Boredom

I want to be a part of laughter and excited chatter; I want to let it wash me, bringing calmness as I catch my breathe and settle in. But I'm all alone.

I want to rest in a sandy beach leaning against a palm tree; I want to tumble into sleep listening to the lullaby of waves against the beach. Phew, I'm in Bangalore.

But this is it. For now, I'll just remember the good times. And for now I'll listen to some music, close my eyes and wait for the middle of the day to pass.

Trust

The five lettered word 'TRUST' though looks so simple, has got great meaning and strength with it. Its an emotion where we allow others to know our vulnerabilities believing they won't take advantage. Its difficult to imagine life without trust. Right from the moment we set our foot on this earth to the moment we sleep in our graves we find trust showing its prominence. Trusting our mother, father, brother and sister is a different thing; we share blood relation with them. Its only a friend who enters our life as a stranger, becomes an acquaintance and wins our trust.

"Friendship is not friendship without trust, without it I walk alone."
- James P. Michels Jr.

Friendship is not something which happens in a second; we don't take a person for granted as a friend when we meet him or her for the first time. It's something like Stop and Wait data communication method. In this Stop n Wait method, we send a message and wait for the acknowledgment before sending the next message. So do we share some information with that person, who is just an acquaintance, and righteous response is what we expect as acknowledgment. Trust builds up in this process and the person takes promotion from acquaintance to friend to best friend.

The Doog and the Dab

In every part of our life, when we think or act or in whatever we do, we are always accompanied by two different super-beings, whose presence we feel though we may not see. They peep into your head and try to manipulate what you think and what you do, but finally leave you the chance to choose. They are the Doog and the Dab.

People tend to ignore Dab mistaking it for the Bad. They fail to recognize that Dab is not Bad but the reverse of Bad which is the Good. And in a similar way end up falling into the trap set by seemingly Good who is also sounding similar to Good, the Doog, but fail to recognize that the Doog is actually not Good but the opposite of Good which is the Bad. It is always left to us to know what is Good and what is Bad from all the choices we have in every part of life. Presenting to you, the Doog and the Dab...

Economic Independence

“At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance..... We end today a period of ill fortune, and India discovers herself again.”

This is a part of the speech delivered by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru at the stroke of midnight on 15th August 1947 when India became an independent nation. And today we are an independent nation for over 60 years. But I still wonder if we can really call India independent! It is estimated that 20% of the population is below the poverty line and we call ourself independent. What are we independent of? Ignorance, poverty, superstitions, illiteracy, ethnic clashes, religious riots and the list goes on and on. Yes, we are independent of slavery, torture and injustice from the clutches of our imperialistic rulers. But does that mean we are completely independent. May be we should start celebrating August 15th as the day on which India became Politically Independent and that reminds us of the fact that we are yet to achieve Economic Independence. Gheorghe Elian, in his book "The Principle of Sovereignty Over Natural Resources", rightly says "One can hardly speak of a State's complete independence without its achieving economic independence, after freeing itself from political dependency." Political independence without economic independence can in no way free the teeming millions of the developing world from the poverty trap they are in.

Gandhiji is in a way lucky as he knew what or whom he should fight to achieve a politically independent country. But now we have many to fight against, and some are so trivial that we tend to neglect them even though they matter a lot. According to a recent report by UNESCO India has the highest rate of teacher absenteeism. As a consequence, we have failed to meet universal elementary education targets and we have the largest number of illiterates for any country. Need I say anything about corruption which is prevalent amongst every section of the society at every level. And we talk about independence in this nation where one third of its population earn less than Twenty Rupees a day. Being a part of independent nation, what do they have to celebrate?

We are independent in true sense only when we are economically free, only when no Indian goes to sleep hungry; only when every Indian can lead a life of dignity free from poverty, ignorance, and ill- health

Mumbai Blasts

This is in remembrance of all those 170 odd people who died in the serial train bomb blasts that rocked Mumbai exactly one year before on 11th July 2006. And nearly 900 people were injured in the incident, many severely. According to the Hindu newspaper dated 10th July 2007, many families are still to recover as the earning member of their family was dead or severely injured in the incident. And some victims are yet to recover from coma. Lets all pray that things will be fine for those affected families.

