
use your resources (in terms of presence and supply chain infrastructure) to optimize profits

Maybe these guys made a new global warehouse somewhere in eastern europe or something that can service more countries etc..

what ever the case maybe, I think this idea of selling stuff from one country in to another totally rocks!

what do you think?

Tragedy of being the bridge between two worlds

2009-09-09T02:47:00.004+05:30

I've realized lately that I have officially crossed in to the land of No Man's Land..

Well, is it a bird? is it a plane? hehe no its MsBA in Technology Management. And this is the tale of two lands.. Technology and Management and the narrow No Man's Land in between them

I have never been a purist. In fact ever since I learnt that Nature loves entropy, I never got around liking the idea of being a pure anything. No pure cricketer, No pure artist, No pure singer, No pure Guitar player ... and the list goes on till I came to this: No Pure Technologist, and No pure Manager.

So far so good. There are many types of me around in the world. Yes yes, I know what you are mostly thinking about. But keeping perverse sexual connotations apart, its good to be jack of all trades and master of being just that! Or so I thought till I visited the countries around my narrow strip of land.

Country: Technologasia

The citizens here usually looked just straight ahead. For them everything around them was an element of a list (or array, or set, or Class, or Struct) of equations, or data members, or neurons or digital signals. I visited the capital of this country called sillicity (pun intended). I walked up to the first person I saw the town hall, and here is the discussion I had:

me: Excuse me, do you know any good restaurants around here?
Sillicity citizen: I don't know. I am just follow this path to get to my place of work, and use my super brain to find the quickest route to my work place. So I don't have time to look around for restaurants.
me: Oh so you don't eat out at all?
Sillicity citizen: You silly man, I am a technologist. I eat drink sleep equations, gadgets, numbers, and circuits. (angrily) Where are you from?
me: (taken aback a little): umm... I am from Technology Managementsia.
Sillicity citizen: I've never heard of that school. I am sure its not ranked anywhere, and therefore I am sure you are a much lesser human being than I am. Why do you even need food! Your quota of food should be used to feed fish; which we eat to sharpen our brains!

And then he walks away.. on his Segway...

Saddened by this sudden indignation, I go to the next iPhone store, buy an iPhone and look up good restaurants. Enjoyed the food, and walked south (in some context, south of quad), and reach

Managementistan...

There were many people walking around, and they WERE looking everywhere. Dressed very nicely and had a fixed 8 cm x 5 cm smile on their faces. I walk up to a pretty looking citizen.

me: Hello, could you please direct me to a restaurant around here?
Manageristanian: (sizing me up) hmm. I know there is one somewhere here, but I don't know how to get there. It's a pretty nice place. They charge 5 times the price they do in Technologasia, and have exactly the same food! I love their standardized processes which they use to make the same food everywhere.
me: Oh but why would I pay 5 times the price for the same food?
Manageristanian: That's because they serve it in a very fashionable bright red plate. Thats very today you know... But since you ask such a dumb question, where are you from?
me: umm I am from Technology Managementasia you know, the... (She cuts me abruptly)
Manageristanian: oh yah nevermind, you coders. Never get the big picture of anything. Just find some food round the corner and satisfy ur hunger and try to learn from our existence... We live by example.
me: oh I am sorry to have bothered you..

I walk away, open my laptop, hack into a nearby store's server and get some free coupon codes and use them to get me a good suit for free. I similarly get a free coupon for the restaurant have the food for free, and ride my segway home...

The rot beneath the shining surface

2009-07-30T11:18:00.002+05:30

I've always believed that India is moving ahead. I always believed that things are changing for good.

But when a friend of yours says that she doesn't want a girl child, coz the environment is not conducive to rear a girl child, you know something is fundamentally wrong. Thats what happened recently. One of my friends is about to become a mom, and she doesn't want a girl child.

The reasons are a plenty, two of them given to me are:

1) Indian society is any how aggressive to a girl child. I thought it was changing, but it seems the northern belt is not.
2) Delhi in particular seems to be the worst place to rear a girl child. because most parent dont want to have a head ache 24x7 about whether their daughter is being molested on the roads somewhere, or someone is following her..

I had no words to this.. do you really resign to this state? or do you fight this..?
India shining... India's new future and all such encomiums pretty much sound shallow.

maybe we need to remove the upper shiny crust to see the rot beneath ....

Now I do, Now I don't? what do I do?

2008-12-24T12:05:00.003+05:30

This is about a new movie called 'Sorry Bhai'...

This is not a review, but the plot in the movie is really interesting to get me thinking. Well, if you haven't seen the movie, please first go and watch the movie and then come back and read this, coz I probably need to unravel the plot here. But it is a movie worth watching, if for nothing else, at least for the beautiful Chitrangada Singh.

The basic plot is this. A family with 2 sons, mom, dad. Elder son is currently in a foreign country ( I think Mauritius) and is about to get married. He calls the rest of the family to Mauritius to attend the wedding. This by itself is a little non Indian, and nontraditional. But then there, the mom (played by Shabana Azmi) doesn't quite get along with the bride-to-be (Chitrangada Singh), but they slowly try get closer.

The twist in the story comes when Chitrangada and the younger brother fall in love with each other, and end up having sex (while the family was attending this girl's wedding with the elder brother). The younger brother now resolves to get married to this girl (would-have-been-bhabhi -- are in in western Europe? :P ).

So far so good. The elder brother initially reacts violently, but then understands that there is no point in fighting this, and gets out of the way. But that's where I think logic ends.

The mother then goes to younger son and asks him to swear upon her that he won't marry the girl. Coz, "he cannot do such a disgusting deed". This is where I was hugely surprised. A mother asking her younger son to give away his happiness for her other son? There was also a scene where the mother talks to this bride-to-be about the fact that the elder son was her favourite. Whoa! what wrong did the younger one do?? If they weren't brothers, wouldn't they solve it man to man? (like the brothers anyhow did?)

Can moms be that way? Was she right in asking her younger son to give away sumone he was in love with? was she right in choosing a favourite? couldn't she be objective between her sons?

I think the mother was totally wrong, and unfortunately unmotherly like when she chose her favourite kid and discriminated against her younger one. Not only that, she didn't look at love the way even the brothers looked at it, where they practically said that u need to love the other person and 'stay' in love while getting married.

But there is a flip side of thoughts too. Where does a commitment to marriage turn in to a point of no return? I mean, if say, the girl and the younger brother would have fallen in love after the girl was married to the elder brother, what should be done in that case? should the existing couple divorce to allow for the 'freshly brewed' couple?

But then the argument remains the same doesn't it? you shouldn't marry (or stay in marriage with ) a person you don't love. I think it is (at least sometimes) natural to fall out of love in a marriage after a few years. So then should you divorce after that? But aren't divorces typically a bad thing? Also, what if they had kids?

I think either we need to look at marriage or at divorce from a new perspective. Maybe the way it happens in the west (not entirely follow that though) could give us some ideas... Should we move to a system where marriage is a permeable membrane that you can easily walk in and out of? But then what happens to the kids? And if not, should two people keep hitting their heads on the wall in a troubled marriage and spoil their lives?

what say?

The appaling state of affairs: Step 1 police reforms

2008-12-17T08:45:00.007+05:30

watch this video

Here Ratan Tata says that Tatas will now have their own mechanism to handle terror.
In this action, I could see the desperation, frustration, and resignation of a very patriotic group (Tatas do one of the most wide spread philanthropy I think).

Today Tatas actually said that they could not trust the government machinery to protect them from terrorists. So now, they will have to enter a domain that is an additional strain on their pockets. The money that they would otherwise be using to grow further across the globe. This is a sorry face of Indian Government machinery.

Tatas might have the money to open an anti terror process costing crores of rupees. What about the common man? What about me? you( if you don't belong to Tata group). Are we going to be killed by the terrorists, or by carelessness of Indian Government? Do we all have to now fend for ourselves and carry guns with us every time we venture out?

The Police laws we have were written in 1861, around 4 years after the revolt of 1857. Not only were they written by the british, but they were almost undoubtedly written to prevent from uprisings like 1857 from happening again. Needless to say, not only were they tyrannical, but also are totally irrelevant today. I am told there is a law that prohibits opening of road side dhabas!

This set of archaic laws, and their much needed reforms have been debated for the past 30 years! And add to this the fact that Politicians (Yah I know u r thinking there he goes politician bashing) use the police as they deem fit (for security, even getting milk in the morning), because police and law and order is a state subject. Constant patronage to specific officers and punishment others

On the other hand, opposite systems create, and mismanagement of them, create similar problems. Delhi Police for example, is not under Delhi CM's. When the girl was killed in the early morning hours, she could not do anything. There are many other similar cases where total control, or absolute lack of control over police have led to deaths, serious loss to us, the common people.

And yet the debate goes on, coz it is not in any minister's benefit to let go of their control over police. To top it, there is very little awareness in public about this issue. Unless general public takes this as a serious issue no party will want to work on it against the wishes of their ministers.

One of my professors here in US, Indian by origin, left India coz he thought nothing could be changed there. I am not justifying his cynicism but there is a point there. Every time we talked about India, and he is as passionate about India as any Indian I have seen, he said two things.

1. We must have a good enforcement mechanism (read police) to ensure smooth functioning of almost everything a common man deals with.
2. A few generations of Indians need to die and wash away before we can see a new vibrant India.

We live in a society where a person thinks he can get away from police after a crime, be it high profile like Manu Sharma, or Biti Mohanty, or road side goondas-turned-politicians like Arun Ghawli, or even the goondas in the streets of lucknow, or corrupt government officials demanding bribes, or even lazy police themselves totally ensured of patronage. When anyone of us thinks that a hundred rupees (500 in some cases) can get us out of 'trouble', the backbone of an orderly society breaks down. This again comes back haunting us in form of delayed police in terrorist attacks...

I think through all that I've written, I have tried to bring about the urgency needed to have police reforms. It is the common man's interaction with a constable that needs to be perfected. And thats the best way to reform a society. From within. From the basics...

I found this article too have a look...

the comma called Bombay

2008-12-07T09:05:00.006+05:30

First of all, the reason I wasn't blogging for a while was that I did not have anything to share. I actually started my job (no biggie), changed the city(no biggie), changed apartment (again, no biggie), went to relatives for Thanks giving (again)...

But then happened the stuff in Bombay (Mumbai for younger generations). 3 days, and the intervening nights like most other Indians I was glued to either TV, Laptop, or phone (while traveling) to get updates about the latest news. I was kinda sure that I won't have immediate relations involved (that was wrong), but the sheer fact that we were being killed was obviously a grim feeling. It was a feeling of helplessness, where we couldn't do anything but just sit and wait for this to get over, leaving us scarred forever.

Time magazine says that Indians shrug off a bomb blast like mosquitoes. Sad but true. 200 odd people were killed. sad but true. People from foreign land could come in and roam our cities in hijacked police vans, and fire on Indians. Sad but true. A normal Indian just walking on the road then would have his leg and arm ripped off. Sad but true...

But when Chidambaram says Indian security apparatus was faulty, that's inexcusable.
When BJP starts election campaign on it, that's inexcusable. When police arrives 30 minutes after the first bomb blast in Cama Hospital (Here), that's inexcusable.
When Deputy Chief Minister R.R. Patil says that this is a small thing, that's inexcusable.

The list will go on, and we will keep bleeding. After all, the status of Indian administration comes from Indian society, far too busy in earning their bread and if lucky, enjoying their movies, coffee at baristas, eating at Taj, or where ever. Most of the families I know have at least one of their relatives somewhere abroad. I meet some of my bangalore classmates in buses here in the US!. Many of my classmates(including me) are somewhere in US on 'Onsite' earning dollars, converting them to rupees, buying swanky houses, skodas, BMWs, fords (wrong company in current financial scenario).

One of my friends was kinda surprised when she learnt that I was very upset about Bombay. She asked me if I had someone related in that attack. I didn't know what to say. Do I only care about blood relations in India? Was every Indian Gandhi's/Bhagat Singh's relative? But most of us are that aloof from the area that exists beyond our offices and nearest malls. And unless a bomb blast or a gun shot happens next to our doors, we will always be listening to 'comfortably numb' (because we are) on our ipods, watching movies, and going on holidays on election days

A callous resignation. I guess that's the best way most of us can be described. If we can get away with a 100 rupee 'tip' to the traffic cop, we would (who wants to go to court). We all are fine with the world as long as we get our cup of coffee/beer and get to buy the cars we want.

What's wrong!!!! are we a bunch of random entities forced in to a box called India, when we'd rather be away from each other? Isn't there a value system that the whole nation could adhere to? are we all that cannibalistic?

