Re - Dux

where have I been

2010-11-21T18:40:00.000+05:30

Its so difficult and painful to realize the time gone by and what I have not done .. All those small things hobbies , learning music , a new language

Objective

2010-03-27T21:47:00.002+05:30

I think it is really important to have an objective in life which is beyond survival and earning money .. more towards something worthwile giving back to society , help people at large do something which is selfless and not see a gain for one self which is anonymous . I have atleast read and see so many people doing good things but the way they are publicised , it is obvious the motivation is more to get some personal gain ie to show how good a person is ..

its being a long time

2010-03-19T23:53:00.001+05:30

And some inspiration to really make me write ..

A lot of us tend to live our lives based on other’s choices, and not our own. You may have even experienced this yourself. Sometimes, other people feel as if they know what’s best for you. I know I have experienced this, particularly regarding my occupation. “Oh, you are probably going to end up being a Kindergarten teacher”, “You would be a great gym teacher”, “Have you thought about joining law enforcement?” As the days go by, all the suggestions are being piled up. I don’t pay attention to them, because I know where my heart wants to be.

Live your own life, and not how others want you to live it. Let them worry about their own lives. You know, deep down, in your heart, what you want to do, and when you want to do it. You’re the only one who knows what’s best for you.

Next Houdini

2008-04-28T21:52:00.003+05:30

Its so frustrating that to see a lot of people including me doing things which I dont want to .... and cannot really go out and do all I have always wanted. Whats stopping me in that case ? Responsibilities , money and all those material benefits. I always think .. what a great world it would be if every one had the ability and resources to pursue their dreams/aspirations and not thinking one bit of survival, very idealistic....such a small life and when I see those glum faces people struggling for survival for those 2 square meals a day it beats me, where are we heading to.

Here I am .. feeling locked in cage inside a drum 10000 feet under the sea ,, when will I perform the next Houdini act or perish, break the shackles .. go out .. break free .....

Rapid !

2007-12-28T09:52:00.000+05:30

I suddenly realised what I have been missing .. writing on my blog. As the year comes to an end and I start reminiscing about the year gone by , I realise the mistakes, the trials and tribulations undergone.

The events of the last one week have been very eventful and has meee glued. Modi's victory in Gujarat has been outstanding, watching Taare Zameen par has been an experience, the Killing of Benazir Bhutto underscores the fact " as you sow so you reap", the elevation of Vikram Pandit as the CEO of citigroup. Each of these incidents have left a mark on the way future events would unfold in their respective fields.

I have realised my folly .. the half baked effort manifests in the way you work and are perceived. Every task undertaken should be complete ... I am back this time for real

I am back

2007-10-30T13:30:00.001+05:30

This has been a long time... I could see this coming. Though this was not intended but it so difficult to continue things which have started out voluntarily. This blog is not going to die .. it has been resurrected like the phoenix .... RE-DUX

I am feeling boooored

2007-10-09T17:55:00.000+05:30

Bentley

2007-09-28T13:22:00.000+05:30

This was amazing .. we were off to a party and this car suddenly comes on road a true blue bentley colored in the colors of a mobile shop and we started to chase the car and even took a video from a camera phone.

The noise accompanying the video may be a bit jarring..

Public Justice

2007-09-18T12:57:00.000+05:30

There have been various incidents where the public at large has taken the justice system to the road. This has demonstrated the faith and trust the people have in the police apparatus and the judicial mis-system. As a society I think we are trending on a very thin line - the ordinary person has become violent and is ready to give up his/her pent up anger on the slightest of provocation... the security system is becoming impotent .. mostly concerned trying to satisfy the whims and fancies of their political masters. There seems to be no redressal forcing the people to take such drastic steps

I remember an incident a couple of years back as reported in the papers of a local rougue who was stoned to death in city of Nagpur by some 300 women who had lodged several complaints against the person without any success. Actually I had wished the same thing happened to the accused in the Nithari case ( though there was an attempt in the presincts of the court) - atlast the owner of the house has been chargesheeted.r>

There have been hundreds and thousands of cases in the public domain where the in-effectiveness of the police has been clearly layed tread bare. I find it so amusing a lot of times to see the constables and sub-inspectors on television trying to make a statement, they seem clueless most of the time and clearly not adequately prepared to handle crime. They are spectators alike.Most of the police stations are a dreadful places - in any case the ordinary citizen would not like to visit any situation.

I think there will growing instances of such incidents particularly in the hinterland where the rule of the land is different for different people. The atrocities faced by them have been going for ages. In the bigger urban centers due to the media glare the police is forced to act though there is hardly any follow up as nobody tracks the end result.

The signs are omnious and the government has to take urgent steps to cull this menace before it becomes endemic to our way of life.

We dont care ..

2007-09-10T13:51:00.000+05:30

As I had written some time back .. the average Indian is unconcerned what happens all around him or her till it affects themselves and with this attitude we go bonkers how the society, government has failed us. I had an experience last week which I think is relevant to share and kind of reinforces my above belief.

In the morning at the bus stop there were close to 100+ folks waiting for the bus, due to sheer number of people the foot path was covered . Couple of adventurous bikers were nonchalantly driving their bike over the foot path bringing inconvenience to all those standing plus in way breaking the law ( who cares in this country ) trying to get ahead of the traffic due to a bad jam.

Looking at the chances of people getting hurt I kind of protested with one of the biker who promptly went down on the road. There was this other person who started arguing and started using foul language when I came in front of his bike after couple of requests.The person suddenly got of the bike and threatened to hit me, I had no chance but to walk away as there was hardly any competition ( he was twice my size ).

Predictably none of the folks standing and watching the tamasha intervened and I am sure with so many people the person would have dared to even touch me. This is in spite of them being from my company. I was very disturbed .....still not sure I should have expected any support and anyways it was not worth fighting.

Hurdles on the path of discovery

2007-09-07T17:15:00.000+05:30

Though there are humongous amounts of data available on self help which kinda tells you how to lead your life etc but I found this rather concise and put up nicely with a lot of sense and purpose.

By -- Sri Sri Ravishankar

What are the obstacles on the path to discovery? They add up to nine — Vyadhistyanasamshaya pramadalasyavirati bhrantidarshanalabdha bhoomikatvanavasthitatvani chittavikshepaste antarayaha meaning “Illness, inability to comprehend; doubt, carelessness, laziness, non-attachment towards the senses, hallucination, and non-attainment of any state or instability are the distractions of the mind which cause obstacles in the path”.

Vyadhi or illness in the body is the first obstacle. The second is styana or the illness in the mind that is either mentally challenged or is incapable of comprehension. For example, you will be perfectly alright but when you get to start meditating, sickness befalls you! If you are watching television, nothing happens, but if you sit down to meditate, the body grows restless. This is an obstacle in your path.

The third obstacle Samshaya or doubt. You first need to understand doubt. Your doubts are always about something that is good. You never doubt negativity. Instead, you always doubt positivity. Has anyone ever doubted their depression? You never ask yourself, “Am I really depressed?”, but if you are happy, you doubt yourself. You keep asking yourself if you are truly happy.

There are three kinds of doubts. The first is doubt about oneself. The second is doubt about the technique that you practice on the path and the third is doubt about the master or teacher.

Pramada means doing something wrong knowing that it is very wrong. You know that certain things are not good for you and knowing this too well, you do it. Or, knowing too well that you have to do something and not doing it is pramada. You know that if you do not do a certain job you will be in trouble but despite knowing that you will be in trouble, you get into trouble. This is pramada. Carelessness, not being alert and attentive is the fourth obstacle.

Alasya is laziness or heaviness of the body. You may do a lot of things, but when it comes to doing little asanas, postures or exercise, you simply don’t. This laziness which can creep up in any aspect of life while doing anything is the fifth obstacle.

Avirati means being engaged in any one of the sense objects and not coming out of it. You can call it obsession. When you are hungry, you eat food. But after your stomach is full, then there is no point in thinking about food the whole day. All the organs of senses and their action is limited to some time and it should be over after that. But thinking about it 24 hours and being feverish about the whole thing all the time is avirati, is obsession. Do you see what I am saying? Is it clear?

It is the same reasoning for sex. Do not think about sex all day long. If you, then it is avirati. Incompletion of any sense creates attachment of that object. Avirati is a big obstruction in the path of yoga, for, it does not allow you to get centred.

Bhranti darshana or hallucination is the seventh obstacle. Many seekers practice something and get some vision and they get caught up in that vision because the visions are neither completely false nor completely true. They are a mix of both. So people try to hold on to it. Many cults have happened in this part of the word just because of this bhranti darshana. They have never understood these obstructions that can come in the path of yoga. This is called Yoga Maya. Yoga Maya means a vision would come and give you some message or it will be an intuitive message. You are sitting and meditating and a message will come, “Go and open the door; somebody is waiting for you” and you go and open the door and you find someone there and that gets you excited. But just because you had intuitive thoughts a few times, you get caught up in assuming all the thoughts that come to your mind always come true. But, many times residues or traces of your desires and hatred and fear will also come up. This is delusion or bhranti darshana.

The eighth obstacle is Alabdha bhumikatva. This is when one feels completely stuck, when you get that feeling that you are not going anywhere. The eighth obstacle is non-attainment of any state or samadhi, any peace or tranquillity.

Then comes anavastitava or instability. Sometimes people say that while doing meditating they feel peaceful and experience bliss, but, after a few minutes the whole thing vanishes. This is another usual complaint that people come up with. This ninth obstacle is known as anavastitatva.

What is my color

2007-09-05T13:00:00.001+05:30

As a country we have been fascinated with the color of the skin. I have been amused to suddenly see the plethora of skin whitening products for men and that itself has become a 100 crore market in a short span of time. I remember some time back reading that the usage for the most popular skin whitening cream fair & lovely amongst men was about 20%. Forget women now men also want to look fair. Michael Jacko the psycho is a case in point, cant blame the average Indian male.

This discrimination particularly based on the color of the skin has been rampant across the world. Apartheid – was simply based on the color without any respect to the creed etc. Even in the US blacks have to face discrimination - Barrack Obama is running for the presidency and surely will loose out to the white supremacy when it comes to nomination which incidentally is a rallying point for his presidency. It is probably the worst kind of discrimination. In a country where people are infatuated with the fair skin and caste prejudices run deep – it can be comical to read the matrimonial on a lazy Sunday afternoon. The undue importance in every post for bride wanted - regarding the color of the skin is very striking. I have observed this being prevalent irrespective of the caste, creed and religion particularly in arranged marriages. I had a first hand experience recently when I was asked to the color of a prospective groom by the girl’s parents- whom I had gone to meet for finding the suitability of a match.

According to some historians the whole caste system in India originated based on the color of the skin and a case in point which I remember vividly as pointed out was the upper castes generally are on the fairer side where as the lower caste on the darker side. Though there is no empirical evidence to prove this.

When will be my next blog post ??

2007-08-28T13:02:00.000+05:30

I have been reading a lot of stories about the end of the boom for blogs. The blog sites are full of un-updated blogs. I also realise after the initial euphoria, it becomes difficult to keep updating the space. There are multifarious reasons , from the lack of time , priorities and could be just what to write about particularly if it is a general purpose personal blog without any specific objective.

This combination of the above factors has also hit me and probably this is the worst month in my blogging career. This being only the 4th post. This actually highlights what ails a lot of people and organisations ie to intiate and self sustain initiatives which are not mandatory.

When I look back in time , I f started a lot of things but mid way lost interest and track. I think one of the success mantras is not to loose the momentum in what you believe and keep doing against the odds.

Energy ..........

