Enter the matrix

The Insignificant Guy

2011-11-28T08:05:00.000-08:00

In my moments of solitude like most bored minds I always use to question the meaning and motive of it all. In the random chaos of life what was I doing here. Why I am here or Who am I to begin with. What is the meaning of my existence and why I am running after this illusionary success. Even if I achieve My goals does it mean anything. My insignificance to this world was scary to say the least. I was almost lost in my questions and the whole thought of this indifferent universe to me, to human kind and to life in general was disturbing. I used to be a religious guy before I started understanding this all pervasive randomness of our existence. It is no more than a random accident that I was born and is writing this blog now. My theory of a planned life was destroyed by the sheer absence of any evidence to support my wishful thinking.

It was agonizing in the beginning but it slowly dawned on me that I was asking the wrong questions all this while. Meaning is a wrong adjective for life in a real sense. Suppose I ask " what is the color of dreams" . We will not be able to answer it as it is an absurd question. However in our individual capacity we can add color to our dreams and meaning to the life. We can add whatever meaning and whatever significance we want to add to our life.

I realized that it was not destination but the journey itself that was important. I was not going to do anything after my life but within it. Life is an end in itself. There is nothing required after it and the sheer experience of it is significant beyond comparison. I am not insignificant nor is anyone else who has ever lived. We are lucky to be have lived and experienced this incomprehensible universe which gave us this momentary chance to look at and to be amazed by absurdity of it all.

Peace..

Getting Married!!

2010-12-26T03:53:00.000-08:00

Getting Married is an important decision in life and for better or for worse it do change you. Though it comes with no warranty it is one of the riskiest decisions of your life. The concept of two people living together and sharing every joy and sorrow seem so good on paper but living it up is a different ball game. I am still a bachelor so my account here is strictly from the observer's view point.

You can fall in love and can get married or get married and fall in love either way you do fall in love so a Honeymoon period do exist in marriage. The length of it however depend on the individuals and the plain good luck.

The next phase starts with incompatibilities getting active in the relationship. We tend to realize the things which are irritating in our partner and difference of opinions can lead to small fights. This can lead to serious issues if either of the partner has a violent streak or there is a scope of infidelity.

If one survives this difficult period the partners tend to define individual space and a "Our Space" for themselves. It is the optimal relationship where each partner understands and assimilates their differences. The relationship become passive but it generates a lot of warmth. The partners are now used to each other and accepts them as they are after the change that have come due to their marriage.This relationship is now resistant to in-laws but is not to infidelity.

Though it is not suggestive that one should live through an uncomfortable and abusive marriage but breaking a marriage just due to a incompatibilities is something that can be prevented. There is no perfect marriage and like all human institutions it is has it its share of problems but it is still blissful and is worth the experience.

Natural vs Artificial

2009-06-15T09:54:00.000-07:00

The other day I got into an argument with our professor on the disasters which man made things have bought to our doorsteps. Well this post is not about the natural vs artificial debate but about the very definition of "Artificial".

We define artificial as something conceived and created by man. We think just because the human mind has thought of it it somehow magically it is separated from the other natural things. I am of the view that there is nothing called as "Artificial". It all natural out there. I think it is a gross arrogance on our part to think that just because we are self aware we are somehow detached from nature and we can function independently of it. I believe that nature created man to look at itself. So man being a 100% natural product will subsequently create natural products only. It may be different from what occurs commonly but when man creates a new thing it is actually nature creating itself. We may try but we will always be a subset of nature.
Anything man made is good or bad like the uncountable things around us which are both good and bad. Earthquakes are bad but the same system which causes earthquake creates the magnetic field which protects us from the dangerous cosmic rays. Similarly we may say that plastic created by so called "Man" is causing so much pollution but it is an integral part of modern society helping us from storing our food to saving our lives in operation theaters.

So we must end this debate about Natural Vs Artificial. Its not just the man made against the natural made that is important what is important is the way of usage. So any natural thing used in a wrong way will harm us and similarly any man made "natural" thing if used correctly will be a boon.

Use natural use artifical but whatever you use just don't screw around with it...

Why do I love her?

2009-05-27T11:02:00.000-07:00

She turned back and asked, "Why Do you love me?" She said, answer fast or you will be making up words and I know you do it very well. "Don't Think", she was firm this time. Though I wanted to say something but I kept quiet looking into her deep eyes. I always looked at them when I am lost, tired, worried or sad. They had the zing to pep me up anytime. This time I wanted to ask her eyes to tell me, "Why I love her?" She closed them and said no this time around you have to answer it from your Heart and I am no longer helping you out. It was tricky now and she wanted the answer.

I hold her hand and drew her closer so she could hear my heart beat. I said,"Why don't you listen up for yourself". She smiled and her dark eyes just got bigger and she smilingly said,"How do I know if they are telling the truth" I said I don't know as it no longer talks to me. Its your for so long that I don't remember it being mine ever.
I hugged her and told her," I wish I had the words of reason to explain the cause, I wish I had the mind to assimilate it all, I wish I had the peace to observe it all and I wish I had few lives more to know it all. My love I don't know and have no desire to know more than the fact that I love you, for who you are. Pardon me sweetheart but I only have love and no reason."

Morality..

2009-05-24T06:07:00.000-07:00

Have you ever pondered why is morality necessary in life? Why our parents want us to be truthful, honest and humble. Why do we hate liars and hypocrites? Why there are numerous stories about the virtue of Good and how every time good wins over the evil in the long run. Are we good because there is an almighty god looking over us and we will be burnt in hell if we do something bad. Are people in general good because they are afraid of God.

To me we are more good than evil because that is a logical thing to do. "Good" here i must emphasize symbolizes the greater good of our civilization and human race. It may be relative on an individual basis but on a macro scale being good or having all the positive qualities we hear about is logical and in fact very necessary for the very survival. Imagine a world where its OK to rob your neighbor and bring home their money and goods. With the same logic it should also be OK when one of our neighbors mugged us up. You can clearly visualize that such a society cannot exist. So came the old adage "Love Thy neighbor". Similarly all the other moral values are the basic requirement of a stable interdependent society.

These moral values have emerged from our own individual needs. We will act in a certain manner which we expect others also to follow. So if we want that a person be honest to us we need to be honest to him as well. So this is all give and take. If you are immoral then it is difficult for people to deal with you and thus you become a misfit in society. So in reality being moral is the only way for human civilization to survive and prosper.

We don't have to worry about divine intervention for our immoral acts as over a longer period of time no immoral act can survive the rigid moral rules of interdependence and immorality will lead to devastating effects on ones life. Its like the shepherd boy's story who use to cry "Wolf Wolf" without any reason and one day when the real wolf came there was no one around.

Faith..

2009-05-23T12:10:00.000-07:00

Faith is blind I hear...Either you have it or don't.. there is no middle way. Faith can be on anything or on anyone. People feel when they have faith they don't need reason..and faith in itself is the beginning and the end. But if we look closely our faith depends on what people around us have faith in. Humans like most species need care and support from their parents and we naturally build a very strong bond with them and their faiths and beliefs comes to us naturally. We go by the notion that somethings have worked for them and so they are to be taken as a rule. As we grow our inquisitive mind becomes skeptic of various ideologies that we inherit.

Sometimes we are too busy to question them and continue with them as they are. These with time becomes rules which we may not have any reason for but believe in them subconsciously.
These ultimately leads to blind faith and superstitions. If we look closely it is easy to have faith on concepts which are based on reason. Like I will have 100% faith that if i throw a ball up it will fall down as gravity is at work. However I don't have any reason to believe that if I visit a temple before exam I am going to get lucky with it. Its sad but in most human cultures "GOD" is considered something which is beyond reason. Its just the faith you have to live with.

I agree that human reasoning may not be adequate at this point to discuss and describe God if there is one looking at us. But why believe in something which is beyond reason. Can we wait till things are proved beyond reasonable doubt. Well its your choice to have blind faith if it helps you in some way as far as I am concerned I know what to believe in...

College Days - Reloaded

2009-04-11T05:55:00.000-07:00

After 5 long years in the industry it is good to be back to college. Though it is not a full time course but still sitting in a classroom over the weekend for 8 long hours and staying for exams make it an exhaustive course and one start feeling those great days of college are back again. The class composition is also great with students from various age groups and Industries coming together for this business course.

Though people may be managers and successful individuals in their own right but once inside the class everyone becomes the same naughty teenager. It is really great to relive those moments. It is like reliving your past. But people in the class are very serious too when it comes to learning. It takes a great effort to leave behind your family friends and fun to come and attend lecturers weekend after weekend for two long years. Thus everyone seems to make the best use of weekend by focusing on when it is important and fooling around when its not.

With this post I will like to thank all my batch mates for being so great to make this learning experience so much fun and so much productive.

Love in the time of recession

2009-02-13T23:29:00.000-08:00

Recession is bad..very bad I guess there are lay offs everywhere, the salary cuts are very common, no increments and suddenly those little EMIs become monstrous and becoming life threatening. The saving becomes all time low and in spite of all those retail outlets giving flat 50% discount there is no money to buy. Under these inhospitable surroundings it is difficult to think about romance..The mind is only thinking about surviving the next month and praying hard for those good times to come back. So how do we manage our love life now in these hard times?

The answer is simple invest more in love now. Its time to huddle up together and be there for each other. It is more important to show our love more than ever. You never know how a small gesture can bring back smile in these hard days. We know the old saying that the hard times help us recognize our true self and of others. It is easy to be romantic during good times but its difficult to love when everything around us is tumbling. Believe me hard times like these actually strengthen the relationships and will help it grow more. Don't worry about the expensive gifts you can be a true romantic without it. Pleasant suprises don't cost much except for a genuine effort.
What I am suggesting is don't neglect romance now and infact draw your strength from it. Respect your relationship it is far much precious than what wealth can buy. Invest your time in it with honesty and you will come out of it a far better a person than you are now.

Keep Fighting and keep loving...Wish you all a very happy valentines day....

What is it being an Indian?

2009-01-17T09:51:00.000-08:00

What is it being an Indian? What is this thing which I call my mother land... my nation. Why am I told to respect it and love it. What does it represents? Is it just a block of land where I was born , a place whose culture and history shaped my thinking , whose laws and forces protected me and whose system allowed me to be able to write this up here the way I want to..

In Discovery of India Nehru explains that a country is the sum total of the aspirations of its inhabitants. A nation is build by all the social, political ,economic and environmental forces which shapes its behavior and belief systems and thus forms the backbone of its culture. Long ago when Man started his journey from the heartland of Africa he was looking for new places to support the growing population. The humans in next thousands of years spread across the nook and corner of this planet and formed the basis of the nation states as we saw them today. This brings us to the question of Why do we need nations in first place?

The answer is simple its the best humans can thought of given that humans growing in huge numbers and the rate of which the resources grow is mush less. Nation states allow human civilization to stabilize and grow in a better environment safely within a framework of rules , regulations and norms. Peaceful coexistence is the best way forward for the nation states. But as we all know its hardly the case and in this unfair world things don't work always the way they should be. But still we as humanity are trying to live peacefully within our defined boundaries.

Now when I say I am an Indian..what does this word "Indian" signify. Do I really understand what it is saying. Is it just a collective noun or does it hold some meaning that is subtle and deep. India does not just refer to a land mass surrounded by seas down south, guarded by mountains on the north, glowing as a desert in the west and washed by the givers in the east but it reflects thousands of years of history of glory, defeat, persecution and triumph. It idolizes the freedom of faith, misery of poverty, respect of the old, spirit of the young, hollowness of politics, pervasiveness of the corrupt, bravery of the forces and the labor of the worker. It symbolizes the belief system which accepts and assimilates everything that comes its way..a school of thought which grow young with every passing day, its the mechanism which wants to hold it history tight but looking firmly at the future. Above all it reflects the hope that no matter how corrupt its ruler are and how ruthless its enemies are it will outlast everything and beyond that golden horizon the New Day is waiting for it..Long live India

A letter to you...

2009-01-14T08:33:00.000-08:00

Dearest,
I write to you today the words I never spoke but I always felt. I know, you know what I am about to write, knowing it even before I write them to you. Still I want to say it..and say it loud today perhaps I need to hear them more than you do. I always feel you can even talk to my silence for you are there with me always..

You make me feel great about everything and fill my heart with the divine aura which extends my capabilities beyond my physical self. You make me feel empowered but you keep me so human so to experience this world like a mortal. My angel you know we are cursed to live but we are blessed then gods to have each other.

Even in the darkest of the hours, your smiling face bring back the zeal to fight yet another war. You are my inspiration to perform and you are my reward as well. You are the source of my creativity and I devote all its manifestations to you. The pyramids I build and the temples I constructed are all reflection of your beauty the real cause of it all.

Your love makes me what I am and our conversations bring out the latent energies which I never knew existed. The tiny spark of your eyes carries the power to heal a bleeding heart and a worn out mind. I know you are my greatest blessing and its just you who make this life so beautiful.

I know our relationship is beyond anger, guilt, sarcasm the side effects of love but I believe its beyond love as well and it is some thing strange, something pure some thing so very complete that there is no need left for anything else....

You complete me in every sense that I complete you.

Luv

Yours n only yours

Taj -Reopens

2008-12-24T06:20:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was my first visit to Taj after the ghastly terrorist attack last month. It was a strange feeling looking at the building after watching it burning on TV. The surrounding was very quiet not many people were allowed to go near the building and it resembled a very secure zone.

Generally the area around Taj is always bursting with people mostly tourists taking pictures of the building alsong with the Gateway. It felt eerie to look at those empty streets and it brought back those bad memories once again. I remember being locked in my office and looking Taj buring from my window as written earlier in my blog entry. There was security at the entrance but not the way I was expecting may be hospitality and security don't go hand in hand. Inside the hotel everything looked exactly same except there were very less people in the lobby. We went on to Nalanda the bookstore to catch up with the guys there. The sales man told us how they were locked in the godown with 12 guests for more than 48 hours waiting for the help to come. Luckily for them no one was hurt. We know now not many were that lucky. The older building has sealed off areas like the famous Golden dragon resturant.

When we walked out of the hotel there was a strange feeling of satisfaction. The reopening means a lot to this city and to India in general. But I hope we never forget this act of war against the very idea of our country.

The day when Taj was attacked..

2008-11-30T07:41:00.000-08:00

It started all at the Leopold cafe just a street away from my current address. For the last 5 years I have been living in colaba and visit "Taj" and the "Leopold" very often. They both being a stone throw away from my office were often used for our business meetings and birthday bashes . On the fateful night of November 26 when they were attacked I was in the office working late and catching up the cricket match. I was about to go down at exactly 9:30 for having my dinner and would have crossed Leopold on my way to "Olympia" one of the other food joints. I was alerted by the peon who went down to grab his dinner. He called me and told me to stay indoors and lock the office from inside. I was the only one left in the office.

For the next whole day I was locked inside the office watching the horror unfolding on TV and catching the glimse of Taj from my office window. It was bombed burned and sprayed with bullets for the next 62 hours. I along with the whole country watched helplessly as they killed our men women and children mercilessly. They came here to kill and they did with such intensity that it left us all scarred. Our cities have been bombed in the past and innocent citizens have been killed but as always we have just done nothing to prevent such incidents.