We cannot stop foreign countries from hating us. We cannot stop a global recession. We cannot stop international politics against us. We can however work towards a collective response on it. We can create a social structure where locals don't help in such acts. We can create an environment where our state institutions work efficiently. Nehru in his book dreams of an India as great as it was in history where free thought, without any prejudice prevailed all over the country. Tagore mentioned the same in his work ('Where the head is held high...' remember?)

Just to clarify, I am not here to ramble on about the problems from a far away land. I have a bunch of action points too on it. This post has become far too long for that... I will put the problem from my perspective, and possible solutions, in my humble opinion, on it.

A bleeding fellow Indian.

MUSHKIL HAI APNA MEL PRIYE

2008-10-13T05:35:00.004+05:30

read this poem... its long, but very much worth your time. take my word on it.

mushkil hai apna mel priye, ye pyar nahin hai khel priye,
mushkil hai apnamel priye, ye pyar nahin hai khel priye,
tum MA 1st division ho, main hua matric fel priye,
mushkil hai apna mel priye, ye pyar nahin hai khel priye,

tum fauji afsar ki beti, main to kisaan ka beta hoon,
tum rabadi kheer malai ho, main to sattu sapreta hoon,
tum AC ghar mein rahti ho, main ped ke neeche leta hoon,
tum nai maruti lagti ho, main scooter lamreta hoon,
is kadar agar hum chup-chup kar aapas me prem badhaenge,
to ek roz tere daddy amrish puri ban jaaenge,
sab haddi pasli tod mujhe bhijwaa denge vo jail priye,
mushkil hai apna mel priye, ye pyar nahin hai khel priye,

tum arab desh kee ghodi ho, main hoon gadahe ki naal priye,
tum deewali ka bonus ho, main bhookho ki hadtaal priye,
tum heere jadi tashtari ho, main almunium ka thaal priye,
tum chicken-soop biryani ho, main kankad waali daal priye,
tum hiran-chaokadi bharti ho, main hoon kachue ki chaal priye,
tum chandan-wan ki lakdi ho, main hoon babool ki chaal priye,
main pake aam sa latka hoon, mat maaro mujhe gulel priye,
mushkil hai apna mel priye, ye pyar nahin hai khel priye,

main shani-dev jaisa kuroop, tum komal kanchan kaya ho,
main tan-se man-se kanshi ram, tum maha chanchala maya ho,
tum nirmal paawan ganga ho, main jalta hua patanga hoon,
tum raaj ghaat ka shanti march, main hindu-muslim danga hoon,
tum ho poonamka taajmahal, main kaali gufa ajanta ki,
tum ho vardaan vidhata ka,main galti hoon bhagvanta ki,
tum jet vimaan ki shobha ho, main bus ki thelam-thel priye,
mushkil hai apna mel priye, ye pyar nahin hai khel priye,

tum nai videshi mixi ho, main patthar ka silbatta hoon,
tum AK-saintalis jaisi, main to ik desi katta hoon,
tum chatur rabadi devi si, main bhola-bhala lalu hoon,
tum mukt sherni jangal ki, main chidiyaghar ka bhaalu hoon,
tum vyast sonia gandhi si, main v.p.singh sa khali hoon,
tum hansi madhuri dixit ki, main policeman ki gaali hoon,
kal jel agar ho jaaye to dilwa dena tum bel priye,
mushkil hai apna mel priye, ye pyar nahin hai khel priye,

main dhabe ke dhaanche jaisa, tum paanch sitara hotel ho,
main mahue ka desi tharra, tum red-label ki botel ho,
tum chitra-haar ka madhur geet, main krishi-darshan ki jhaadi hoon,
tum vishva-sundari si kamaal, main teliya chaap kabadi hoon,
tum sony ka mobile ho, main telephone waala chonga,
tum machli maansarovar ki, main saagar tat ka hoon ghongha,
dus manzil se gir jaaooga, mat aage mujhe dhakel priye,
mushkil hai apna mel priye, ye pyar nahin hai khel priye,

tum satta ki maharani ho, main vipaksha ki lachari hoon,
tum ho mamta-jailalita si, main kwara atal-bihari hoon,
tum tendulkar ka shatak priye, main follow on ki paari hoon,
tum getz,matiz, corolla ho main Leyland ki lorry hoon,
mujhko refree hi rehne do, mat khelo mujhse khel priye,
mushkil hai apna mel priye, ye pyar nahin hai khel priye,

main soch raha ki rahe hain kabse, shrota mujhko jhel priye,
mushkil hai apna mel priye, ye pyar nahin hai khel priye.

Stumped!

2008-10-03T06:59:00.002+05:30

Stumped! googlied! run out! (Inzamam Ul Haq style where u had no idea how could you get run out!) %^&*( %^&*( *()_+ ....>!!!!!

I mean, I am speechless it feels like I've grown in a Truman show where I was asked to believe in a particular world, and it turns out absolutely opposite!!!! OK. I will try to explain as much as I can, but beyond this I cannot do anything. Use your imagination, logic, background knowledge or what ever you want to use to get decipher what I want to say.

Hmm. clue number one. remember the moral science class? remember the course we covered? and remember the course we did not cover???

So the thing is, that the course we never covered was always assumed that we will cover by ourselves. Although, there were expectations all around you to know the course and score well in it, if there was a question asked.

Where were the questions asked? Right here!!! in real life!!!!!! God Damn!!! And what used to happen?? The questions were always ALWAYS out of course!!!! So there you are, who was not taught some particular chapters earlier, and then was indirectly told that everyone assumed that you knew the chapters and not only that, they also told you that every one in your batch knew the same stuff and therefore was expected to behave the same way. That was at least an assumption that you took with a sigh of relief, that the playing field is level.

5 years hence. You are in the real world with the education imparted to you at school, and home (most importantly), trying to find your place under the sun. To elaborate, now you are out there, (clue number two) trying to live your life socially, professionally, biologically, and ethically. And while you are trying to balance yourself on all the above mentioned ...ally's, you have nothing but those lessons you learnt in school.

So here is the meat. The lessons that you are using to balance your ...ally's with, include the lessons you never learnt in the first place!!!!!

So one fine day I am out in the big bad (really?) world, and I suddenly realize that other peers from my generation aren't even following the same rules!!!!! WHAT??? am I like the biggest C***** in the world to have believed what the 'others' wanted me to believe????

U know what it feels like? it feels as if u were fined a fortune by a traffic cop for having the wrong design of number plate (yes it happens), who later you found out was a fake!!!

I hope the clues helped you find out what I am talking about, or when u do find it out the hard way, lemme know... :(

A fellow late-realizer

Changing tunes of the world?

2008-10-03T05:36:00.003+05:30

I was just reading the news report in Wall Street Journal about US senate approving the India nuclear deal. (The news article). I have been closely observing the tone of the news reported on this matter till now. WSJ and NY Times, both have been reporting on this, though not as highly as Indian media, obviously because there is a more serious issue of the financial crisis, election, blah blah to report on..

But till now, all news reported was highlighting that India is the 'needy' and US the giver. Not that this is not true, but have a look at this or this...

Although there were other stories that bordered on reporting without prejudices, but I get a feeling that sometimes it is hard for American press to see their govt bending backwards to bag new orders for their companies. The bottom line is that this deal will get US lots of jobs and lots of money! accept it! that's why US Govt. is all after getting the deal done. As they say, In politics there are no permanent friends and no permanent enemies, just permanent interests. I think they don't want to see the fact that it is indeed a time of reckoning for other nations to see eye to eye with US...

What do u think?

घुलता हुआ एहसास

2008-09-15T00:44:00.003+05:30

All right, before people label me as a forlorn lover, I am not! So read this as an artistic creation as compared to a 'felt' one :P

सोचता तो था की शायद उसको याद करता हूँ
पर अहसास अब कुछ कम होता है

कुछ समय पहले चाहता तो उसे बहुत था
पर महसूस अब थोडा कम करता हूँ

कहीं से कुछ कम हुआ है या खुद ही ख़त्म हो रहा हूँ
पर कुछ बातों को याद करके मायूस अब थोडा कम होता हूँ

सूरज को देखने की आदत तो नहीं पड़ी है,
पर चाँद को अब कभी कभी ही देखता हूँ

किसी और का नाम तो नहीं आया है अभी जुबां पे,
पर उसका नाम ज़रूर कम लेता हूँ

देर रात तक जागना तो अभी शुरू नहीं किया है,
पर रात में अभी भी कम सोता हूँ

आँखें अभी तक सूखी तो नहीं है
पर शायद अब थोडा कम रोता हूँ..

Whose fault is it anyway?

2008-08-30T22:45:00.003+05:30

Off late, or maybe its an exponential function of getting older, I've begun to see more shades of gray in our lives. Not to mention I have a huge trouble differentiating between greens and grays ( I think I am colourblind), but that again, is digression.

The grays I am talking about are absolutely divergent from the simple problems as we used to face. much like the transition from 11th standard's finding forces of friction between two cubes, to finding the forces of friction between all bodies in a moving cycle.

Earlier it was so simple to point the good vs the evil. God Ram was good, Ravan was evil! it was simple. But then IBN live ran a story saying that in south India, some people actually worshiped Ravan and thought Ram was evil! Even that could have passed off as an exception, if it wasn't for a wiki article on Indo-china war in 1965. Before that, as most Indians, I thought that the fault was all Chinese. After reading that article, it wasn't clear who was wrong. Chinese, according to that article, were just trying to protect their territory. Whose fault was it then?

Then I watched Devdas (new one, again). Obviously the hero in the movie, Devdas, was loved by everyone. Poor guy, because of the pain he went through because of Paro leaving him or his father punishing him for everything, he got into drinking problems. Although otherwise a drunkard is considered bad, in this case Devdas won all the sympathy because we all 'knew' why he became a drunkard. So then, something becomes despicable only when we judge the act. But as soon as we get to know the reason behind the act, the whole picture turns itself on head, and the character become a hero of a Rs. 30 crore plus movie.

There was this character in this movie. That of Devdas's bhabhi (sister in law). She comes out in a very sinister portrayal. But I now think that was because the movie doesn't get into the details of her character. If Devdas had his reasons for turning into a drunkard, she must have hers for turning into a bitch. Maybe if those reasons were shown in the movie (like a disturbed childhood, early rape or whatever is heart wrenching enough), we might not have considered her evil. Assuming her part of story was shown and we looked at her with the same sympathy as Devdas, who was responsible for all the fracas? Whose fault was it anyway?

I think the point that comes out is that there are so many shades of gray that I am bound to get confused in between them (and I almost thought I was colourblind :P) Most of the people in the world are living in the various shades of gray. Let's be a little more careful the next time we point are fingers 'knowing' whose fault it actually was after all.

Fevicol Bond?

2008-08-22T04:43:00.003+05:30

The story is like this... I met a Kenyan guy here. So, we got talking about each other's culture and stuff...

His name is Kevin, and we (me and my roomy) will be going to his place on saturday for exchange dinner. Kevin and I have met every now and then in the bus we take to the campus. He is a very eager listener. The last time we met, we again got talking about India, Kenya, and the similarities...

He told me about a lot of interesting stuff like how Kenya was kinda put together by colonialism into one country from among 100s of tribes (a word he said was derogatory), and we talked about the Indian population in Kenya and the stereotypes that Kenyans have of Indians settled there... It was also not a very pretty sign that every where people confine themselves to their own backyards. People in Kenya, ethnic Indians and Kenyans don't usually mingle with each other much.

Then came Indian story.. unity in diversity, 22 national languages, 28 states, caste system, 1.1 billion population etc etc.. I was trying to sketch the picture of big India. India where so many people live together despite the differences and still we are growing!

Then came his one line question. "What holds you together?" And I went blank. Was there something? I was just reminded of the Fevicol ad where 100 people were sitting on a tractor and the tractor was still moving fine! But I guess thats when it struck me... We are stuck together... by what, is a question open to all...

Layoff in the middle of the week

2008-07-24T09:33:00.002+05:30

That's the best way to describe it I think... Today was my last class at MsBA at U of I. But the feeling is not that of sadness. Although yes, I would ideally have wanted a little more time here, but then I guess, this is human nature to want just a little but more than what you have.

So what all did this one year education give me? For one, I am looking forward to the next step (my job) with a sense of eagerness. It is prolly through this tumultuous one year that I realized that change IS actually a part of life. And after coming 10000 kms away from home, away from family and maybe even life, well, how worse can it get :P Besides, just let go... One year with quality professors instilled this faith in me that I am now ready to move forward in life.