PS: Thanks to Dilip D'Souza for the compilation

The Matrix

Just like every other year campus recruitments happened and the freshers are almost done with the induction programme. And this year the freshers are all asked to send their academic details like courses, electives & projects done and the tools & technologies they are familiar with.
There is this one team in the company with only one requirement for the freshers in their team. And the project manager has given the HR a skill set requirement that should match for a fresher to be part of their team. The HR while analyzing the profiles of the freshers, come across a profile which matches to a very great extent. The HR personnel send the profile to the project manager, and they get an affirmative response but the final decision is left to the HR. The HR people then discuss among themselves.

CYPHER: We're not going to confirm him. Do you understand that?

TRINITY: Morpheus believes he is the One.

CYPHER: Do you?

TRINITY: I... it doesn't matter what I believe.

CYPHER: You don't, do you?

TRINITY: If you have something to say, I suggest you say it to Morpheus.

And the HR finally arranges a meeting between Morpheus, the Project Manager and the fresher.

************

MORPHEUS: At last.

MORPHEUS: Let me tell you why you are here. You have come because you know something. What you know you can't explain but you feel it. It's there like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad.Do you know what I'm talking about?

NEO: The Matrix? I have heard its an important project.

MORPHEUS: Do you want to know what it is?

Neo swallows hard and nods.

MORPHEUS: Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself. I can give u, just a basic intro.

Its to do with the NDA agreement. Access to the project info will be given only after signing the NDA.

Morpheus opens his hands. In the right is a red candy. In the left, a blue one.

MORPHEUS: This is your last chance. After this, there is no going back. You take the blue candy and the story ends. You will have to look after someother team.

The candies in his open hands are reflected in the glasses Neo uses to help him with his Myopia.

MORPHEUS: You take the red candy and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how great cutting edge technologies we use.

Neo feels the smooth surface of the candies, the moisture growing in his palms. After a split second decision he takes the red one.

Morpheus starts explaining him what the Matrix is all about. Listening to the entire OHT stuff Neo couldnt resist sleeping.


And the half-conscious Neo falls onto the floor. Human hands and arms help him up as he finds himself looking straight at Morpheus.

He smiles.

MORPHEUS: Welcome to the corporate world, Neo.

****************
****************
PS: Special mention goes to the site scifiscripts.com for the Matrix movie script.

Musings & Learnings for the day

Fantastic Four and its sequel Rise of the Silver Surfer, both the movies have taught me lessons. Yesterday night I was watching Fantastic Four, I have watched it before but thought of refreshing myself with this movie as I saw its sequel very recently, till 1.00 AM in the night and never realised when I slept. And today morning I found my glasses, spectacles I use to help me with my myopia, broken. So the lesson is obvious, if you are in a dilemma whether to buy a new pair of glasses or not watch movies till late in the night.

The sequel has taught me something very important. Those who have seen the movie will know how important Sue, The Invisible Woman, is among the Fantastic Four. The Silver Surfer, originally Norrin Radd from the planet Zenn La, who is supposed to destroy the Earth to save his planet from the hands of Galactus ends up helping the Fantanstic Four. The reason is, typical Indian movie sentiment, Sue reminds him of his back home (i mean back planet) love. This proves the importance and the advantage of having a team member of fairer sex. So all you managers and future managers out there, keep this point in mind.

Read the book Intelligent Design, atleast go through their website. It gives a completely different perspective of evolution, but the description of aliens match with my analysis to some extent.

If you happen to work on gcc and use gdb to debug the code, always use option -g for compiling the project. It will make your job easier while debugging.

Most of us aren't aware that Google's GTalk has come up with support for Conference, they call it Group Chat and have introduced only in the web version of their GTalk. Hope they support this feature in the regular version of GTalk very soon.

And this is something serious. Everyday on the way to office from home in the cab, I come across a traffic police who does his job very sincerely. But that perfection with which he signals and controls traffic make me laugh. And this is not the case with only me. May be its because we rarely come across people who do their job perfectly. But is that all we give in response for perfection?

Creativity Scaling New Heights!!