I know this incident too will be forgotten like all other attacks and we will get back to normal waiting for some other incident to happen and in the meantime watch the country being raped by corrupt politicians. We as a citizen of this country have zero security and we must be fooling ourselves if we believe this political class of ours is going to deliver a safe environment to us. Terrorism is a cancer of this country. Though it is caused by various political reasons its effects are always devastating.

We all know about the problem but what is the solution. We must agree that this problem does not have a single line solution. It needs treatment on political, economic , social and military level. We need a better breed of politicians to treat this menance , economic and social upliftment of the millions of downtrodden who gives the fodder to the fire of extrimism. The pan india agency on the lines of army to tackle terror on both national and international scale and a zero tolerance to terror approach.
It is not a one day job I know and I can wait to breathe in a safe , secure and prosperous India. In the meantime what I can do as a common man is to atleast do my duties of putting effort towards changing our political class and do my bit in economic upliftment of this country. I hope the country never forgets this attack and may it be a turning point in the history of our country.

Life is a gift

2008-11-20T02:09:00.000-08:00

This is a message from a friend..I liked it so putting it here ..

Life Is A Gift

Today before you think of saying an unkind word - Think of someone who can't speak.

Before you complain about the taste of your food - Think of someone who has nothing to eat.

Today before you complain about life - Think of someone who went too early to heaven.

Before you argue about your dirty house, someone didn't clean or sweep - Think of the people who are living in the streets.

Before whining about the distance you drive - Think of someone who walks the same distance with their feet.

And when you are tired and complain about your job - Think of the unemployed, the disabled and those who wished they had your job.

But before you think of pointing the finger or condemning another - Remember that not one of us are without sin and we all answer to one maker.

And when depressing thoughts seem to get you down - Put a smile on your face and thank God you're alive and still around.

Keep Walking ...

2008-11-18T09:11:00.000-08:00

Is there a limit to what we can achieve? We are all born with some traits and some we gain as we live through life. We create our aims , dreams and our aspirations take flight as we go through the different phases of our life. When we are small probably we dream of riding a bicycle the whole day or playing the 'gully cricket' from morning to evening or scoring good marks without studying. As we grow up we dream of big fast cars, big houses, foreign tours and even buying a Greek island. But as the life unfolds the reality dawns on us. It is not all so simple. There is a limit to ones abilities, intellect and the opportunities life presents us. So is this all just luck and a predetermined fate with which we all are bind to and we end up getting what we were supposed to? What if we are to challenge our circumstances and in turn ourselves? What if our dreams overshoot our abilities ? Can we still fight for them?

I was never proud of my abilities and add them to my laziness, I use to fail more often and at times I use to feel that I like failing so much that I am not even giving up. It was difficult to pick oneself after each debacle and it made me doubtful of myself and my luck as well.

It took a long time to realize that I was failing more because I was trying more. Getting out of the comfort zone was like a way of life and slowly I realize it was the journey and not the destination that is important. I have failed and will fail many times in future but I know I need to just keep walking and challenge myself everyday. Failure and success are just two impostors and life is more about experiences than the results we get for our efforts.

Rejection

2008-10-06T10:19:00.000-07:00

The rejection is really a terrible felling but not necessarily a terrible thing. It makes our confidence go down the drain and it greatly affects the moral of trying things again. Rejection occurs in all walks of life whether it is romance or carrier and every time it happens..it tends to bring down our faith in ourself and our abilities.
Rejection is very painful specially when someone was very hopeful of it. We as humans have inherent needs and we work to satisfy those needs. Now there are more than one ways of meeting the need like a house is a need but whether we want a flat, a Chawl or a Bungalow is a separate thing. Similarly sharing life with someone is an inherent need but whom do we settle down with is a matter of luck and choice. So when there are many things to run for there will be times when we don't get the things we aim for whether it is a person of our dreams or a flat with great view or a job in a rocking MNC.
When a rejection happens we start finding fault either with us or with the person who rejected us. Like if we are not selected in a interview we tend to think that there is something lacking in us or the interviewer was an idiot. Though either of them may be correct but a positive way to look at it is to think that our offerings and the persons requirement were not matching.

Now after being rejected left right centre by girls and interviewers all through my life I have concluded that when peoples requirement don't match our abilities and offerings rejection is bound to happen. This just means that our abilities, character or personality at this current moment does not suit the other persons need. So either you change to suit someone's need or find someone who needs you the way you are currently. There is nothing good or bad about either of the approaches its just that we should take rejection positively.

Now a days whenever I interview candidates for my company I tell them your rejection does not mean you are less in anyway its just that I want to buy apples and you are selling oranges. Give respect to your apples and surely you will find someone in desperate need of it. So lets reject this damn rejection, after all its just life and tomorrow is another day...

The last lecture

2008-09-21T09:07:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since I last wrote a blog entry. Past month was very hectic and sometimes life moves so fast that it does not give time to look back at it. It is however a silly thing to do as moving fast never allows us to enjoy the life as it goes and some day suddenly we feel that we don't have much time left to live. Anyway this post of mine is not about my bullshit philosophy but about a great book I read recently. The book is called "The Last Lecture". It is written by Dr Randy Pausch. He was a professor in the computer science department in Carnegie Mellon before he died on july25, 2008. He died of pancreatic cancer and this book is about the last lecture he gave after he was diagnosed of this terminal illness and was given just few months to live. It is a book about life from the eyes of a person who had just few days to live among his loved ones. It is about what matters in life and it is like a last letter he wrote for his kids to read it long after he is gone.

Let me brief you about some of the salient features of the book.

Fulfilling your childhood dreams - The author talks about his dreams and how he accomplished them. This is the main focus of his book and It shows the character of a man on deathbed talking about the dreams he had and how he fulfilled them. He talks about his dream quest of flying in zero gravity and being an Disney Imagineer. He talks about how he achieved everything he dreamt of while growing.

Helping others to fulfill their dreams - Being a teacher he talks about how he helped his students who worked with him and how he contributed in some small or big way fullfilling their dreams.

Dreams come to you - This is the crux of the book and his lecture where he said he beleived in the power of the karma and he talks about how working hard and honestly bring your dreams to you. There will always be a "Brick Wall" between you and your dreams and they are meant to test you , your effort is the price which you need to pay for your dream.

In short it was about how he lived his life and presents us as it is to pick some gems out of it. However if you read it carefully it is a voice of a dieing husband and a dieing father engraved in few pages for his kids to know who the person really was long after he is gone. Now as he is no longer there I feel talking to him through his book was a life changing experience..and I have started valuing my gift of life and my dreams a lot more..

Tagged Again

2008-08-20T06:26:00.000-07:00

Tagged again by " Straight from the heart " but its quite an interesting tag.

The rules
1. Put Your iTunes/ music player on Shuffle
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER WHAT!!! After you've answered all of the questions

- IF SOMEONE SAYS "IS THIS OKAY" YOU SAY?

Babe I am gonna leave you - Led zeppelin(Wow hilarious)

- WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?

Pehli nazar mein - Atif Aslam

- WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL ?

Zara si dil main de jagah tu - KK

- HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?

Sultans of swings - Dire straits

- WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?

Teri Ore - Sing is King

- WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?

I did it my way - Frank Sinatra( Wow bang on target)

- WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR PARENTS?

Summer of 69 - Bryan Adams

-WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?

Bakhuda tumhi ho - Kismet Konnection

- WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?

Good Bye blue sky - Pink Floyd

- WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?

Falling in love with you - Wow quite romantic

- WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?

Everything I do I do it for you -Bryan adams ( Hmmmmmmmm)

- WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?

Wow kagaz ki kastii - Jagjit Singh ( It doesn't get better than this)

- WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?

Aankhon main tera hi chehra - Aryans ( Is the music player reading my mind)

- WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?

Ucha lamba kad - Welcome

- WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?

Over the hills far far away - Led zeppelin ( Wow one of my fav)

- WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?

Coming back to life - Pink floyd ( Omg am i cheating)

- WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?

Khuda Jaane - Baachna e haseeno( lol)

- WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?

Eye in the Sky - Alan parson project

- WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?

Dhoom Tanna - Om shanti Om

- WHAT SHOULD YOU POST THIS AS?

Radio - Corrs

- WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THIS TAG?

Baachna a haseeno - Baachna a haseeno (Oh I see)

The journey from good to great

2008-08-18T10:27:00.000-07:00

In his famous book " Build to last" Jim Collins talks about the elements which make companies survive the turbulence of time and the threat of market randomness. He follows it with another book called "Good to Great" where he talks about how companies can actually become great. Though the books talk about the large corporations and macroeconomics it is interesting when we apply those principles to our day to day life.
We are all born with some resources and over a period of time they are used, modified and sharpened to form distinctive characteristics. These resources keep on changing and multiplying as we grow old. However the rate of change varies a lot from person to person. Utilizing these resources help us source our food, find a mate, and above all interact and survive among various alive and inert elements. We as humans are blessed with a lot of these resources and fortunately we are conscious about their presence. We can shape these resources to achieve our dreams and desires. Though these dreams and desires are also at times affected by the inherent resources but more or less our dreams propel us forward. So our dreams and desires are the driving force behind this dynamic world. If we all shed our desires I am not sure if we can be classified as a living being. So based on our dreams and armed with our resources we all start our journey.

The law of averages predict that for very large numbers the behavior of the system is directed towards the mean. So we all start as average people but may be with extraordinary dreams. The journey is about moving out of the average and join the group of achievers. So I will classify people as

Bad <---------------------- Good/Average--------------------------->Great

We all start as good people and its about the dreams which can take us either way. But surprisingly most of the people stay good all their life. There is no harm in it. In fact they are the one who decides who is bad and who is great. But the sum total of their effort is nearly zero. The bad are those whose dreams and desires itself is negative and they use their resources to achieve the same. Hitler can be classified as a bad person not because he was average but for his dreams and aspirations were dangerous to the mankind in general. Similarly if we look at the life of Mahatma Gandhi we can see how his desire and dream of free India propelled him to the heights of greatness. If we look at the life of both Mahatma and Hitler we will find signs of amazing journey from being average people to super stardom.

What I want to assert is that we all should try and make this journey in our life time. We have only one life and its no fun wasting it being safe and we all deserve our journey to greatness. So whoever we are and whatever we do never stop dreaming and never stop walking....

Tagged

2008-08-04T10:38:00.000-07:00

1.Last movie you saw in a theater?

The dark knight

2.What book are you reading?

The Dip by Seth Godin

3.Favorite board game?

Chess

4.Favorite magazine(s)?

Wired,Scientific American, Readers digest

5.Favorite smells?
Petrol, Earth after the rains

6. Favorite sounds?

Laughter

7. Worst feeling in the world?

Not performing to my potential

8. What is the first thing you think of when you wake up?

Thank God..I am alive

9. Favorite fast food place?

Bare Miya in colaba

10. Future child’s name?

I will let them choose it themselves..

11. Finish this statement. “If I had lot of money I’d….?”

Open a school and a big library

12. Do you drive fast?

Sometimes

13. Do you sleep with a stuffed animal?

NO..

14. Storms - cool or scary?

Cool n sexy

15. What was your first car?

I have not bought it with my money yet.

16. Favorite drink?

Lassi

17. Finish this statement, “If I had the time I would….”?

Read more

18. Do you eat the stems on broccoli?

19. If you could dye your hair any color, what would be your choice?

No color i am perfectly fine with my hair color

20. Name all the different cities/towns you’ve lived in?

Kolkata, Delhi, Mumbai, Sonepat, Ganuar

21. Favorite sports to watch?
Cricket,Soccer,Tennis

22. One nice thing about the person who sent this to you?

She writes really well straight from the heart and I can bet on that.

23. What’s under your bed?

Let me look again..

24. Would you like to be born as yourself again?

Yes..

25. Morning person, or night owl?

night owl

26. Over easy, or sunny side up?

I guess I am easy..

27. Favorite place to relax?

on my couch

28. Favorite pie?

Depends on availability

29. Favorite ice cream flavor?

Vanilla, Mango

Its my Life

2008-07-21T09:07:00.000-07:00

Whats the best way to lead a life? We hear and read a lot about it everywhere. People from different walks of life have a different take on it. An optimist will tell you to risk and be adventurous, a pessimist will tell you to be vary of bad times and always look for security, a youngster will tell us to live life king size, whereas the seasoned uncle will tell us to cherish every moment. So it is pretty much clear that its almost impossible to follow everything as at times it is so confusing if we are to live with a specified philosophy of life.
I believe as we grow up we take much from our environment and it shapes our behavior but deep down inside there is something which is unique to us. It may not be very obvious but it is there nevertheless. Life is about sharing this common world with our friends, with neighbors, with every living being around, with deep blue seas and lush green grasslands, the lofty mountains and the hot deserts, the infinite stretch of the cosmos and that hidden spark of life within us all.

I don't think life is about rules and rationality. I also don't want to live life like some one else. I know I am not a Brad pitt or a Bill gates and me trying to be like them will not take me anywhere. I don't want my life to be about chasing shadows and then in the end when I look back I see that I have been turning my back towards the light all this time. Its probably not about making money or earning fame. Its not about following value systems only because some one told us to, its not about reading books to pass exams and surely its not about living only beause we are alive.

For me living is about challenging myself everyday and fueling my passion for being a better person in everything I do, its about accepting my shortcomings and limitations and respecting them as they make me what I am, its about making things better from what I have, its about taking on failures and disappointments on my stride, its about walking alone when every one else takes a different road, its about standing with the friend when he can't find a seat, its about looking back at life every now and then and relive the moments which left us long back, its about taking a break from monotonicity of work and business , its about crying for our broken heart but smiling because love happened, its about being a kid sometimes and above all living the way I want to live and not the way I should be living.

I beleive life can be fun or can be hard, it can be adventorous and it can be unfair but we all have our own stories to play and we should always perform to our potential. Probably living and acting are not that differnt...

Back to School

2008-07-12T09:32:00.000-07:00

It has been a long time since I completed my engineering and all these years have just flown by and before I noticed it was 5 years. I wanted to do an MBA for a long time now. This year however I planned that I must enroll myself in an executive MBA course. The first I came across was in NMIMS and I wasted no time applying for it. Luckily it clicked and in no time I found myself back to school. It was a business school this time.

Today was the first day and I was expecting long boring lectures. However to my surprise it was one of the best display of effective teaching to me. Firstly the crowd is great I mean my class has people from very diverse backgrounds and age. The people are from finance, marketing, logistics, medicine, information technology and physics. People have work experience ranging from 3 to 25 years. The oldest in our class is 55 years old so you can guess we really have a great atmosphere to study in. The facilities in the institute are very good at least it looked great on the first day.

As earlier mentioned the faculty is experienced and good. Its too early to say anything conclusively but the start was good. It was good to know that impetus is on interaction and it is just recall and rephrase part of education that is stressed on. The start seems great and I look forward to my time here at NMIMS.