But yes I am gonna miss the campus, which was refreshingly different from what I knew. Add to it that Americans don't quite say it on your face, but they do consider themselves the best country to live in (umm not so sure, but nvm). With the shake up that I went through, both academically, and emotionally, I kinda have a clearer path to follow (thanks Prof Jay P Kesan)

What I do have a clear picture about is that happiness is not as defined by west :P. No matter how they paint India (or other non US/european entities) but happiness is actually where your context is... For me, it is in India... But yes, with this degree, I will go back as a better prepared person.

Thanks U of I, u did end up making me a better person. 'Loyal to you Illinois...' as goes our song...

A perfect smile

2008-07-11T09:22:00.003+05:30

It has been a while since the last time I had that. An honest, from deep within my heart smile.

After watching this video, I got transported to that time when I used to stand at the same place as the guy who made this video. And as that moment came alive within me, I had a perfect smile :)

I don't know how many times have you done that, but almost every time I traveled in trains, I used to stand at the door, and used to let the gush of air breathe me in, as I breathed that in to me. There was a sense of freedom, a feeling of being one with God's creation... Almost like a real time movie with you in the balcony seat.
And when I traveled 24 hours in trains, I could actually see the day pass through and night settle in. I am sure in our daily lives not many times do we pay attention to this. It was simply awe inspiring the way a totally different aspect of life presented itself. As my cousin says, simple pleasures of life...

And now as I saw in the US, the train doors are closed. What they end up closing is the whole set of experiences I mentioned above. I guess whats missing here are those small openings in our otherwise packaged lives through which, every now and then we could be transformed into a totally different world. One where you could actually observe a day melt into night. Where you could watch a movie where the landscape changed its countenance every now and then. One where when it rained, you could just stretch ur neck out and feel the drops on ur face.

One where you were .... you...

The 'fish' girls

2008-07-06T09:56:00.002+05:30

No I am not talking about mermaids. Although that is a great topic of another blog, but maybe some other time. For now I am talking about a special breed of girls who have been given prior education, most probably in convents to use a special word 'fish'.

You see, they are kinda special. You can pretty much single out the 'fish' girls out of a group very easily. They usually have very pretty face, more often than not their legs are chiseled by Michelangelo, they are interested in the same sports which you are crazy about... In short they are every thing you want. The trouble is that some times their resume has a few 'skills' far too much for your palate.

So what is this fish thing? any been-there-done-that guy will know what this stands for. In the male bastion, where there are pretty much no rules about using a particular 'f' word in a friend circle, I guess women folk kind of observe a self constraint. Add to this the general perception that girls are 'usually' the more 'appropriate' folks around and will definitely purge the group from its oral misadventures. So when a girl wants to use the 'f' word, she replaces it with a 'fish'! And they think they have kinda swept it under the carpet. What they don't kinda realize is that for most guys using an 'f' word among guys is way more exhilarating than actually trying to avoid saying it, coz now not only you are pretty, awesome and lovely, but you are bindaas, approachable and cool to be with! what a combination...

So here is the deal. Here is this awesome femme fatale, she has a very pretty face, she seems to have a good head, and boy she loves the same activities like I do, and she uses the 'fish' word too! And that's when all guys in the group begin their 'moves' to bag this prized possession. What adds fuel to the fire is that the actions are not exactly rebuked.

And there I am in the crowd, but kinda better off than other guys, and seem to have made the moves better than them. She and I have been talking for a while now, and we exxactly share our likes and sense of humor. Infact it is going soo well that her 'fish' utterances are coming out now more so often and I am reveling in the fact that she is so much one among us, that I could really think about the next step with her. And maybe a little down the road, decide upon a longer road with her too!

She is wearing a beautiful dress. (Oh! what the hell I think anything will look good on her) Although I never ever notice this stuff on girls, but even her jewelry stands out on her. Her cute little ear rings, her thin and elegant necklace just make their presence felt and simply increase the beauty I have in sight. Down in her arms, her red bangles covering just a little area, enough for them to sparkle just like her eyes, make the road I was thinking about even more impelling.
And there is a ring in her fourth right finger on the right hand.

It is then that the final 'skill' on her resume shows up. She is taken. As have all other such fish girls been in the past. As they say, that no matter how quickly you approach a 'fish' girl, there is always a faster son of a gun, smirking somewhere at you.

over a cup of coffee

2008-06-29T06:23:00.006+05:30

On this lazy Saturday, after having done monotonous laundry, eating rather dull lunch, watching a very average movie and then taking bath, and chatting with my cousin in India, I really didn't know what to do to live rather than merely exist.

So I got up and a brewed a cup of coffee, in the most elaborate manner I was ever told, coz after all, it is a lazy Saturday! It was during the making that I realised that the coffee was indeed turning a delight. It had been a while since the last time I took my nose over the brewing coffee to fill the brewed air deep into my lungs. And with a heavy breath, I lost myself into that aroma... It smelt just right.

It was with that coffee that I came out into my balcony, just to melt into the surroundings. I guess God is smiling at me today. What I saw, felt, heard, sensed, smelt around me was as if the whole world was conspiring to invigorate me from within. There is someone playing beautiful guitar just nearby. Sun is almost about to set, and the ground in front of me has turned golden yellow. There is a cool breeze that the trees and I are swaying to. Every sip of coffee I take in simply melts away on my tongue, leaving behind its aroma... I can see coulds up in the sky. They aren't covering the whole space, and a few of them shrug a drop or two of rain on me, sometimes on my feet or sometimes on my forehead. My glasses have become moist by the vapours coming out of my cup.

It could just be the coffee playing on me, but I remembered that prayer that we were taught when we were toddlers...

Thank you God for the world so sweet... Thank you God for the Birds that sing... Thank you indeed God, for everything.

Satirical truth..

2008-06-22T04:02:00.002+05:30

I got this forwarded email just now... Although it is a satire and overly critical of social activists, it does bring out the problems as they stand..

As Spiderman movie said, that with great power comes great responsibility, which I think the media in India grossly misuses, especially when Ekta Kapoor makes a serial on Arushi's murder even when her family is grappling with the trauma, or when half informed celebrities make their dull lives more interesting by staging protests that they do not understand the nuances of.

I guess we are developing at a rate much faster than what Indian society can swallow. For it's not about having the latest, swankiest car, it's about reaching a place on time. Or, it's not about having a nuclear family, but about giving people around you freedom of their own...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

An Ant works hard in the withering heat all summer building its house and
laying up supplies for the winter.

The Grasshopper thinks the Ant's a fool and laughs & dances & plays the
summer away.

Come winter, the shivering Grasshopper calls a press conference and
demands to know why the Ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed
while others are cold and starving.
NDTV, BBC, CNN show up to provide pictures of the shivering Grasshopper
next to a video of the Ant in his comfortable home with a table filled
with food.

The World is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be that this poor
Grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Arundhati Roy stages a demonstration in front of the Ant's house.

Medha Patkar goes on a fast along with other Grasshoppers demanding that
Grasshoppers be relocated to warmer climates during winter .

Amnesty International and Koffi Annan criticize the Indian Government for
not upholding the fundamental rights of the Grasshopper.

The Internet is flooded with online petitions seeking support to the
Grasshopper (many promising Heaven and Everlasting Peace for prompt
support as against the wrath of God for non-compliance).

Opposition MPs stage a walkout. Left parties call for 'Bengal Bandh' in
West Bengal and Kerala demanding a Judicial Enquiry.
CPM in Kerala immediately passes a law preventing Ants from working hard
in the heat so as to bring about equality of poverty among Ants and
Grasshoppers.

Lalu Prasad allocates one free coach to Grasshoppers on all Indian Railway Trains, aptly named as the 'Grasshopper Rath'.

Arjun Singh makes 'Special Reservation ' for Grasshoppers in Educational
Institutions & in Government Services.

The Ant is unable to cope with the Reservation, and having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes ,it's home is confiscated by the Government and handed over to the Grasshopper in a ceremony covered by NDTV.

Arundhati Roy calls it ' A Triumph of Justice'.

Lalu calls it 'Socialistic Justice '.

CPM calls it the ' Revolutionary Resurgence of the Downtrodden '

Koffi Annan invites the Grasshopper to address the UN General Assembly.

Congress takes the credit for always caring about the AAM Grasshopeer.

Many years later...

The Ant has since migrated to the US and set up a multi-billion dollar company in Silicon Valley,

100s of Grasshoppers still die of starvation despite reservation somewhere in India,

..AND

As a result of losing lot of hard working Ants and feeding the grasshoppers,

India is still a developing country…!!!

Vegas Vices

2008-06-05T08:50:00.007+05:30

First the disclaimer: Any family member should read this only at his/her own risk, and always pretend that they never did.

Man I so wish I was born at the times of Khajuraho Temples. The reason is either too obvious or it will most definitely be in the due course of this post.

All this while I was struggling to find the right way to sum up my Vegas trip. But intoxicated as I was, it was only now that I could re-gather my senses ( it took 2 days of day long business meetings to get me out of that) to come up and gather my thoughts.

The best way the whole Vegas trip can be summed up in two words is "confused dilemma". At least for me. No let me correct that. I can safely say that for a good number of people from India. Dilemma of what? You see, there is this historic side of India all Indians so proudly brandish and brag about. Well at least we think that out past was glorious (if not the present) and that we proudly follow those traditions in our daily present day lives. In one of my first blogs, I had talked about the great Indian divide. That exists between us the eligible guys and them the eligible-yet-no-where-to-be-seen girls in India, coz their fathers keep them away from us. A very well made documentary film on this by a musician called Ishq Bector is here. (go to the link only if u wanna know how Indian parents 'mind' their kids :D )

So how does this all link to each other? I mean the topic is Vegas, and I've talked about Khajuraho temples, Indian culture, contemporary Indian parents, and then the acclaimed (eh?) new age Indian musician? hehe so at least the 'confused' part of the problem is clear.

So now the other 'dilemma part'. Despite the assurance by the Americans : "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas", poor Indian graduate students, who haven't even ever been to a dance bar in India ( trust me!) are left to the mercy of, shall we say 'ladies' in 'non-indian' dresses.

Have you ever observed your tongue become so long that it blasts it way out of your mouth? have you ever felt your neck crane over 180 degrees trying to help your eyes dig deep into certain things that are usually never to be seen? Have you ever had anatomy lessons in the middle of a casino? Have you ever had guys on the roads selling phone numbers of the other sex, instead of T-shirts? Have you ever sooo wanted to be behind a certain curtain, or behind a certain door that the only way you could take your mind off it is by concentrating on another similar curtain and door? How many times the truck in front of you carries a larger than life ad of something that you would want to give your right hand for? and that too at 50 Dollars an hour? :D

If all this happens in Vegas, how can a poor Indian graduate student forget it all in Vegas... But thats exactly where the dilemma starts. The point is, despite all that happening to me, I couldn't do anything but stay/stand/walk on... Call it a culture shock, or sheer cowardice, but anytime such opportunity arose, I couldn't take the dive. For better or for worse. Be it a girl asking me to merely stick my tongue out for a picture, or a guy on the road asking me to just look at the card and the picture on it, I couldn't stand up to the moment. Why? coz we as Indians aren't supposed to do that stuff!!. Damn! now I am confused.

In one of the pubs there, I was standing upright and uptight (God knows why) and just then someone brushed beside me. Her hand came into mine and she held it tight for a split second. In that moment, that split second, I sooo wished it was in Madhya Pradesh at the time of Khajuraho. Just so that I could follow my traditions and glorious past :P

Sorry! everything is reserved

2008-05-29T10:23:00.003+05:30

In DDLJ, SRK says to Kajol's mom that shortcuts might lead to immediate results, but they are never long lasting. Instead, the longer, harder route might be time taking and more difficult, the result will always be everlasting.

So when everyone might have watched DDLJ, why am I talking about it? coz the Gujjars are now on the roads (again) demanding reservations for them. Rajasthan is in a mess, and today Delhi is under siege. whoa. It was only recently that Supreme court had allowed the OBC reservation for higher institutes of learning. Mandal was not that long ago. I still remember the day Rajiv Goswami died of self immolation. There was a time a few months back when Sardars were contesting the revoking of their minority status in Punjab!

I was talking to my cousin sister once about this, and she said that given the amount of discrimination that was dealt out to some sections of the society, it actually makes all the sense to go with reservation to help these sections.

I took that point with a pinch of salt. Not because i don't agree to that, but because it seemed to be a very short term solution to a long standing problem. A section of people were already shouting foul coz there weren't even enough seats for the 'general' population.