Tomorrow is national ILOVE U DAY if u get this that means u are loved. Send this to 10 people in the next 143 min and tomorrow will be your best day ever. Tonight at midnight your true love will realize that they love u. something good will happen to u at 1-4 pm tomorrow, it could be anywhere. Get ready for the biggest shock of ur life, if u break this chain u will be cursed w/o relationship problems for the next 10 years. If u get it back ur loved if u have a lot of love for someone... copy and send this to your whole list... in five minutes

Jeez, this is highly hilarious!! If I send this msg to all my list ( no matter they r guys/girls), then the GOD wid his magical powers makes my true love realize - irrespective whether i hav one or not - and mind u this happens only at the mid night!! Something good is gonna happen tomorrow itseems, yeah my manager is gonna screw me... but this happens to me almost everyday.. And no relationship for next 10 yrs, thats really sad!! And i cudnt really decode the meaning of the last line.. The funniest thing is itz jus NATIONAL LOVERS Day. So all these curses are applicable only to ppl of this nation.

But one more doubt strikes me, wat'll be the impact if I love a gal of different nation?

Our future

There are many reasons why one shud blog, or why I blog.. We, in general, arn't busy wid work all the time, right? So why not use the time & resources judiciously. And even if we hav work, working continuously is injurious to health, so relax n blog in between. In my case I, generally, am asked to come on weekends and work though thrz seriously no much to work. So why work on weekdays, jus blog! Work on weekends (n thaz impossible). You might get a gud dream while dozing off after having lunch, but tech is not so advanced to capture dreams. So jus blog.

Now lemme blog on our future. Wherez man heading to?

Man is gradually evolving into sum kinda...
.
..

PIG

Darwin might hav never dared to even dream abt such a change in the human evolution. Writing about this ill effect of fast foods n junk food on man will be loadsa fun, but i wanna deal wid a different perspective!

Twenty years before, we wud have considered refering to a box wid flickering images for route maps from anywhere to anywhere a wierdest n wildest dream, but wid the current days technology much more is possible. We, now, go to the rescue of our computers for nothing and everything. We neednt even wonder if the human evolution diagram gets updated in near future showing man wid a computer jus the way the man of stone age was shown wid arms made of stones.

With all this, its not much hard to imagine a virtual world. Further improvement in satellite imagery technology and the internet power, in near future, will takes us to any part of world in a split second and let us make transactions ( anything and everything like buy/sell) the way we do if we go there in person, without actually moving away from ur computer. To get the actual feel of the 3D world, our monitors may get replaced with some spectacles kinda thing.

All this fast improvement in technology, will show a slow n gradual impact on our features - the way we luk - with the concepts of evolution like structural adaptation and natural selection coming into picture. And can u imagine the result? Since there will be literally very less instances requiring us to move physically and very great deal of work for our eyes n brain, we wud end up having a very big head wid the two eyes n forehead occupying the major part of our head, needless to think of hair , and the body highly disproportional to the head. Summing up, we will be having a lean body wid a disproportionately large head - wid half the face being occupied by the forehead n no hair. If u pictorially represent all these features, occupied by the forehead n no hair. Pictorially representing,
Now u will understand why aliens, which are assumed to be intelligent in most movies, luk like this... They might have gone thru all these phases of evolution. So guys, if u want ur (great)^n grand children to luk like hrithik roshans and aishwarya rais, better stop thinking too much n better stop using computers

Get a luk at ur funny face..

"Plz Dont move" "Sit Straight" "Chin up" "Dont blink" "Look at me"

When a photographer clicks ur passport size photo or an artist drawing ur portrait will definitely say all these.. But certainly not these caricature artists. In the recent past, therez a pretty good increase in the number of On-the-spot-caricaturists. You can find these guys in fairs, pretty busy and deeply obsessed, drawing quick sketches & making people laugh luking at their faces.

These guys r fun, their main aim is to present wid a sketch retaining some features of the original & make it funny by deliberately screwing up the striking features. You gotta be careful if u want ur caricature not to luk like a . I had to wait for my turn as there were a couple of people who wanted to get their caricatures done; and so had an oppurtunity to do a kutti research.