Honesty and Relationship

2008-07-05T06:32:00.000-07:00

If you ask me what is the most single most important aspect that determines the fate of any relationship I can bet my ass on Honesty. Relationships are based on mutual respect and belief and when we are not honest with each other the relationship will not last for long. We may love the person with our heart but if we are afraid to speak the truth with that person then its not only disrespectful to that person but undermines the relationship.
I understand when we start a new relationship we generally want to impress the other person with all our positive qualities and don't reveal everything about ourselves very quickly. I also agree as long as the other person is comfortable one does not have to bring up unfortunate events from the past. However once we are in a stable relationship one must be truthful to each other. We tend to lie to hide something and it indicates that we are afraid of something. Fear can have very bad effect on health of a relationship. It better to come out of a relationship than to live in a fear or else the fear will make the relationship unbearable and in the end it will leave a very bad taste for everyone involved. If we respect the person we are in a relationship with then we must always speak our mind and be honest with our feelings. This may at times bring some issues and strain relations but those are like workout for relationships and will surely strengthen it in a long run. As far I am concerned I will like to have relationships with only those people with whom I can be honest with and who can return me the favor.

She is the one out there for me

2008-06-20T22:58:00.000-07:00

She will always speak her mind but her silence says the thousand words
She is strong enough to walk alone but wait for me to catch up at times
She will lie for fun but is brutally honest when I need to hear it
She is always near when I need her but will go away for letting me myself...
She is the one out there for me..

She will walk in the rain like a free soul but can lock her self to finish her favorite book
She is patient with my stupidity but will loose her cool when I procrastinate
She will adapt to a change very quickly but will stubbornly fight if she is wronged..
She is fiercely independent but will take care of request people make
She is the one out there for me..

She will worry about future but will enjoy each day as it comes
She is conservative in her expectations but never shy away from giving everything she has
She will be my glass mate if need be but will know when to stop me from drinking
She is open to complaints but will put forward her case under any circumstance
She is the one out there for me.

She will always have an open mind but will never be convinced easily
She is prepared always to take on the world but nothing compromises her integrity
She will love me for what I am but have her fantasies too
She is not great nor good but she is the best for me
She is the one out there for me.

Thank God For Friends

2008-06-08T01:34:00.000-07:00

Well..I guess I will find most of us if not all to agree that our friends make our life worth the experience it is. Friends not only multiply our good times but take away the sadness by being there when needed. Good friends are more than a shoulder to cry on. They not only provide a new perspective to our problems but being close to us know what will work better for us. Though I like keeping my problems to myself at times and finding my own solutions to them but at times it so very necessary to share it and every time I have done it I have never been disappointed. I came out of the problem easily and with a better understanding of life. I strongly believe a good friend is god's blessing to us.

But like any relationship friendship also needs time and effort. In our materialistic pursuit we tend to ignore the people who are close to us and at times when we look back we are alone no one left to even share our success left alone our grief. I believe the best way to have a good friend is to be one. May we all have good friends in our journey of life and we should be able to keep the precious few through our good and bad times.

After being cheated..

2008-06-05T08:38:00.000-07:00

World does not work the way it seems. Either I have an underdeveloped processing system to process information or people in general are so complex that it’s almost impossible to correctly identify the real self of people around you. People are seem to be hidden under this web of lies, and somehow are afraid of revealing their true self. Well its not that I am against anyone decision to hide their personal secrets but deceiving someone with false facts and promises is certainly cruel. Its not that I have met only pathological cheaters but on the contrary people I know are frank and brave about themselves. I guess that the reason when I met people so very different it is difficult for me not to believe in them.

I am not very proud of my social intelligence so I never feel bad when people generally turned out to be different than I expect them to be but it hurts when you feel manipulated for some petty gains. It deletes your faith in humanity and you feel revengeful which ultimately harm you more than the deceit itself. When the reality actually dawns on you it leads to varied response depending on how close the person is to you and in my case the persons. I think these problems come in pairs and I had to face two of them. They are completely separate people unknown to each other except me being their common victim.

Anyway I guess I am just crying too much. People do different things under different circumstances. Life is not fair to everybody and those who have suffered in the past may find it easy to do this to people. There may be some explanation to everything people do. Life put people under difficult situations and it easy to break under some of them. Lies may be sometimes necessary and I don't want to argue on that but writing this blog was to ask myself what should I take home from this? What are my lessons? I think I have my answer now..

I will never be able to control what others do to me its their discretion what I can do is to control my actions and the best way to do it to be honest about myself to others. Whether others do good or bad is just immaterial… not worth my effort or energy...

Cheers to life....

2008-06-02T10:51:00.000-07:00

Well the title may seem directly lifted from a booze commercial but I say this to myself every time life gives me a lesson. You know whenever we become arrogant enough to think that we have figured out mostly what life is that we get a new lesson and the problem with life is that it takes your exam before it gives you the lesson and you know exams they are never easy. However what matter at the end is that we get our lessons. Well this post is not about my latest lesson but about life in general.

Life is the best thing we have and its up to us what we make of it. It is governed by random laws beyond our control but we still have to live it the way best we can. Life will be unfair at times but no fun complaining about it. It is a game with ever changing rules so we just need to accept whatever it gives us but never stop trying. It will take from us the few things we love and at times will give limitless joy from small things. It gives us sweet memories to cherish, dreaded incidents to scare, warm hugs and cold looks, bright sunshine and cloudy days, great friends and fierce competitors but whatever it gives its for us to accept and do the best with it. People, relations, thought beliefs and values all change with time. It’s just that we should never curse anything that happened whether it was our first crush or the first heart break. Whatever flows with time never comes back and it’s just about taking something from it and moving ahead. Everything that I lost in the past was never mine and what I got is my gift.

I always believed life is a one act play and we all have different roles to play. An Industrialist plays a different role than a poor farmer but neither of them is big or small they are all artist in this world stage. What it boils down to is that we should play our part to perfection. We will have our flaws and our gifts but we need to make the best role for ourselves from it so as life happens to us we can look at its eyes and live it fully. But lets chill now as Van wilder said," Lets not take life so seriously, after all no one came alive out of it".

Evening with the Guru

2008-05-27T10:36:00.001-07:00

Ok! How many of us really think any guru can fix those thorny relationship issues..I guess a lot thats why we have so many counselors and therapists. I think more than anything they provide a whole new dimension to view the problem helping individuals make informed decisions. When a person is in emotional pain its difficult for him to come to a solution all by himself and talking to an expert always help. But the problem is to find a real guru and not a dude whose life is dedicated to screwing people to milk money out of them. Sometimes the real helpers are our own people who can really channelize the pain out of you.
The other day we were having an informal chat within our group of friends and colleagues. It all started with this couplet..

Nafrat bhii nahi Adawat bhii nahi Us saksh ko humse mohabat hii nahi..... Hum jee nahi sakte jiske bina Us zaalim ko hamari zarurat hii nahi..

being orated by one of the guys nursing his broken heart. Well it got serious when this dude lost it and started crying yelling her name. It was now turn of the guru to speak.

He started slowly narrating the story of this guy he met on a tea shop.

The guy was tall but with sunken eyes and bald hairline. My cousin introduced me to him saying this guy was the university topper and was having a bright carrier ahead when suddenly he lost it all because of some love affair. He is now very friendly to people but sit here in this stall the whole day never speaking much. I being in love myself felt sorry for him and said hi inquiring how was he doing. He asked me if I was in love too. I said yes and before I could complete myself he said, "My friend you can either be successful in Love or in Life.If you are successful in life you will have a good family, a fat bank balance , a big home and a secure life but if you succeed in love, you will be siting in some tea stall like me waiting eternally." I was too shocked to answer him back and had to left the place quickly. But now when I look back at my life I know he was right. I lost the love game and perhaps I was lucky to at least life giving me a second chance. Don't get me wrong being successful in love does not mean marrying the person we are in love with. Its a more difficult and complex process than that. But coming back to our topic I must say that I do understand the pain and emotional trauma one goes through during loss of ones love. Its not only unbearable but drives out all life of our body.

Its the art of letting it go that is something we must practice. We must start by asking oneself what is more important my lust , my possession or well being of my lover. Respecting each others decision is the hallmark of true love. Besides fate can be cruel. It gives us more than we deserve but takes us what we want. This randomness is unfair but thats the way it is. I miss my love everyday but a sense of belief of her well being is sufficient for me to get on with my life. If nothing else I must live for those who are left with me if not for those who are gone. The pain of separation is one of the many lessons life gives us. Its our destiny to take on our stride all the blessings and sufferings life gives us.

The mood was now quite grim in the group. But at last this heartbroken kid manage to wipe his tears and perhaps was looking forward to what was ahead. We got up and start leaving. As we moved out we could hear the faint music coming from this FM handset

Sau dard hai...Sau rahetain..
Sab mila dil nashin... Ek tu hi naheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...

We rushed down before the mood could turn any bad. As per the time of writing this blog the guru and our dude have become very close friends and it seems our heartbreak kid is coming to terms with his loss.. I wish him a very speedy recovery.

Why are you so nice?

2008-05-18T11:02:00.000-07:00

Have you even been treated unequally? If yes then you can relate to what it feels when you can't stand up to someone. It is not only humiliating but wipes out your self esteem completely.

I feel the same when I can't stand up to you and feel burdened by your mammoth persona. Why you have to be so nice to me? I really don't deserve it. I have always believed in equality of human potential. So I never felt smaller just because one drives a bigger car than me or takes home a fatter salary check. In totality my potential is as good as anyone else so if there is a difference its there in application. I always believed in fair competition so always treated my adversaries the same way they should be. I never thought they are of smaller stature and deserve my mercy or charity in any way so even if they loose out they will have their dignity. But when it comes to you I don't know why you have been treating me unfairly. When in response to my nasty behavior you maintain your calm I become restless. Its like living in a vacuum or playing a game where you don't know the rules. Its not only painful but outright cruel on your part. Please for god sake treat me equally. Hate me if you want to or outright abuse me but don't give me back your love and affection. I don't know if I will be able to take this any longer.

Please don't change me from what I am now and I will be lost if you kill all my belief systems which i have created for so long...either you change me fully or just let me go.. ..

The Fall and the rise

2008-05-12T10:45:00.000-07:00

Disciple: What is the easiest way to rise in life, Master?
Master: Fall my son fall and you will rise. Its pain of the fall that holds you back learn to fall and there is no limit to your rise.

It was the 12th day since the project started. He was busy with new framework company decided to use for the project. He knew the team needed some serious help or else the project will go out of hand. He was expecting the new lead to arrive anytime soon and the door opened. It was not as if he was looking at any girl for the first time but it struck him hard. She was all that he ever imagined. They say when god made us he divided us into two parts and its just that we spend our life searching for that half. Some people find them easily and some never. The moment he saw her he knew she was the one he wants to grow old with.
The training went smoothly and perhaps things got better for him there after. It was like a switch that was thrown open and a new program was now running on his system. He knew he was holding himself back for this very person and now there is no going back. He was assertive but he knew he needs to be patient. He was close to her and slowly the friendship grew to a much sweeter level. It was the time and he opened his heart out. It was not a shock to her but she was not ready. It was not bad though . We all know Rome was not build in a day and so is a resilient relationship.

The Fall
It was a free fall for him. He never looked back from the day she came to her life. Love was in the air. There were sleepless nights, nervous days, long chats and phone calls..if there is anything which can be called falling in love..he experienced it all. It was surely painful but it was amazing like a drug slowly but effectively taking control over you and switching off parts of brain which make logical decisions. He was now dreaming about her the day in and day out. He was sure she will say yes and was patient as always. He wanted to be in love for ever. It was exciting and adventurous something he never thought he can experience. It hurt him the day she left abruptly but we know things are sometimes controlled by fate and she is never fair. She gives us more than we deserve but will take away the hard earned happiness.

The Rise

Once we have fallen there is nothing but the rise. Love is like that inverted ocean where deeper we fall higher we rise. He now look back at days they spent together as blessing and grace for now she is more than an object to him. He no longer wants to possesses her physical beauty as he knows parts of her still survive within him. They are no longer separate as there was never a distance. She was always there with him long before he knew he love her and will stay with him till he exists. Life has taken a lot from him and people may find him unfortunate when they look at him but he knows he succeeded in doing what he wanted the day he saw her. He wanted to rise in love and he did..

Are you coming back again?

2008-05-01T10:48:00.000-07:00

The time stands frozen for me now. Nothing moves its just a long sleepless night brighten momentarily by your memories and that is all I have got now. Meeting you was the best thing that happened to me and the time we spent together will always be with me like a gift wrapped in eternal fragrance. You gave me everything even more than I deserve and now when you are gone I look back at the journey we made together, the jokes we shared, the roads we crossed, the books we bought and the music we shared. It was like a dream as long as it lasted. I don't know why we could not walked further when we started so well. I was always with you but this time you took the turn and left me at this cross road frozen in time.

I wait now only for you to return standing there at the same place where you left me. My senses are worthless now as they can only be revived with you sight now matter how momentarily it may be. My hands are waiting to hold you just for once. Its the pain now that exist within me. Its not your fault I know as fate can be cruel at times but its just that I can never stop waiting. My pain and my suffering is my own and I can wait with it as long as it require if it can just let me meet you once more.

Its late in the day now..i stood still waiting but my body is now giving way with the passage of time. It seems as if my time is quickly getting over and its just that I don't want to stop waiting as I know you will come. As my senses loose control and I look up pulling up my last few breaths I open up my arms in anticipation for that last hug before I leave..I open my cracked lips and gather my remaining strength and cry...

Are you coming back again?
Are you coming back again?
Are you coming back again?

Half century

2008-04-30T00:30:00.000-07:00

Well this is my 50th blog. I am glad I reached this milestone well it may be nothing in this blogger universe but it surely is a personal achievement given my track record of unfinished activities. I hope I will be able to write a bit better as I grow and learn but whatever it may be I pray I should never be dishonest about what I write. What I write is firstly for my consumption and I hope I should be able to do justice to myself. The blogging has given me many new friends in the blogosphere. I have learn and shared a lot and I will continue to do the same. ...its such a pleasant journey..I hope I continue forever

The ghost from the dreams

2008-04-22T07:02:00.000-07:00

Fear..is strange it can cripple you or it can lead you to do impossible tasks..its just how you react to it. Brave they say is not the one who is not fearful but the one who holds on even with it. I am no brave but fear brings the best in me. Over the years the things that scares me have undergone remarkable changes but still there are things that scare me. If I can remember correctly when I was a little kid i was scared of the big wide well in the neighborhood, when I went to school I was scared of the empty store room which all our teachers threatened to lock us in. When I was in primary my art teacher got into the scene and scared the hell out of me with her innovative punishing techniques.

Things began to look good as I grew up. Fear became a rare commodity but was occasionally experienced during the college exams. It further vanished as I move around for work. So I must admit I missed being afraid. However a recent incident brought back that adrenaline rush in me which I was looking for some time now. It was a long and tiring day and back in my room I thought of skipping my night read.