The amount of money allocated to education in national budget has been 3% this year . I looked up more and found out that US has approx 1/5 of our young population and spends 5 times more on education. India lags behind even latin america and carribean and east and south east asia. That leaves us with the middle east, africa and central asia... click here for more details..

All this when we are touted as the next big thing in the world. We are really being messed around beyond words by our politicos. I dunno what we should do about it, but we really must do sumthing... Something like an Indian Political services on the lines of IAS.

The point is, reservations is a very myopic thing to do especially in a diverse culture base like ours, where if we divide even only the Hindu groups, all communities will become a minority. I also remember a talk about making kayasthas (my community) and OBC somewhere... In no time all communities will begin asking for reservations and blocking roads and burning traffic lights.

The better way i guess is to make govt spend properly in education. people like us must spread awareness about this among others and force the govt (ideally and technically).

Lemme know what u think, and I will add it to this page for everyone to read..

Oh My GAWD

2008-05-22T05:18:00.002+05:30

hehe this post was to be about my vegas trip... but that can wait..

u have to watch these videos!! I wonder why did we sell off our premier padmini car!!

and watch this

as they say, old is gold! Go Premier Padmini!!

MS Technology Management : Decoded

2008-05-17T14:29:00.005+05:30

It might be a late night with no action in Las Vegas that has prompted me to write this, but, I wanted to put this up for many reasons..

1) Frustration
2) Information
3) Education
4) Entertainment

Like our Marketing professor taught us, I am trying to segment, and then target different audiences of this blog.

So first the history: I was working rather well at naukri.com, when my boss kinda motivated me to quit my job. Alongside, I was very enamored by the product team at naukri, for it seemed they had the best of both the worlds. And then there was Sujith Nair... A dynamic project manager at naukri, who was someone I usually looked up to... But being the Taurean that I am, I didn't wanna take that much time (which was anyhow less) to get to where Sujith Nair was. Simultaneously, there were these new chaps recruited from ISB into naukri at seemingly ridiculous salaries... (grrr) and above all, I wanted a change!!!

So came into picture Technology Management at UIUC. The Business School here was ranked at 38 in the world (financial times), and the course I came across (from edulix.com) was a MS - Technology Management, with one year duration. At that time ISB wasn't ranked in the global rankings, and IIMs were somewhere in the 100s... (plus I flunked in CAT more than once :P )

I applied, kinda after the deadline, but made it in. I was so ecstatic about it. And then the program started... The fact that MS Technology Management was a one year program made it a very intensive course work. And before we had even unpacked our bags, we ran into our first and most critical Fall career job fair. I did my part of selling and got a great feedback from a lot of companies. it seemed they were very interested in the Technology Management program and what it had to offer... I went to a few great software companies for interviews, and realized two things

1) They weren't sure about what this Technology Management program was all about, and consequently there was a confusion about what profile they wanted me for.Some even asked me 'So where do we place you'!. So some companies interviewed me for a software engineer position and some did for pure marketing... a major mismatch.

2) I wasn't prepared enough with the MBA (which is what Technology Management is wrapped around) training to handle the interviews as yet. After all, it was just 4 weeks since we had come in, and were thrown in to compete with the one year MBAs... I was given a case interview when I didn't even know what that was...

As the program progressed into Spring sem, the whole course started to make sense. It is a great program in terms of what it teaches us... The whole picture of technology and its management started to make sense. I could now see the business value in the code, which I used to evaluate on just the time complexities till now... The holistic picture of Technology from Innovation perspective, or Supply chain, or Process Management perspective or financial perspective (like how should we value a dotcom) started to come about clearly.

But the problem was multi pronged:

1) some greedy people borrowed too much money and built houses with it, and caused the sub-prime crisis. (y does it always rain on me!!)
2) The fall semester job fair was gone and spring was mostly for internships (which we dont have scope for, unless u go out of the way and extend ur program)
3) The career services department seemed as clueless about this program as the companies were :P

so 'long story short' as a speaker in marketing class said, we have to search for companies, educate the companies about the MS Technology management program, fight the recession (by praying to God) and keep looking for jobs everywhere... The final thing I realized was that this is NOT an easy job.

But with all that said, we went to HP for a visit and made a presentation to a representative from HP Labs about commercialization of a technology they came up with. He was really impressed with the multi dimensional analysis of the technology we did. So I think we are on the right track... what we need is a lil bit of harder work, and a lil bit of luck...

For all the people who want to come in to technology management stream, anywhere in the world, please make sure that you have a good amount (at least 5 years) of technical experience, so that u have the technology in ur heads before coming here to see how do u manage it, but it also depends on what u wanna be after the program (dont join this program to 'enter' the management line). Also ensure that you understand what you want from the program, coz this is NOT a regular MBA and if you want to get into finance, accounting, marketing etc, this is NOT the program for you. this is simple and pure general management with a technological focus (especially at MS Technology management- UIUC). So ur expertise will still be the technology that u come from. Next, from UIUC perspective, make sure u make great contacts in fall semester, coz I m not sure how many wd land great jobs then. Use these contacts later when u r ready to take the management interviews. Job hunting is prolly a year long exercise, and u must start as soon as u get here. Yes, u will get better with time, but start making those contacts as soon as possible.

Good luck. (pray the recession gets over soon)

Confessions of a commitment shirker

2008-05-09T06:11:00.003+05:30

This is my dedication to all those ppl who can never get to committing to sumone and then later crib about it :D enjoy!!

I think I have never done the romantic thing
A dozen roses and a diamond ring
many times I have been peeled and pricked
but I really couldn't feel a thing...

So is that a hormonal imbalance or a psychological one?
that I just cannot settle with anyone?

from 'Boys 2 Men' to 'Alanis Morisette'
Their lyrics never really conveyed any sense
Although there were those who 'waited and waited' for me to ask them out,
but got no returns for their perseverance..

heh.. so what on earth is wrong with me?
for she ain't good enuf, whoever she be?
well on second thoughts that isn't quite true.
coz I usually repent when the moment passes through

I guess I vindicate what my teacher once said,
'Oh my child u have an empty head'.... :P

And this is what our fellow commitment shirkers added:

"There was once a time when it was commitment i was afraid of
But now it seems it was actually me the pretty ladies were scared of"

A full lifecycle

2008-05-02T21:27:00.002+05:30

One of my fish died yesterday... I did feel bad, but since this was not the first time my fish had died, I was kinda ok with it... So I did the required thing of taking the fish (named Gabdu after the Billoo comic character) out of the fish bowl and burying it out in the ground somewhere...

And today it is raining crazy! I can actually imagine that place where Gabdu is buried, and see the rain water falling on it. slowly nature will start re-transforming Gabdu into itself and after sometime, forces in the nature will use the same matter (of which Gabdu was made) to form another fish in someone else's bowl...

Life always comes a full circle...

And we are growing the fastest in the world...

2008-04-24T08:03:00.004+05:30

this video talks about the sorry state of our cities. In which we live under stressful conditions, and eventually die young and unhappy... But I don't think we do anything to solve this... All this when unqualified, incompetent leaders (??? really leaders?) are elected time and again and suck our blood. We do retaliate via comedians who take a dig at them. And we watch this all in our apartments on inverter generated power, and go to sleep by 1 am and get up at 7 am to leave for office early due to the traffic jam...

Did we vote the last time???

Life in exile

2008-04-15T03:32:00.000+05:30

If I look out of the window on my right, I see two planes. One is a Continental, and the other is Air Canada. And far away, one plane is getting to taxi to the runway and the other is waiting in line... there is a Chinese American girl sitting in front of me in this waiting arena. If I turn my head up I see a lot of white heads, some Indian heads, and a few African American ones too… far away I can see a Sardar Ji trying to doze off… I think this is as international an experience as one could get.

Thankfully I carried my laptop and had just one movie. Rang De Basanti…
Maybe it’s the movie playing on my head, but right now when I look up, my shoulders become broad by themselves…

It was only recently that I imagined the time when I would land back in New Delhi Airport. And when the whiff of my air would fill my lungs… and that’s when, I think for the first time, I almost had tears in my eyes.

So why the life in exile? I guess the question automatically transforms into what is life in exile. I don’t think I can speak for all Indians abroad, but for the few who do share my thought process, I think it is about trying to test yourself in a new world. The excitement of a different culture, new education, multicolored population… in short it’s about trying out something new…

More as a side effect, what this does to you is that is gives you a totally new perspective about your own self. I wrote sometime back that I felt very responsible for my actions as they could directly be ascribed to Indians in general… it’s a lots more than that.

Kuchh kar guzarne ko khoon chala khoon chala… the words from Rang De Basanti… I don’t think I’ve seen that fever in people from other countries. And that’s what makes the side effect a lot more than that… it is here that the complete picture of India screams out from behind the naukri.com’s ultra sleek coffee dispenser. It is here that the news of a 11 year old boy being burnt alive in Delhi pinches a lot harder than it would have, had I been in India. When the MP in Kerala yells at an airplane pilot, it feels a lot weirder now. Road rage, of which I was an integral part, now feels like an epidemic, which must be eradicated. It is here that the dirt that lies within us, although right now 10000 kms away from me, smears my face like never before.

And then when this time on Holi we put one Haldi ka Tika on each other’s foreheads, a huge rush of happiness gripped me from somewhere deep inside… that one Tika was my bond with my culture back home. A feeling that even if I am far away from my homeland, it is still inside me like a single water stream running through the heart of a huge desert, connecting it to Gangotri…

So then back to the original question. Why life in exile? Because without it, I wouldn’t have begun thinking the way I do now. Before leaving India, whenever we won a cricket match, I would say to my brother, ‘Jai Hind’. Now, whenever I read even a small article on India in any magazine, it automatically comes out. While I am making this blog on MS word, it doesn’t recognize a lot of Hindi words. Maybe other Indians like me here will learn the skills to create an Indian version of Word, where I will not have to do an ‘Add to Dictionary’ while writing ‘Sardar Ji’. Bill gates said in his presentation to senate here that India and china have a long while to go before they get the right management structure to parallel that of US. Mr. Gates, I am here to shorten that time gap.

Jai Hind

2008-04-02T03:42:00.003+05:30

this video says that a police constable, with whatever salary he gets, gets a 100 Rupee increment in 12 years, and 200 rupee increment in 17 years...

lets do a small calculation. at my last work place my increment was around 50% (i think) and I got around 2-3 lakh increment a year, in 2 years of work. on 100 rupee after 12 years makes 1200 bucks extra after 12 years.

are you serious??? i think we spend that much in 2 weeks on fun and movies!!! no wonder there is corruption in indian police. Guys is that the salary/compensation structure of Indian police?

if with this salary these people are corrupt, i think it is justified. I might just give these guys an extra 100 bucks next time they catch me...

2008-03-21T22:28:00.002+05:30

kabhi kabhi hi prayaas hota hai
ek komal si cheez ko paane ka
shayad hi kabhi mujhko ehsaas hua hai
ek meetthe sapne ko chhu jane ka

jisse masumiyat tapakti hai
khuda ki kaifiyat jhalakti hai
kareeb jaun to aisa lage
jaise saari kaaynaat usi mein basti hai

agar hakeekat hai yeh to kya paoon main usko?
ya door se hi usey nihaarta rahun...
kahin is pal ko kho na dun,
khud mein hi is khwaab ko nikhaarta rahun

2008-03-21T04:57:00.001+05:30

boy!! where were these people hiding till now!
the singer in the post one below, and the one here!!!

and this one

The world is still beautiful...

2008-03-19T08:18:00.003+05:30

Chappals not allowed in 5 star Discs in Mumbai

rofl.. (roll on the floor laughing).

So what is that all about? You cannot wear chappals in 5 star discos in Mumbai and the State Govt is setting up a committee to make sure that people do get to wear chappals in those 5 star hotels.

I still didn't quite get it.... ok if u get a designer chappal made by Rohit bal, or any such fashion super duper entity, and it goes very very well with ur dress, would you still be ok by not getting to wear it to the 5 star disc?

Or if u wear a torn out very ugly looking pair of canvas shoes (the PT ones) to a disc, should you be 'allowed' (as if what you wear should matter)?

At a conference here on 60 years of India's Independence, people were discussing that India has still not de-colonised. And thats what the govt representative interviewed by CNN IBN termed as 'angrezon ka hangover'. I think it is also about the lack of ingenuity on the part of the hotels having this self disparaging rule. Since these hotels and discs are only now beginning to be a part of the common man's daily life, these hotels haven't yet come to terms with the Indian customer, having copied the western way for style, rules, 'manners', etc..

I am sure all the hotel owners must have been very good cheaters in their school times...