Well, the caricaturist starts wid hair and captures it neatly, but not always (he messed up my hair). Since eyes say it all, he replicates them exactly. And there comes his features of interest - nose, then lips & teeth, followed by ears. Lips & teeth are the only features which u can make his draw the way u wish. You be will be asked to smile and u hav to realize that its a trap. If u end up showing ur teeth, thn u can easily kill ur fellow humans wid ur teeth in the caricature. If u smile too much but dont show ur teeth, yeah ur caricature will have the bozo look wid ur lips spreading from North America to Japan in a typical world map. The features of the nose will be exaggerated. Its fun to watch ur caricature, if u have a protruding nose or a wide one. And ears are upto him, he either draws elephant ears or sumthin much more funnier...

But get ur caricature done.. taz definitely fun!!

Express yourself wid Emoticons

All set to write a funny experience this evening, but then you see, with out these emoticons I couldnt convey myself properly. But mere colons & parenthisis also wont convey the emotions in an effective way. So started hunting, and my hunting aid is nothing else but the one & only Google, the super star of search engines. These smileys are some kinda addiction. At times I end up typing a :) or a :D even in reports..

After searching through Google, found this post where in the required scripts and instructions were given.
But there is a fix! With this script, we can add emoticons only at the end of the post. That makes it really painful.

When ever I click on the emoticons which appear in my compose box, the smiley appears at the end of the post and I need to re arrange the content (cut and paste in a different location).
Need to tweak the script to make it function normally, but I am not good at these things.

But u know this right, necessity is the mother of invention. Just now thought, why not move the emoticon itself instead of organizing the contents... The genius me atlast made the job easier

Brighter Side of Biting Nails

The content in this post is purely author's opinion, it doesnt compel anyone to follow it. You agree that I shall not be liable for any loss or damage of any nature incurred as the result of following this post.

Lemme tell you there are six important reasons why you should bite your nails..

1. You will never feel hungry if u bite ur nails.
2. An idle brain is the devil's workshop. Biting nails never keeps you idle, you'll always be busy with it.
3. Biting nails as a habit keeps u relaxed, tension free & stress free.
4. You will develop resistance to the diseases caused by the whole lot of germs that enter ur mouth when u bite ur nails.
5. You look cool biting nails.
6. I wanted to give six reasons but I have only five, hence this.

Why shud you listen to me in this?
This doubt might definitely be hovering in ur mind. If not, assume u have this doubt n listen to me.
With the vast experience of successfully breaking a huge number of resolutions made to stop biting my nails, I become a privileged person to talk about this topic and share my valuable suggestions wid u all. By biting nails you become a nearly perfect person, which is so obvious from the reasons I gave above. I call nearly perfect jus becoz u will not have perfect nails once to resort to this habit. Cant we sacrifice our good luking nails for the sake of becoming nearly perfect??

Hope

Yet another day started. The 76 year old Omar Ahmed al-Obeidi had the habit of continuing with his routine after Fajr, namaz from the break of dawn until beginning of sunrise, by going to Mecca masjid in the old city of Hyderabad which is just 2 kms from the place he lived. After reaching home from the masjid, as a part of his routine went through the newspaper. It was dated 27 October 2050. He was surprised to see Iraq making news in the page one. Iraq is a country with important news almost everyday but never makes into the page one. Not that people dont want to read the news of violence and bombings, but its considered common. Iraq was a society with lots of experience of violence - almost half million soldiers and civilians died in war with Iran in 1980s, hundreds of thousands were slaughtered on the orders of Saddam Hussein in the 90s and lots of people died in the Sunni-Shiite sectarian clashes since the downfall of Saddam where both Sunnis and Shiites were fighting for their power. But this news was completely different from all that happened before. On reading the main heading of the news tears were rolling down Omar's cheeks and he mumbled "At last" and recalled how he landed into India from his motherland Iraq.

It was sometime around July 2006 when six year old son of Omar asked his grandfather in an apprehensive tone "Baba, why do shiites and sunnis kill each other?"

Omar's father answered "Beta, the Islam religion was founded by Prophet Mohammed in the seventh century. He founded the first Islamic state, in Medina, a city in western Saudi Arabia near Mecca. After his death, the muslims formed into two branches.The Sunni branch believes that the first four caliphs are Mohammed's successors and only they can rightfully take his place as the leaders of Muslims. Shiites believe that only the heirs of the fourth caliph, Ali, are the legitimate successors of Mohammed. Some years later, the supporters of Ali killed the third caliph. To this the Sunnis reacted by killing Ali's son Hussein. This is how the war started."