2007-08-23T11:29:00.000+05:30

Since the last couple of years there has been renewed focus on the doomsday scenario of the world running out of oil. This has lead to the search for alternative fuels like making solar power viable, bio fuels, nuclear power, oil from shale , wind power etc ( both renewal and non renewal) ,. Oil today offers an extraordinary flexibility of it being portable, easy to transport, carry and burn which has resulted in the proliferation of mass transport. It is very difficult to imagine the world without oil – every thing will come to stop and sure with the way mankind has evolved with lots of ingenuity we will overcome this problem, even though there seems no viable alternative even in the conceptualization stage.

Solar power has been around for quite a number of decades but the capital cost of production is very high even though the running costs are low, then comes the availability of power which can be harnessed only in places where the sun light is available in plenty and the last is the area required is humungous to plant the solar panels. Though there has been a lot of research to make the panels more effective but I really doubt if it can replace the existing sources though may be a good supplement. It can be a good source for small requirements. As I have read - only Israel produces any meaningful amount of electricity from Solar Power something like 5% of its total requirement.

Oil from shale seems to be a pipe dream at this point in time– there is always a cost of how much energy will have to be spent to extract new forms as regards Bio fuels the eternal debate of food security will keep coming up as more and more land is diverted towards oil producing crops, though crops like Jatropha have ignited some hope as it can be grown on arid land without much tendering and support.

Wind power seems to be more of a gimmick than any serious effort to bridge the gap. There have been theories which state that large wind farms have the ability to alter the weather patterns resulting in diverting the rains. I think of all forms of renewal energy this is the most un-reliable. Hydro electricity should be tapped as much as possible – apart from generating electricity it has the potential to store water and divert it for irrigation. China has shown the way with the 3 Gorges dam.

I remember reading some time back that George Bush had some grand plan of getting a chemical from the surface of the moon which can replace the nuclear fuels like Uranium/plutonium which has similar properties but much safer. The biggest draw back of nuclear fuel is the safeguards and the chances of being used for the wrong purpose. Chernobyl demonstrated the disastrous fallout of nuclear radiation not to mention Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In my opinion the need for energy should be classified in to two major segments – portable for the common man catering to all forms of transport and the other is for the bulk use like electricity. We have scenarios where Gas is proposed to be used for generation of electricity which should be stopped and rather alternative sources like Coal etc should be preferred. I don’t think every any aircraft will fly on coal but on Gas – definitely possible.

What do we stand for

2007-08-20T12:32:00.000+05:30

Of all the different articles on India's independence which have been come kind of rigmarole on every independence day - This is the best I have read in many years.

Should not miss this

Not my Idol

2007-08-09T15:07:00.000+05:30

Talent search is a rage these days. The bug has caught on.. all the general entertainment channels are going over board to choose the next big singing superstar. Though not very inclined towards music as dont understand the nuances of singing .. I still happen to watch " Indian Idol" once in a while simply due it packaging. The first thing that strikes me is the hype and hoopla around these shows.There seems to be little attention on singing but more on the style and look of the contestants, naturally given that most of them come from small towns. Another point which fails me is how is this a pan india contest considering that that all the constestants are expected to sing fluently on hindi film songs. What happens to the regional languages ?

Indian Idiol is in its third season and I am as curious to know as other viewers as to what happened to the past two winners. They are hardly heard or seen. They were supposed to be the next big superstars , what happened to them is as a good guess. In this era of crass commercialisation what counts is the how much money can be made my monetizing the eyeballs. Voting by SMS itself has become a big industry. The on screen fights between the judges, the accolades given to the contestants, new celebrity guests every week etc seem very clearly tailor made as per rehearsed script. Some how I dont trust Sony in any of its reality shows as the eliminations/winners are clearly rigged going by the past winners of its shows. I remember there was to be a show called "Fame Gurukul" - both the winners even after so much grooming did not how to sing where the more deserving ones were kicked out earlier. Why cant the channels give out exact number of votes received by each contestant every week ? Its so tempting to rename the program as " IDiot Idol"

I have never ventured to watch either the VOI or Sa re ga ma pa. They seem to be too over board and crass- just looking at the clothes of the contestants will an idea. Any person who is remotely connected with the hindi film music industry now qualified to become a judge. Excepting couple of voices and that too ages ago .. nothing worth while has come out. I fail to understand that what is the average viewer wants in these shows which keeps them going season after season.

Photosynth Prototype

2007-07-31T17:22:00.001+05:30

Life lessons from Narayana Murthy

2007-07-25T09:58:00.000+05:30

It is quite a paradox the kind of people we have in our country which will be the case anyway considering the diversity. This is again a good piece to read. Till yesterday it was frustrating but today another hope.I happen to know a person who has worked with NRN for the last 17 years and he still keeps raving out him. Personally I have seen his humility which was incredible to believe.

http://www.rediff.com/money/2007/may/28bspec.htm

What a Shame ! Flog the accused in public

2007-07-24T17:08:00.000+05:30

When I saw this story on the Televisions yesterday .. My blood boiled over - for a change I support the Islamic way to treat the accused rather harshly for such crimes. It was such a painful story. I cant imagine how regressive our society has become. The culprits should be flogged to death for causing such grievous harm to such a sweet little girl. Any crimes against children should be shown no mercy and I was so happy some time back when Dhananjoy Chatterjee was hanged to death which I dont see happening for the Nithari accused. Damn the human rights activists where are they now .. coward bastards , I feel like taking a drilling maching and making a hole in the center of their head.

Hindol Sengupta aptly captures all the emotions I have .... Its a definite read.

http://www.ibnlive.com/blogs/hindolsengupta/104/2172/mumbai-safe-city-l.html

Its time before the country woke and shrug the "it did not happen to me so why should I care attitude". I have said this in the past that the middle class should wake up from the slumber and really tackle these issues head on.

Where is the infrastructure !

2007-07-20T13:21:00.000+05:30

There is lot of hype surrounding the 1 lakh car of Tata. Though it is still not clear what is that 1 lakh all about, will it be the cost price, the exfactory price or the showroom price. A lot of 150 CC bikes come for Rs 50 K and to think of the car to retail at that price would be foolish. There are other concern of safety , space etc. Last heard was that the government of India is planning to give tax concessions to Tata’s for them to achieve that price. At the outset what one of the most respected group has set out is a very noble intention of giving the car to the masses, the first and the most obvious question that pops up is where is the infrastructure to take up the load. The economy is booming leaving a lot of surplus cash in the hands of the masses which can be an obvious trigger. The urbanization of Indian cities has led to un planned growth resulting in bottlenecks in key parts of the cities.

Most of the Indian cities are choc a block as the infrastructure development is reactive and pro-active. For an example once there a regular jam at a particular junction or a stretch the administration will suddenly wake up to either build a flyover or more conveniently make it a one way. All of the solutions are short term. There is no concept of capacity planning at all. The bigger worry is the parking space, any one who has being to Delhi will observe the row of cars stationed outside the homes and on roads. There is absolutely no space to park. Its a privilege to get parking space in the shopping malls, central business districts, public places etc. Bangalore roads are a nightmare the infrastructure is crumbling and there is no political will to make that dramatic change

A seemingly innocuous question is where will the folks keep the car and on which roads will they drive. Most of the new apartment complexes coming up are already full with obscene amounts being charged by the builders.

This is my sound pseudo socialist but the government should stop this project in the national interest further the Tata’s have not displayed any inclination to go for a cleaner technology so definitely there will be environmental damage as well. The current boom in expensive cars has clearly displayed the customer’s preference of quality over price as otherwise there was no reason for Maruti 800’s decline.

Not a muggle any more

2007-07-17T16:26:00.000+05:30

For quite some time now I did not realize what was this Harry Potter mania and why kids and adults alike went fanatic about the whole concept – I was simple amazed and watched in awe when people got together and lost themselves in discussing the nuances in the books of Harry Potter which made J K Rowling the first dollar Billionaire by writing books. I was confounded how a story about magic can be held together for such long time and across 7 books and also interest kids and adults at the same time. I am a self confessed fan of the star wars saga, which has a similar theme of good vs evil though it did not have the book franchisee to propel the films into stratosphere.

With the impending launch of the 7th and the last book in the series and the hype of the 5th movie , I too have got bitten by the bug though my interests lie in knowing more about the dark lord Valdemort than in Harry potter and his antics. I am also now being consumed by the harry potter magic to an extent I have decided to read all the books even knowing what happened in the end – 21st July is not very far. I keep wondering the ingenuity of JKR to come up with so many terms and characters and weave such a plot. Bloomsbury surely was lucky to have latched on and have made a fortune.

Having watched “Harry potter and order of Phoenix” over the week end and the other movies earlier – I am seemingly getting convinced about the hype surrounding the release of the last edition. Though the movie was a bit dark as compared to the earlier ones it nevertheless displayed the maturity of the child actors who have grown in stature with every innings. It will be surely difficult for Radcliff to an encore. I only hope that the main leads don’t change for the last 2 movies.

I will be waiting to see the last episode - the final battle between the dark lord and Harry and from the recent utterings will be not to the liking of a lot of fans

Gmail will get paid ..

2007-07-11T17:21:00.000+05:30

I keep wondering will a time come when the users have to pay for having an email account and the allied services that come with that. One of my first email accounts apart from the traditional hotmail in the year 1997 was with a site called netaddress.com. It became paid in the year 2000 and after that I have never heard about that site.

Hotmail used to be a 2MB account and yahoo a 4 Mb and then came Gmail as usual google gave a new definition to the "email" with gmail. It gave an mind boggling capacity of 2 GB un heard in the industry which forced the traditional leaders like hotmail and
yahoo to expand not just the mail size but also the service offering and last week Yahoo broke the size barrier and made itunlimited. I keep wondering the kind of infrastructure required to service the userbase and with the ever increasing voracious requirements for space.Where will the money come from ? will the advertising revenue be sufficient to make profits ?

Now more and more services across the portals are getting integrated and people depending on them much more than in the past. Even google is promting a single sign on identity for its various acquired properties like Youtube, blogspot and orkut. Yahoo was the first of the block but in the last 2 years except the acquisistion of flickr it has not gone any where , not really leveraged the wide spectrum of content it could have integrated.

I forsee a situation where email accounts will get paid and that money being asked will not be for the email but for the sign on identity. Ultimately the email id will become the most important weapon in the hands of these service providers to charge and who else but GOOGLE may be the trend setter and considering the kind of data I have on blog,picasa,orkut etc I might pay even though may not be willing to.

Diehard

2007-07-02T16:17:00.000+05:30

What a movie ! I really loved watching Diehard 4, it was a very typical Hollywood raw action flick and a very good change from the love me types hollywood has been churning out which actually ought to be action packed entertainers ( POC and Spiderman 3 ). Very limited emotions and all focus was on action – edge of the seat entertainer. Bruce Willis is brilliant in the movie – his one liners is very difficult to forget. The plot of the movie may be a little futuristic but very much in the realm of possibility and probably shows how the future wars will be fought without any arms and ammunition. Its a must watch !

What vindication ...

2007-06-29T14:25:00.000+05:30

When I wrote the last piece on the Indian presidential elections the last I expected was the the kind of disclosures on Pratibha Patil. In any other country the candidate would have withdrawn or there would have been mass hysteria. Indians are tolerant for all the right things and agitate for non existent issues.

I was just trying to recapitulate the charges against PP

- Shielding people involved in homicides
- Bungling a bank in her own name where even the central bank has indicted the management
- Some non-sense comment about "purdah"
- Closed sugar factory with non payment of dues etc

I am sure many more such slanderous event will come out of the closet in the run up to the elections and the junta of this country is helpless.I have not even heard about a single word from the mouth of the lady .. leave alone clearing her name from the mess. Any person with self dignity would have come out in the open. Sonia Gandhi has it is obvious has already a stranglehold.

Congress has done it again !