2008-03-17T11:25:00.002+05:30

Man I am falling in love with this woman...

Seems like out of this world!
Damn she seems elder to me :( (if that makes a difference that is)

2008-03-14T02:45:00.005+05:30

When Raju Lost faith in Ganga...

Remember that movie starring Raj Kapoor, 'Jis desh mein ganga behti hai' ? Raj kapoor played the role of a guy from I think Banaras, and goes on to use his sanskar and values to transform a group of dacoits. I think the assumption in the movie was that Raju had complete faith in the values of the mother land.

Cut to Champaign in US. I have met a lot of NRIs here. Some have no traces of India in them, some still have a very thick Indian accent, some dress in ways you wouldn't imagine on Indians, and then on the other hand you would have people dressed in Salwar kameez, but as soon as they open their mouth, you get amazed at the American accent that hits your ears.

It is interesting to interact with these people, as they aren't Indians anymore, but thats what they identified as, or they identify themselves as (when they have nothing Indian in them). So in a restaurant, you would hear an Indian American talking to her American friends talking about Aishwarya Rai and saying that Indian people have beautiful names, and that Aishwarya Rai has a portugese ancestory, as Indians don't have the genes for such beautiful green eyes... Or I heard another NRI in a party saying that Indian people gang up against NRIs coz they are rich and if your car hits a person in India, they would get after you, coz you are a rich NRI and thus you should be punished for that.

I wondered, what was the reason for these people to leave India and come to US... Was it the land of opportunities, or was it something else? I was going for an interview to a Multinational company in a city in US, and my cab driver was an Indian. he said to me : 'Hope that you are interviewed by a white guy. if you get an Indian, he might ask you for money to let you in...'. Oh my God! I thought. I knew thats so not true, but that exposed me to another perception of India, that I have mostly been unaware of. That of a very common man, who still undergoes a very torturous life of subsistence living, where bribery is still the order of the day, and you have to fight for basic amenities. Indians here are either the most prosperous immigrants who live in Silicon valley or they are these poor Indians who couldn't find a place for themselves in India. Probably most of you who would read this blog from India , would invariably have come from backgrounds where we have either shut out the ugly side of India, or have created a comfort zone around it.

So why do people leave their own home country to come to such a culturally diverse land where you are mostly cut off from the main stream? I could come up with a few reasons, but this is NOT an exhaustive list by any means....

Lost faith:

One of the people I know here lost his home to a tenant, went to the courts, got nothing done for years, and then had to accept an out of court settlement, finally paid money to the tenant to vacate his house. In his words, there is no 'enforcement agency in India'. Every time I talk to him about India, I can see his hurt face. The face of a man who expected his environment to provide him with a decent living standard. Most of his words seethe with a latent anger towards the system. He got a chance to get rid of it, and he did. He lives a modest and comfortable life here.

Never had faith:

Some people here came coz they always believed that India wasn't a place for them. They prolly pick up the foreign accent most easily, curse India in everything they see, and eventually become the worst ambassadors for us. I have met these people in parties here, who would narrate their stories in India, when surprisingly all things that happen to them are bad things, and seemingly they find nothing bad in their current country of residence. (I can point out a few right here).

A special third category:

Is of the people who were born here, but were forced to remain Indian at home, and then left out in the open foreign air to convert into what we call ABCDs. These are a very special variety. Some of them would wear salwars and shirts which were in fashion maybe 20 years back, and when you see them, you would think they have just come in from a remote small town in India. But as they open their mouths, they spew out American english, with 'Oh my GAAWDs', 'This is soo kewwool' etc etc.

To a person I met recently, I had to say that India she knows and India that I come from are two entirely different countries! These people evaluate their India trip from the American perspective. So Mumbai trains are 'Sow ppphackked'. And that you have to get into a local train while it is running! (Can't you wait till it stops or till you get accustomed to it??). They are scared of lizards, and almost all lizards fall on them when they are in India (maybe coz they are NRIs and lizards want to punish the rich NRIs), and so on...

Some of the things that happened to them are real, and maybe, as Indians, we are just used to them. I was just reading the article in the Economist : "What's holding India Back", and the reasons mentioned there were pretty much on the above lines. I agree there still are differences in the standard of living here for an common man vs his counterpart in India. Maybe studying these NRIs gives us another perspective of what we need to change in our system to restore the faith Raju had in Ganga...

2008-02-22T02:56:00.003+05:30

Why I don't wanna work for Infosys

Well that's because I don't like the Blackberry phone. The blog could end right here, but then if I don't explain it better, you would keep me in the same category as Infosians, who I dislike anyway...

So what's the big deal? It happened like this... We are a bunch of Indian students here at an American university, which is kinda considered one of the best in the world, and we feel quite proud belonging to this place.

Even more so when the job fairs happen. There are companies abound that come here looking for great talent and increase their organization's productivity. All the stalls are brightly lit and the recruiters stand outside their stalls to 'reach' out to the students, so that they could talk to them and see if they are a good fit. Even if they are not, they are more than willing to listen to you and explore whatever opportunities there could be for you. Even if it turns out that there aren't any opportunities available, you would walk away thinking that you had the best conversation you wanted to have, and too bad there weren't opportunities, but you would want to try again...

The stalls are a story in them all together. draped in their company colors, the stalls are all lit up shining bright. These people go an extra mile to get their stalls looking great for people to get attracted like a moth to fire.

So I was having a good time in the job fair, talking to different recruiters, and having a quality time there... And then I walk into this next row of stalls... this row was kinda different. It had mostly hardware and earth moving equipment companies. As I walk down through the aisle, there came this corner... the stall was blue, and it seemed that either the lighting was not done, or some of the bulbs had prolly blown away. The caption there said, 'The world is flattening.. are you ready?' hmm... when i looked around there was just one person in that stall, and just above his wavy hair, I read the name, Infosys...

The recruiter here was kinda weird. He was sitting behind the table stall and was totally screwed on to his Blackberry Phone! a few people passed in front of him, and he didn't seem to notice. I thought it might be his boss on the phone, and I would come later...

So I took a round of the hall and then went back to the stall. This time the recruiter was talking to someone. So as was the case with other stalls, I stood in line waiting. Generally, recruiters tried to give equal time to all people waiting in the line, and made sure that the line didn't feel ignored. But the guy here at Infosys, looks at me, and says 'I am talking to this person, and will take time. You can go and have a round of the hall, and come back after 5 mins.' Well, umm taken aback by that, I smiled and said, OK...

So I took a round and went back to the stall.. The chat was still going on, and now the recruiter was actually sitting on the side of his table and it seemed that it was more of a gossip mode than recruiting. And he was still playing with the Blackberry in his hands while gossiping with that kid...

'aah nevermind' I thought, and moved on to Yahoo.. By the way, I went for the final rounds of interviews with Yahoo at SF, and they have a rocking atmosphere and campus. And ofcourse, you are treated very well there...

2008-02-20T10:06:00.002+05:30

Where The Mind is Without Fear

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action--
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Rabindra Nath Tagore

2008-02-10T01:47:00.000+05:30

The Helix of a Year

It's that time of the year again. And in fact it is so imminent and a surety every year that I can only draw an analogy with a doggy's heat period, or me scoring a zero in at least one test out of the ten I take.

Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't try to avoid this from happening. In fact I have had more chances than others to avoid this event from unfolding every single year. But more like a conscript, I am always pulled in to this black hole.

Imagine it like this. let's look at it from 365 days away. In other words, the day has just passed, and I am resolved to make sure that this doesn't happen the next year. And now I am working towards it, slowly slowly revolving and gravitating towards the center of the helix, which is the 366th day, or exactly one year away...

If you guessed that to be the CAT test (or rather flunking in it), heheh think again. Although ur guess is a worthy second, it is a wee bit away from the actual numero uno. I am talking about Valentine's day, and the fact that no matter what I do across the year, no matter how many relationships i build around the year somehow, always, incorrigibly, I am always rendered alone by the time 14th feb arrives. And I am as nonplussed about it as your are! The only good thing I learnt from it is that I can be ruthlessly accurate and consistent in my performance.

Well Whatever is the big deal about 14th of feb anyways... I usually am in a hangover after celebrating my bro's birthday, and am mostly not in a position to shift gears to the other love in my life. (umm if she is still around that is). But usually the way it happens is this...

Date : 14th march,
One Month past from the last debacle:
I am thinking about this girl next door. She is pretty and seems to have a charm about herself. (I didn't quite think this way 2 months back, but desperate times call, ahem, for desperate measures)

3 Months past:

I see this girl in my parking lot again! I smile at her, and she smiles back!!! (think of sumthing funny think of sumthing funny!), and I crack a one liner joke. She ignores and goes away. (shit).

3 and a half months past:

I see this girl at the grocery store, and, although I don't have to buy that thing, I go to there to buy that anyways... after all, what if I run out of it sooner than I thought? I ask for a diff brand and specifically say that I don't want the brand this girl bought... It worked!!! she asks me whats wrong with her brand! :D (yahooo) and I tell her of the wildest ever criticism of that brand and that company. We walk back to our society together, and talk about loads of things right from what she is doing and what she wants to do, to the weird security guard we have and the creepy noises that come from his room in the night when we are out for a night walk... I find out if she is on orkut, she is :D

4 Months past :

we have been scrapping regularly on orkut, and have become pretty updated on each other now... I open another tab on Mozilla and find out the latest movies in Delhi. Tell her that I have 3 4 tickets with me and i can give her 2 if she wanted... rest is .. history :D

10 Months past, 2 more to go for Valentines day:

Well we have been going around for all that while now, but I am not sure if I rlly like her.. I mean she is good for a time pass, but thats just about it... She has been cozying up a lot and I am not tooo comfortable about that! I now begin to slip out of this by making excuses. lame ones even by my 10 year old cousin's standards... but i still go ahead. There is a fight back.. she tries to hold on, and that freaks me out even more!.. This goes on for a fortnight....

11 Months past, 1 one month to Valentines day:

She calls me and confronts me directly. 'You have been trying to avoid me for the last 2 months now. What have I done!'... umm errr.. I cannot say to her that she isn't ALL that interesting. can I!?

I dodge the question, and give her global gyaan about how the world is changing and that there is a recession in the offing, and I am working hard to save for the rainy day. She doesn't buy. I then say that sometimes relationships are better taken slowly and gradually.. we are great friends, and I think I was taking a lil too much of you. I wanted to make sure that I don't step into your space, coz I respect a woman of your caliber...

This is the final sentence she says to me:

"You are a Dog".

(As if I didn't know that)

12 months past: date 14th feb

I gifted my bro the best thing I could buy, and revel in his happiness. but somewhere, I wish I had someone I could gift today and spend this day dreaming about the life to come with someone...

And then I resolve that I wouldn't let this happen again, and step into the helix again...

2008-02-04T09:12:00.000+05:30

Raj Thakrey and his myopic utopia

read this if you don't know wats happening...

I couldn't have imagined a guy who from an outsider's perspective was kinda forward looking, shoot himself in his foot. So after Mumbai being the financial capital of the country for the last 100 years, and a lakh people from across the country shunting into the city everyday, we hear pleas to uphold Maharashtrian culture in Mumbai!

hehe just that Maharashtrians would now be having loads of other world's in them neways... lalu yadav, being the politician he is, was quick and right in pointing out that Raj Thakrey is a child in politics. Well Mr Yadav, although I don't like you, but on this I have to agree, and even add that this is an outrageously stupid move by the young Thakrey struggling to make a place for himself in politics... Ironically here is a guy who met Michael Jackson and was commented on his 'nice jacket' ... he could have also added, 'peanut head' to that compliment...

India is moving into middle class, and middle class doesn't quite care about where they are.. in Mumbai or Delhi, or Jamshedpur, if they are able to make a good living... Also, wasn't it more abt India shining than Mumbai bright? and in fact, since most of Mumbai's revenues come from all across the country, if the nation reacts to this, God save Mr Raj Thakrey... or instead, should God even bother saving a jacka**??

Sorry Mr Thakrey, hope u learn, or please don't try looking for job in places other than Mumbai, and in ur special case, u prolly dont even have a Prime Minister, coz Maharashtra doesn't have one as yet.

2008-01-19T12:36:00.000+05:30

This simply had to be on my blog..
taken from nachiketa, a colleague from my last work place..