"But beta why do u ask me all this?"

"My friend's father was killed by Sunnis yesterday. I am afraid they will kill us also."

"Dont panic beta, Allah will take care of all of us."

Just four months after that, Omar's father went to meet his old Sunni friend in a small restaurant in a Sunni community in Baghdadh. Suddenly there was a harsh sound of explosion outside the restaurant . There were bloody torn body parts clad in burned pieces of clothing everywhere; nearly 17 people killed and many injured. Omar's father was one among them who went to help the injured. And then the second suicide bomber triggered killing all the previously injured and many more who were trying to save the injured. That was how Omar lost his father in a warning attack done by Shiites on Sunnis. No one attended the funeral procession of Omar's father as mourning might also prove deadly. Those days were famous for Shiite funeral processions being attacked by Sunni suicide bombers and Shiite militia attacking Sunni's wakes.

"26th October, Wednesday, Geneva: The United Nations today released the results of survey for this decade at 10:00 AM in the morning. Usually its countries like Singapore, Malaysia or Thailand, which are tourism based countries, stand first in the survey but for the first time Iraq is in news about .....". Omar's mind was rolling with his past experiences. He remembered how the fake identity card which he got for 35$ then saved his life. One day when Omar was going in a car along with a Shiite friend, they were stopped by a checkpost. They were Sunni insurgents dressed in Iraq Police uniform, as it was not difficult then to get Police uniforms and badges. They were stopped by a gory looking person, who must be the head of the people at that checkpost, and were asked for their identity cards. From the photos of Imam Ali stuck to the checkpost, Omar realized that they were Shiite policemen. So he pulled out his fake identity card reading "al-Hussein" as his tribal name, the common Shiite tribal name and he was safe. But unfortunately, Omar's friend didnt have his fake identity card, and he was dragged to the nearby shiite mosque by them. Three days later, his body was found with 15 holes from an electric drill.

With all this getting worse day by day, Omar Ahmed decided to leave Iraq, though he had the hope that it would all get better some day. Omar, a widower, decided to settle in Jordan along with his son. He started for Jordan in December 2007. Omar was accompanied by many more Iraqis to Jordan, but the Jordanian airport officials didnt allow Iraqis into their country and were all sent back to Iraq. Finally in April 2008 with the help of a influential person in India, he flew to India along with his son. But he never shed his hopes, the hope for a better motherland, hope for an Iraq with no violence and no clashes. Gradually as the time passed by, the war between Sunnis and Shiites subsided.

"At last" he mumbled again, "At last, my hope came true". He could not control his happiness and his heart slipped a beat. The newspaper flew from his hands, and his heart never fluttered thereafter. The newspaper read "UN declare Iraq the safest country for this decade".

In Human, All Too Human , philosopher Friedrich Nietzche had this to say about hope:

Hope. Pandora brought the jar with the evils and opened it. It was the gods' gift to man, on the outside a beautiful, enticing gift, called the "lucky jar." Then all the evils, those lively, winged beings, flew out of it. Since that time, they roam around and do harm to men by day and night. One single evil had not yet slipped out of the jar. As Zeus had wished, Pandora slammed the top down and it remained inside. So now man has the lucky jar in his house forever and thinks the world of the treasure. It is at his service; he reaches for it when he fancies it. For he does not know that that jar which Pandora brought was the jar of evils, and he takes the remaining evil for the greatest worldly good--it is hope, for Zeus did not want man to throw his life away, no matter how much the other evils might torment him, but rather to go on letting himself be tormented anew. To that end, he gives man hope. In truth, it is the most evil of evils because it prolongs man's torment.