2007-06-20T17:16:00.000+05:30

I cant find words to describe how the congress party went about choosing the president of our country. All norms of propriety have been left behind. Loyalty has a new meaning. Sycophancy has been taken to new heights. Even though the presidential post is ceremonial it carries a lot of respect and dignity and the UPA has shown utter disregard for the popular opinion. We had a subservient obliging prime minster who does not seem to have any say in his own government and now we will have a submissive president who will be more than willing to dismiss state governments 24/7 and dancing to madam's tunes. UPA has foisted a person non grata on the people of this country. The way the congress party went about choosing the president was very disturbing ... the names themselves don't inspire any confidence ..most of them cant even win a corporator's election.it is very obvious that any tom dick and harry can aspire and become the president of India, the only criteria is to stoop down and bow to the madam

7 race course road is the new temple for the Indian public to pay obeisance what a shame. I am surprised the how come the so called pseudo secularists not supporting. The indian public should never forgive the congress party and its "left front" stooges. Kalam had displayed rare qualities of being upright and not getting cowed down by the machinations of the government - there are
enough examples where the UPA had tried to force him to submission with limited success.

What an image we project to the world - like the caste based quota system which clearly gives preference to the all the other factors other than merit and we repeat the same mistake of having a president who will be undeserving brought into the public lime light by some sheer coincidence which we will never know. It is feels disgusting how the elected representatives of this country take the public for a ride and without any remorse what so ever. The " left front "should be renamed as the " No front " they are spineless and like the dogs who bark but seldom bite. The whole ruling front has gone against Kalam !

God help the country !

Seat Belt

2007-06-14T12:57:00.000+05:30

This is my very first video on You tube ..

Voila another landmark !

2007-06-12T17:44:00.001+05:30

It missed my quirky eyes .. I have got 1000 hits. A personal blog with some content which only interests me and still managed to reach this landmark is remarkable. The more surprising element is that I have managed to keep it going for so long consistently ... probably this will go down in my personal history as one great event. I realised pretty early that the only way to keep this going was to write for myself and dont bother of what others think. Lot of times the grammar has been bad and out of shape, the thoughts have lingered on without any direction, the articles most of the time seem half finished without getting down to agenda for which it was started or worse have been tangential.

Nevertheless I am still there ... and will keep it going.

Battle at Kruger

2007-06-12T16:00:00.000+05:30

A great video though a bit lengthy at 8+ mins.. the end is simply awesome

Hollywood calling bollywood !

2007-06-07T18:54:00.000+05:30

Watched Spiderman 3 and POC - at worlds end over the last couple of week ends, both have been spectacular blockbusters across the world shattering box office collection records. One of the most striking feature for both the films in my opinion was the emphasis on the emotions/relationships particularly love angle. Even though the films are a benchmark for their special effects and action sequences - some how in the trilogies the dialogue writers had more work. Love triangles, good becoming bad, bad becoming good all are the forte of Bollywood and now Hollywood has embraced it to good effect atleast financially. Another similarity is that both films have done very well in India. The best movie in this genre was " Mask of the Zorro " - I cant still forget the during the climax when Anthony hopkins actually takes the hand of Zeta jones and hands it over to Antonio - Classical hindi movie ending.

Where as bollywood is on the other way around though the standard fare of song and dance are still very much needed to make it a blockbuster. Krish and Dhoom 2 are prime examples. Krish was a mixture of all western superheroes and still dancing around the trees with a pretty lady in tow. I never understood why Dhoom 2 was such a huge hit - none of the scenes were that great , it had no story thought Ash looked stunning and Abhishek horrible and Hritik continues to amaze me with his dancing skills.

We as a nation have matured. The so called alternate cinema is doing well - Bheja Fry is the latest example what returns on investment a movie of Rs 60 lacs generating Rs 12 crores at last count. It was a short and sweet films with no songs, limited characters , no big star cast. A lot of small budget / cross over films are ruling the marquee. The audience have a choice now and with the multiplex mushrooming all over the place even the film makers can target the discerning junta and do not have to necessarily dish out the tasteless song and dance fare, back in the 80s

The Curse of Being a Hindu in Modern India

2007-06-06T13:39:00.000+05:30

I always had similar feelings and wanted to write what Saurabh Saxena has written, in my opinion a brilliant article well articulated without the risk of being branded as communal for the so called pseudo secular glitterati.

A worth while read

Tales Of Mere Existence "Saturday"

2007-06-04T18:00:00.000+05:30

Traffic ahow !

2007-05-29T15:45:00.000+05:30

No patience. Driving on Indian roads have become traumatic least on Bangalore roads. Probably a new game theory is needed to describe how the traffic moves in most of the Indian cities ( crawls ) in spite of the chaos. Its a actual Zoo on the roads with all kinds of animals. Not surprisingly we have a mainstream Bollywood film called traffic Signal. Everyone seems to be in a hurry to go everywhere leading to now where, people are matching bumper to bumper to get ahead. The horns add to the misery and irritation - wonder why the pressure horns are not band, the decibel levels in the Indian roads are the highest in the world. There is no sense of discipline with the drivers suddenly mutating into blood sucking demons willing to go for the kill without provocation. I always wonder if we had the same gun control laws similar to the US in India. The roads would have got transformed into a killing fields. I remember an anecdote - once a cousin while driving in mumbai nearly nudged a car in front due to a mis judgement , instead of abuses a gun came out from the passenger seat threatening him. He still shudders the very sight of any red Mitsubishi lancer.

looks like folks take all the frustration out on the roads - only place in our cities where you can blow your lungs out. The cab drivers live in their own world and don't have the word "manners" in their dictionary . Auto rickshaws create lanes as they drive oblivious to other vehicles. Two wheelers seem to have converted the roads into a Moto GP race track racing against time very well realising one small mistake can be fatal - luckily some state governments have made the helmet compulsory. Experience any new Delhi signal - very similar to the starting F1 starting grid , the familiar vroom of the engine - with smoking bellowing. How can I miss out the ubiquitous city buses - they are a nightmare come true. The bus drivers seem to be immune to any and everything. My experience tells me never challenge an empty bus or truck.

its a circus out there ! The cars are becoming powerful and the average speed on Indian roads coming down. There are very few stretches in any city left where the needle can touch 80 kmph consistently. The roads have become Gas chambers ..difficult to breath if the AC is not on, the road development has not been able to keep pace with the addition in vehicles. The only solution the traffic administration has today is to make as many road one ways which ultimately results in the traffic piling up on narrow junctions. I cant see any respite in sight.

Blog Party

2007-05-25T09:16:00.000+05:30

I happen to see this invite for a blog party on the 9th of June in Mumbai. I was surprised at the open invitation and seems to be free for all. More details at

http://www.thevoiceinmyhead.com/2007/05/23/its-blog-p-a-r-t-y-time/ . Isnt this amazing that a party is being organised for complete strangers. Though I am not aware of the place but as per the invite there is no time limit .... wait before this comes to the knowledge of the moral mumbai police and they gate crash.

Money honey

2007-05-22T09:52:00.000+05:30

I dont have a great relationship with Money. Some how the more I want it the more it is elusive. Though this is relative, I never seem to have enough when I compare myself to my peers. In this age of capitalism where materialism matters more than anything else , the instant gratification can only be provided with money and nothing else. The luxuries of olden times have become necessities today. Money has never been flaunted like this . there seems to be no great relationship between how much a person deserves ( probably a perception ) and how much a person actually has. Though a seaming inference may be that my peers are undeserving .. the moot point is that how fast and quickly a person can capitalise on the opportunities can make that vital difference. The obvious example is the ESOPs given by a lot of companies which dollar millionaires out of ordinary blokes who in a lot of cases could not even have dreamt to have made that kind of money in their lifetime. Though this may sound a bit out of frustration on missing the bus but I find this echo with a lot of ordinary junta.

Recently one of my friends mentioned an advt about a housing complex which had the tag line .. what is the difference between "haves" and "have lots" - the houses were meant disbelieving for the "have lots". India is on the way to become a Trillion dollar economy and even the stock market capitalisation is due to touch the magical figure. Though I may sound like a pseudo secularist in the garb of a capitalism desisting animal but the spoils of the stupendous and spectacular growth has been cornered by a select few who have access to all corridors. The most die hard of capitalist countries have social security built into the civil fabric.

More on this to come ...

Hail the new Maya

2007-05-15T08:56:00.000+05:30

The pollster have got it wrong again , inspite of the so many high profile exit polls across Television channesl - non of them was near the target and the variation being as high as 40% . It is surprising to analyse how can they get it wrong each time particularly if a party is due for a majority it cannot escape detection either during the opinion polls or exit polls. Mayavati has proved the strongest of her detractors wrong and what she has pulled off is truely remarkable considering that she neither had any star power nor any manifesto to speak off except the anti - mulayam rehetoric.

The social engineering of having a diverse set of communities on a single platform my opinion has a very positive side , with such a diverse community supporting her no one caste/religion will get undue benefits due to the pulls and pressures. Mayavati has shown tremendous pragmatism and a foresight far ahead of her rivals - which were always seeped into their own parochial mindset - it will be very interesting to see how she is able to balance every one's expectations in the days to come. The significant risk is that there is no visbily economic plank and how she will be going about carrying the affairs of state particularly when she is done with hounding the Mulayam coterie of politicians, goons, henchman and bureaucrats.

Its truly amazing to see how the Brahmins ( upper castes ) and the dalits ( lower caste ) the staunchest of foes can come come together for power sharing keeping aside their centuries of animosity and if this can be achived in such a fragmented state of Uttar Pradesh it bodes well for the rest of the country. This will force the mainstream political parties to reach out to a larger political canvas hitherto ignored by them. Possibly the the quota politics will take a back seat and meritocracy will gain credence.

Its all about the "gut"

2007-05-08T14:33:00.000+05:30

I always wondered why people rely on the gut for any intuition and where on earth this term "gut feeling" originate. The funny part is that the term "gut feeling " is normally used to predict about an incidence, providence, which I would associate positively as there in a normal course - a person would that extra bit to of sixth sense to predict the future or give an indication of a likely outcome of the situcation/scenario/circumstance as otherwise this divine power doesnt come naturally. Medically "Gut" is assciated with digestive tract and to sound politically correct the waste is stored there, then how come such a positive emotion is associated with the "gut". I wish to imagine if the gut can give such powers what about the other important parts .like the "liver power" , " pancreatic emotion" etc

As a corollary even acts of bravery/defiance is associated with "guts". I will not elaborate as it is well understood.

Have not been able to find anything historically which will give such an importance to a body part which is internal and stores the waste matter. It should be typically associated with catharsis or letting out of emotion. Sometimes even though the words dont mean the obvious - it becomes so ingrained in our daily lingo that we start using even without realising what it could mean otherwise.

Die in Peace

2007-05-04T16:46:00.000+05:30

The summer did not have a good effect ...

I dread to imagine the day when I will be bed ridden and no one to really take care from the family and particularly scenario when the suffering gets prolonged to months. I would like to die without pain - no burden on anyone, no expectations, absolutely nothing. I remember the day my grand father was hospitalised due to old age there was a deluge of family members keeping the vigil day and night. This is two generations back when the families were large.. had enough members to take care, with nuclear families in vogue the problem is and will get compounded.

I remember an incidence nearly 10 years back , one of my relatives was admitted to Tata memorial hospital for an cancer removing operation and there was this old lady of nearly 70 years in the adjacent bed - she had been already operated once for abdominal cancer a week which was not very successful. The relatives sounded helpness not knowing what to do while the doctors kept suggesting some treatment or the other and even an operation in the next week - even for a layman like me it all sounded gory.The doctors as it was obvious were taking her relatives for a ride ( most of them were young and seemed wanted to try out their hand on her ). Since they gave a glimer of hope - her folks were not able to resist one last temptation of her getting well. It was dreadful that no one was willing to give a thought to her pain and suffering.