2008-01-14T00:56:00.000+05:30

Kolkata Fire
Test of laws of physics and civil Engineering

Well the fire in this part of Kolkata has been on for 2 days now... It's sad and funny at the same time. Sad coz obviously it is a bad thing. and funny coz a government cannot control a fire in a building??? (laugh out loud). Well as I write this, the fire is still gazing on, guzzling the stuff that comes in way, while inept firemen and government and 'call for centre's help' (laugh out loud again, but this time, followed by another loud sound of anguish)

Cities like Kolkata,Delhi (at least Old Delhi, trans Yamuna), Mumbai (I guess Chawri bazaar etc) have seen the absence of government responsibility and civil callousness for such a long time that the only thing thats holding the city together are the basic laws of physics and civil engineering. And when the buildings held together by just them are exposed to even slightest of dangers( like this fire) they just explode out of proportion, accounting for losses of around 200 crores (and counting) in this case..

Looking at this incident from a management's perspective, I can only compare it to the other places (right now only US). In order to make a place safe and working, we not only need technology, which is anyway a small part of the picture, but also a set of processes which are then conveyed by the enforcement agencies to the participating public, and then implemented religiously. A huge population and sub standard bureaucracy just adds to the flavour of the problem...

So how could this be prevented? I guess it has to start with the people who know about this problem, actually making noise about it. And then spread the word just like this fire... Maybe by telling everyone to teach everyone about sane practices to follow in their buildings and then asking ur friends and foes(yes them too) to vote while keeping these factors in mind..

utopian? well to quote Rang De Basanti: 'Koi bhi desh perfect nahin hota.. usey perfect banana padta hai'.

2008-01-03T23:39:00.000+05:30

Mumbai and Kochi and the rest of India's shame

Well the new year was gr8 for me and my friends, when we celebrated the new year at our apartment...

Not so for a few women who were visiting India for new year's... I have a few American friends here who are visiting India for new year's, and I was kinda waiting for them to come back so that I could ask them about how they found out my country!

But after watching the news about a few foreigners being molested in Mumbai and Kochi (apart from many other instances which were not even reported i guess), I am left with shame and no words to ask my friends about... The Swedish being interviewed in Kochi was kinda right when he actually deplored the whole country for the doing of a silly uncouth 17 year old. I am sorry, Our visitors... Next time I meet any foreigner who knows abt this incident, I would be categorised with that molester...

I think the stuff we hear about the gap between the 'haves' and 'have nots' in India is actually right there in front of us. The better offs, which are mostly the cream of the country, go out and market India. I am filled with some kinda pride when I see the Incredible India ad on Chicago Airport. But when these foreigners land in India, they are exposed to these 'have nots' created by us the 'haves' (maybe by not paying our taxes, by being greedy, or simply by not caring about them). When they do a wrong thing, it becomes a shame on all of us.

And as India becomes more of a global destination, more of this will come to fore. The dirty underbelly of India will rub more with the rest of the world. If we are to be the next great thing, we must take up our responsibility and do our part in rectifying these follies.

I remember the 'each one teach five' campaign poster in my school, which was kinda vetoed by all students, since they had to study for their final exams! Lets actually start volunteering to teach at say CRY institutions, or orphanges. Our if the school fees for our maids' kids is a petty 300 rupees a month, maybe we can start funding that, or at least pool it.

I am gonna start participating in the ASHA foundation here, that collects funds for supporting students in India. If we have to pull our 1 billiion strong country out of the mess, we gotta start now.

2007-12-30T05:19:00.000+05:30

Schizophrenico-hallucinato-totallyjoblesso-dyselixcosis ...

Yah i think that's what comes closest to what I have been suffering from ever since I was 5 years old... And why alluva sudden am I writing about this? Bingo! another proof that I have that disorder. ( I should call up my 10 std maths teacher to tell him that I can finally prove theorems :D ).

My first memory of that is when my unassuming mom sent me to the next door grocery store in Pradeep Market to get some sugar ( Umm i guess it was sugar, coz it cannot be what I think it was). Well, on the way I saw this scooter, pale green in color, which was I think a Bajaj Priya. Since obviously the color was very amusing, and it reminded me of an Italian movie I had seen then, I thought how an Italian would speak while riding his scooter in Italy... what if he actually hit an American while riding, and they get into a fight? and in this, one of my classmates (Montu Sharma) gets involved, and the Italian and American then end up beating the shit out of Montu. Yah! that way he will not find time to study and then I will come first in the class! yahoo! then I will get a prize in the school day celebration... :( till now I have only participated in school day in the group songs.. so totally not cool ... Then when the principal would call me on to stage I can maybe kiss the school head girl! she is sooo pretty, and then even mom will not scold me for kissing her, coz I came first in the class! :D... then mom will send me to Pradeep Market to get that big box of crackers that I have always wanted to burst alllll by myself!! :D ....

umm wait... where am I? that's when I realized that I had walked almost 1.5 kilometers and had left Pradeep Market almost 1.3 kms behind! I was very sad that I was back to square one and will not get to kiss the head girl, that I thought I almost had.. sigh...

Standard 10th. I was sent to my room to study Geography.(yawnnnn...) . anyways I open the book and begin to read.. I was looking at the map of India, and suddenly I looked at Bihar... Its structure looked like a side profile of a woman, with a pretty stylish boy cut hair style. umm something like that of my principal who was to give me the prize when I was to come first in my class... I imagined this face turning towards me and that it was the most pretty face I would have ever seen... what I saw is still etched in my head very clearly, but the trouble began after that. All I could remember from that learning session was that face. The next day in the Geography class, my lecturer walks in. Although I am very sure I am straight, and especially my lecturer was not even in my wildest imagination, someone I could fancy, but as soon as he walked in, that pretty face replaced his umm rather, umm not-so-pretty-masculine-with-moustache face... I don't remember anything from that class... all through that class all I did was doing a lot of rather interesting things with that face .. all around some park...

Its very dark in the night in a jungle, and there are dark clouds all over the sky. A storm is impending, the tress are all dry and most of them dead. An old black crow is squeaking somewhere near. From somewhere, an innocent young girl draped in a tattered shawl is slowly, aimlessly walking through this forest. She has very recently been hurt in love. She is walking and wandering... The sky begins to thunder and lightning strikes into the forest dangerously close to her... but she doesn't notice... A creepy shadow is following her closely. But she doesn't notice.. she is just walking and wandering. Lost in her own thoughts...

This is picture I got in my head when I listened to the song 'Dil cheez hai kya jaana' by Bally Sagoo. Do this. Click on the link below and listen to this song, with ur eyes closed...

Link Click here!!

Now you would agree with me on either that my imagination is right, or that I have that above mentioned disorder that i don't wanna type again...

Hence Proved :D (Yahoo! Thankachhan Sir! R u listening :D ?)

psst: okay I suck at creating a horror movie scene, but in my head, it sure looks creepy :D

2007-12-22T08:24:00.000+05:30

Where were you when I was hurt and I was running
where were you when those dark clouds were coming

If I call you my acquaintance to say the least
where were you when the devils were on the feast

Where were you when I made the seat next to me free
Where were you when I was drowning deep into the sea

And now when I am kinda used to being without you,
You come down and say 'I will see you through"

It doesn't happen that way my fickle friend,
am sorry it is a little difficult for you to comprehend

But I think it's time we go our separate ways
and let time heal this messy haze...

2007-12-20T07:23:00.000+05:30

Go Bottom up on these pics and observe how does this fight progress...

I was just waiting for some time to post this...
these are a set of 10 pics taken continuously of a fight scene during our southern illinois trip...
only one thing comes to mind when i remember that time... Awesome!!!

2007-12-10T08:24:00.000+05:30

Sometimes I Remember

Sometimes I fondly remember
A pair of sleeping eyes
Those sweet nothings and those apparent lies
A phone call from across the land
Us just walking hand in hand...
Those awaited letters in a small chat box
The moments of silence in between our talks
The letter that came from nowhere after years!
And my eyes inside my helmet, filled with tears
The bench that sat us for numerous days
And the painful smile on her face...
Sometimes... I fondly remember...

2007-11-26T00:24:00.001+05:30

Boys' Days Out

Senseless humour, not so decent words, singing on the top of ur lungs, eating all weird combination of stuffs, rock climbing, cave crawling, fight scenes, race to the top of the hike, posing in psychedelic forms, sneaking into a ferry to cross the river and then taking a U turn to take it back, shouting F U to anyone who overtook us, stopping over at a place after heated discussions etc etc...

That is kinda the gist of what we did for three days as soon as we hit the road. Writing an account of the journey is not the motive for me here. The motive is to remind all the guys stuck with their gfs that an all guys trip is way, way much more fun than the beaten path (Yeah Yeah I can hear people shouting sour grapes ;) but in this case grass is greener on my side :D). Just read further to agree with me:

The Characters -

The Facilitator: Thakur (Prasad)

The Fooder : Sanju Baba (Sanju)

The Sleeping Beauty: Roaiep (Zoiab)

The Navigator: K Thakur (Ankit)

Location : Garden of the Gods

"Whoaaaa" was the last thing i remember hearing from anyone of us as soon as we saw the first rock. The next thing I remember is three of them standing on that rock and err umm jumping...
(That does prove that we evolved from monkeys :D)

And this was only the first rock...we were totally unprepared for the ones that were not yet seen. After this it was more abt "who gets there first" race on almost all the rocks.. the view from them was splendid!

"View from the top"

The next thing we spotted was a cave. small enough for two of us to declare that we couldn't go through, the other half dived right in! As we went in, the rocks started to behave weirdly. "Please don't fall, Please don't fall..." was our murmuring as we slowly clawed our way through the cave. When we did see the light at the other end... we had no words... just yelled crazy and crawled out.

in the cave

Just out!

I have put in all these pics coz there is soo much to write and I am too lazy... And a picture says a thousand words.. doesn't it? :)

To Be Continued...

2007-11-01T06:40:00.000+05:30

Thank you God for the world so sweet,
Thank you God for the food we eat,
Thank you God for the birds that sing,
Thank you God for everything!
psst: God thank you the most for (hopefully) saving me from today's near (touch wood) debacle
Boy!
sometimes u just thank God ( well touch wood and fingers crossed) for the many times he saves you from almost inevitable disaster... and having said that, once an engineer, always an engineer! even if u r doing a management course now!

There was this seemingly unscrupulous MS Excel course in my program. There was a full proper announcement about it and everything, and our instructor was very strict and the features he was teaching looked pretty 'weird' to learn... In fact so much so, that people in my class actually started to stay up late to work the problems and make sure that they did their assignments in time and did them well. otherwise it was almost impossible for anyone to remember the stuff. Add to it that the instructor was gradually turning into a monster, and increasing our work load, making the problems in the assignment ever tougher to work.

This was the first time I saw my other wise cool roomy actually sweating it out in nights to finish the assignments, talking to many people over the phone to understand the problems and tediously working towards a probable solution. Classes began to remain fully occupied with students with peeled eyes glued to the screen in the class and ears cocking open to absorb all the stuff the instructor spewed out ( including his very special way of saying awwwigghh (allright))...

Nobody was sure as to how would they face the test due next week. Wait! what? there is a test next week? oh Wait, is there a test for this course? and thats next week??? umm where is it written! Why didn't anyone tell me! ....

Yah... that's what my first reaction was when I was told last week about this test. Already taken by surprise on this, I had no idea as to how I should react to this .... ambush!!! Yah! it's NOT fair and enough to just email everyone in the class about the test and talk about it in the class at least 3 times! PEOPLE DON'T PAY ATTENTION!!!!

Anyways... the world IS a sick place... everyone knows that. And I have been dealing with it ever since I was born. But now that I have to live with that, I thought i might as well think about preparing for the test. I planned. well, thats a rare thing anyhow, but I did... and planned to prepare the night before the test (goto: line no. 8 abt engineers).

Cut back to yesternight. With all the true intentions I start preparing for the test. Just to get all the variables initialized I asked my roomy "What if we flunk"? He replied that due to some weird credit score logic, what we score in the test wdn't make a dent in our overall scores.

Now believe me, even after hearing that I wanted to prepare whole heartedly for the test. By the time I was in my room with the laptop in my laps, the rational side of began to speak up and said : "You wdn't get a score anyhow for this test, and u wdnt flunk. So why don't u utilize this time better and go to sleep!" . Hmm.. I thought... there is a point! After all logical analysis of an argument is what I learn day in and day out!. Rest is as they say, His Story....

Day : Today. Time 940 am ( 4 hours and 2 classes before the test). My classmate tells me that we need to score at least 80% in the test to pass, or we wd have to re take the test. shit.

Time 1 pm ( one hour before the test) in the lunch room, discussing the excel problems with my roomys and the Omen inducing classmate ( the one who told me the 80% thingy), I realized that now its a futile exercise. The rationale was that since I don't have enough time before the test to prepare, I should concentrate on the final thread. The Help function in Excel. I plan an elaborate strategy based on the information I retrieved from these fellows around me.