It was a clear night. Strangely enough there were no dogs barking on the streets and I was somewhat pleased by it. The stillness of night was apparent and the moon looked brighter with that reddish tint which you see when you are in love. The street looked strange for some reason. I knew it was different but sometimes you can't stop yourself from walking into something. I don't remember how long have I been walking but I guess it was pretty late. I wanted to turn back but the walk seem very exciting. For some reason I never noticed that I was just walking alone and the nearby buildings were no longer familiar. I realized I must have taken a wrong turn and I was now in an unfamiliar territory. I was engulfed with that funny feeling you get when you are really pissed on yourself . There was no one to ask directions except for that unfamiliar and dark neighborhood with two parallel roads. There were dark streets breaking out from the parallel road. I tried walking into one of them but could not sense any activity. I rapidly came back to main road. Hopelessly I turned back and started walking straight to find way back home. For some reason it was getting hot. The night was no longer clear and it was looking hazy may be due to my tired body. I sense someone behind me ...I wanted to turn back but I never felt like doing it and it was getting warmer as I walked. I was now getting that feeling I was talking about. I could now heard faint cries and someone walking behind me. It was hard to walk now but it was scarier to look back. The cries grew louder and something came just in front from my back...hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm..

Oh it was just a dream I realize and I was thirsty now. I gathered all my strength to get up from the bed and walk down to the kitchen to get a bottle of water. It was very warm for some reason. The walk down to the kitchen was painfully slow and I managed to reach the kitchen door and it was closed. I forced open the door and I walked in..as I moved towards the fridge I notice the same cries from my dreams and suddenly something gain came from behind and this time I really woke up.

Oh so it was all a dream..perhaps a dream within a dream. I was alone sitting on my bed noticed that the electricity was gone and the fans were motionless as if carved in stones. Now I felt elated. It was great being afraid after so many years. It gives you a high to notice that you are important enough for entities around you to torment you. I was now really thirsty and after that dream of mine I was drenched and then I began that long road to my kitchen all by myself.

Who am I ?

2008-04-15T11:47:00.000-07:00

Who am I ? The kid from the neighborhood just walked in and asked me this question. I thought for a while and could just answer that "you will experience it for yourself". 'I' is so profound and deep that we seldom look beyond its literal meaning. What does I represent. Is 'I' my name, my face or my body. Well even if I change my name I still remains the same and so after a plastic surgery or even death the 'I' representing 'myself' will still exist . So is 'I' my brain or my mind? Then what is I in a brain dead person or even a mentally challenged person.

If we ponder carefully I points to something which is cumulative total of different entities some of which are apparent and some are hidden. My body , my name and my face do point to my existence but they don't entirely constitute me. I also exist as conscious living being who can ask himself this question. Human mind and consciousness we think has been created by millions of years of evolution. It may be the nature's way of looking at itself. However this conscious entity forms the crux of our existence. But even if we are not conscious we still exist and 'I' still points to something. We may argue in that case the existence is only physical like an animal exist but its existence is just the sum total of his body functions while other may support a theory which explain it with the invisible but indestructible ' soul' the reflection of almighty on all living beings.
It is both easy and hard to come up with an exact answer. However we can ask this to ourselves and may be we will get an answer that makes sense.

Cricket from the world of forward mails

2008-03-31T09:15:00.000-07:00

Forward mails can be a real pain but at times they do bring in some smiles. I recently got this forward message regarding cricket which I thought of sharing... Enjoy

The Sledging in Cricket .. You thought cricket was gentleman's game think again...

Aussie paceman Glenn McGrath was bowling to Zimbabwe number 11 Eddo Brandes - who was unable to get his bat anywhere near the ball. McGrath, frustrated that Brandes was still at the crease, wandered up during one particular over and inquired: " Why are you so fat?" Quick as a flash, Brandes replied: "Because every time I make love to your wife, she gives me a biscuit ." Even the Aussie slip fielders were in hysterics.

Ian Healy's made a legendary comment which was picked up by the Channel 9 microphones when Arjuna Ranatunga
called for a runner on a particularly hot night during a one dayer in Sydney... " You don't get a runner for being an overweig
unfit, fat c*nt!"

Its common knowledge that Indian's usually don't resort to sledging, and the Aussies swear by it. In this rare ocassion the
tables had turned and it was the Aussies who were at the receiving end.
Shastri hits the ball towards Mike Whitney (the 12th man in the game) and looks for a single, this guy gets the ball in and
says
Whitney: " If you leave the crease i'll break your f***ing head"
Shastri didn't bat an eyelid before replying : " If you could bat as well as you can talk you wouldn't be the f***ing 12th man "

During 1989 Lords Test, Merv Hughes said to Robin Smith after he played and missed: " You can't f*cking bat".
Simth replied, both with the bat and with words, he smashed Hughes to the boundry and said "Hey Merv, we make a fine pair
I can't f*cking bat and you can't f*cking bowl ."

In one of the tour matches in South Africa, Australia played Hansie Cronje's province. Cronje was at the non strikers end,
there was a short chubby batsman on strike.
Ian Healy yelled to Warne, " Bowl a Mars Bar half way down...We'll get him stumped"
The Aussies and Cronje were all in hysterics, all this was before a classic reply from the batsman.
The exact words: "Nah, Boonie (David Boon) fielding at short leg will be onto it before I can move."

James Ormond had just come out to bat on an ashes tour and was greeted by MarkWaughï¿½ï¿½..
Mark : " F*ck me, look who it is. Mate, what are you doing out here, there's no way you're good enough to play for England "
James: "Maybe not, but at least i'm the best player in my family "

England were playing Pakistan and, at what turned out to be a crucial moment later on, Frank Tyson managed to get an
outside edge off a Pakistani batsman after the batsman had been frustrating them on a hot sweaty day. The ball went right
through the hands of Raman Subba Rao who was standing in first slip and through his legs. After the over Raman heads
over to the bowler and says, "Sorry Frank, I should've closed my legs." Frank Tyson, who didn't find any of this amusing,
quipped back, " No, you bastard, your mother should have ."

Boys in blue or just boys..

Badness Quotient

2008-03-31T08:55:00.000-07:00

‘Bad’ in all its forms and manifestations implies something negative to human senses both morally and objectively. Like all adjectives it is also relative to its context. There are frames of references which contain the test subjects and we can apply valuation theory to be certain of an act or object being good or bad but applying in wide social world with our improper understanding of the context can lead to absurd results.

To measure badness quotient among entities around us require different benchmarks and relative parameters to obtain it correctly. Let us consider the statement ‘Violence is bad’. We can easily make it that this statement though hold correct for many references it may be incorrect in some of them. A person countering violence by violence may not be called bad. So a person being abused violently will be called brave rather than bad.

Our mind is quick to point out something negative in others; I guess this is how we evolved where we prioritize our own self before others and our survival counts the most so anything negative or repulsive is pointed out to us before anything positive. Going against the common sense are beliefs is a real difficult thing so evaluating a correct badness quotient is a real difficult task. However I cannot deny that we define our individual context and we have full liberty to decide if a thing or act is good or bad for us within our knowledge domain. Like a kid may find his father angst against his smoking repulsive as his hormonal impulse and limited knowledge will force him to think that his father is acting like a bad ass but from a larger context we know that what father is doing is part of his duty as a responsible parent. It is easy to find faults in people and things around us but we must always consider that there is a limit to our knowledge of what we know about the concerned person and entity, so we must give everything an objective look before deciding about it. Badness and goodness are always relative in our world and its good to have an open mind while deciding on what is god or bad and interpolating our personal results to every context and situation will certainly lead to wrong conclusions.

Grow Up!

2008-03-03T09:53:00.000-08:00

This is in response to your post 'The art of growing up' where you have expressed that growing up in this world is about being mean, selfish and greedy. I must say that you really missed the point in your post. I agree growing up involves experiencing all the negative emotions but its about the triumph of your positive self over the so called negative ones. Growing up is a life long process and it never stops but the day our positive self eclipse the negative self we are grown up..the age hardly matters. Here I must tell you the things I have learned as I have grown up.

1) For every cold dark night there is warm day waiting round the corner.

2) We never know what we have till we loose it and never know what are we missing till we get it.

3) Failure is never final till we stop trying.

4) The good and bad adds to the flavor of life and without one the other is meaningless.

5) Every moment lived is a new experience in itself.

6) Hope is the best thing a man can have.

7) To be loved is the biggest blessing.

8) There is always something to learn from everybody

9) Its difficult to work on our shortcomings than to point fingers on others..

10) Lastly as Van wilder said...its no point taking life so seriously ..no body came alive out of it..

If you say being grown up is about being selfish and greedy its about being selfish and greedy for love as its the biggest blessing , if growing up is about being jealous its about being jealous of others failures as they are the man' s biggest teachers and if it is about being dishonest its with the worries surrounding us making way for all happiness to flow in. I fully agree growing up is a choice and not a necessity but it is a difficult choice to make...

Your grownup self....

The art of growing up

2008-02-24T09:11:00.000-08:00

Everyone wants me to grow up. My parents, my colleagues, my friends and even my twelve year old cousins. I wish I could fulfill their request..but have failed miserably till now. I always thought growing up is a science where in mother nature stretches you from an invisible cell to a complex organism with the passage of time. The interaction with everything outside you teaches and help you evolve into grown up man or woman or perhaps both( your choice).

The growing up in this world is no longer an science but perhaps an art which everyone must master to be a truly grown up being. I wished I could attend some coaching classes which could help me grow up. As learning and success is now directly proportional to the classes one can attend so I was in search of something which could help me behave like a grown up man. It was until I met this gentlemen who promised he could help me grow up. It was an exciting experience with him for sure. If my laziness could have permitted I would have elaborated on my interaction with him but I am just summarizing his great insight into the art of growing up.
He proclaimed... in order to be a grown up you must master the following ..

1) Hypocrisy - If you are not a hypocrite you are not a grownup my friend. Hypocrisy is an advance form of human emotion which has evolved after centuries of trial and is perfect to save anyone is this cruel world of grown up people.

2) Dishonesty - You should be dishonest to the core even to yourself so that you can sleep effortlessly at nights. It becomes difficult to be honest to anyone if you want to move ahead in this grown up world.

3) Greed - Well you must get used to greed if you want to grow. The greed will make you ruthless perhaps will put some fire in your belly to speed up the process. The greed should not only be for the things you can have but for the things others have.

4) Jealousy - If you are happy with what your friends success then you must be spanked till you grow jealous of everybody around you and even of yourself so that you can get rid of your worn out self to grow mature enough.

5) Fearfulness - You must be afraid of what others are doing even if they helped you there must be a vicious thought behind this deed. You must be fearful of each and everyone of the persons around you and should never trust anybody.

The learned coach of mine explained that we all are blessed with these great attributes its that we as a child need to nourish them to be a grown up person. I am not sure whether I have learned and grown up but atleast I understand that
' Growing old is a necessity but Growing up is not'

My God

2008-02-11T10:18:00.000-08:00

Does god exist? People world over and from time immemorial have pondered on this and have given their explanation. Over a period of time common interests and power struggles have bundled these ideas into organized religions which we see in the world around us. So if we look into the origin of god as a belief we will notice that it is associated with the unexplainable and the random nature of the world around us. When we could not understand the rains, the days the nights and the natural processes around us we offered this all an explanation and a name which we call God. Though the idea and concept of a supreme being controlling the unexplainable was meant to satisfy the individual curiosity it was broadened and practiced as new ideas were added to it with progress of human civilization. Many with political insight used or rather abused it in binding together communities and creating religions with rigid rules ,dictates and customs. These have over the period of time affected human culture, history and development. I may not be wrong in saying that perhaps the divine idea of god has killed countless people and have lead to numerous wars and conflicts.

So the idea of god seem to have caused more problems than solutions. So is Atheism the answer to the world problems.. a system which relies on proven facts , experience and knowledge. Well I may not be the correct person to answer this for two reasons the primary one being that I am not too interested in solving world problems as the problem around makes the world worth living bringing out the best of human intellect and preventing us becoming lazy snobs. The second one is more personal that is my idea of my own god.

It will be a lie if I say that I don't pray and have always believed in my abilities. Living in this random world praying comes naturally to me. It is a separate story that I have always felt empowered after praying but there may not be anything divine in it. Now it is easy to blame religion for all the miseries it has brought but without political lust it is a wonderful collection of ideas and beliefs. It outlines experiences and intuitions of various individuals collected over a time. To me religion and god is an individual thought. I look at an Idol of god representing the power , knowledge, wealth and I believe they represent something which lies deep inside me. The idol, the manuscript and the holy book is just a tool for me to look inside myself to unleash it. When I fold my hands it is my respect to this ever present randomness around and to arouse in myself the power to move ahead. I have always believed that search for that mythical god starts from oneself. I have found a god but it is just mine.

The world without men

2008-02-01T09:29:00.000-08:00

I read a year back about how the Y chromosome which differentiates a man from a women is loosing its genes and in about 10 million years the man as we know ourselves will disappear from this planet. One of the female reporter commenting on the discovery summarized that men as a race are not worth saving. Well that was a long time back compared to the neck break speed of our our technological evolution. But today I came across another interesting article here

http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/sciencetech/men-no-longer-necessary-for-sperm-production/750

and
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/01/31/scisperm131.xml

which reports of a new breakthrough where scientists are able to create sperm cells by harvesting stem cells from a women's marrow. So now even our contribution in keeping this world going is no longer required and I was feeling like an obsolete being already. But to my rescue came Champu.
Champu we all feel is like a tormented child, he is rigid and stubborn and rarely change his thoughts. I never saw him talking to girls so when I saw him coming I just couldn't control myself of breaking on him the news of our extinction. Whoa..So he began...

What the FUCK man!! Where are you reading this girly stuff of extinction and all that crap. Huh..These chicks don't know jack shit...they think they can survive without men but what will they do in a world without machines, without maths and science. They will not be able to figure out how the fuck they survived and what the fuck happened to us . They are just good for nothing. They want us to treat them like a bloody queen and think they are smarter. Smart my Ass.

I tried interrupting....

Shut up and just listen to me. For your information the Y chromosome has not lost any of its important genes in last 5 million years so it expected to last at least 100 million years and besides we men don't require a chromosome to tell us what we are and what we should do. If this damn thing just fucks off we will have some one else. If we can survive the women around us we can survive this mutation shit...

By the time he finished there was a large gathering around us and everyone seem to have enjoyed this little conversation of ours. Perhaps I don't want to conclude of what Champu implied. If nothing else it provide us some comic relief..

Long live the Republic

2008-01-30T07:23:00.000-08:00

The memory of the last 26th is still fresh in my mind. Its not because I celebrated it with pomp and show but I managed to finish lots of my overdue work which I generally skip on a normal weekend. I made myself think that all my activities are my duties towards the great nation of ours and amazingly I could gather all the strength and passion to do them. This little experiment made me realize that we all citizens do share a sense of responsibility towards motherland and probably will give our best for it. So I thought let me make a list of problems which we as citizens should tackle for our nation to help it develop into a mature and welfare state. If we start complaining it can be a never ending list but we must acknowledge that each nation will have its share of problems so a perfect harmony is meaningless but at least there are few things we can do and change at personal level.