It ain't that easy, but itz not impossible

Life ain't that easy. As a kid of 5 years old when I said "Papa! I don' wanna go to school", the answer came in a warm affectionate voice "Nah baba, u shudnt say this, for this day and evening we shall play". And this ritual continued till I was mature enough to say "Papa! Do I have to write these exams all the time?". Again the answer came in a friendly voice "Tenth class is very important in life, once done wid this u'll be a free bird". I was done with my SSC exams, and yeah I was a free bird. But then life is difficult, the free bird was caged in a hostel and this time my elder bro in an encouraging voice said "Intermediate (11th & 12th) is turning point in anyone's life, a success story in it assures u of successful future". Many things assure us but thtz just assurance, we gotta work hard to get them. Despite the customizable definition of success, I can say my 12th ended successfully and this time its my lecturer to remind me of life said "Buddy this aint end of it, the real game starts now n u gotta work hard there too tho ppl don' say that". Does that mean lifez gonna become easy after engineering? Had to wait for four years for the answer. Time passed by to place me into the real corporate world, and this time lifez difficult wid my superior sitting next to me screwing me for all petty things, making me do all menial tasks and what not. Life aint easy, itz difficult.

But there was a revolution in my thought process, yeah I call it revolution coz itz so important, after I came across two blind people in a city bus quite recently. People felt sorry for them as they were asking many others in the bus to let them know when their stop comes. But I felt, from the confidence in them, that they never wanted anyone to feel sorry for them. They talked to fellow commuters, had fun, never hesitated to ask others for help, and more importantly, I felt and thats true, its their attempt to see the world around them from the eyes of others. Now, all that they require is our support but not sympathy. Life ain't that easy for people like them, but they challenge it and face it. And they made me realize 'life aint easy, itz difficult but isn't impossible'.

It ain't that easy, but itz not impossible. You gotta make it if u want to see ur name in the annals of history. Its 10% luck, 20% skill, 15% concentration and power of will, 5% pleaure, 50% pain and 100% reason to remember the name. See this video:

Rapid Tech Change

Hari: "Hi ra! You understood the science lesson today?"

Ramu: "Rajeswari teacher's class? Did u see the posters of new movie? It’s stuck all over"

Pramod: "I saw, the hero is cool in the posters."

Hari: "The lesson…"

Pramod: "hope there are good fights"

Ramu: "and songs too."

Hari: "But the lesson.., what is the name of the movie?"

On seeing the tutor, all the thirty odd students waiting for their tuition to begin, wished him in unison "Good Evening sir".

Sir: "Good evening, today we will learn Pythagoras theorem"

The chalk made a screeching sound on the black board as the tutor wrote "Pythagoras Theorem" and underlined it.

Sir: "In any right angled triangle, the square of hypotenuse is equal to sum of squares of other two sides."

The screeching sound paused temporarily.

"Listen to me when I teach you, later I will give u time to make a note of it."

And the most irritating sound resumed again.

"Let ABC is a right angled triangle with sides AB and BC at right angles to each other."

Ramu: "And you know who the heroine is?"

Ramu was quietly whispering into Hari's ears while the tutor was deeply engrossed in filling his black board.

Hari: "Shhh dont talk, Sir will punish us."

Sir: "...........AB square + BC square = AC square"

"Hence Proved."

"Now, try to understand this while copying it into your note book. I will be back in 10 mins."

The tutor left the room, to take care of students of other classes. Tutors make a good fortune in that town, as almost all the students take tuitions. This is because most parents (rather mothers) are not educated to the extent of helping kids with their courses. And this reason always makes sense, as mothers feel relaxed without kids at home when its time for their favorite unending tele-serials.

Pramod: "You know what, my daddy saw a cell phone when he went to Hyderabad. He says it is very costly."

Ramu: "Arey, is it true that if we have a cell phone, we have to pay money for receiving calls also?"

Hari: "But why should we pay money if we receive a call, in normal phones we pay money only when we make calls na?"

Pramod: "Yes ra, my daddy also told this. He also told that more money is charged if we receive calls than to making calls from cell phone."Hari: "Then I won’t attend calls on my cell phone. I will only call."

Ramu: "Hari is verry intelligent."

The innocent Hari blushed at Ramu's statement taking it in true sense.

"Can we make calls to normal phones from cell phones?"

Pramod: "We can make but it will be costly itseems."

"My daddy also said in the coming years, cell phone costs will reduce. Then we will buy one."Hari: "I will ask my daddy also to buy one."