Test: After looking at the question paper, I knew one thing for sure. I knew nothing. Then from somewhere God comes in the picture. And I look at the help function. Question One, search for it on the help. Got the method. Question Two, back to help. Q3,4... Rest as they say is... ;)

I think ( hope, pray and everything) that I pass. But, thank u God :)

2007-10-27T10:32:00.000+05:30

rishtey to nahin rishton ki parchhaiyan mile...
And what not...

Generally when u r sitting in a 'University Accommodation' after a hard day's work, when ur thighs are almost out of gas and ur head just about hangs in between a persistent 'dnnnnnng' sound and the outer world, u feel the need of someone... someone in whose laps u cd just rest ur head and go sleep.

I guess everyone everywhere feels that way. Its just that they don't speak out in open. Or, they don't speak out in open unless they find someone?

In that case the thing is pretty self explanatory here. I have found someone.

After landing here, and feeling bereft of the envelope of emotional assurance around me, I wanted this 'someone' that could fill this gap. That could maybe complete me?

Her name is Rakshanda. umm I dunno if she is pretty or not, but yes she does give me this sense of belonging. A warmth. An assurance that whenever I need her, she would be standing right there with her arms wide open as if to assimilate me totally into her.

It started a month and a half back. I almost bumped into her near my apartment and almost hurt myself! ( dunno abt her :P ) but I'd rather say thank God for that :)... Till now its just been a beautiful ride down the lane. I guess both are busy in our very different lives, but when we do meet after I get back, it just the two of us. I talking about my day, my struggle with things, my experiences, my joy, my sorrow and she just listens to me with this smile that I almost naturally empty myself in front of her.

In the past one and a half months we have tried to know each other as much as possible. Maybe this is why we feel so comfortable in each other's company. Sitting with our backs on each other, I can talk about anything from skies to sea to philosophy and what not, and always find in her a listener who could by her looks extract the soul of what I am talking about. Many a times I have just sat there with my arms around her and lay there just like that for loong with no words spoken or no sounds heard.

With the change in weather here, however, she hasn't been keeping too well... As winter set in, her color changed from soothing green to pale yellow. People say it is the fall colours and love the
new ambiance everywhere, but they forget that this beauty is at the cost of Rakshanda's salubrity. With every passing day she loses herself and it won't be long before she would stand there all barren in this winter with nothing to cover her!... Nothing to keep her warm... And she would have to wait for what seems like an eternity to bloom again...

In all this I stand at a corner when there are other people enraptured by her beauty. when these people will be in their homes carefully tucked into their blankets, when their temporary obsession with her beauty would be done with, and when she would be not as lovely looking as she is right now, Where should I be? And then all the past moments float in front of my eyes. I should be right next to her when it starts to snow. Or when it rains hard. Even though I would not be able to protect her, but sometimes u just need someone to be there beside you to survive through.

Rakshanda.... It is a beautiful start to a long ending walk on the clouds...

2007-10-14T03:20:00.000+05:30

Although it is very late for me to write on this topic, but I always wanted to. Its just that I wasn't finding time for it...

Somewhere in June three of us, Asad (childhood friend) , Anshit (my bro) and I went on a trip to Amritsar. There were 3 places that we wanted to visit : Jallian Wala Bagh, Golden Temple and Wagah Border. I will concentrate on the Jallian Wala Bagh for this post...

For all us who don't know what Jallian wala Bagh stands for, click here.

Amritsar is a very cute city. pretty much like the other small cities across the country, where shops are usually small, the roads only as big as 2 by lanes, the streets even smaller yet all so vivid and colourful! full of life... kids playing across the streets, cars and scooters fighting yet maneuvering within the available space... there seems to be a very highly developed code of driving that seems to have evolved from this specifc eco-system of traffic. It might look very chaotic, but look carefully, and u wd see all vehicles just missing each other! only that it is not by chance, but the skills of the driver...

we were walking through these roads and by lanes, looking at the shops and their interactions with the world outside... we were looking at these buildings that have stood there for 100 odd years staring at the world and its changing ways, testimony to the changes and corruption of its inhabitants.. there was definitely this feel about these buildings.. they looked like these time warped things that were half stuck in past and the other half existing very much in this world with us. I felt that if we went into these buildings we would all of a sudden be transferred to a time that was long gone! Such was the eerie attraction of these buildings that you could do nothing but gaze at them, and then gather ur self and keep moving ahead...

But one such building's entrance kinda held us. unusually coloured, it somewhat melted into its surroundings, yet stood out as something that had a totally different story to tell. As we gazed around the building, we saw the board that read " JALLIANWALA BAGH".

Pretty much like hypnotised souls, we almost floated into it... The entry to this place has forever remained as it is, and is nothing more than a very narrow passage... When we walked through it, it struck me that this was the very passage that General Dyer used to enter into the premises, and much to my disbelief, he also tried to bring in a battle tank!

I don't know if the pictures running in my head were from the movie Gandhi, or I could actually recreate the scene from 1919, but I could pretty much actually feel the soldiers walking through this passage.. with rifles in their hands, marching in, bringing death closer to the people inside who were totally unaware... What also struck me at that point was that the soldiers were Indian ( although working for the British) and the people inside were the same flesh and blood too!

The passage...

If you remember any movie that was based on some flash back concept, try using that 'blackout and reemergence of a picture' stuff of a flashback to this case. Thats what I saw when I waled into the Bagh ( the Graden) where the massacre had happened. It looked like a very peaceful garden, kids were playing here too! sprawling lawns, fountains, people walking around.... this place actually looked very calm... Only that this calm prevailed not from peace, but from silencing of hundreds of lives... people like me, like you... like the shop keeper outside or the copassenger in train with whom we played cards on our route to Amritsar... If for a second we forget the 88 years of time gap, you would feel that those people were just... us...

A lot of us were killed there that day. The calm there indeed felt like the one on a battle field after the battle finishes and there is no one left alive... to cry or to howl... As we moved inside there were these places that stand as a snapshot of that day, that time. There was this well into which people jumped to save themselves from the raining bullets from their own brethren who were just 'following orders' of their masters. More than the people killed, it was them who were enslaved by the British. The well has been covered since then.

The well...

There was another thing that had stood as a witness to what had happened that day. A Wall. Now standing all alone, as if it was punished to first witness the whole massacre and then made to live for eternity to keep remembering that bloodshed and narrate it to all with the bullet marks strewn all over it.

Just near to this Wall was a writing made of stones that read "Vande Mataram'... And it was then that all of this fell more or less into place. The only way we can respect those who died that day is by believing in these words that lay there with the souls of all those who still could be around there watching the world outside just like those buildings as I had described earlier.. staring at the world and its changing ways, testimony to the changes and corruption of its inhabitants...

The riddled wall

Vande Mataram...

2007-10-09T03:58:00.000+05:30

I wrote this loooong time ago...
i doesn't quite fit the current scenario... or maybe it does :P
nvm!

Everything seems futile, there is no hope
Maybe I am waiting for my kind of dope...

Leg thumping in a pub, and friends to kill me?

I breathe, I see... Until it's time for me...

Wrong place? Wrong train? never figured...
Another day starts, again eyes open, another inhalation triggered...

2007-10-06T23:27:00.001+05:30

From the previous post...

"Why did I do this?" is a question I do ask myself sometimes... I mean I wasn't that cool about ACTUALLY coming down to a far away land... I was also not sure if I was doing the right thing... Yeah I knew that I need to go to a great school atleast once in life, and after 2 1/2 years of work ex I wasn't really sure about going to the IIMs ( not to mention that it is very very difficult to get into one and I simply didn't have that much time to prepare for them... again :P).

I did it coz I wanted to do it all by myself. I have always had this picture of me standing without any help facing all the brunt that is possible.. well not really, but in some ways I wanted to give myself a test and see for myself if I could do it all by myself... All the paraphernalia around me should be my creation.... no legacy to boast of. In fact what added to the kicks was a fleeting risk factor behind joining this course... people who cared about me weren't quite sure about this course... which kinda made me go for this even more... In cliched terms, I wanted to create my own tests, make them risky, and then take them... and maybe pass them too :P

At UIUC's Alma Mater Statue
(With arms wide open... Bring it on!)

This might sound a lil hedonistic but I guess thats how I am! I am usually not on an 'EgoTrip' trying to think highly of me, but yeah i have my own highs... I had one such thing in the past... I bunked a semester of Engineering mostly for kicks, having a good reason helped me then. This time was no different. The stakes were high again , it was about the next step in my career, the rewards were high and so was the cost of giving up a decently forming career to take a 'lift'.

Maybe I mess it up, but most probably I think I should be able to pull it off...

In Aerosmith words I always want to be 'Living on the edge'...

2007-10-05T08:35:00.000+05:30

Continued from last post...

If I were to maybe sum up US (only all that I have seen of it) in few words, I can shortlist a few contenders...

a) Keeping the door open for the person coming behind you
b) Multi cultural society ( generally accepting for all sects)
c) Skyscrapers
d) All types of cars ( not that there aren't in other places, but here U have almost All types of cars)

But I think if there is something that maybe represents the US as a society (again as much as I have seen), I would say it's their buses here. Not quite what people might expect, but I have truly not found anything as apt as this to portray the cukture that people have here...

It was my first day on the buses here, and I did not have my University ID as yet... we climb into the bus (here the tickets are sold by the driver himself) and move towards the driver. Here is more or less what the conversation was like...

Driver (D) : Good Morning!
Me (M) ( kinda taken aback coz I havent been wished by a bus driver in my life) : Good Morning! I don't have my University ID... what should I do?

D: Oh! in that case you would need to buy a ticket from me! I am sorry but I hope you make ur Univ ID quickly...
M: ok ... How much do I have to pay?
D : you can do with a Dollar.
M: thanks .. here ...
D : Thanks ! have a good day...

I don't know how educated that guy was.. I kinda think he should be at least a 12th pass...
but his manners pleasantly surprised me... people got on the bus.. and got off... usually people thanked the driver while getting off and he would wish them a good day... people here usually wish each other.. smile while crossing people (even if they don't know each other).... maybe this is because I am in a campus and things might be different in a city ( I wd go crazy if in New York every passing person starts wishing me! )

The buses here have a unique feature.. they 'kneel' by lowering the 'steps side' of the bus, for people with disability, old people or any one requiring a lower platform bus. Not that this is 'rocket science' but this is very demonstrative of the respect given to every human. There are special areas in the bus for prams and handicap people... and the bus kneels for all of them. (although we in India do have a 'viklang' seat but I never saw a 'viklang' sitting on them... viklangs in India either don't get on to buses, or they stand with everyone)

At a bus stop (wherever there is one) you can find either a time table pasted, or an electronic status display for buses and when they are expected... Honestly, it is only here that I have been 'made' to be punctual, and I have started to expect the same from others :P

To sum it all up, I think the major difference I found between this place and mine is the respect given to human life, and the quality expected from everyone. For the diversity of cultures here (which is far more extreme than the one in India) people are a lot more tolerant, in fact even welcoming of people from across the world. You can (at least usually) trust the person in front of you. There is an amicable environment.. conducive for people to.. grow... maybe innovate, invent, and all that ... ( does the bigger picture come across now?). And the thing which kinda pinches is that most of these things don't require much money! just a culture... I wish we could copy these things from them rather than their fashion, music, slangs, accent ... I think they create value... Lets copy them there if we need to... or rather, using a popular sentence 'Do your own thing'!

2007-09-30T11:31:00.000+05:30

Its been more than a month now in the US, and has been quite a ride since the start!

I have often been asked what is the difference between this country and mine...
My brother pops this question out every now and then...
well, in the time that I have been here and what I have observed, is probably best explained through the following experiences I had...

I entered the New Delhi airport after saying bye to mom, dad, bro, nani (granny), mama (uncle), mami (his wife), dada (elder cousin)... that moment I felt like being separated from my flesh and blood! I live with them and for them! is what I am going for something worth giving that all away?
I felt that the purpose of living your life is for your family... your people with whom you share your happiness, sorrows and all...

Inside the airport, when we lined up at our gate to enter the aircraft, all the passengers were asked to take their passports out... everyone took out their passports, there were many people and as many passports all around me... I looked around me and saw a group of French tourists take out their passports, then a Portuguese couple took out their, the Thailand boy took out his passport, the German traveler took out his, then the Spanish guy, the American ... passports were all flashing in front of me, and everyone was talking to their people in their own language... I felt like someone all alone with no one by my side... no one to look at with a sense of belonging... no one... my own... It was then when I looked at my passport, and as I read 'Republic Of India', I could feel the whole nation standing right with me... the echoes of thousands of people, just like in a stadium, all around me as if saying 'we are all right beside you my boy'... my passport was the only thing that gave me my identity in that moment. It was my belonging to a nation... my right to a land...