I can hear more and more cases of folks getting bed ridden and having to undergo the trauma for a prolonged period of time. The competivtive pressures of survival takes a heavy toll on the near/dear ones both financially and on their time.

It may sound surprising to talk about such an eventuality when probably I have lots of summers to endure - but could not help realise the stark reality. Amen

Summer break !

2007-04-30T16:45:00.000+05:30

Its hot and not happening. My thoughts have become all gobbled and have vaporised in the hot Indian summer and have taken a summer break ! Waiting for the first rains ...

Why men never get depressed...

2007-04-23T16:43:00.000+05:30

This has been customized.. ode to the original !

Men Are Just Happier People-- What do you expect from such simple creatures? Your last name stays put. The garage is all yours. Wedding plans take care of themselves. Chocolate is just another snack. You can be President. You can never be pregnant. You can wear a white T-shirt to a water park. You can wear NO shirt to a water park. Car mechanics tell you the truth.. The world is your urinal.. You don't have to stop and think of which way to turn a nut on a bolt. Same work, more pay. Wrinkles add character. People never stare at your chest when you're talking to them. The occasional well-rendered belch is practically expected. New shoes don't cut, blister, or mangle your feet. One mood all the time.

Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds flat. You know stuff about tanks. A five-day vacation requires only one suitcase. You can open all your own jars. You get extra credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness. If someone forgets to invite you, he or she can still be your friend.

Three pairs of shoes are more than enough. You almost never have strap problems in public. You are unable to see wrinkles in your clothes. Everything on your face stays its original color. The same hairstyle lasts for years, maybe decades. You only have to shave your face and neck.

You can play with toys all your life. Your belly usually hides your big hips. One wallet and one pair of shoes -- one color for all seasons. You can wear shorts no matter how your legs look. You can "do" your nails with a pocket knife. You have freedom of choice concerning growing a mustache.

No wonder men are happier.

Media frenzy

2007-04-20T07:54:00.000+05:30

India media is on steroids. One way it is good to have an ever eager media to espouse the issues faced by the common man and the ailments that plague the country but when non issues start taking the precious real estate - it becomes very disconcerting. Last week I had written about how NDTV had taken up the issue of Hindu burial for kids less than 3 years of age. I was one way very happy that the Indian team lost out in the first round of the world cup - the agony of analysis paralysis by the ageing cricket fraternity most of whom hardly made any impact now suddenly taking cudgels on the Indian team was limited though for sometime it went on. Every victory or defeat would have been dissected to the bare bone - though the time spent at the first round exit was disproportionate. Even without choice have to spend writing on this subject and all others which I feel are not worth the penny - Hypocrisy at its best.

I was just trying to re-collect some of the highlights .. of course the latest flavor of the season is the wedding of the decade- Abhiash ... From whats on the menu to the color of the henna , cars in which the bride will go, sangeet, debate on the invitees , honeymoons , the auspicious time of the wedding this is after we have lived through the arun nayar - liz hurley hullabaloo ( even though both have inconsequential social standing ). The kissing by Richard Gere - When shilpa herself enjoyed it what business other folks have .. do we really should care of what happens in the bed rooms of these stars ? The endless playing of the South Korean killer's chilling video on the Virgina tech massacre has bought about a deserving backlash. Lots more which keep coming ...

Surprisingly the times of India is more subdued .. they have some how not gone over board considering the reputation of being a pseudo tabloid masquerading as India's national newspaper. Its difficult to run a 24 hour channel without creating hype and mountains out of molehills. One good thing about the western media is the clear classification of a serious channel/newspaper and the tabloid. We probably have still have to undergo the learning curve.

PS - The channels are about to get into discussion paranoia on the Indian team selection for the bangaladesh tour today

Very disturbing !

2007-04-11T14:44:00.000+05:30

This may be very disturbing to read ....... NDTV in its headline news at 8 pm on 10th of April carried a very disturbing story about how a 1.5 year old was not able to get a decent burial. My eyes were moist as I heard the boy's uncle narrate their trauma and ordeal . NDTV on its displayed a lot of a maturity and the punchline of how they will ensure that there is a solution was very heartening. Even cant imagine what the parents must have been going through - the pain and trauma for losing your kind was not enough the pain of going around the city with the body to give it a decent burial and the place was filthy with scavengers and rabid dogs on the loose. My heart goes out !

Probably this the first time the dogmas of the religion has struck me so hard. It is very easy to be tolerant and assume that not to take stand till it affects oneself. The tragedy and grief is un-imaginable. Which brings me to the eternal question can God be detached from religion.

Birth, Marriage and Death are probably the three most important events and given due importance in any religion/community . Death not being a cause for celebration as compared to the other two calls for that much more sensitivity.

http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20070008282

Eventually even CNN-IBN has also taken up this cause. At one level its a good thing that we have some independence of media .... some one or the other will take up such instances and probably bring about the much needed change in the different facets of our social consciousness where we the society works for the collective will for the people.

Confounded and confused

2007-04-10T14:52:00.000+05:30

I have always been amazed and star struck with certain things around and the more I think - the more I get confounded and confused. Though not listed in any order but some times the randomness is itself surprising as what comes out first is the top of
the mind recall.

Women - how do I understand them ?
Money - I want more .. there is never enough
Happiness - why is it so dis-proportionately distributed
Pain - As a natural corollary to above
God - Is there one ?
Evolution - Where are we heading ?
Death - If this what we get .. what are we fighting for ?
Emotions - how and what methods to control ?
Theory of relativity - Have to call Einstein
Why do I blog ?

Each of the above affects me in different ways - depending on the intensity and seasonality - the reactions are varied.

Procastination

2007-04-05T13:28:00.000+05:30

Back to Youtube videos after nearly a month .. This one the way it has been created and narrated is truly impressive.

Where is the good news !

2007-04-04T13:09:00.000+05:30

I was trying to recollect the news flow in the last couple of weeks and was surprised that there was hardly any good news. I thought to list them down

Stock markets are crashing - the excess of the last year are being culled, interest rates are reaching for new highs making all the home owners on floating rate see red throwing their budgets haywire
Indian cricket team crashed out of the world cup - for a change I think though its good though reflecting the symptomatic crass
global warming is in renewed focus - most of the seasonal patterns have gone haywire the famed Indian summer is in its full glory - water shortage and load shedding going hand in hand
Arjun Singh has come back from the death bed and is hell bent creating a reservation Chakravyuh the impact will be felt on the social fabric for generations to come - the irony this time is that there hardly any anti- reservation protests
Oil prices have reared their ugly head again and quietly on the way to make new highs making any kind of social driving un-viable and also flying
the faith in the CBI is at an all time low - acquittal of Pandher in Nithari killings and the quite burial of the quattorachi case
UP elections are round the corner - any election in India cannot be a good news particularly when the largest state is going to polls.
Some body give me a good news ....

Loads of prime time news has been devoted to the discussion dissecting each of the issues with instant SMS polls - alas of no use.Since every Indian has the birth right to comment on the state of the cricket affairs - My two pennies on the subject
I have been keenly observing the outpouring of emotions India's exit from the cricket world page. The amount of time spent by the various news channels in dissecting the reasons is humongous. The media coverage has been mind boggling particularly for a no cause. Times of India had carried a front page article on game theory just before the India Srilanka match. The whole world knows what happened in the match. Even the Trps of a non event like the
Bangaladesh vs Bermuda match was high . All non decrypt past cricketing zeros were commenting on the performance of the current team oblivious of what they had done in their prime. It is all the making of the great Indian Tamasha. Latest - a three way slanging match between BCCI, players and the great guru greg .

I, Me,Myself

2007-03-26T17:30:00.000+05:30

I am selfish. Its all about I , me and myself. I have to care for my self the government,society is all out to take away my happiness they dont care a damn where I go - its a big bad world - man eat man ( gender bias ! ) . Need to fend for me and myself. I have an ego the size of the football field where I am the striker and the goal keeper. Despot desperately seeking to destroy anyone who comes in my way of ego's self redemption. Its all about conceit and deceit or whatever the dictionary defines as an egoist/egotist/egocentric - interested in only things which interests me. Cant see anything beyond my benefits its all about being parochial and tunnel visioned - single
minded focus how to be self centered. All philosophers who talk about charity and doing good to others - listening and reading about them is a waste as they themselves dont have anything to give - they live on other people's charity. Probably there needs to be a new word in the English dictionary "Mega-ego-lomania".

No pleasure than to self indulge and massage the gravity defining growth of the ego.Here the ten commandments to keep it growing

- Dont listen to anyone - its a waste time
- Ignore people who dont listen to you
- Dont trust anyone - everyone else is baying for your blood
- Nothing better to watch your own face every morning
- You are always right and everyone else wrong
- Dont you ever praise anyone except indulging in self praise
- Never write the words "we" and "our" - they are out of fashion
- Its good to day dream
- Idolise IDi-Amin, Hitler etc - a great examples to emulate
- Go through the list again

I am feeling liberated - all the devil's thoughts have been regurgitated buried deep down. May the soul rest in peace

How much do I know ?

2007-03-23T11:24:00.000+05:30

I decided to make my yearly pilgrimage to Tirupati rather in the early part of the year. Every time I go there the only take away is the number of people coming to the temple town is increasing by the day and there are always lot of first timers. Even though I have been to the temple lot of times surprisingly - I hardly knew anything about origin of the god except that he is the reincarnation of lord Vishnu. I was wondering how the faith can be so blind. There are thousands of deities in India and seems improbable all folks who go there to pray have all the idea. Every nook and corner has a temple and the presiding deity particularly in southern part of the country is different in each of them.Anyways since all the origins are based on mythology - nearly impossible to corroborated, there will hardly be any methods to verify the authenticity of the origins.

Now I am enlightened ! The source of information - what else but Wikipedia ! . Though the official site has information but - kind of too technical for me to understand. Hardly any good Indian sites to give a brief and concise description - Pointers are welcome. What about the other gods ! - Looks like need to go on a net pilgrimage on at least which I kind of believe - last heard that there are 3.6 billion Hindu gods. Times are challenging and no wonder the visitors are increasing as probably temples provide with some sort of solace to over come the constant mindless tribulations. Balaji is a great bestower of Boons

In praise of the parasitic blogger

2007-03-20T15:21:00.000+05:30

I found this written amazingly well about blogs and its comparison with Bacteria - a thin line between originality and plagiarism

By Nicholas Carr - roughtype.com

Robert Niles, editor of the Online Journalism Review, recently decried what he sees as a tendency among journalists to characterize blogs as "a 'parasitic' medium that wouldn't be able to exist without the reporting done at newspapers." He calls the charge "a poorly informed insult of many hard-working Web publishers who are doing fresh, informative and original work."

I confess to having trafficked in this "insult" in the past. A little over a year ago, noting the dominance of New York Times articles on the technology news-headline site Techmeme, I wrote, with a tacit nod to Eric Raymond, "Sometimes I think that if it weren't for the shadow of the cathedral, there'd be no place to set up the bazaar." I suppose my intent at the time was to get a rise out of folks like Niles who are always ready to ride to the defense of the blogosphere's honor - that tattered maidenhead - but since then I've come to believe that being a literary parasite is no bad thing. I'd argue, in fact, that parasitism is blogging's most distinctive quality.