Ramu: "Me too."

And the tutor entered the room just when Ramya was giggling in response to the comments made by Srilatha on Supriya's dress. This made all stop their brain storming sessions on various issues.

That was me with my friends ten years ago. We werent, then, aware that Roaming feature is what we were discussing. Time has changed and technology has improved so well that each of us now owns a personal mobile phone.

But now, this is the way two college going students talk to each other.

Rahul: "Hey buddy, how ya doin?"

Rohan: "I'm doin great dude. Luk what my dad has got for me. Sony Ericcson W550"

Rahul: "Woww, walkman phone! Thaz kool."

Rohan: "I envy u dude, I still have the old Nokia 6600 with me"

My "Dream" Project

How would it be to capture dreams in a storage device? A wierd thought isnt it, but its very important for someone like me who dreams almost everyday. Most of us do, but the best part is I remember my dreams without much content loss (including characters, locations, background, colors n all) for a day or two after I dream about something!! Some dreams occupy a permanent place in my brain, though I really can't give a qualitative analysis of the nature of such dreams.

At the age of 6, I used to dream, recurringly, of a seven hooded big snake following me when I was going to school in rickshaw. Science says Recurring dreams are common and they are the result of certain situation or problem in life that keeps coming again and again. But do you think, that large seven hooded snake was a problem which I repetitively came across in my 6 yrs of life then? Or may be the snake wanted Lord Krishna of this Kalyug to dance on it again on its hoods. Thats entirely a different story, lets come back to our discussion. The N repetitions of this dream made me remember it so well that even now I can, frame by frame with proper cinematography shoot a short movie with every minute content of the dream in it. I mention all this to stress upon the culprits causing crunch in dreamspace (my memory space where in all the dreams gets saved temporarily or permanently), and eventually leading me to think of a mechanism to capture my dreams.

How should I give it a start? What all will I need in getting started? Definitely subjects. They will be the people on whom I experiment by plugging some machines to their heads when they are asleep. I have two excellent subjects with me, my friends with whom I share the rented house. Now, whats next? Assuming that my project is a success, I should decide upon the video format into which captured dreams are to be encoded. So I need a video encoder and its player. Great going aint it? Guess, I'm half way through with my requirements gathering.

There is one more fix in this, all the dreams I get are not so continuous and I think its the same with everyone; some have breaks in between and some dreams start or end abruptly. Lets think of the dreams with breaks, they are just information loss rather some frames are lost. Quite recently I have dreamt of something, of which I am not sure whether I shud call it funny or upsetting. In my dream, I was called by the co where I did my internship for a party. I was having great time with the sumptuous food and cool cocktails. And there was a tree in the company which people climb n practise mountaineering. There was a break in my dream and all of a sudden I was flying high in a parachute which never wanted to come down. I was flying up n up till it became totally dark and thats it, EOD (end of dream). What to do with these kinda dreams? I remember listening to a lecture sometime back, where in if some frames of a video are lost they can be simulated back by some advanced extrapolation techniques. This is fantabulous, an interesting idea leading to application of many more. Knowledge in this can help me in the construction of lost bits of dreams.

Apart from all this, I definitely need gigs of memory to save all these dreams. But this is not at all an issue. Also I might have to design my own hardware to get the functions done. I can imagine lotsa wires and other hardware stuff running around the heads of my subjects. For all this to be done, I need knowledge of hardware stuff too. Whoa, where is all this going. But no way, this is my dream project and I am not gonna put an end to the very thought of doing it. Now that most things are ready, lemme give this project a start.
Good night! :)

Is something fundamentally wrong with us?!

Is pelting stones and destroying public property a sensible way to express anger for delayed response from the police to the bombing in Hyderabad's Holy Mecca Masjid? Aren't there many other important things, like volunteering in helping the wounded, to be taken care of?

I strongly feel that something is fundamentally wrong with us; the way we think, respond & act has to change. Ours is not a developed country to afford these unexpected losses, despite the all the problems we have.