Reached Vienna.. my first stop... I had to take another flight to Chicago from here... This place was different.. majority of people (for the first time in my life) white, and there I was with another Indian by my side, standing in a sea of white people... we were walking in the airport, and we bump into a poster of Longiness watch which had Aishwarya Rai on it! India had arrived...

There on, I was not just Ankit, or the numerous nicknames that I had been know with.. I was an Indian. What ever I did, said would invariably be linked to me, my nation, my people... Had to be ready to shoulder that responsibility... its not as if u take it on you, it just comes... you have to stand up whether you like it or not...

To be continued...

2007-06-20T19:30:00.000+05:30

Shoot to kill

I recently got myself a new camera and was trying to put in some stuff with it...
here are a few shots..
have a look and please comment on what do u think their captions should be..
I have put in my captions though...

messy music

time to kill? or just killing time !

jump in or cross over?

light at the end of the tunnel.. may be u

I wont wanna write much .. hope the pics speak for themselves :P

2007-06-13T20:02:00.000+05:30

umm what??

Your Chances of Being a Multimillionaire: 60%

You have a decent shot at being a multimillionaire. Surprised?
You're confident and a hard worker. Keep it up!

Will You Be a Multimillionaire?

yeah whatever...

2007-06-03T16:59:00.000+05:30

Inhale… exhale… inhale… exhale…

Sounds familiar? heh… no if the thought was that of a yoga instructor, u r way away…

This is more like when u smell any random looking thing, and suddenly ur head swings and flashes a special person, moment or place that u had been associated with, and to make sure that it is a smell u have smelt before, u inhale.. exhale…. inhale…. exhale… I am trying to make relevant, the (rather boring) research done by scientists (and they won a Nobel Prize for it too) that tried to link the sense of smell and the memory that it links to…

It has happened a lot of times with me, but particularly when it comes to my ex- girlfriends… you see, I being me (and as testified in my orkut profile) have been a Dog and hence have had the liberty to go around with more than one members of the opposite sex at different periods of time… At that time (and in the heat of the moment, following my Doggy instincts) whichever female was with me, her smell did make a place somewhere in my head. I never cared about the names of those perfumes/deos/scents or whatever ‘Eau De Toilette’ (in simple words toilet water) they used, but now it seems it might have been a good idea if I had done so then, and here is why…

When I am somewhere with a gorgeous entity (otherwise why wd I be somewhere with them!) and by a quirk of fate, I don’t quite remember her name, and God forbid, if she is wearing a ‘Eau De Toilette’ that already exists in the associative array stored in my head (umm I am at a loss of words and had to use some software terminology. L ), the only name I would utter is the one that is already in my head!!!... Many times I have mixed keertana with surabhi, ruby with ramya… and … never mind…

So here lies the problem. Since some scientists enforced the link between what u smell and what u remember, not thinking that sometimes such links are best forgotten, I have to face the music and that too of a heavy metal rock band with a female lead singer whose name and voice are similar to the femme fatale standing next to me (which alluva sudden is the only name I forgot and now remember again, but its too late any ways), singing very emotional morose songs (Alanis Morissette style) and u r the main villain in it!!!

And on the other side, u r walking in a densely crowded market, having Gol Gappe, and suddenly ur head is hammered with the pictures of a person that u had tucked away somewhere in ur head. The side effects? The Gol Gappa gets stuck in ur esophagus, u gulp it down without relishing the taste, and have to pay for one more to guarantee satisfaction…

So the real problem, now I understand, is this. This smell linking actually encourages more spending, and is a threat to the Indian economy, because we end up saving less!

Mr. Chidambaram, are u listening???

2007-04-29T23:26:00.000+05:30

Emotions … no this is not the name of a new perfume that I heard about, it is the good old English word that means what It means… yes it seems a lil awkward these days to me to talk about emotions (at least publicly as if it were a lingerie brand), but I think there is an emotional bulb in me that has been switched on somewhere in the recent past…

How or when or why, I dunno, but there is a latent feeling (another word relatively new in my usage) that has become dominant… I would like to call this phenomenon “My coming of age” :P

I am no dna tester or any kind of tester, in fact, being a software techie, I detest testers like hell! So I didn’t try and find out the bug here, but I know that there is a new functionality that has developed, or rather evolved… that of emotions, or simply put, I have started noticing that men are as emotional and paranoid about their feelings as their better halves!

For instance, we had a very old fiat car… maybe for around 20 years and by now it had almost become a dilapidated, antiquated, and almost defunct piece of metal. Kudos to my dad for having the perseverance to drive it as recently as 4 weeks back! Well but finally the time had come when we all knew that we would bid adieu to this family treasure and this beauty would have to go…

My brother and I went to the car, kissed it at all the dirty places (dirty as in full of grease and dirt NO PUN INTENDED), sat in it, cleaned it for one last time (when there was no use doing that) and then, took pictures of it from all possible angles… including its bottom, so that we do not forget the shaft, and the bonnet, to ensure that we have in our memories all the parts that we had replaced since buying it … totally, we might have taken around 30 pics of our car… and with a sorry heart, left for delhi…

Things would have been fine if that was all there was to it. The day the car was to be actually towed away, my dad started feeling the same way for the car, and took another set of pictures with the car... in fact, he got the car out, sat in it, and took a picture as if he were driving it!

I know my dad and I would probably never talk about our ‘feelings’ for our car the way we felt for the car that day, but it showed in the pics… or, maybe it was always around, and its only now that I have started to realize it… I have come of age :)

2007-04-26T10:23:00.000+05:30

In dino dil mera mujhse hai keh raha .. tu khwab saja..
hai tujhe bhi ijazat, kar le tu bhi mohobbat..

listening to this song on my comp this morning
feeling sort of low,
in a vest and faded pajamas,
only the coarse side of me left to show..

didn’t go for tennis today!
Prolly didn’t feel like…
Not looking forward to a special moment today,
Maybe it doesn’t seem like…

Everything is working the way it should,
but there seems something amiss
Instead of getting ready for work,
I am writing a thing like this…

The world seems to have shut up,
Can’t hear anything!
The Purpose seems like it was never there
Can’t walk even an inch.

2006-12-18T00:12:00.000+05:30

A poem i wrote loooong ago in one of my engg classes (ADA) and I won the first prize for it in a competition too ;) trying to show off :P

Think of the places you have been
Think of the people you might have seen
Were they the nights of a journey or a journey of nights?
The story of 'could haves' and all 'despites'...

When did it happen!
How could it be!
Does it happen to everyone or just to me!
Was it the fuel in my car or the last peg in the bar ?
Nevermind! the journeys I have made so far...

Was it outside in, or inside out?
All these questions and all those doubts
keep ringing in my head, all hollow from within...

A locket in my neck, and a prayer to Him,
or was it coming from somewhere within?
With my realisation or the realisation of me
again I think of places I could/should have been...

Never the less it's a beautiful world
where smaller the ring, the more it is curled
But is it me in the ocean or the ocean in me?
where the forces in my head, take my head to the moon.
But is it late ? or a lil too soon?

Just thinking of the places I have been...
thinking of the people I have seen...
maybe on the moon ...

2006-10-02T18:30:00.000+05:30

Be it Another brick in the wall or smells like teen spirit or sometimes even
fade to black, even if it is a compulsive hearing because of my brother's continous
blurting of the same, I have always been surrounded by a lot of good quality music
. of course! when u have loads of 'tera tera tera surooor' and 'where's the party tonight'
pouring out of the radio channels in one form or the other that even 3 different channels dedicated to good Indian music have scored a good deal of -ve points with me... so much so that I some time start to wonder if there is any art left indian music, or everything has been turned into Pepsi/Coke: good to taste, but full of harmful pesticides (and we still drink it! after all Amir Khan asks us to).

Mr Qutubuddin Aibak (he who? he is the dude who made that roundish bulding in delhi that we occasionally see on post cards/maps of delhi... )kinda came to my rescue and took me to a place long forgotten by me and my friend(we meet most weekends ,sit in a mall sip coffee in barista/cafe coffee day and discuss the world and how monotonous has it become). It was the less popular The Hindu (TOI is most read) that ran an ad for some thing called the Qutub Festival. Organised by the Govt of Delhi, this festival even offered Bus rides from a point near by! So job less is this festival that to woo the crowds
, they have to offer rides! and btw, the festival was free for all. Since we were anyhow pretty balse about the the music we wd hear at a coffee shop/ Mall (they know nothing more than Kenny G or if its good luck then Pt SHiv Kumar Sharma's son) we went to the fest, trying to be late coz it wdnt anyhow start at 630 u know(IST), we reached there by 745 i guess and saw that they had laid the path to the festival's performance area with good old fashioned diyas! the path looked like sprinkled with tiny stars! the idea was a very welcome change from the neon lights/ trees loaded with electric bulbs that show u the path(and the stones u watch out for) ever so lifelessly.

On the stage were some quawwals that i thought had long died and maybe they have been called here to bid farewell to this form of music. It would have been best if Some Himesh Reshamia would have felicitated them for their long innings. what started after that was out simply a period full of intense rousing music that engrossed us totally. theirs was a music that had the madness of a fanatic, intensity far greater than of any bollywood movie I have ever watched, so much so that before I knew, I was head banging to a music that was miles apart from Rock to which head banging is usually associated to. what was common for both, was quality. Maybe we need to run that extra mile to the village and taste the raw material before it is manufactured into a one taste liked by all cuisine. maybe lets get out of the wall as all in all we are nothing but bricks in that wall...

2006-09-12T08:37:00.000+05:30

i found this written in my bro's folder... His name is anshit, prolly aka Anshwa :D

a great piece ...

ANSHWAs BANIYAN

Long Back on IGT,
Wen i was new,
Frienz as such,
I had few.

I found a friend,
Who was igt send,
He used to be alwayz on,
His name was anshphenomenon.

What do i say about him,
he s as cool as an ice cream,
Poor innocent fella,
I think hes behind Miss.Angela. (( no offences towards angela dear ))

So i took to the album,
To have his glance,
Omigosh ! whts he wearing?
I laughed till off-baalance.

He insists its a shirt,
A white one except sleeves,
I think thts a baniyan,
He must ve worn wen he brought it new.

Till date im confused,
AS to what hes wearing on,
But, i think thats a baniyaan,
Whats your opi-ni-on???

(( this ones for u ansh....dear frnd.....))

Of trains and cruel mathematical series

2006-08-30T23:49:00.001+05:30

28 f 54
54 f 56
72 f 36
10 m 33
25 m 48
13 m 24 ....

it is not tough for a guy to decode the above series... this happens with all us middle class males so bereft of quality companionship in trains... the series above is a testimony of what I call the great divide of India...

If u still havent understood what the above thing is, well, lemme elaborate on the plight that eats on us like an earthworm feeding on a leaf. It is a very slow and painfull slaughter of our hope to spend some 'quality' time with members of the opposite sex at a place where there are no parents or relatives(their company is fine till we dont grow our batch of pubic hair) ...
The series above is what we see when we gaze at the reservation chart of the train that the station guy puts up so nonchalantly... Seat no. 28 F 54 years, Seat no. 54 F 56(pfff),Seat no. 72 F 36(oh c'mon!),Seat no. 10 M 33(what the hell!), Seat no. 25 M 48(whatever.. it's always this way..),Seat no. 13 M 24 (Yeah thats me ...)

You see, India is a huge country and when u have to travel to the other side of it, u end up spending close to 20 hrs in the train... U see so much in the journey and are so overwhelmed with it that u have to have someone to share ur feelings with (umm did i actually write what i just wrote? now i know y am single and eager to mingle even at this age...) .

Coming back to the series. I am right there at the end with the unlucky seat no. And it is called the great indian divide coz all the pretty faces and beautiful bodies travel in the AC coaches! for somehow the fathers of hot and attractive young women are always wealthy enough to keep their daughters away from their potential mates! and we are left with 28 f 54 's
, 72 f 36's to learn about their nephews(mostly) and sons(irritatingly) working in great MNCs and almost always a passout of II(Ts/Ms) ... phew...

I am taking a Deccan airways next time. I am told the the great Indian divide narrows there. Long live liberalzation. posted by anksphenomenon @ 10:12 AM

2006-08-11T08:25:00.000+05:30

sonu nigam sings a song
and Delhi police takes bribe
freedom fighters fought for long
India's plight to describe