1) A Broader Outlook - We as knowledgeable citizens of this country should broaden our outlook towards life. It may seem very unusual problem for a nation but narrow outlook I feel is holding us back in every sphere. We don't want to broaden our outlook and accept changes. We want to hold back to our belief systems and biases even though they have been proven to be self destructive. We don't want to accept diversity. We don't want to accommodate other religions, other languages, other cultures and other castes. We feel somehow a particular community, religion and caste only lead to a specific trait. We say all Gujratis are bloody misers, all Benaglis are snobs, all jats mindless and all parsis absent minded. We somehow lack ability to broaden our outlook to view humans as individuals. I guess it is easy for our brain to assimilate and process information when it represent itself in meaningful groups. But if we are to grow beyond this underdeveloped tag we need to broaden our outlook and accommodate people with differnt tastes, habits and ways of life. It is difficult but we need to learn.

2) Respect For Women - This issue also inherits itself from the above but it is more specific and more alarming. If we don't stop molesting and raping our women we stand no chance being part of a developed welfare nation in this century. The problem arise out of the narrow minded male ego which is not able to come to terms with female independence. It still wants to hold them back and these occasional incidents are nothing but a direct attack on their way of life. It shows we are still century old society which prefers it women inside the four walls. I feel every one has duty towards this nation to help it be a morally strong and it starts with oneself. I know women of this country will not give up and will ultimately walk on equal footing as men. Many of the readers may feel I am hyping the problem but we in this day and age still have female infanticide, dowry deaths, domestic violence marital rape and other wide spread crimes against women. A society and a nation which can't respect its women is doomed and nothing can save it.

3) Responsible Behavior - Anyone who lives in Indian cities knows what I mean by dirty roads, transport, drains, localities, rivers and public places. We tend to outdo each other in messing up the places we share. For example if you notice the great Mumbai locals it is bloody red with spits mark all over. I really doubt any of the respectable gentlemen who chews and spits on the trains do the same inside their house on their walls. We are so fucking sick we don't give a bloody shit that most of the things are public property and disfiguring them is loss to this nation. These are the same guys who will shout slogans against Pakistan but they themselves are the public enemy. There is no sense of responsibility and meaningful action in so many of us and its direct example is the dirty image of our nation. I hope we as a nation will mature enough to help keep everything around us clean and will start behaving responsibly whether it is cricket stadium or a public park.

4) Creation Of Knowledge Society - This is one of the other goals I think we should try and achieve . We have lots of universities, colleges and schools but the basic education is still unavailable to millions. We are still hopelessly uneducated country. Even African countries have better literacy rates than us. Our aim should be to aim for 100% literacy. This is imperative for us to unlock vast potential of this billion people strong population. Imagine what will a billion strong educated confident knowledgeable and matured people can do. There is nothing we can't achieve. It is time to reinvent our education system and overall framework which is inherently British following a system created for producing clerks. If we can be a knowledge powerhouse we can attain empowerment economically , militarily and culturally.

I have knowingly left out issues like poverty, corruption and population explosion as I feel bringing the above changes in our nation will be sufficient for bringing up the 21st century India we all dream of. The poverty, corruption and other evils are end products of ignorance, narrow outlook and shallow mindset. I pray and dream for an Indian Republic which is based on modern ideals of knowledge and understanding. I believe with my whole heart the day will surely come.
Long live the republic..Jai Hind.

Philosphy of mating

2008-01-25T05:16:00.000-08:00

'Behind every great women there is a man...............checking out her ass.' I cannot agree more. Love Sex n Relationships are hotly read and debated topics and I have written about them in many of my previous posts. So whats new this time? Nothing much except that you can never write enough about them. I am not a relationship guru and I don't intend to be one so its just my take on things.

When I talk about love in this post I just mean romantic love between couples so the deduction and inference may or may not hold for other relationships.

Different Stages of Love

1) Attraction and lust - Romantic relationships starts with attraction. Well it may not be physical attraction only but couples get attracted to one quality or the other. We as humans have so many physical and personality traits which affect different people differently. Some one may find reading books a great hobby some one may just find it boring so relationship starts when one find the other attractive. Now once we are attracted to someone the lust starts creeping in. We may resist it initially but it is what fools us into doing things which we may not have done otherwise. Once we are fully attracted and lust has corrupted the mind we start the next phase in a relationship..'The Chase'..

2) The Chase and the selection - Once we are fully engulfed into mother natures trap we start the long chase. It differs from person to person and culture to culture. It may be easy when attraction is mutual or may be impossible when the compatibility is negligible. However it is a very interesting phase of relationship and have motivated numerous poets writers and movie makers . Under the spell of lust and attraction people go to any extent to get what they want.
They will follow their mate day and night, change themselves to meet the lover's requirement, spend a hell lot of money both hard earned or inherited in wooing the love of their life. The selection is at times affected by the vigor of the chase and at times by absence of any option. It may lead to violent outcomes , may die a natural death or may lead to our next phase the bliss.

3) The Bliss - Once the selection is done the couple enter a blissful phase. The length of this phase depends on the compatibility, adaptability and priority of the people involved. This is a happy phase where our minds are completely wired down by the nature's intoxicants. The lust leads to copulation, sex and more sex. People try and adjust with those they have fallen in love with. They try and discover each other and did I mention they have sex a lot. Some relationships may just breakdown at this stage as once the lust has been satisfied the attraction begin to fade and relationship becomes heavy. Those who are lucky progress on to the next stage.

4) The Bloodbath - The bloodbath is most difficult phase in a relationship. It is this which test the strength of our love. Once the bliss is over the attraction becomes feeble. Each others shortcomings become very apparent. We discover things which we may not like or hate it all together. The differences begins to crop up. There is occasional disagreement and may result in heated arguments. All living beings are unique and when they try to attain a stable relationship it may result in interference of their personality and both of them becomes a bit different. Its like atoms of sodium and Chlorine when bonded form salt very different from what they individually were before the bond formation. This phase is about lots of experimentation and discovery. Many relationships breakdown during this phase and some stagnate in absence of any other option. The luckiest few proceed on to have ' Oneness'.

5) Oneness - This is the final phase of the relationship ladder. It is marked by extreme peace and warmth of the relationship that has seen everything. The relationship has made both individuals bonded in something greater than need, lust and necessity. Each one is now habitual of the other and they accept the other as extension of their own self. It is now a perfect combination and stable relationship. It is something when voice is not required for talking and eyes are not required for watching. There is a spiritual connection and mythical bond between individuals. Now it is a journey growing old and dieing in the arms of the beloved. I am sorry for being sentimental but death is fact and no harm accepting it.

Relationships are easy to form but difficult to carry on with. It needs care,time and attention of those who are involved. The philosophy of mating and relationship follow simple rules but are followed only by the lucky few.

Socialism and Individualism

2008-01-23T02:38:00.000-08:00

I have discussed and debated at length about pros and cons of Socialism and Individualism with lots of people and have gained a lot from these conversations. I just want to summarize my views on these two contrasting systems.
Individualism as a system emphasize on individual freedom, choice and reward over group laws and rules where as the socialism requires preference of social obligations over individual choice and freedom. Anyone can point out numerous flaws in both the systems in isolation but these two system can hardly survive of their own. It is the relative density of these two systems among cultures which decide its fate. We can observe various societies and nation states around the globe and conclude that political and social forces determine the density of either of the systems. Now the question arises what is a perfect mix for maximizing well being among all humans.
If we increase individual or capitalistic pursuit we will have a free market society. This system will reward the individuals based on performance and abilities. It will provide humans freedom of choice and will allow each and everyone to do what they are interested in. On a first look this system sounds cool and it seems we should make this an universal system among us all for everlasting happiness. But if we delve a little more into this system it flaws will become apparent. This system is natural but very cruel. It tends to make the society ruled by individual might. The might may be political, physical or intellectual. If implemented in word and spirit this system seeks elimination of those who are weak or incapable for whatever reasons it may be. If we look at it is advocating elimination of all those people who are disabled as they are to be fed by those who are fully capable. The old and powerless have no place in such a system. When individual freedom takes precedence over social order then the laws will become lopsided and it can lead to anarchy and self destruction as what has been seen world over. A dictatorial/fascist system is an example of highly individualistic society where anyone who is in power work towards fulfilling his duties towards himself only.

On the other hand in a complete socialist framework a state owns everything and all citizens work for the state bringing so called equality among everyone ending social and economic classes which for long have lead to countless revolutions. It ensures work and food for all. It advocates freedom based on commonly acceptable values and tries to create an efficient system to maximize human potential. So with all these great sounding qualities why is socialism not an answer to our woes. Its because it being an unnatural system is very unstable. The socialist mindset among humans will kill all motivation to create and excel as it does not reward the individual in correct terms. A complete socialist society curbs individual freedom to such an extent that they become robots rather than humans following command and never crossing the forbidden laws. It cause humans to follow laws, belief systems and moral rules which may make the life unbearable. Besides a socialist system is very rigid and does not accept changes.

To summarize the human civilization and society can only progress if they are powered by individual brilliance and motivation followed by well organized rules and joint effort to extract common benefit. Like it takes unparalleled motivation and brilliance to invent a flying machine but require well organized and joined effort of Boeing to create a 747. Thus I feel we as humans must have individual motivation and subsequent reward system but a disciplined, well defined and evolving laws and processes to build a social framework. This can only do justice to our individual and social needs and help us live like humans.

Mr X in the Metropolis

2008-01-20T10:29:00.000-08:00

Metropolis was big, not as grand Mr X would have liked but it had the flowing undercurrent which holds together millions of souls moving them and churning out progress of them. It was like the huge machine clumsy to look at and making a lot of noise but with a perpetual motion embedded into it . Mr X never disliked the idea of being part of this grand machine contributing to it and immersing himself into its mesmerizing energy.
Since the day Mr X landed, metropolis embraced him with all its vigor like it always does to everyone who comes to meet it. It gave him those wonderful little moments to cherish, the test of fire, warm loving friends, hordes of competitors, occasional victories, not so usual disappointments, warmth of the crowd and seclusion of the desert. He liked it all and the wise old Metropolis was hotbed of his experimentation and self development. His love and fascination for it was now evident in his personality and Metropolis was able to mold one more man to something intricate.
Mr X now wanted to make the Metropolis his home. This was a big dream if not the biggest of what he has seen. Mr X knew that metropolis is now flowing through his veins and making a home here is just a natural progression. It was long and tedious journey. Metropolis will welcome everyone but not everyone can survive here and making a home here involved molding the Metropolis to fit oneself. It was difficult but Mr X was defiant and fighter for sure. He had to do it and it was done. Mr X knew it was the beginning of a new affair ..and the Metropolis knew how to handle its affairs....

BraveHeart

2007-12-28T23:05:00.000-08:00

Courage is a rare gift bestowed only on few lucky among us. Courage does not mean absence of fear but the heart to stand on our ground in spite of it. We admire those who have it and make them our leaders. Mrs Benazir Bhutto was one of the few courageous people around who stood in the face of adverse situation and gave her life fighting for what she believed in. After she returned from exile she was attached the first day killing hundreds of people in her rally. It never deterred her resolve and she knew she may have to give her life for the people of her country.
The cowardly attack on her has shown the world that terrorists are no humans and they are hell bent in undermining the world and its values as we know it. But they are fighting a lost war..they may kill people but not their ideas and their courage.

Though she was a leader of a hostile country and I may not personally like her ideologies but she was brave and she had the fighting spirit. She died a painful death for her people and perhaps for us all who believe in freedom and peace. Her body has been laid to rest but her ideas will continue to stir and infuse courage into people for a long fight against violence , terrorism and all evil for a very long time to come.

Love and Need

2007-12-23T06:57:00.000-08:00

We as living beings share one thing common among us all...'Need'. From the tiniest of the bacteria to the gigantic whales all are driven by need. Life is driven by this ever present need. Need to feed oneself, need to procreate and need to enjoy the small luxuries life gives us all.

We humans being with a much developed consciousness and response system have more needs and complex socio economic systems give rise to very diverse taste and requirements. Need we can easily conclude lead to all forms of pursuits and emotions . Last day I got into argument for saying that all our emotions including love arise due to one or the other need. However I agree once love blossomed it grow larger than the need itself and may last longer than the need and sometimes even a lifetime. This attribute of love make it so great. Well by love I don't mean only the romantic love but all forms of love all living beings exhibit with each other or even with inanimate things. For example our quest for knowledge which is inherently a need may lead us to different books and we may love it for our time together. We may continue to love them even after we have read it. Thus love can cross the initial impetus of need and like an uniform motion can continue infinitely. What makes us fall in love with something depends entirely on how it satisfied our needs. It grow slowly on us and rarely do we realize that our need is no longer important and love in itself is fulfilling.
It can however be debated if love fools us into doing things we as a selfish living entities will never do. But we can't complain as these experiences make this life worth living. Need or no need we want love. ..

The Spooky Experience

2007-12-22T03:33:00.000-08:00

It was cold very cold but not icy.
I could feel the chill down to my spine but not my spine. I could walk even run but had no control of my legs. I could not feel them perhaps they were not there. I had to reach somewhere but I could not think of a place that I want to go. I tried remembering where I was coming from or to a place I could go back to but it was all blank. There was just this misty chill all around. I watched someone crossing me and I wanted to call him . I cried louder than I could ever have but could not speak out. But suddenly I could feel lots of shadows around and perhaps I was not alone. But where was everybody going and why was it so dark. Dark ...is it dark? Where are my eyes? Oh I wanted to see and touch my eyes but I don't know where to look for my hands and suddenly I realize I could not feel my body. Oh my body where was it..I wanted to stop to catch a breath but I could barely breath. Oh! I was not breathing just this sense of motion within this eternal mist. I wanted to cry for help but help for what. Help for direction..Was I dead? I could not remember what living was like.... Oh Lord..........

It was much warmer now. I could now feel a weight engulfing my existence. I could breathe. I just wanted to breathe now and not do anything else. It was still dark but I had my body. My legs, my hands and my eyes. Oh I must open my eyes... Its still dark but I have to get out of this. My surrounding are now shrinking and I pushed it as hard as I could. It was a tough battle but I wanted to live and suddenly I could move and there was light ..Light too bright for me and my eyes. I was now tired of the long journey and the pain emerge out of nowhere and I cried. I cried a lot.. but suddenly the shadows were taking shape.

It was a new world ..it was new day.

The Village

2007-11-17T06:32:00.000-08:00

Diwali vacation this time was different. For the first time in more than quarter of century I was not celebrating it with family but was traveling with a friend to his village in Maharastra heartland. I am not much of a fan of mumbai's fast life so any break from it is always great. We caught a train from Mumbai CST to his native town and reached there in about 5 hours. Village life is no alien to me and freah air and green surroundings bring a sense of calmness everytime I visit countryside. I will just put some pics and let them do all the talking here.

I enjooooyed every bit of my stay there. Be it the spooky broken roads near the cremation ground, 6 hour electricity cut, out of the world food, fresh fruits, clean air and plentiful of sleep. Perhaps visit to villages is like visit back in time to reflect on our roots and to gather strength to live the present.

World Champions

2007-09-25T07:12:00.000-07:00

I wrote about the world champion Australian team after their world cup victory in One day internationals. But today I am glad and thrilled to write about the Indian team and their world cup adventures which ended in such a high note that it has brought a sense of jubilation to millions here in India.