What got me blogging, nearly two years ago, was the attraction of working in a new and still embryonic literary form. Such an opportunity doesn't come around very often - never, basically - so I figured I might as well give it a whirl. Bloggers blog for a whole lot of reasons, of course, but what I think sets blogs apart, as a literary rather than a technical form, is that they offer the opportunity for a writer to document his immediate responses to his day-to-day reading. The continuous flow of text through the eye and mind is a characteristic of many people's lives, but the experience has never been able to be captured in the way it can through blogging. Diaries come closest, but they're private rather than public, and I'd argue that they place more distance between the act of reading and the act of writing about reading.

The reactionary, or parasitical, quality of blogging defined the form from the start. Blogs, after all, began as logs, time-stamped catalogues of usually brief descriptions, and sometimes critiques, of what their writers found in their daily perambulations around the World Wide Web. Many of the most venerable bloggers - the Winers and the Searlses of the world - continue to write in this form. The least interesting blogs, from my perspective, anyhow, are the ones that simply replicate existing journalistic forms such as news articles, company profiles, or product reviews. They can be very useful, and they can certainly be very popular, but they're blogs in a technical sense only.

I've been reading Steven Johnson's The Ghost Map, about the great London cholera epidemic of 1854. The book opens with a richly scatalogical survey of the city's teeming underclass economy, which was built almost entirely on scavenging. The poor were parasites who sustained themselves by collecting the leavings of other Londoners - rags, bones, bits of coal and wood, feces - and, with remarkable enterprise, transforming them into cash. There was even, Johnson tells us, a booming market in dog shit - lovingly known as "pure" - which tanners purchased to rub on their leathers to neutralize the lime they used to remove hair from hides.

"We're naturally inclined to consider these scavengers tragic figures, and to fulminate against a system that allowed so many thousands to eke out a living by foraging through human waste," writes Johnson. "But such social outrage should be accompanied by a measure of wonder and respect: ... this itinerant underclass managed to conjure up an entire system for processing and sorting the waste generated by two million people ... Far from being unproductive vagabonds ... these people were actually performing an essential function for their community."

Johnson goes on to draw an analogy between these human waste-recyclers and their microscopic counterparts, bacteria. "Without the bacteria-driven processes of decomposition, the earth would have been overrun by offal and carcasses eons ago," he reminds us. "If the bacteria disappeared overnight, all life on the planet would be extinguished within a matter of years."

I like to think of the blogosphere as a vast, earth-engirdling digestive track, breaking down the news of the day into ever finer particles of meaning (and ever more concentrated toxins). Another word for "parasitic," in this context, is "critical." Blogging is at its essence a critical form, a means of recycling other writings to ensure that every nutritional molecule, whether real or imagined, is fully consumed. To be called a literary parasite is no insult. It's a compliment.

So, yes, Rough Type is a parasite, a bacterium, a scavenger of bones and turds and the occasional piece of pretty cloth. And I, for one, couldn't be happier.

The great divide

2007-03-20T13:20:00.000+05:30

This is a bit serious stuff - its so difficult to understand how even within religions - fanaticism can be so brutal probably inter religion animosity is plausible though not justifiable but intra religion ? I still don't any religion actually preaches hatred and any sort of barbaric behaviour. The current turmoil in Iraq is a testimony. I always wondered what was the difference between the different facets of Islam and what is the genesis such passion among its followers. There have been so many brutalities committed in the name of religion and its interpretation. Such a wide chasm between the liberals/moderates and the hardliners. I have tried to go through a lot of articles which explains the philosophy behind the shias and sunnis but most of them either were too in depth for a layman like me to understand and be hooked to the story or too superficial. An article in the Time magazine bridges that gap and gives in my opinion an unbiased view. Though a bit long but the perspectives are very much concise and reinforces the belief that most of the hatred is not because of the tenets of the religion but beyond it which is mostly power and dominance.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1592849,00.html

Kamal nath at his best !

2007-03-14T10:19:00.000+05:30

When I wrote my earlier post - it was more out of frustration observing this impotent and gutless government screw up the country. I scarcely imagined that my views will get corroborated in flesh and blood. Its a must watch video - Thanks to Amit Gupta for this link. The old saying of a cat has nine lives needs to be revisited - our good old politicians can influence policies even from the grave leave alone when they are alive - remember what Arjun Singh did last year. In any other democratic country the minister would have been slammed for taking such a stand.

Amazingly hilarious - What a video

Again moving into Economic doom ?

2007-03-12T16:51:00.000+05:30

The UPA government is bent upon taking back the country back to dark ages where every commodity under the sun was controlled; no work could happen without the usual greasing the levers of power. Everything was under the control of the bureaucracy. Inefficiencies were rampant, people with the right connections could only prosper. Ironically the very person who broke the shackles then in 1991 is at the helm. A lot has been said about how the inflation is rising due to supply side constraints and inefficiencies – there lies the conundrum. To increase the supply you need money to fund the capital expenditure to produce more, by constraining or implementing any sort of price controls the money supply will be choked and will go back to the sub 5% growth rates - those dark ages of 1970s and 80s.

The government first killed the Sugar sector by the export ban and then by raising the MSP for cane with an eye on UP elections (the sugar sector has been under performing since last year). The latest news - the government is planning to have 750 crore bailout package "utter nonsense " When it was obvious that the country will have a bumper crop there was no reason to ban the exports - we have already seen a lot of farmer suicides in the cotton belt. The excess sugar production is already having a cascading impact - the arrears to the farmers is already high and with no respite in sight I sincerely hope they dont resort to the extreme measures.A point to be noted is who will actually benefit with the bailout package - the sugar barons close to Sharad Pawar ?

Now with the pseudo controls both on cement and steel – there are chances that there will be limited new investments. I am sure the Holcim, Lafarge, Italicementi would not have bought into Indian companies had they any inkling of what was coming – they have made significant investment in ramping up the existing capacities. The biggest problem with cement is that it cannot be exported in large quantity unlike steel. So we have situation – the sector seems to be heading for a significant correction (anyways the valuations were not very compelling). I remember some old 1970s Amitabh Bachan's movies - how the black marketing of cement and steel was a booming business due to the quota system.

In past every central minister worth his salt has flexed his muscles to prove who the boss is. Ram Vilas Paswan one of the specimens I can remember – introducing curbs on drug prices - instead the focus should be on spurious drugs .There are definitely better ways to stop the corporate sector from profiteering if that what this quasi socialist government thinks. Ms Sonia Gandhi by raising the bogey of aam admi time and again is queering the pitch further. More and more ministers are assuming powers which should be left to the market forces (enough checks and balances can be brought) . The oil sector is in dire straits due to some absurd policies - this after the sector was decontrolled , ultimately the subsidy is borne by the taxpayers – cannot come from the sky.

If these short term actions are justified –the government should show thought leadership and remove the supply bottlenecks. The telecom and aviation sectors are prime examples. Today Bharti has a market cap of 25 USD Billion +. The prices are today nearly one tenth of what was in 1994. The current Indian growth story may not last long with the structural imbalances in the global economy. Its time to take stock and address the real issues at hand rather than the knee jerk reactions this governments seems to make a habit.

PS: The inflation numbers anyways don’t make sense as the weight age of different commodities is absurd. Ex – Sugar has 2.5% weight whereas folks don't spend more than .25% of their household budgets. With incidence of diabetes increasing sugar is any way out.

Change is inevitable

2007-03-09T09:14:00.000+05:30

Change is inevitable. Change is constant - Benjamin Disraeli. I have embraced some change in the look and feel of my blog, it was inevitable and will be some constancy to it. Wikipedia , another of my favorites has a small right up on change. Going by my experiences there is a amazing dichotomy in the way I approach change even though at a more philosophical level its is very much accepted. I have seen boredom setting into any activity or event done repeatedly even for a short period and yearn for a change. Jobs being the best example.

Probably the human nature wants to be a state of flux ( Change is getting a bit too cliched.) to take the process of evolution to new heights as what fun in going about the same routine like a moron. I dread to imagine if machines achieve a level of intelligence and one day decide they had enough - they also need a change.Changing the aesthetics of the blog is a much simpler task but a lot of other things have their own ways and I am no expert do deal in all those metaphysical aspects of its effects on the sub consciousness of the being will leave the job of the explanation to the swamis and sadhus.

Amazing paradox - At first change is desirable and then not because of the uncertainties and the fear of unknown . Anyways it being inevitable - change is a function of time and from where the inevitability comes . Change is all about the "e's" eternal, ephemeral and existential. Its both factual and hypothetical .Even with such realisations staring in the face - its difficult to cope.
I think this has one need which has made the maximum impact in our evolution for better or worse the jury may be out. I recently came across a social networking site on change very neat and aspirational .. goody types - I do not know the impact though- its like the petiononline piece. Where folks keep signing the petition without ever knowing what happened.

I was very pleased with my product choice and the very thought of embracing change excited me - but to my surprise the template chosen by me was similar to one of the other blogs I run . < spot the money > . The mind had subconsciously resisted the very idea choose which was familiar ...now as usual these thoughts have got me into mire .

User experience the web 2.0 way

2007-03-05T13:20:00.000+05:30

A whole lot of stuff has been written on web 2.0 and how its changing the very nature of the websites from socialisation to collaboration. One of the most significant aspects of this new development has been the way websites manage the user experience. Gone are the days of the simple client server architecture where to get any data the page had to be refreshed or even the bland Yahoo kind of interfaces - the pages where as lite as possible to have a faster turn around time . Ironically the folks who started this next generation evolution had the simplest page on the web - google.com.

Google have been the pioneers of using Ajax - A whole lot of social networking sites use the technology. Recently I came across some very useful sites which are kind of personlised home pages on the web. The best of the lot - http://www.netvibes.com/ and http://www.webwag.com/. The way these sites operate is phenomenal. Though the content may be limited based on their resources and IP related issues - The amount of data and information that can be pumped is mind boggling. They have a series of small windows ..widgets - each a world of their own. Its simply wonderful and astonishing. What we are observing is a mini revolution... the tech gurus are calling this the widgetisation of
the web or the widget wide web. They are all pervasive. Which has also made blogging so simple. Even without any knowledge of coding - simpletons can do up a great site on their own . One of the other sites I really like is http://www.go2web20.net/ it gives a simple directory of a whole range of web 2.0 sites as guessed suggested by users. It has a good tag search capability.

Forest Whitaker Oscar speech

2007-03-01T09:50:00.000+05:30

Great again .. there is a video of Forest Whitaker's oscar speech. What speed and alacrity .

Oscars vs Filmfare

2007-02-27T10:42:00.000+05:30

Two of the greatest film awards was held recently Oscars for Hollywood and filmfare for Bollywood. There was stark contrast on the way both of the them was conducted . Though I am a kind of fan of the Hollywood movies so definitely a prejudice - nevertheless the difference was all over. Oscars was relayed live to the globe and our folks in bollywood gave us a stale diet the next day when all the so called suspense was over. Was the positioning of the advts more important than actually having the suspense relaying out to the masses. At least till last year there was a delayed live feed ( made popular by DD on olden days of cricked telecast) - so we have taken a step backwards.

Just have a look at the Emcee for both the events- here we had Shahrukh khan let loose and he was at his usual - self glorification and cracking those stupid silly jokes on unsuspecting winners . I think he was at his irritating best - was not able to stand him for what ever period I saw the program. Difficult to fathom on SRK's choice.Where as Ellen DeGeneres was refreshing - having grown watching Billy crystal, Steve martin, woopi goldberg hosting the Oscars - her witty repartees and the unassuming persona was quite a treat. It was surprising that a rank outsider hosting such a huge event by her own admission.