The public destroying public property seems atleast reasonable. But this should not have happened. One year ago, as an aftermath to the natural & peaceful death of the great Kannada actor Dr. Raj Kumar the agitated mob in an attempt to express their gratitude and love smashed buildings, burned various automobiles (not only public transport) and what not. IT companies were the most affected in this. Ruining their buildings is something IT companies wont tolerate and I mention this specifically, as they are in one way helping our country to become developed.

Very recently, Leader of Dera Sachcha Sauda, Baba Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh hurted the religious sentiments of Sikh community by posing as Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth Nanak. As a response, there were and still are violent protests going on in many places. Does violence serve the purpose?

Why do we resort for violence everytime, when there are many other important things to be done and many more ways in which the issues can be solved? The mentality has to change, and that change has to come from us, within us. Not everytime a Saviour comes to free us of our sins or a Mahatma comes to free us of our slavery!

Me & My Mini Marathon

My friends started calling me crazy n insane as I got food poisoned after participating in the Cross Over's 5.5 Kms IT Run, though there is no obvious relation between me running in a marathon and getting food poisoned. Its not one's insanity that makes him/her participate in a run, its the satisfaction one gets out of it and the pride of completing it.

I am somehow interested in walks and treks, but becoz of my grt fitness levels it always was a distant dream to participate in a marathon (running half marathon - 21.1 kms or full marathon - 42.2 kms is not so easy; it needs fitness, stamina and practise). But its nomore an unfulfilled dream, thanks to Cross Over for conducting this IT Run which is just 5.5 kms. Next time lemme try half marathon.

People of various age grps, right from 12 yr old kid to 60 yr old man, participated in the marathon. Ofcourse, gals too. :D And its a great feeling to see the energy of the people, to be a part of the huge crowd running for a cause and to see the people cheering around you. The drums and all to cheer up the runners made us dance amidst our run :) The photographers, cameramen and the news reporters around you make u feel like a hero. Arent these enuf to answer ur Question "Why shud I participate in a marathon?"

Paid Service, First of its kind~

Gone are those days where u need to feign illness if u wish to bunk office and play a game of ur interest. All u need to do is come to our office, an MNC named after the US government's nickname and a great Chinese dynasty, and have lunch.

We have a paid service, the first of its kind being offered by our GMR caterers.
Pay to get food poisoned. You can also customize ur order by quoting for howmany days u want to be ill.

Interesting isnt it? These caterers should invest more into their business, start an R&D center, as it offers them a good scope and market!!

Ivaru namma henDati

Knowing Kannada in Bangalore is a great advantage. Though one can manage without it, to deal with autorickshaw people mainly we better know the language. To help us in learning the language, the HR in our company took an initiative by starting "Learn Spoken Kannada" sessions.

In the first session, we had many doubts which is quite natural.

One of us asked the instructor "How do we ask some one whether he/she is married?".

The instructor understood his problem and with a grin on his face said "Ninnage madhuve aagidhiya?". In continuation to this, he also told "ganDa means husband and henDati means wife".

On teaching these two words he said "Now frame the sentence 'This is my wife'."

In reply one of the prospective kannada students told "Ivaru namma henDati".

The instructed laughed out of his lungs and said "Only pandavas can use that sentence as it means 'This is OUR wife'." :-)

Shattered Hope...

There is a limit to have hope on someone.. And those who shatter your hopes continuously, can be marked HOPELESS.
I am one among the many fools to offer prayer on the morning of 23rd March 2007 so that Men in Blue will do well.
But they are so consistent in maintaining their form, they lost very easily..

The number of movies coming up in India with cricket as the theme, and the various albums best portraits the hope the 1 Billion people have in the team...
Despite all this we now know the result..

To boast, the team has the senior most players, they have many records, they have a great talent..
But they lack the zeal to win, the aggression, the dedication and the confidence to give them all the strength..

All they see is only money, they get out of contracts as Brand Ambassadors..
They would definitely when they play for the sake of winning, not just for the sake of playing..

They need confidence, an entirely different mindset that they can defend any team...
To quote a dialogue from Sye (Telugu movie) which aptly suits the situation.
"Otami satruvu rupamlo raadu. Bhayam roopamlo manalonunde vastundi" meaning "Defeat doesnt come in the form of the enemy, it takes the form of fear within us and overtakes us"

Team India - Learn not to lose, be confident and be aggressive.. You can make it!!!