When the tournament started nobody gave this young team any chance. Without the might of big names it was just thought of as a time pass event. Timepass it was but boy what it turned out to be and you can't write better scripts than this. Final was set out between the two arch rivals India and Pakistan both from the subcontinent and on its way the Indian team defeated the mighty Australians and the strong South Africans. The final game was well fought by both the teams and the victory finally blessing the fighters in blue. It was the fight between the equals and lots of skill, character and a bit of fortune helped us winning the World cup. Personally it has been the best news that I have heard in quite some time you know you feel one with the team sharing their triumph. Winning I guess bring something that is infectious and I could see that in our office during those final moments and after words on the street. It is a great victory and thank god for it. We need it a lot and this time deservingly..

The Black Swan

2007-09-15T23:21:00.000-07:00

This post of mine is to present summary of the great book I just read. It is the 'The Black Swan' by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. The book deals with the impact of the highly improbable. I am presenting here the contents which I could grasp and I must clarify that the greatness of the concepts have been limited by my dim intellect.

1) The predictions and history - The author points out that we as human always try and make sense of the events after it has happened even though the event may be a black swan or a highly improbable event. Before the discovery of Australia people were convinced that all swans are white but discovery of a single black swan destroyed the inference of several thousand initial white swan sightings and thus these highly improbable events actually shape our history.

2) Scalable and the Non scalable - The activities and knowledge domains in our world can be categorized into scalable and non scalable elements. The author calls them Medocristan and Extremistan. Take example of wealth it is a scalable element where a single person can have billions of dollars whereas even a group of 1000 persons may just have few thousand dollars. However if we take average height of a person it we be more or less hovering around the average. So the former belongs to extremistan and later belongs to the medocristan. The black swan tends to occur in extremistan. Economics and Business are scalable elements thus are prone to black swan effect. The success of Windows and Google are black swans which no one can predict.

3) Confirmation and evidence - There is a big difference between 'Absence of proof' and 'Proof of absence'. Suppose I meet a person everyday and I know he is very humble and decent but he is convicted of killing his wife. I cannot say that he has not killed his wife just because I have not seen it. My absence during the murder just makes it' absence of proof' for me but in no way it is 'proof of absence'. Consider a 'Chicken' inside a cage and it finds that a human feeds it everyday so for 1000 days the human is the best possible being on this planet but on the 1001st day the chicken is on the dinner table. All the inferences drawn during first 1000 days were proven wrong on the 1001st day. So the absence of proof for the first 1000 days did not made it proof of absence.

4) Narrative fallacy - The author is of view that our mind is wired to draw conclusions from events. We tend to reduce complexity and dimensions of matter to make it more easy for us to comprehend to give every event a logical explanation. He calls it Narrative fallacy or cause trap. We have to invent cause for everything that has happened we just can not take it as a random event. We all suffer from this theorizing disease and this make the world seem less random than it really is.

5) The problem of silent evidence - Cicero the great roman thinker presented the following story where a man named Diagoras a non beliver was shown clay potraits of some persons who prayed and survived a shipwreck. The implication was that praying protects from drowning. Diagoras asked where the pictures of those who prayed and then drowned . The drowned worshippers being dead would have lot of trouble advertising their experiences from the bottom of the sea. This can fool the observers to believe in miracles. This is called the problem of silent evidence. Our bookstalls are filled with business books which will tell you what their author did to succeed. There will not a single book by some one who did exactly the same and still failed. Readers would not pay $$ for a story of a failure even if you convinced that it had more useful tricks than a story of success.

6) We just can't predict - Most of the technologies which have revolutionalized our lives were unpredictable - computers, internet ,laser were invented long before they actually showed any impact on the world. We as humans have no tools to predict outcomes in random world of extremistan. The author find it scandalous that in spite of the empirical record we continue to project into future using tools and methods that exclude rare events.

When Missing train is painless - Missing a train is painful only when you run after it . Like wise not matching the idea of success other expects from you is only painful if that's what you are seeking. Thus the aim in black swan terms is that you are exposed to the improbable only when you let it control you. It is very difficult to be a loser in the game you set up yourself. However the author concludes that all this philosophy, all the problems and scary losses are small when compared to our own existence. We are quick to forget that just being alive is an extraordinary piece of good luck a remote event, a chance occurrence of monstrous proportions. Don't be ingrate who got a castle as a present and worried about the mildew in the bathroom. We must remember that we all ourselves are Black Swans.

For the love of money

2007-07-23T09:49:00.000-07:00

When I was young I thought money was everything but when I grew up I realize it was true - Well I am not behind this great thought but somehow it strikes you. It speaks of a naked truth which we all know but hesitate to acknowledge. We all love wealth, lets be true to ourselves if you are getting it you will not say no to it. I know money is not the start and end of everything but it makes us get up daily and get our ass to work. We change jobs, work harder, do double shifts, update skill sets, pray to the almighty, invest in stocks to have more and more of the ever elusive wealth. Well I understand that all the work we do may not be for money but still we have to work for it.
Money is so important that we require it even before our birth and will need it to perform our last rights. You spend your childhood mugging up books writing exams , working hard to get into a good college to land a good job which pays a fat pay check or get you ass nailed doing a business and running after the money till your body is fatigued enough to say good bye. If someone says 'I don't need money' or 'I don't like it' the bastard is either lazy or is an incarnation from a parallel universe where the competitive laws of natural selection does not work. Bloody hell you need a decent pay check to afford a girl friend now days. If you are broke and your girl is still with you perhaps she is on dope or is having multiple boyfriends. You need a great apartment, a sleek car and a fat bank balance before being considered lovable. Believe me I know this.

So no harm in loving wealth, at least it is better than loving poverty. You don't have to be money minded sinister being to earn it but you can still love it. When we can love our parents and friends and yes girl friends too all at the same time, we can love money along with our work. We just have to prioritize. I have learned this and have learned this hard way till you love something for what it is and accept it with all its positives and negatives you really can never have it. It is true for all relationships and so is true for money. So next time you look at the dollar bill spare a thought for it. Give poor money a chance and your life will never be same again...

Surviving Mumbai Rains

2007-07-01T08:15:00.000-07:00

The monsoon is here and it seems it has plentiful to shower on to we fellow mumbaikars. We are blessed no doubt but perhaps we are not ready to accept so much of this divine showers. The century old drainage system is collapsing under this heavy rain, old buildings are crumbling, railway tracks are gutted and what we have is knee deep water everywhere. The media is on the streets showing how useless is the civil administration and how in spite of great riches that this city produces it is worse than a medieval township.
Authorities are saying that media and public are expecting too much and too soon. They are blaming everyone expect themselves for the plight of the common people. I guess common people have lost their faith in them and have started accepting this also a way of life. This city has seen lots of bad days with bomb blasts, roits, and floods and has survived them all. People are now use to water filled homes and blame no one except god for it.
This however shows we as a nation and a city have a long way to go before we can even look back and admire ourselves. Perhaps one day this city will again welcome rains with open drains, open roads, open arms and open dreams.

So many things to thank for!

2007-06-18T23:57:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, it was real hard at work. Everything was going wrong and it seems almost everyone in the world is after me. With this tension over my head I could seldom sleep. I guess my insomniac existence brought the philosopher out of me. I just happen to ask god why I have been chosen for such a hard life. I just thought of complaining of things I don't have and how all my problems are giant behemoths waiting to trample me to pulp and extract life out of my meaningless existence. At that very moment I could hear someone talking to me and showing me the numerous things I have and should be happy about. It began to dawn on me that I should be thankful for so many wonderful things I have been blessed with. Not everyone is fortunate enough to have a great family supporting and liberal parents, great friends, healthy body, stable mind (well almost), freedom of speech, free society and free market, unlimited carrier opportunities, patience to meditate, great school life and even better college life, stable cash flows, knowledge and wealth creation mindset, warm clothes, fresh food and I guess I can continue for ever.. So in comparison to all this my worries seems so insignificant that I woke up to a great morning and perhaps had this revelation that god gives us more than we ever imagined it is we ourselves are busy looking into other's basket that we forget to open our warehouse..

The Gods of our times

2007-04-30T10:47:00.000-07:00

It was so one sided that it seems that the mortals are up against the might of the gods. The recently concluded cricket worldcup emphasized that there is only one winner and the rest doesn't matter. It has been three world cups now and it does not seem that Australians can be defeated. They are ruling the world cricket with their sheer power. They have played against every team and came out victorious every time. The recent flip in their form just before the world cup was the calm before the storm. They stormed into the cup and defeated every opponent ruthlessly. They outplayed every team in every possible way. Before the cup the cricket lovers were hoping that the other cricketing nations will be able to put up some fight against the champions but it was like a walk in the park for them.
Well its their age now and they will continue to dominate tills its time. The Romans dominance never lasted and so will theirs but till then they are the god of our times...

Small towns

2007-04-15T06:11:00.000-07:00

Cities have spread far and wide signifying the might and zenith of human civilization. Cities have always been regarded as the hallmark of great cultures. They are the engines of growth. They bring together countless souls to a common platform creating an efficient system producing goods and services to improve the quality of life.
Ironically the cities don't have the quality of life they themselves work for. Cities though have millions living in them but are strikingly individualistic. The life in a city is about being the fastest, the sharpest and the smartest of all. It is always moving and never gives you chance to see life as it passes. Living in cities is just about doing jobs to fuel the ever growing human need and everyone is just a small nut in this big machine and before we know the life we have been living it is almost gone. Small towns do offer some hope where life is still about being happy, it’s about celebrating life with family and friends the pace is slow enough to notice the very life we are living.
Well living in cities may be addictive and great and there is no harm in individualistic outlook of life but living in small towns close to nature with lots of time for family friends and for self seems better. I love the zing and energy of great cities but its just the calmness of towns that make me fall in love with them.

International women's day

2007-03-08T09:22:00.000-08:00

Well I am just in time to write about the International women's day. It 11'0 clock here and still an hour left for the celebrations. I am not very proud of my general knowledge but I have not celebrated International men's day so far. Infact back in old town of ours we use to celebrate just the children's day which is to mark the occasion called childhood. It was not until my grad school that I heard about this day. The day was never special for any of the women I have met infact they themselves were not aware of it. Well I guess they may not be that feminist or their cortex must be as dull as mine. However with the media boom here in this country every damn channel was fighting for their bread and butter and thus they started jumping on any thing they could starting from the valentine's day to rose day and god knows what.
I however personally feel that celebrating women's day is not all that bad as women hood is something worth celebrating. Can we man also celebrate our manhood...ummm let me think.....ummm. Ok I will put this across some of our friends from Punjab and Haryana notoriously known for female foeticide. I am myself from Haryana and I am ashamed of it.
Women may not need themselves to be reminded of their contribution to the human civilization but I think this day is for us men to sit back and think of all the women who has contributed in bringing us where we are.
World over the women is at the receiving end and I think it will still take a broad minded and more civilized human society to give deserving share to women. The international women's day is just another day for many but at least it reminds us how we as a civilization has been treating women as a second grade citizen for time immemorial. I hope soon we can celebrate this day as international equality day sometimes in not that distant future.

Dating Miss Congeniality

2007-02-02T08:30:00.000-08:00

My old pal from school is one of the greatest dating geniuses known to mankind. He often tells me that Dating is like doing a business. It can get boring, embarrassing and outright humiliating but you have to make sure you always follow your client's ass. You have to convince your client that whatever you are selling is suiting the needs and is a value for his money. He preached following all the marketing principles we use doing a business including maintaining a profit loss account. He however warned to not to do it as a job else it will take us to our doom. I never took him seriously till he got ditched by his latest sweetheart and had to take therapy lessons from a psychologist. Once I casually told him that all his principles of carrying out this dating game is bull and he should now start taking relationships seriously. I was shocked to hear that he was just taking the therapy to make his girlfriend guilty and thus giving himself an outside chance of getting her back.
It was during that point I met this great girl who seems to be the angel from the other world. She was a social worker, a musician and a corporate consultant. I met her through a common friend and we hit it right from the word go. We had common taste in movies, music, books and life in general. She was peppy and cheerful all the time. It seemed I was blessed. We use to go out very often and all went great for about 2 months and after that things suddenly start changing when she required me to change some of my habits and wanted me to be more like someone she wanted me to become. I was ok as I am all for adjustments in relationships but I forgot my friends greatest warning to never date like a job. The more I change the more I was expected to and I start feeling as if I am being transformed to someone completely different.

It became apparent that I will have to talk to her about her expectations and my existence in general. I called her for an evening walk after office to talk about it. Initially she was really angry hearing my complaints but later during the conversation confessed that she has been hard on me as she wanted me to be like her past boyfriend. She told me that the relationship is important to her but she will always expect me to be like him.
I felt used in every possible sense but I was able to maintain my composure and had to walk away. I didn't know what to say to her. She called the next day and we are good friends now but it was a lesson learnt hard and made me careful both with my clients and with my dates.

Meeting a procrastinator

2007-01-21T10:36:00.000-08:00

The last evening was unusual. The air was thick with stench coming out of decaying shapeless entities. It was making me nervous and I was having difficulty holding it to myself. I was about to go for my evening walk that suddenly this gentleman appeared from no where. He headed straight for me and almost got me by surprise. He introduced himself with a warm smile. He was young energetic and looked very bright. Sudden appearance of this man made me comfortable than what I was before his arrival. But before I could put up any query regarding the meeting I was dragged into. He just started with telling me that he wanted to thank me for all that I have done for him. He told me how my timely help, care and dedication towards him made him feel thankful of me. Before I could speak he continued that over the years I have groomed him and have feed him and have nursed him. His survival and well being was directly linked to the work I have been doing for him. He told me that he longer does any work and off late he has postponed all his work sine die because of my assurances. Before I could make any sense of it he bragged that now he no longer worry about his future as my increasing support to him seems very lucrative. He however felt sorry that I will just be a slave to him. At this statement I just lost it. I was about to hit him hard and ask him why the hell was he chewing my brain? But I could not move my lips. His warm smile turned to a devilish grin. I tried hard recognizing him and slowly he started morphing to someone known. He was now wearing the same clothing as I was in. He started fading fully till I recognize that I was standing in front of my bathroom mirror looking into it doing nothing. It began to appear now that I was talking to my procrastinated self whom I have created because of my laziness. He has grown stronger and is now making fun of me laughing on all my failures.

I learnt my lesson it was time for another battle and this time it was with my laziness. It has to die for me to survive. Wish me luck ......

2006 - The year that was..

2007-01-01T10:04:00.000-08:00

2006 is now the part of history and today on the very first day of the new year it is time to take stock. 2006 began with promise and was quite a bit of fun for the first two months. It will be a special year for me as I move out of the country and travelled half the globe for the first time. The trip to toronto was awesome and was quite an experience. The wind chills of -20 degrees, the burgers at taco bell, the indian thali at the agra resturant and the visit to the grand Niagra all were an expereince of a lifetime. The third month was exactly the opposite. It was one of the testing times of my life. It took me next six months to recover from the shocks. This year was quite testing financially and drained my resources quite a bit. This year gave a new direction to our business and had its unpleasent moments. New members were added to the family and some left us. All in all it was an unique expereince and hopefully this year will be unique too.

Best wishes to me for the coming year!!