I was nearly in tears when Forrest Whitaker gave his acceptance speech. What intensity and emotions it had - at the Oscars we have folks who want to speak and thank as many people they can - time permitting. There was hardly any intensity at the filmfare -with so many awards and the various categories it is natural for everyone to win. Never understood the reason behind giving a critics award !. Even Oscar has its flaws - it took 25 years to recognise Martin's talent , Steven Spielberg was lucky with Schindler's List and George Lucas may never get one even though he is the creator of the most successful Hollywood Franchisees- Star wars. There are other numerous other stories of betrayal - the process of nomination & selection is as complicated and opaque as the functioning of the Indian government ( Lobbying , favoritism etc all potent ingredients)

We have a whole lot of film awards - screen, Zine cine, IFfa, stardust etc. Most of them seem to be an excuse to party and return some favors than any serious recognition of talent.I really admire Aamir Khan on his approach to these film awards - really commendable in the back scratching Bollywood. At the end of the day the viewer might just remember the stage performances and hardly the winners - there is hardly anything to be gained by winning leave alone a nomination where as in hollywood your pay packet immediately shoots up even on nomination. Folks feel proud on being called " X times academy award nominee". There is pride.
The execution is flawless at the Oscars - the paper for reading is held by the winners where as at the filmfare the hosts were seen regularly reading out - why cant we have a good teleprompter. It clearly shows the lack of planning. I can go on and on but the moot point is that the Indian film fraternity should get out of the dynastic confabulations ( read the names of this year's popular winners - hardly an outsider from the filmy families).

The obvious relevance can be understood from the respective websites....

Is Cancer a disease

2007-02-23T15:36:00.000+05:30

The mention of the word "CANCER" itself evokes a range of emotion among them being anguish, pain , misery , depression etc. Probably this is one of the most potent diseases still widely prevalent for which there is no definite cure Its a slow and painful process of both discovery of the disease and recovery - with the chances of survival still grim even after so much advancement in medical technology. The whole treatment and its after effects on survival are gory themselves. From Chemotherapy to surgery and radiation and those exorbitantly priced medicines there is hardly any recourse for the afflicted. There have been a lot of very successful survival stories the most prominent which comes to mind is of Lance Amnstrong - the cycling great ( though he had his share of controversies). There are other courageous stories which regularly appear in Reader's Digest - of how normal people have overcome the disease.

I happen to chance upon the story written by Prof B M Hegde on cancer and its probable cure in a magazine published by Dr Reddy's . I was totally taken aback by the very approach -- how cancer may be overcome not just by medicines but also by TLC ( tender loving care ) . I still think the normal dose of medication is required even before any of these things can be attempted. Here is the link .. read on ..

http://www.housecallsindia.com/article.asp?aid=553

One thing common in the all the survival stories is the grit and determination shown by the patient and the support from all the near and dear ones.

Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us

2007-02-21T14:45:00.000+05:30

Some how I never seem to get over YouTube. The kind and variety of videos is simply awesome. I only hope my blog doesnt become a repository of YouTube Videos. No wonder Google paid US 1.6 Billion.

Lines ...........

2007-02-20T13:50:00.000+05:30

Two advts caught my fancy recently - Tata Safari Dicor on TV and KBC on radio. Though the products the companies they peddle are very dis-similar though the line of thought is similar and thought provoking. Even though the products does not have much relevance with the advertisement's thinking.

How we Indians have been caught in the so called clustered web of being in "LINE" . There is a queue where ever you go - lines at the wedding first to wish the lucky (?) ones then for the food later for the exit. Queues at the mall for first parking your car for paying that bill and then at the exit. In office at the lunch counter first to get the coupon, get food , drink water and even for the customary mouth refreshment. Lines every where and boy they are getting longer by the day. the best example I can think of how a line is formed without any chaos is in a lot of bus stops in mumbai- folks are so programmed to do that for an outsider to Mumbai's madness its simply incredible how people can be so disciplined and also animals while getting in and out of a local train. You name and there is a queue of waiting people - be it at the doctor's place, hospitals, at all kinds of courts at your local grocery shop etc.

This has even manifested itself in the long traffic jams in most of our big cities - ultimately they are also lines of car trying to utilise the same road resources. I keep thinking how wonderful opportunity if anyone manages to get into a business where you constantly have a queue. Always working at 100% capacity. Though there is a flip side which I have observed in Big Bazaar - possibly the biggest retailer in India today - customers get tired with the long queues at the billing counter and have stopped going to their outlets.

Though there are a lot of random thoughts - not able to articulate them right now

Indexed

2007-02-16T13:50:00.000+05:30

I happen to stumble on this blog some time back. The drawings are simply amazing check them out. INDEXED . The writter has also produced a film....

My love

2007-02-16T10:54:00.000+05:30

I have loved her since I first met her in Nov 2004. Though not beautiful as the current hot models and a bit out of shape, love her undying committment and the warm heart. She so far has not betrayed me and has been a faithful companion. Though a bit on the heavier side which leaves me a bit fatigued when ever I take her out. She can be a bit nagging in traffic jams but loves the highways.

Not a frugal drinker by today's standards but I still manage to satsify her thurst albeit sometimes grudelingly even though prefers only a certain brand. The love affair has actually deepened in the last 2 years and keep mentioning her quality/abilities to a lot of acquaintances who take my words with a pinch of salt.I am in this 3 year hitch had have a feeling that the relationship may not last that long going forward. Neverthless I intend to have her as for as long as possible. My good 8 year old Fiat Uno.

Survival of the fittest

2007-02-15T09:05:00.000+05:30

The good old viral flu brought me down last week and as usual I popped in couple of paracetamol tablets and to my surprise they did not have the normal effect. Though the symptoms were all there bad throat , body pain initially I chose not to go to the doctor as from the last experiences - most of them have their pet medicines which they will prescribe which any regular patient can predict. Since I was getting bogged down I decided to anyways pay a visit to the company doctor and not to my surprise she handed my some anti allergies and a cough syrup in spite of explaining the state of my body and the bad throat.

I kept wondering why the medicines did not have the desired effect. Probably Darwin's theory of survival of the fittest came into play. Here I was every time felt uncomfortable popped the medicines un mindful of the actual dosage to be taken every time and when the flu's effect starts to wear off and medicines also go back to their usual place. The virus and developed some sort of immunity due to lack of proper dosage and as time is passing the so called 100 and 250 mgs of combination dosage don't have any effect and I am moving to the higher forms of dosage. To day it is normal to find medicines with 650 mg + for normal ailments.

This time I had to resort to a very strong antibiotic 500 mg which can be taken only once a day to make me stand and run again ( this is the 4 time in last 6 months though). I have observed while taking medicines any chemist shop - the number of people taking advice from the chemist for that odd headache or body ache is pretty high and the guy over the counter gleefully advices and doles out one or two tabs ( after all he has a social responsibility to perform) even if the tab/capsule carries the redundant warning " Schedule H drug" - to be given only on prescription.

Yupeee - its a long week end

2007-02-09T17:31:00.000+05:30

Its all about the will ..

2007-02-08T12:24:00.000+05:30

As soon as the cauvery verdict was announced the memories of Rajkumar's death the events that unfolded after that got instantly refreshed - what I called the fear psychosis was replayed , the honest hardworking citizen got transformed into a squirrel desperately trying to get into his or her borough. What happened last year was inexplicable a person whose normal death brought about such irrational expressions of mindless violence and there were all the elements of it getting repeated after all the pride of karnataka was at stake and how can our astute politicians miss the chance of grabbing the opportunity of misleading the gullible citizenary of how the whole country was against the state.

Alas that was not to be and except some benign skirmishes nothing major untoward happened - probably every of the banaglore's citizen reached home on time ( even for a change ) , the bosses did not have an excuse to ask the folks to stay back , all the customers deadlines was dumped in the dustbin and en mass we all headed home. Ostensibly our beloved CM decided that there was much at stake - The aero India show was happening in Bangalore - with a lot of senior folks from the global aviation industry present suddenly the image of the state was at stake and as sense prevailed all the immature and malignant forms of agitation was probably forgotten ( I hope ).

This clearly shows if our politicians want they can definitely make a difference to our lives - the problem is that they have to pander to the community which actuals votes them to power - the poor and the illiterate who probably cant make the out the difference between brass and gold but still decide who is worthy of their franchise. In this case the agitating people may even not know what this verdict actually means but you still find them in hordes blocking roads , resorting to ransom ET all.

If there is a will - our country could be a much better place to live and probably regain the lost glory of our heritage.

Closer look at the I-phone

2007-02-06T18:27:00.000+05:30

The features of the phone are simply amazing !

Supermarkets every where ..

2007-02-02T08:53:00.000+05:30

You name it and its in my neighbourhood - the ubiquitous supermarket. I was just counting the number of mall/supermarkets around 2 Km radius of my house and was astonished by the choice and variety I had - Two really big baazars, two subhikshas, Foodday, monday-sunday, foodworld , Vishal mega mart, Fabmall , others which I may not have discovered and innumerable small unbranded stores all around the place. Don't know how many will survive with the big one of Reliance and Bharti yet to invade Bangaqlore. I still feel that Big bazaar has an edge being a first mover and having a large format.

I have read a lot of articles which justify that the small shops dont get killed due to the large format stores but I have a different experience. I was recently in a area called Marathalli in Bangalore the factory outlet capital. Brand factory a venture of the future group (owners of big bazaar ) has opened a multi story outlet stocking more than 120 brands. The pricing is as competitive as most of the other outlets in the area but what the consumer gets is all he or she wants under the same roof plus some marque brands like Biba ( women's designer wear ) at never before heard rates.

I did a dip stick survey when I was there last and found that the some of the factory outlets have lost close to 30 % to 40 % of their sales - with the thin margins there now being forced to close down. Another thing which has hit them below the belt is that brand factory in collusion with the local traffic police has marked the whole area as no parking which makes the parking impossible in the area further constraining the customer flows. The parking charges in brand factory are Rs 50 - high by any standards though reimbursable against any purchase.

The polarisation of the market has ensured that the small folks hardly have any voice and loosing their customer base to big sharks . The ultimate benefit though is the consumer who has whole gamut of format stores to choose and buy almost anything - definitely at a bargain

When did I sing the national anthem last ?

2007-01-29T11:54:00.000+05:30

As in the olden days this year I decided to watch the republic day parade. As lady luck smiled on me the parade was about to start when I switched on my idiot box - this year's chief guest Vladimir Putin was been received with a lot of warmth and after they were seated the our national anthem started - as it should come naturally I also started to sing along with the band. To my dismay towards the end I nearly fumbled on the exact words - it was very disgusting and felt a bit humiliated that I was not able to sing the anthem fluently. After school where you are forced to sing the anthem there are hardly any instances where it is mandatory later in life at least if you are an Indian Civilian .I was at pain to remember when did I last sing - my memory failed me.

It may not be as big I am making out but the old adage comes to mind " Do not think what the nation has given you but what you can give to the nation " - the problem here the nation is represented by the corrupt power hungry politicians and the bloated red taped bureaucracy , a nation where a vote is more important than a life. But when I see my contribution - actually nothing except the mandatory Tax I pay on my income. Some food for thought .........

Guru lacks intensity

2007-01-24T16:44:00.000+05:30

I have always the admired Dhriubhai Ambani (DHA ) which at one point in time even made me join the Reliance group. His legacy has made a profound impact on the Indian industry. His insatiable appetite for scale is very difficult to replicate. his vision of straddling the entire value chain is remarkable feat in execution. I can go on singing paeans about him even though his methods of achieving the unthinkable may have been controversial or out right against the law or rather around the law.

I was very keen on watching the movie Guru - I cant remember an Indian movie which is based on the life and times of a Businessman and this was on DHA. After watching half a dozen reviews was not very sure why Mani Ratnam kept on denying that the movie was not based on DHA though it was very obvious - from his middle east sojourn to starting from the by lanes of the cloth market to the famous spat with Indian express and even the humble gujrati pedigree - the son of a headmaster. There are too many incidents which cannot be just a coincidence.

I must admit its a different genre altogether and a difficult act when you dont have similar kind of films made. After coming out - the first feeling was the movie lacked intensity , though AB baby was good and Aish very restrained ( round about from D2 ) the overall pace was a bit slack. Its a momentous task to make a film on such larger than life figure. To make it look like fiction the director added certain co-stars like Vidya un-necessarily which too away precious screen time instead he could have focussed more on the protagonist. I see no point in the flip flop which has resulted in the director doing away with liberties and restricting the scope which makes him to go into avoidabel facets. The camera work is superb and couple of songs are hummable and the music has to grow on you very typical of ARM.

Neverthless with its flaws the movie is watchable once. Mani Ratnam has not done an encore like Bombay or Roja yet the themes in the movie particularly of how AB comes out against the established system using the media or the his means of getting the work done by corruption/condescend is shown with remarkable maturity. The movie may not be a tribute to the great man but makes an earnest attempt to show even by adopting dubious means wealth and value can be created not just for personal gains but also for other people in the value chain.

Astrology the sufterfuge of the weak or power of 3

2007-01-22T15:48:00.000+05:30

I found the definition of Astrology on the net as follow ( dictionary.com): " the study that assumes and attempts to interpret the influence of the heavenly bodies on human affairs " . There is a never ending debate on the rationality and efficacy of the predictions made on the basis of the heavenly bodies. The obvious question that keeps coming to mind is how does a planet or star situated thousands of miles away affect the future of a person . Delving a little deeper the more fascinating aspect is the planets at the time of the birth or start of the event kind off decide the destiny and all other changes are incremental. No wonder we have pay so much importance to "Muhurat" - the auspicious time of undertaking the activity and in effect trying to give a pass to the destiny. I was wondering the date and time on which Microsoft was started by bill gates - it must have been the most opportune time to start anything in the history of mankind. Though astrology is based on the ancient vedas but some how they are in direct conflict with the essence of Hinduism of your past Karmas deciding your future. Probably I am confused and need to investigate the relationship a bit more.

My experiences have been mixed and with some success. I have referred to astrology mostly when I felt weak, feeble, directionless, uncertain and in times when astrology would guide me to take decision ( really bad ). I don't remember instances being on high and ever trying to consult anyone. I had in one point in time nearly 4 of them and was always trying to find who gave answers to my expectation or rather what I wanted to hear - as typically I rejected who did not meet this criteria and kept on trying . Consulting an astrologer is very prevalent in India and I was wondering if the folks in the west can be so successful even without bothering about any sort of auspicious time why do Indians are so much into it. I have know very successful people who will not do anything in "Rahukalam" ( a two hour period everyday ). From film stars to industry houses everyone seems to be in grip of these soothsayers and now we have variety of them from numerologists to tarot card readers to even people reading the patters on coffee mugs ( this is ultimate in predictions)

Reliance where I have worked in the past is one amazing company. I was surprised to find out how much they are into astrology etc. For example they have this firm belief in power of 3 to elaborate further as simple as any car that is bought in the company the sum of digits has to be divisible by 3. I have checked in past and any major financial number that is published is divisible by 3. I not sure what is behind this belief but boy they are mighty successful. This belief in the power of 3 may not be exactly related to astrology but I think the genesis is in it. The obvious question - what makes such a highly successful and powerful business house to kind into such nuances.

With the future becoming uncertain and so much pressure all genre of people going to these folks and the prediction psychology has undergone a lot of change it is becoming more popular and the ilk of this community growing. Have known a guy who has successfully predicted couple of rises and falls in the Indian stock markets by combining the tenets of astrology and the science of technical trading. Its all pervasive in our daily lives like never before and worth pondering about.

Chennai the city of the future ?

2007-01-18T13:10:00.000+05:30

I was in chennai recently and have been going there on and off for the last couple of years. In this visit I was surprised to see the infrastructure build up. Wide roads , cemented pavements , malls coming up ,very few potholes - though the quality is still suspect in some cases but nevertheless it was obvious that the city is probably gearing up for the future even though any one who visits chennai has only horror stories of dealing with the local populace. How he or she got ragged by the auto rickshaw is the famous grouse. One of my friends has even name them " cockroaches" . The language problem seems to be getting worse. Inspite of these overwhelming odds against the city - as per the current statistics Chennai has more software exports than the silicon valley of India - Bangalore and growing.

The Chennai airport was in stark contrast to bangalore which is nothing but a secured Bus terminal, hardly any place to sit after security check, dirty sofas , nothing worth mentioning about . Whereas Chennai is far better and where the chances of getting claustrophobic are rare. I happen to see a group of 25 firangees ( supposedly were here to attend some partnership summit) and they seem all lost in the hustle bustle of bangalore airport , they did even have a place to stand and where getting pushed around by the other folks coming out of the airport.

Even Infosys has plans to have close to 50000 employees in chennai in the next couple of years as against Bangalore most of the development has already been carried out.

The goverment seems to be serious on the development and wants to make chennai a world class city even with the obvious constraints and looking at the current developments, surely will be the city to watch out in future.

Gruesome - no other word to describe Nithari killings

2007-01-09T08:57:00.000+05:30

It was horrendous to watch the proceedings in the Nithari serial murders. I was disturbed for quite some time the way the killings were carried out and most surprising was children were the victims. It baffled me as how on an earth an educated man with a decent pedigree of education can be part of such a gory and macabre tale. It has shocked the daylights out of our nation the ghastly manner in which the killings were carried out in a posh neighbour hood for such a long time on so many victims.

It is more disgusting to note that the administration and in particular the police did not take cognisance of the children disappearing with alarming frequency and they were not able to establish any pattern. The drains were not cleared for nearly 2 years which smacks of the lack of civil administration in our cities. What happened to the the stench of a decaying human body ? were are the neighbours ?

I am not sure why there is so much speculation on the motive of the killings when the alleged perpetrators of the crime have been caught. What ever the motive - sexual , organ trade or cannibalism the truth should be easy to brought out. Thrash them - any ways police are known for their brutality why not channel that to these folks - subject them to 3rd degree torture. All the truth will come out - even the riddle of the missing human torsos. All the narco analysis and truth serum is bull shit. I have not seen a single case succeeding and the actual truth coming out.

We as a civil society have to build a deterrent - give these criminals the harshest of conviction which has never been seen before. They should be given a public flogging and beheaded. there can be no excuse what so ever - the killings as it so obvious were done with a devious intent.

The administration should also be tried and convicted it seems obvious the killings continued due to their o their lax approach /corruption and taking timely action could have avoided the loss of so many innocent lives.

Till now a lot of questions are unanswered. I sincerely hope - the actual truth comes out and justice meted in double quick time to the victims and their families. Probably the looming UP elections will accelerate probe- another disgusting fact of our society where the politicians value a vote more than a life.

Feeling low

2007-01-03T16:43:00.000+05:30

Coffee country part 2

2007-01-02T13:14:00.000+05:30

We ( family )started on a cool saturday morning from bangalore at 8 am ... I had never drove a car for 300 kms .. but this seem to be my day. I was a bit apprehensive as to how the car will behave .. after all its an 8 year old model.

The journey started well and by 830 we touched the mysore highway and after that it was simply great .. the car was responding very well and with very few speedbreakers left it was exhilarating and that was before we got a flat tyre .. Goodness gracious I was below 60 kmph. This was my first flat tyre in more than 2.5 years . Managed to get it changed with the sun now beating down at 1030am. It was tiring. got it repaired at Mandya just about 10 kms further , could not have taken a chance. Stopped to have some refereshements and hit the road again. Delayed by about an hour now. reached mysore and took the route as detailed out. Had to reach Murnad a small village about 15 kms from Madikeri. We took the hunsur - gonnigopal - Virajpet to Murnad. Had to ask a couple of times on the way so as not to get lost. The road was surprisingly good even though a single lane and lonely.. hardly any cars. The road had a lot of curves which made it a bit strenous .

Reached Murnad at 230 pm tired and late for the lunch. Had driven 280+ Kms.

Once reaching the estate got a bit taken aback as we actually had to share the house with the owners. I had expected some rooms tucked away and the guests to be left alone. The rooms were cosy and did not have fans (even though this is not a hill station)

The food was typical of this region - akki rotis etc mostly made of rice. We had a hearty meal and then off to the bed. Woke up couple of hours and its was already evening and our evening coffee was ready . Whiled our time away around the estate . Was lucky to see couple of shooting stars. I had never seen such a bright starry night. It was simply amazing.

Still going strong ..

2007-01-02T12:55:00.000+05:30

I am actually surprised that I have survived to live for another year .. I mean my blog. Some folks who know me actually mentioned and were surprised that I managed to keep posting despite my obvious nature of getting bored too soon .. the fickle mind and restlessness.

Though the number or quality of the posts may not be great .. its still a beginining and thats what its all about. keep debunking your self

In hindsight I was also happy that I managed to beat the odds this time ... 2007 seems to be great year ahead with lots upheavels and uncertain times. As per the chinese calendar its the year of the pig/boar. Try this out and find out what your destiny holds in the year 2007 as per the chinese astrology.

Coffee country - Coorg photos

2006-12-28T12:47:00.000+05:30

Coffee Country Part 1

2006-12-27T09:18:00.000+05:30

Have been planning for a week end gateway for quite some time. The Christmas week end presented the perfect opportunity to have a quick getaway and Coorg seemed to be the best choice.

Being a long week end the difficult part was getting accomodation and after some enquiring I reaslised that either there was acco in most of the hotels or it was too expensive. The good ones had doubled their rates. Having made my mind to go, started to look for alternatives and after some trepidation I booked a home stay ( good old Infy BB came to my rescue ) at Murnad ( did not find the place in any of the maps ). Only comforting note was the guy on the other side of the phone sounded very pro active. Charges were kind of resonable.

We were all set to go ...

take me higher

2006-12-22T16:16:00.000+05:30

want to be among the stars
twinkle and bright
where have I come
how do I know where to go
let the path come alive

floating nowhere
thoughts getting me some where
caught in the whirlpool of time
dont like the daily sweat and grime

who am I
what do I achieve
money fame or prosperity
its me to decide

deep into a cesspool
much deeper in a mire
hold me get me out
take me higher

Two of the memorable crickets videos

2006-12-22T09:07:00.001+05:30

Police upholders of law ?

2006-12-18T13:37:00.000+05:30

The other day I in a small group were travelling by train for a friends's marriag. Since we were sitting in a group two of our seats were vacant in the neighbouring compartment.At around 10 pm we suddenly see a policeman ( had a pistol ) barging in our vacant seats. Inspite of my repeatedly telling him that the seats belonged to us - he appeared deaf and sat on the vacant berth. Hearing my pleas one my colleagues a girl came and also pleaded but the guy sat like a stone. We then decided to ignore him for a while later he got up and went away leaving his luggage.

A man aged around 60 in the same compartment who was witnessing this whole scene immediately pullled me and said that the policeman is looking out for a berth and he may forcibly occupy the seat and adviced me to immediately sleep off . We took his advice put the policeman's luggage down and dozed off.

I kept wondering what is the stage of constabulary in this country. There have been numerous incidents in the recent past when the upholders of justice have themselves become villans. An average man seems to have little recourse in this country. Anyone who has been to a police station for whatever reason normally has only horror stories to tell.

Our rendezvous with the guy did not end. To our surprise the very next day when taking back the return train I find this guy again in the train trying to negotiate with the ticket collector for a vacant seat. In the morning he kept staring at me like a caged lion wanting to pounce on his next victim.