Death of a gentleman

2006-12-28T06:25:00.000-08:00

Death is such a big constant in all our lives that it deviously hides itself from us. I live everyday of my life mostly as if I were to live forever. The beauty of the creation is that we are all inertial beings and ironically change is the fundamental law governing us. This disparity creates all the behavioral and mathematical constructs enveloping us all around and even making us a part of it. Occasional events do make us realize the fallacy of our existence. Recently one of the incidents made me sit and think about how fragile we all are and whatever we may do and whatever we may achieve it all stays here and we just have to move on. The view described here may look pessimistic but void of the glass is really not empty and it is just my way of looking beyond the obvious. The death they say is just a transition and I believe that so it may be painful but necessary for all of us. Life beyond our physical self may be out of our comprehension now but I think working on it can help us overcome its fear and we can accept it as a fact and prepare for it as well. Our karmic struggle through this world is the part of larger scheme of things and living in this world I think is just a one act play.
We may not live forever but we will exist infinitely.

Infosys - Living An Indian Dream

2006-11-14T08:28:00.000-08:00

Before I begin I must clarify that I am in no way related to Infosys. I never worked for it nor do I own any of its equity. It is my account of what I know as a common Indian. Infosys as an organization commands a high respect in every sense one can think of. Being an Indian I am really proud of it. What is great about Infosys is not that its founders converted 250 dollars into the billion dollar behemoth it is today but the value system it has preserved over the years.
Recently I was reading an interesting account on highly successful companies which have lasted more than a century. The author concluded that all of those companies share among them a total dedication to their values. They held onto them even in odd times and were ready to give up their profits for it. It gave them the agility to survive the ever changing business paradigms. In this competitive world of deceit, lie and profit mongers how is it possible to hold on to some idealistic principles? But I guess organizations are like humans each with a unique character and personality. It has its own set of values which may reflect the outlook of their founders or managers. Over the period of time it assimilates into the organizational behavior and reflects in every task it performs. I am sure times must have tested Infosys to give up their value system but their persistence with it has taken them where they are. It is really built to last. I hope it will continue to persist with its value system and will outlive many technological changes and business cycles.

They are living the Indian dream! We are all proud of it..
Jai Hind..

A day before the vacations

2006-10-18T00:26:00.000-07:00

Hurray! It is a long vacation this time. Seems like school days are back. Excited about going home. Together with friends and family. Long walks into the green fields. The early sunrise and lazy evenings. Home cooked food. No office calls. No internet. Lots of books to read. Family functions and festivals. Old streets and new houses. Old lanes and new markets. Old city and new people. Going summer and incoming winter. Comfortable chill and fading sunshine. Long philosphical chats. No sensex and no investments. Family picnics and beer nights. Old school building with new paint. No competition but collaboration. Helping out Mom. Discussion with Dad. Laughing out with cousins and aunts. Wide lanes and broken roads. Clean air and stress less sleep. Small rooms and big hearts. It is a long vacation this time.

This too will not last forever

2006-10-11T03:34:00.000-07:00

The statement reveals a simple but a very powerful truth. It has been a guiding force for me for quite some time now. It is very encouraging when everything around is crumbling and it becomes hard to keep the self belief. It comes handy when everything is going right and it is necessary to keep once composure. This idea helps me treat both the failure and success equally. I may look like a idealistic moron but believe me it does relieve me from the pain of loss,dissappointment and failure. It also has helped being fare during good times but was hard to remember for sure then. Today when the things are not very good and the self belief has taken a beating it has come as a god gift providing some latent energy to keep me going. I may be scared now but this too will not last forever.

Why I write blogs ??

2006-09-23T07:37:00.000-07:00

While working on one of company's whitepaper I randomly thought of psyche of a blog writer and how suddenly blogging has been providing me that ever elusive creative freedom. I happened to ask myself why I have been writing blogs? The voice inside barked back,” Do you really want to know?”. I asked,”Why not?” And he just started...

You write blogs because you feel you are a fucking moralist! You write blogs because the loser from the high school now owns more sports car than the counting he use to know. You write blogs because the hot chick in the college called you bhaiya.......eeeeeeeeee. Your so called former girl friend has six digit salary and is settled in europe. The rowdy goon from the locality just got one more license for a wine shop. The share price of the so called mid level jewel is going down even in the bull market taking yours $$ with it. You have not seen sunrise and sunset for last three years. The television no longer serves any purpose. Saas bahus have destroyed it all. Number system and calculus have stopped making sense and theoretical physics just got upgraded to more mystic level. Colleagues no longer pay attention to your thoughts or whatever they are and team members don't buy the big lectures during office meetings. Exercise and meditation can't be done while sleeping.
Stop ! for fuck sake!! What the hell are you saying? It can't be true. I write blogs because it is a excellent form of expressing and sharing!!
Bull shit! You write blogs as you are good for nothing else and want to torture peaceful people in cyber space who happen to read to them.
I don't want to know more! Get lost..... I stopped the bugger but have'nt got my answer yet!!

Gandhigiri in Technology(Doesn't make any sense)

2006-09-14T10:32:00.000-07:00

Most of my technocrat friends seem to believe that the Gandhian principles of truth and non violence seem to have lost meaning with changing times. Technology they say is only for the aggressive, ruthless and competent. The gandhian philosophy doesn’t even work in social interactions how can you think of using it in technology. It seems a fair assessment to many but while recently celebrating the centenary of Satyagraha this year I tried applying gandhian ideals to technology and was amazed with the results.
If we look deep into the gandhian thought process it is purely a truth driven platform. It requires a truthful conscience to load a gandhian thought. The input to the platform is similar worldly queries seeking permissions for all our physical activities. It provides its output in terms of applicable activity depending on the version of the gandian software installed. The activity decision may be overridden by other conflicting processes running which involves fear, greed and negative influences. If sufficient mind memory is provided to the gandhain platform it will become powerful enough to override other platforms and the activity will be purely governed by this process.
If we look into our technology driven industries IT for example is purely a fact driven system. The logic flow which is the building block of all technological systems are all based on truth of the laws and matter governing them. A computer system will not work if mathematical logic governing the system becomes false for some reason. So we at all times require truth to be in place for technology to work. This also ascertains the fact there is only the truth that exist. Everything that is not true has to turn to truth and logically it does not have an opposite word. The opposite of truth can be just another truth. So all this time coding and creating programs I was doing nothing but gandhigiri so to say. In fact the time I was not coding as per the principles of gandhigiri the program created was buggy. For a program to run successfully it has to align itself to the syntactic and semantic principles laid down by gandhigiri.

So at least my profession allows me to follow the principles of Gandhi and I am really excited about it. This all boils down to the choices we have while coding or while living. Gandhigiri may seem obsolete but it is the only choice we have or else neither we are coding nor living.

Satyagraha, Gandhi and 9/11

2006-09-10T14:24:00.000-07:00

100 years ago this day Mahatma started a struggle with a unique style. His only weapon was truth. He rightly called it 'Satyagraha'. Satyagraha means request with truth. I am writing this blog today not only as a reminder of Mahatma's conviction but as to picture it along the ghastly incident of september 11 2001. It has been 5 years since America was attacked and world has become a more dangerous and painful place. To come back to satyagraha 'request' can seem deceptive as begging but when we request we are infact keeping the opponent at the same level as we are. We try to force our requirement when to us the opponent is either more powerful or weak. The use of force always seem an apparent solution for all problems but it seldom is.

We as IT generation guys don't even consider satyagraha as an option. It to us is like an outdated software which is no more in use but we must not forget that satyagraha is as relevant as truth is. Truth in itself is the core of all human values and principles. It may seem outdated but we can't exist without it. The only question is What the truth is. The millitants of 9/11 had their truth on their side and we as individuals living in a terror affected country have our own truth. Its the fight between our truth and theirs. Can we win a war for truth only with bombs. For sure we need the tool of satyagraha. Making truth our tool is a long and painful process but it is the only solution. Perhaps when all our truth coincides our civilization can take a quantum leap.

A date with the Ganesha

2006-08-28T22:17:00.000-07:00

With the blessings of the eternal lord we celebrated Ganesh Chaturthi in our mumbai office this year. The office was near completion and to begin our innings in the new surroundings the ganesh pooja was planned. Ganpati is a big occasion in Maharastra since preindependent India when Lokmanya Balgangadhar tilak planned mass celebration of ganpati to bring together the people and organize them to fight for the mortherland. The tradition has continued and it has now become a very character of the state.
The pooja this year was on sunday however being a permanent addendum of the office surroundings I was excited to host the lord . Sunday morning was busy as I accomapnied Giri and Santosh to bring the ganesha to our office. It was slightly crowded but was fun waiting to have the first look. We brought back the lord with chants of 'ganapati bappa mourya'. The office was beautyfully decorated for the arrival by prashant and the boyz. It was all set and the pooja started with the arrival of the preist. It was was short but enlighting and was followed by a feast of the prasad. We had our evening aarti by 7:00 pm and the lord seem to enjoy every bit of it. I was fortunate enough to be blessed by his auspicious presence the whole night. With the gayatri chants breaking the silence of the night you can feel the positive energy flowing all around.
The next morning aarti was before the staff could arrive, however each staff member was able to experience his presence. After the evening pooja we took the lord for his final journey into the sea. With the divine chants of Ganpati bappa mourya we went into the sea which was beaming with devotes bidding a final goodbye to the lord. Finally the lord was let go and we came back drenched in his blessings.

The equations of physics depicts the natural facts in human acessible form like E= (mc)c. The eqaution depicts the way energy and mass are related e,m and c here does mean energy mass and speed of light but they are just the representative variables for humans to comprehend a natural law. In the same sense the pictorial and idol description of lord are for us mortals to comprehend the divine. We are really blessed to have found him in this form which can be seen and and get awed by his Mystic Presence. Ganapati Bappa Mourya

Bye Bye Pluto

2006-08-25T07:46:00.000-07:00

Farewell speech for our beloved PLUTO..

My heart pains today as we bid our final goodbye to cute little planet from the far end of our system. It has been a member our elite family of planets for last 76 years. Kids all over the world pictured it as little cool thing moving differently than other of its kind. Long before I could understand gravity and its sucking nature the orbit of pluto fasinated me. It looked to me as a rebel following a different path all together. It seemed to me as an acheiver who marked its presence within big boys and that also going by its own rule. Crossing over others orbits did make it a bit rogue but it was different and visionaries are unique. It didn't had the size but the attitude .
When I first read about it being a life less ice cold planet I was a bit disappointed but slowly could appreciate the amazing journey it makes through our solar system. It travels the most and perhaps have seen more than our giant planets. I got more respectful of it and its patience became a source of inspiration.
Now when textbooks will be rewritten it will no longer be there. Kids a few years later will not remember it and it will be gone. Oh! cruel world you have killed another rebel! But it has been a fighter and perhaps long after this civilization is gone it will come back as a rebel to challenge us again. Till then Bon Voyage!!!!!!

Tale of a Marriage and a Biryani

2006-08-18T07:36:00.000-07:00

Marriages are made in heaven and so are the Hyderabadi Biryanis.
- Saint Sushant
My visit this august to Hyderabad was a welcome break from the spine bending work pressure we have here in Mumbai. Raj our Geek friend from IIT shifted to Hyderabad this summer for good. He took our sister company his brainchild along with him to his city which is under tremendous growth trajectory like many of other indian cities after the IT revolution here. His marriage gave us the oppurchunity to visit the great city of Hyderabad. Luckily for me I was accompanied by best of my pals from here in mumbai and our techie friends from Hyderabad were more than willing to allow us in their newly rented luxorious apartment. The train journey was comfortable and enjoyable but not exiciting in absence of good chicks. We never thought that the drought was to continue through out the trip.

The next evening after the tins of beer our gang went for the great hyderabadi biryani. the resturant was grand and well matching was its name 'Paradise'. I guess now my statement above is making some sense. It was awesome food and the best thing was its cost. I lost count of the servings I had that day but in the end I could summarize that it was lot of food and the next morning was going to be tough. When we ordered 'Khubani ka meetha' The sight only was so tempting that i took the risk of gobbling it inspite of my full house . When we came out the city was almost closed it was a diffrent sight when compared to mumbai but was good for a change.
The next morning was the big occassion. Marraige was at 10:30 am and we were too tired to got up that early, besides we were used to the delays of north indian weddings. We were a sharp 1 hour late. I couldn't believe that the ceremony was almost over. We could only went to say 'Hi' to the couple and shamelessly smiled for the photographs.

It was a bit let down as I felt we came all the way from mumbai for a free lunch. Believe me I can do that but this time I would have very much liked to attend the occassion. However our commitment to a belly full of meal was never to be compromised and we effortlessly marched towards the food court. After the meal we came back to our den and just pondered over the life our freind is now going to have.

Thereafter we tried covering whatever was possible in next two days. The last day we went to the old city to visit charminar. It was a ocean of people and resembled the mumbai locals in spirit and sight. The charminar was a let down as it has not been properly conserved and the people here in this country are expert in defacing the historical monuments. However the thing which striked us the most was the lunch at the resturant'Shadab'. Highly recommended for anyone going to hyderabad. If you are a Non-Veg try the chicken Pakistani and the biryani is no doubt awesome.

The visit was overwhelming but was fulfilling in all the ways one can think off. Whether it was the night long gossips about girlz , the beer cans, the wonderful marriage, meeting up with old friends or the Heavenly Biryanis it was a hell of a trip.

Fading reflections

2006-07-03T06:37:00.000-07:00

I always believed we as human beings only perceive the reflections. What we observe and interpret in our general life is more of a mirror image of the fact. It though symmetric to the real world is still a image governed and even manipulated by the laws of higher order. This blog is however not about philosophical interpretation of mirrorical universe but its results over a period of time on my life.
This blog is about friends and friendship. Humans being a social animal always seeks companionship and exhibit powerful group behavior. Friends form an integral part of our existence. One of a popular seer of our time once remarked that it is only the best friend we will meet in the world beyond (Heaven). Well I am not sure of the other world (hell or heaven) but I am very sure that we in this world do need friends for a having a life worth living. Different friends contribute differently to our lives during different stages of our lives. This blog is for those friends who are no longer part of my life and have left behind nothing except for memories to cherished and fading reflections to look at.

Earliest friends are from the junior school where we form friendship just by intuition and not for profit making and the bonds are the strongest then. But sadly the friendship rarely survives when we move to high schools and they all are lost somewhere as a part of neuron database. The high school friends are made during a much mature age so the principles of Game theory come in picture. Friends are made with common habits, common subjects and sometimes because of common hatred. We loose touch with them generally due to change in college and carrier preferences. College friends are made on more mature terms and our own decision plays a greater part. College friends tend be far more stable elements than any of the other breeds of friends. However they also loose touch as we get more involved in quenching our individualistic requirements . During this period the friends we make are generally to meet some of our needs. We rarely made good friends during our profession however exceptions are always there. However we all need good friends and it is painful to part with them. Social dynamics make sure that people become friends and move out of each other's life only to leave back memories. Today when i look back on all those past years Ii can just see fade reflections of all those who were once the people I called friend.

Here I stand watching those fading reflections of the people who were once part of my life with hope that they will brighten up at least for once.