One of songs I like - here I go again

2006-12-12T18:06:00.000+05:30

I have never been a great fan of hard rock but some songs stay back and you still come back to listen them time again. Lot of people may not have heard about this group called Whitesnake but I have liked some of their songs . Posting of one of my favorites. What I really liked were the lyrics and the right accompanying music.

Free again ...

2006-12-07T19:29:00.000+05:30

I still remmember that the term Inertia being taught in the physics class during the secondry school. The physics definition is actually very interesting "the property of matter by which it retains its state of rest or its velocity along a straight line so long as it is not acted upon by an external force" . The point to be noted is to act without the external force. I kept thinking how this has affected me - how many times dont react or take action even when it could be absolutely necessary and by the time it becomes imperative the essence may be lost or even the opportunity. The so called power of "positive procastination". The funny part how do
I keep postponing doing things and how this is a larger part of the inbuilt human tendency.I have seen this affecting both the personal and professional lives. I am yet to figure out how and when we decide to act only on specific cases until coerced in acting/taking a stand. The best part is most of us even realise that by postponing or not acting now - the ultimate looser could your self ( this definitely sounds cliched) .The consequence - guilt takes over and start repenting ( If I had blah, blah, blah ) .. I have gone through this innumerable times. Will not waste time now - its been to much..

How do I get over this. Act now ! First things first do all things have been wanting to do .. dont look back.. do now ..I am offf .. I am not getting pulled ... free again

Existential angst

2006-12-05T13:05:00.001+05:30

Coming to my experiences of writing again - I used to think I knew a lot of things on diverse subjects but to my dismay found out that when I started writing either on my trials and tribulations or of those wordly wisdoms had so much shallow understandings - which made me again go into a tailspin. Reason -- probably:- from my experience I have seen the attention spans are getting so small . peep into any home and see the new meaning of "surfing" - flipping through channels when even without going through couple of frames. From instant noodles to instant lotteries ( though never dabled in lottery). I have seen the stock market from close quarters - people can hardly wait for making that profit but wait endlessly for recovering the loss. So impatient so restless ; the need for instant gratification has never been so intense. Get bored so fast have this feeling always life is moving ahead and what ever and where ever is the race to win loosing ....have to move on. Hardly have a fix on anything in the bargain. Good or bad dont know. In the whole bargain what has happned is tend to become impulsive , speed seems to be more important than accuracy ... this results into constantly moving from one thing to another without getting into depth a lot of times. Is this the same behaviour others experience or my “Existential angst” as someone put it recently.

Virtues of being a VIP in India or rather being treated like one

2006-12-02T08:56:00.000+05:30

Its surely a virtue to be treated like an VIP particularly in a public place. I have been to Tirupati lot of times and as lady luck has it and due to some influence circumvent having to stand in the long queue each time. In a country like India swarming with people all around - it feels great to have that privilege in a place like Tirupati known for serpentine queues and the never ending wait for that one glimpse of the lord. Like wise on my recent visit on 25th november we found out that my landlord's brother in law is part of the elite security force in Tirupati after we generally contacted him in the temple .Though we had the normal tickets ( even in god's abode there is differential pricing - pay more to reach faster ) after standing in the line for an hour our man took us out and ushered us directly into the main temple by getting couple of gates opened (what a favor though not explicitly asked) and even allowed us to stand in front of the lord for about 90 seconds - people who have visited Tirupati would realise how precious are those seconds.
Incidentally the biggest VVIP of India today Mrs Sonia Gandhi had also paid a visit and was amused to find out in the papers that she like a humble citizen of the country went though the normal line ( though she was alone - what a farce ) and we had the great fortune of marching into the temple through the front door much to the dismay and chagrin of the on looking junta who could not digest our sudden transformation from ordinary blokes to a VIP being courted by the men in uniform.
In the our democratic setup the crown has been replaced by the red siren and the numbers of cars in the escort directly proportional to how many Vs can be added before the VIP. Though our moment of glory was very short lived it was nevertheless as with those special moments an exhilarating experience to have the special darshan.

Please make my blog popular

2006-11-27T18:06:00.000+05:30

There I am again at my wits. After cajoling/coercing some folks into reading my blog – I realized that this will not work in the long run - so went seeking for some tips as to what will make others interested in my blog . I very well understand that generating content daily is an uphill task nevertheless took it as a challenge not sure till what time this journey will last. Still on the subject of the feedback – the blog should be a bit more personal than what I have said so far. This made me thinking.

I personally feel that we all lead at least two lives. One is the our innermost self with all the deep dark secrets, those weakness smartly tucked away - you know what I mean. The other self is what is projected to the outside world – the personality what consciously or unconsciously we keep modelling both of the very core to our existence balancing out each other in the normal course with each part giving and deriving strength from each other.

Coming back ( you might have guessed by now – like to give sermons at the drop of the hat ) - what do I write on my personal front – as mentioned earlier the personality to the outside world is fairly known and folks have their own opinion so what could be more interesting now - the best I can do now ? there are enough internal turmoil to write about ; those seemingly ludicrous monents of high - Already getting this knotty feeling in my gut. Or do I write about things which make me weak in my knees , those days about feeling down and out ( for no reason ). What will the folks think - pour souls who have been kind of forced into reading through this. Am I exposing my self ? for example Can I write that my current job is getting boring and need a change -- did I spill the beans ? Will people take advantage ? What do I do ? where do I go ? Unwitttingly seem to have opened a pandora's box.

Inviting some feedback ....

MapmyIndia.com - worth visiting once

2006-11-24T09:10:00.000+05:30

I happen to stumble on this website called mapmyindia.com some time back - it offers very good directions from one place to another. Considering that there are hardly any good websites in India which offers proper directions - this comes as a boon. Some of the features are really liked are

The ability to zoom in and zoom out
Good search facility - you can put in a free text and the website does the rest for you
Fairly fast - does not take much time to load particularly when zooming in and out
Simple UI
and the best part that it is still free at least for the direction search - for detailed maps the charges here I think are unreasonable similar to mapsofindia
elocation has the potential to become a hit - this is similar to wikimaps where users can put tags to identify their own location
For the person on the move - it has a solution which can be accessed on the mobile for a fee

We still don't have very good map related websites which are rich both in content and feel . Nevertheless I feel mapmyindia is a good start.

Mid life crisis - Article in Times of India

2006-11-22T22:11:00.000+05:30

Times of India has sometimes very interesting articles - this one caught my eye recently. It has some very interesting observations though like other articles in TOI doesn't probe the depths of the subject. In spite of that it made me think - where are we heading and how many of really give a thought of what actually we want to do of our lives ( including me ) - its just about living a day as it comes probably too much into the present. This is in my opinion affecting the Indian youth more than their counterparts in other countries. Just re-live what you around bustling malls , cramped roads with cars , un limited job opportunities multiplexes going house full with shocker of movies ( unmindful of the ticket price ) there is no end to what can be achieved. Pick up any pink paper and see the stats. We never had it so good and in spite of all this there is an uneasy sense of disbelief. What our fathers achieved in a life time - can be achieved by the time you reach your forties . There is growing number of people who retire before 40 - then the big question " NOW WHAT".

Though I had a different thought when started to write - totally got veered off the subject and had to end it abruptly. More on this to come...

http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VE9JQkcvMjAwNi8xMS8xMyNBcjAwNzAw&Mode=HTML&Locale=english-skin-custom

How to be a good writer ? - Part 1

2006-11-17T09:10:00.000+05:30

I have always wondered how good some people write. The clarity of thought which is mapped into very appropriate sentences with the correct semantics conveying everything what needs to be conveyed in the most appropriate manner you think. Though not a voracious reader myself but except reading 3 newspapers daily and couple of magazines - I have noticed that good authors have great mastery not only on their subject but also on the flow of words.

What it takes to be good writer ? I am have been not able to find suitable answers . Is it an inherent talent or a skill that can be acquired. What does an average bloke like me do to able to write well. Another problem is what do I mean by "write well ". I dont intend to ac hive the greatness of Salman Rushdie ( read his books to believe ) or even Sri Aurobindo ( his thoughts are tooo profound for a moron like me ) , not counting the several people who have mastered this art in their respective fields. The qualities I like a good write up are

Lucid - not much of a jargon ( I mean you are not writing a book for a medical student )
Properly structured - This problem is rampant - you suddenly find articles ending without even a summary
Binds the reader - I admire the novelists here - how they are able to get the reader hooked on 100s of pages through the plot mostly in case of fiction.(lots of them ) The challenge increases manifold in case of non-fiction thesis ( lots of these new age writers - paul coelho et all - they have been hugely successful - I have my doubts how many people have actually realised the potential)
Grammer - Anyone if has come till this point reading this post will agree me with what I mean - Bad grammer or which is absent. You would hardly find wrong grammer in good write ups. ( Anyways please exclude Times of India - the quality here is something not worth spending time on - I have see some really bad instances for a national newspaper - Kudos to The Hindu)
More to come ..

Even after having some insights on what could be a great write up - I still fail to measure up . I had once asked a someone how do cultivate this trait . He gave me just one advice - Keep writing what ever you can and atleast 500 hundred words a day.

The inspiration is this blog - and guinea pig - You " welcome to my blog"

The story doesnt stop here ... more to come . This is the age of sequels and I have planned one for this post already.

If you have any tips to offer - send them to me

Search engines - Conundrum

2006-11-14T22:13:00.000+05:30

I have been amazed by the results of any query on a web search engine. Typically the number of search results displayed by the search engines run into several million except if the search criteria is very narrow. I have always wondered what is the relevance of giving out that huge number of results when hardly any user goes beyond the third page to check - as anything beyond will be anyways irrelevant for the search criteria. The usual habit - go and refine the search criteria.

Then why so much computing power is spent in giving out these many results which will hardly ever be used ? The rise of google has been amazing considering what I have enumerated - just imagine the market cap of 150 Billion USD in a business model where the users still dont pay for use of its services. In my opinion if the search engines devote all their algorithms to display the correct match in the first 3 pages - half the work is done.

Google has become part of our every day lives its hard to imagine a day without it. Terms like "googling" , " did you google " are part of our normal conversations. Everyone has a gmail account - most of the ideas people share these days are of Gmail rather than yahoo and hotmail. No wonder to counter the onslaught hotmail has increased the mailbox size to I GB.

A small tid bit - If you try and search the word "search" in google and yahoo the results are surprising - try it out.

Communities Web 2.0

2006-11-14T21:43:00.000+05:30

There is a rush to create properties on the web targeting communities. The successful buy outs of Myspace and Youtube reflects the bullishness and optimism of the larger players. Even Microsoft has gone and record to say that their new MP3 player ZUNE will have the certain features of sharing files across communities which currently Ipod doesnt posses. In my opinion the power of connecting to another user or the early seeds of the benefits of online communities was displayed by now defunct P2P sharing website Napster. Universities and Internet service providers actually blocked the Napster as it was clogging their network. I am not sure of the statistics but it was awesome - I have had a first hand experience had nearly downloaded 1 GB. As part of the evolution of communities in the days of Napster - the user did not care who he or she was connecting to till the song/file was available as a download. In the current scenario its more of bonding , finding the long lost friend , creating a virtual world around yourself. Its very difficult to predict the emerging trend. Increasing users are wanting to log out of different community networks as it is invading the privacy, abuse of photographs, malicious scraps ...oops anyway its a scrap etc. Where are we headed .... It will be an interesting space to watch with so much money being bet on how the online communities will behave ..... Google as usual is stealing a march over its rivals. Though yahoo was an early starter but some how seems to loose that edge.

First day at the blog

2006-11-13T13:38:00.000+05:30

I have been thinking .hhmmmmm about creating my blog for quite some time .. its like one of those decisions you keep thinking without acting - some body called it procastination. Now with a lot of effort - started to do something about my blog .. let see how it goes and if does the power of procastination takes me over..