'Far up to the hills'

2006-07-02T23:23:00.000-07:00

It was 'far' so to say in terms of traditional weekend getaways. But it was worth the every mile traveled. We planned our trip just before monsoons to get out of the world climate and a negligible crowd. We planned with quite a few people to begin with but few of them backed out due to one or the other reasons, perhaps everyone does not deserve a heaven on earth. But finally we were ready with our group which add up to the lucky'13'.
We set sailing in out state of the art 17 seater cruiser on Friday evening. As the vehicle had all the accessories including the CD player and the plasma TV we make it a point to carry few of our audio and video Cds. We boarded the van at about 5:30 in the evening. The van just managed to clear the mumbai traffic and from panvel it was a real straight road. As the music start playing the tall buildings out side was replaced by lush green hills. we all were awestruck with the beauty side and the driver raced it towards the destination which is called 'Amboli' .

Amboli is in southern konkan about 530 kms from mumbai and 60 kms before goa. It is best when covered while

coming back from a trip to goa. But it a pleasant getaway where anyone can just go and chill. You will not have to switch off your mobile as the service is very weak in most of the places. So all in all a perfect hiding place for the overworked.

The journey was taking its toll while going through all those hilly curvy roads and people inside were desperate to get down. We halted at few places for dinner , refershment and diesel. Finally all our prayers were answered and about 5:00 in the morning the night began to disappear and what we saw was out of the world.

The view was so beautiful that you can just expereince that and can't bring it back in photographs. We all were tired with ourovernight journey but a single glimpse of the view outside gave our energy levels a quantum leap and we all were busy looking into the windows clicking photographs. No body was tired nobody. As the sun came out it got much greener and much exotic. We all in true sense were awestruck.

We reached the place at about 6:00 am and booked a lodge soon after. We quickly got freshenup and left for the nearest point. No one wanted to have rest then. It was about 2.5 km from our lodge. We thought of walking the distance. The way to the point was lush green hills with lots of bush berries. We had one dog as our guide to the place. He accomapnied us to the point showing us the path. The climate was soothing and it was really a refreshing expereince which you can never get in mumbai.
The point was amazing and was crowdless. It was so magical that you want all your life to be so pleasent. We tried catching as much as possible to bring back with us.

We came back to have some rest and then it was one point to the other covering the waterfalls,temples,forest plantations and whatever possible in next two days.
The visit was thrilling in all its manifestations. More than anything else it gave us all a time to look into ourselves while bouncing with the clouds in mother nature's lap.

For more information on amboli visit.
www.mtdcindia.com

Respecting my failures

2006-06-14T10:49:00.000-07:00

Failures are one of the mightiest killers of human ego. They torment our human existence and are highly notorious for mutilating self confidence and esteem. In extreme cases it even drives a person crazy to the limits where he finds death a better known refuge than his agonising life.

They comes in various shapes and sizes and can struck anyone anywhere without any warning. Their unpredictibility make them highly ferocious and scary. They are mostly hated and cursed the world over. They have brought down kingdoms and kings, nations and nationalities and civilizations and cultures. They are cruel, reckless and destroyer.

But if we ask ourselves are they really that bad? We will find that they have hidden from us their real nature. They are in reality our greatest teachers. They may teach us our lessons the hard way but they make sure we learn them properly. They repeat themselves over us again and again so that we get our lessons properly and later on they gift us with the success as per our calibre. I consider them an essential part of our existence and development. No success can exist without failures and if you feel that you have no failures then you are not sucessful enough.

My failures also have taught me everything of little bit that I know. They have made me more humane and were always there to make sure I have my feet firmly placed on ground even while flying. They have a major contribution in building my character so I can't help myself respecting them. They were always there with me whenever I had not given my 100 % and sometimes even with my 100% effort to emphasize, dude 100% is really not enough.
If we consider our life as a journey then our failures really represents the road and success is just the guest house where we stay for a while to have rest. We can't stay in the guest house for ever and have to move on the same road and thus failures our the real torch bearers which accompany us always when we travel. They never get back the love and affection they give us still they are always there like a loyal friend and don't mind us enjoying our days and nights with our success.
Well now they don't scare me as they have reavealed themselves to me. I can never be loyal to them but still I know they will be there round the next corner waiting to be with me.
I can just thank them for making me myself...

Poor Maria 'n' Me

2006-05-16T10:03:00.000-07:00

Maria was a sweet girl always full of energy. Her vibrancy and intelligence made her quite popular among her peers. I was introduced to her in a party where she came with her mom and kid brother. We never met for quite some time after that but fate had different plans. Suddenly one day she came to my house with one of her friend to clear some doubts about a notoriously complex subject. Thankfully i was prepared. And after that it was like 'Locality of Refrence' she was acessed everywhere I was going- Railway station, Autorickshaw stands, Bookshops, vegetable markets and even in my dreams. Well I start falling for her. I tried controlling myself as I was handling so many things at that point of time that a mere addition of a thought would have messed up my schdule so pursuing a girl and making up to her expectation was out of the question. I tried exploring the possibilities of my success rate and it was coming out to be pathetically low given the amount of time and energy i could have invested into that venture. My mathematical calculations tallied with my general sense and the idea was put on the bench more like our CMM level 5 companies to accomodate free time, energy and money.

Relationship between individuals show infalliable symmetry to normal trignometric functions. The following 3D curve is the parametric solution for x= Asin(at+@) and y = Bsin(bt)

The above depicted mesh tends to define ups and down in human relational behaviour. In my case i found a much simpler curve which was describing my situation. It was the good old tan(x).

The red lines in the above diagram refers to love quotient which was swinging to both infinites with devastating regularity. The non metric state of my existence started showing grave results with symtoms like loss of apetite, sleep and humour(bad ofcourse). I tried bringing my condition to normal with regular Yoga, Meditation and aerobics. But things went bad to worse and nothing was accurately working.

Then came monsoons(Oh I love rains) and with change of season things started changing. I happen to rent her umbrella once while coming back from railway station. In the evening I went to return it and she was alone that day sitting on her PC. As soon as I entered her house it started raining again. So over a cup of tea we sat for a long chat.

I was never a fan of tea inspite of epidemiological and laboratory studies suggesting a relationship between tea consumption and reduced risk of several types of cancer, including oral, digestive, lung and colorectal, and that tea had greater antioxidant power in vitro than many fruits and vegetables. Well at this point I will not mind you guys going for a Tea break but do come back.

Wow man that was good. She was more inteligent, smart and humurous than I had imagined.
After that the meeting her was a regular phenomenon and my love quotient was behaving like the following diagram

The red spot in the above diagram refers to the point where human senses start failing and after that the human behaviour becomes unpredictible more like a Share market after a long bull run. So undeniably I found myself doing things which I would have never imagined. I use to got up early to meet her, use to wear washed clothes with lots of deodrant, long telephone chats and even tried cooking. Oh god ! those were the days.
Sometimes we use to have those bad days when Cricket use to take priority over a phone call. But its was fun and it was great and I could had never imagined what was coming ahead.

Ellipse represents a closed structure and its equation generally defining attractive systems from the parsec scales to microscopic ones. Earth and planets attaracted to sun revolve around it in elliptical orbits and electrons revolve round nucleus in closed circular paths which is also a special ellipse. Ellipse is defined as x2/a2+y2/b2=1 when centered at origin. where 2 represents sqaure, a and b are parameters. Even humans depict elliptical behaviour when attracted to each other.
I was sure we were a closed elliptical and stable system. But I guess one of the parameters was negative and it end up being a hyberbola. The curve never meet and its only the tangent that touches both.

One fine morning I got a call from her. I was busy planning for the gift for her next birthday which was round the corner. She just said she is going to her hometown for a week and from there she will be flying abroad for her higher studies. I congratulated her and enquired about the details. She only said , " I am sorry" . Sorry for what? Wait... Listen.. Beep.Beep. Beep...

I tried calling her that day. Went to her home. It was locked. She just vanished in thin air. I heard that her father's business had something to do with their sudden departure. The end was abrupt. I could not bid her a farewell. I could never met her again.
Maria was not her real name but she use to like it very much.

Once in a while even now over a cup of Tea we chat . Perhaps she never left.

Creating a Matrix

2006-05-03T04:08:00.000-07:00

Well as the name of my blog suggest I am a huge fan of Matrix triology- the first two parts being the best. The concept of matrix was not alien to me when i saw the movie for the first time but i must admit I was fully amazed and entertained by it. However being an inhabitant of a technology driven world its not hard to imagine building blocks for a fully functional 'Matrix'. A matrix by definition is a simulated environment where an inhabaitant will never be aware of the simulation. Now the word aware digs its way to human consciousness. Genetically biologists have concluded that the human consciousness is a recent developmement not for than few thousand years old. We became self aware as our brain grew complex so we can conclude that complexity is directly proportional to consciousness.

Now if we want to create a matrix of our own what will we require. Let us write down few of the elements that we feel should be part of our matrix.

1) Self aware conscious entities.
2) Self aware but non conscious entities.
3) Inert structural entities.
4) Set of physical laws.
5) Evolving laws for the system and the entity interaction rule set.

If we look at the the world around we can easily find servers churning more than 10^12 bytes of data. With the explosion of data and information in next few years we will reach the complexity of human brain. So for creating a matrix we will need a system which can churn out a huge amount of data for us. So such a system will require a constant source of energy. Now what we will need is the physical laws joining the raw data to meaning ful information. Now to reduce our processing cost what we will do is to replicate structures thus we will form tiny possible units which will join in zillion different ways to form higher structural units. This method will reduce the processing cost of data to a bare minimum. The higher level structures will have encapsulated interfaces and interacting mechanisms but everything will be broken down to base units during processing. So for creating say structure like earth what we will do is process our basic units to form higher structure. Interpolate the data to form complex structures so we save on power there and thus all the entities in our matrix will have a common unifying unit. The structures will operate as per the code governing physical laws and the underlying algorithm will cause the system to process more data and grow complex. Once the complexity crosses threshold it will form consciousness and the entity will be able to appreciate its existence and the the system as a whole. We can have various development cycles, patterns and curves for the self aware entities. The less powerful of them will have a more or less linear development cycle thus saving us on processing. The self aware and inert components will interact and normal cycle will determine things governing beginning and end. To reduce CPU usage we can have some fixed number of evolving algorithms governing the evolution and can be uniform across the planet.
To simulate complex star and galactic system we can have initially a weak interface available to the conscious entities. As the evolution enhances the complexity we can start extrapolating basic structures. We can however destroy the entities as and when they cross there threshold of knowledge base.

In our discussion as of now we have only discussed about the processing and not the memory and storage. The data storage and retreival should use highly efficient algorithms and also we should have a large RAM to keep the in-system data intact and running. Algorithms will however have side effect and mathematical anamolies which will cause unexplained events and structures like ghosts and devils. This will spice up our Matrix.

The above discussion is not entirely hypothetical. We know the number of calculations a human brain make and multiplying that with 6 billion will give us total processing requirement for all human brains. Add some processing power for interpolating micro and mega components and we are ready with a processor to simulate matrix.

All the above bull shit bring us to the conclusion that matrix can be constructed just as any other system and who knows we may be living in one of it. But frankly if you ask me
Who cares???

My conversation with GOD

2006-04-02T00:16:00.000-08:00

Well the other day, I was kind of getting pissed off without any damn reason. Things were all right and even the projects were meeting deadlines. I was in a best of health possible and had a good free meal so except for the vast quantity of food pushed into my belly nothing was bothering me much.
Still I was uncomfortable and was finding it hard to concentarte even on the late night videos. Unable to bear it I asked GOD if he was free for some chit chat. Well to my surprise he told me that he was a bit sleepy but anyway being a freind he can spare some time.

We started with general stuff pondering about the day that just passed. He told me it was a better day but tiring. I told him it was the same for me.

He said"I see your physical dimensions getting strecthed and you are getting unidirectional. Its good as long as you are satisfied."
I barked back" Satisfaction for me is a myth, If I am satisfied and content it will stop me from moving ahead"
GOD: But you are satisfied that your consious self is not satisfied with its physical existence.
Me: How can I be satisfied and unsatisfied at the same moment.
GOD: It is so evident even in natural dimensions that I feel sorry for the Guy who tried teaching you physics.
Me: I understand refrential and relative physics but how can there be two observers within myself.
GOD:You can't qunatify your observation of the world around. You view it differently from diferent places. What you see and observe depends on where you stand. Sometimes you climb up to have clearer view and sometimes you stand on the ground trying spitting on the moon.
Me:Well so do I decide when to climb up and when to get down.
GOD: Falling down is easy for matter and mind. The surrounding forces always facilitiate it but it will take effort to move up. Its not easy i know but you can if you try. Infact you will have to.
Me: You are just confusing me now. How can I be at two observation points at the same time.
GOD: You are at the same point but you are looking in different dimensions. You are higher from many things but there are still many hills to climb.
Me: Why it has to be so complex?
GOD: Its not. If you obsereve it, It will explain itself.
Me: Why don't you give me straight answers?
GOD: You are not asking the straight questions. Its the journey to find the right questions and when you have it you will no longer need my answers.
Me: Hmmm....
Me: I think it will take some time for me to chew upon. Anyway its getting late. You have some rest.
GOD: Ok, have rest and have fun. Give me a buzz when you are free i am just round the corner.
Me: Ok , Bye dude C u soon..

Toronto Diaries

2006-03-06T23:18:00.000-08:00

The visit to toronto this winter was amazing. Winter is definetely not the best of times to visit canada but the beauty of the place and relaxed atmoshphere there is so good that you feel blessed.

The snow fall, the magnificient niagra and crowdless subway everything was just great.

Philosphy

2006-02-09T11:11:00.000-08:00

It is said ,"Philosphers are the ones who live a misreable life only for others to talk about it, after their death". I will not agree with the comment on this however as the term misreable is undefined. We all live in individual worlds where the laws are goverened by our conscience or subconscience. These worlds intersect with each other and we do have common points of aggrement. It is however always relative of how we perceive and understands things in our world. In our world we define the wrong and the right, though the gravity of nearby worlds affect our laws but more or less the force generating from own self overrides the other weak forces of the nearby worlds. So for different individuals an event will have totally different effect. So a person living a life of a miser may be a subject of disgrace but the person may find immense pleasure in saving money. A person may decide to live like genghis khan or mahatma gandhi as per his underlying laws with objects around him having different meaning and values. Killing a person was adding value to genghis khan's life and non violence was adding the same to Mahatma gandhi. The majority of us may found the life and deeds of mahatma better than genghis only because our collective conscience shifts towards the high spiritual potential. We look up to the things we find difficult to do and which adds positive outlook to the objects and the world around it . However every individual tries to maximize thier subconscience output knowingly or unknownigly. So mahatma gandhi was getting same output from his life as genghis khan but being governed by different laws their effect was different on the physical world. Some of the actions a human does in his life may have come from his conscience which overrides the subconscience at times. All our deeds are result of the laws our subconscience makes and our conscience overrides.

So a philospher's misreable life may not have looked misreable to himself but would have simply been the painting of the two artists the conscience and the subconscience on the canvas of this world.

Writing on the wall

2006-02-05T07:33:00.000-08:00

This is the start