A Tribute

Love at first sight was a myth, until it happened to me. These were my initial days in Bangalore, one of the Sundays… was roaming around marathalli with friends. Nothing under the sky has changed. The same traffic jammed roads of Bangalore, the buildings of the shops’ anxiously gazing to encroach any available land before them, the ruthless auto drivers ready to run over anyone on the way (whom I hated the most for their ridiculous fares and the harshness in driving and otherwise). But they all seemed interestingly pleasant.
Definitely … love is in the air...

As there is nothing else to do we went into one of those numerous shops in there. A cool breeze greeted me into the shop. Was not sure if it is the breeze of the AC or the presence of her that made me twirl my head, but I couldn’t take my looks off her for a minute. That minute seemed longer than an era and shorter than an eye blink. Her perfect looks, her smile like a flash… I am not a PhD in BS (Beauty Sciences not Bu** S**t), but I knew that she is the epitome of beauty. I instantly knew that her company would make my life colorful.

Frns said “go for her”… parents said a BIG NO… The fight was big with all the electronic media as the battleground. Email, chat, phone, fax, sms… no means was left untouched in frns and family giving me suggestions in favor or disapproval of my decision. The battle ended when I said “enough” and walked to the shop where I saw her first and… bought her for 25K to make her “My Nokia N73”.

Yeah I am talking about my mobile… the first gadget that I bought for myself after I started earning, that was in my company for the last 2 years. The 3 MP camera made sure that all those happy moments with friends are captured and stored safely, my source of entertainment with a high-quality music player, not to forget the GPRS and the great experience brought by the web browser. The best moment that’s captured… I think was Amir Khan’s visit to our office campus for shooting Gajani.

Given the careless guy I am, there is no wonder that I lost my mobile. But it hurts to part something that has been the very part of my life all these years. Something that’s been with me in my good and bad times, happy and unhappy moments bringing me all those tidings from across the world that I am part of.



This blog is a tribute to my dear one, which is no longer with me. For me she was a part of my life… But for someone who stole it, its a second hand- 2 years used and worn out mobile, without any accessories. I wonder how much he expects to make out of selling such stuff leaving the real owner in a total mess (trust me… apart from all these psenti feeling, loosing all the contacts, number, messages, snaps leaves you in a real mess)

Good that men are not Canibals by default :P

Population of Singapore Same Weight as Amount of Turkey Consumed for Thanksgiving

According to the National Turkey Foundation, approximately 690 million pounds of turkey were consumed in the United States during Thanksgiving 2007. This equals the weight of 4.48 million individuals of average weight (154 pounds); the population of Singapore as estimated by the last census in 2005.

just a fun fact.. no inferences.. 

Happy Thanks Giving 

$S for Domain Name

Refer to the ‘Wattha Hell Series: The introduction’

Last week has been a bit busy for me with no time to read my RSS feeds. A list of 999 feeds showed up (The maximum that my Google reader would show).
Was quickly glancing through the reader, making the max use of “Mark all as read” button on the top of the page. But this one caught my attention. Not sure if it the “what recession?” phrase in the title or the $1 Million - which is a lot of money (or the picture in the post :P) that pulled my attention, but ‘wattha-hell’ was the immediate reaction after reading it.

The news is:
“Privately-owned PriveCo, which specializes in retailing embarrassing products online, has paid $1 million for the acquisition of the domain name vibrators.com”

May be I am jealous, that some one could make a Million $s just by selling a domain name, but there are lot many reasons that makes me feel that this one deserves a ‘w-h’. A dedicated site to sell these products, ships 1500+ packages a week. And they claim that they are ahead of the competition (which means that there is competition too). And they could spare 1 million just to buy a domain name. Never thought that in this interesting world, domain name can also be an investment.

Because

It’s already 11 AM and I am still in the parking lot of my apartment.
These days, I am consistent in one thing- “Going late to office”.

And another thing along with this has come into my routine, in-fact 2 things- rushing on the roads cursing any living/non living thing that comes in my way. And the other thing is- thinking of a reason to fire out, if any some one is even remotely interested my coming late to office. This part of Sandy’s life is called Creativity.

And the interesting thing is: I started getting a lot of reasons from the time I started looking for one. Though no one cares to ask me about them here in office, I don’t want to let go my creativity to ruins, so posting them (I believe that helping those who are in need of reasons is also a form of social service):

The best one is today’s

The street near our house that I come by is blocked by localities for their Diwali celebrations. And even yesterday, the road is semi blocked by procession for the festival. The interesting thing is- they don’t give a chance to the ppl like me to bawl for blocking the traffic, because they do it first on us. They treat the traffic like the shame on Bangalore’s face… the one that is killing their happiness, peace and freedom. (I dunno what freedom is for them, may be build their own drawing room on the public roads). But today there is no stopping, they managed to put a tent on the road and block both sides of it with heavy stones. Not that I have to travel 10 extra kms because of this, but this is a good enuf reason. What say?

Here is the next best for Bangloreans

When I go to office from marathalli to indiranagar, I see some roads wet because of rain and some really dry. I never felt Bangalore that big, but these different weather reports from different places makes me think otherwise. Nevertheless this is one of the best arrows in my quiver – “It was raining when I started”. But I plan to do this only when the roads in/near my house or office are wet.

And here is the most common one:

Traffic jam near any of the signals, and the best is near 3 or more signals. And you should add ‘I hate Bangalore traffic’ and when you are saying this, you should sound really nasty.... buddy.

And if you come by bike/2 wheeler

say something like 'India is going to dogs; no one can save the country. It is totally corrupt.' You need not mean any of these (and I personally feel that people who abuse the country this freely do not really mean all that they say) but this is just to create a solid base for the reason that you are about to fire. The Traffic police caught me. I had to pay 100 bucks even though I have all the papers, and when some one says “why did you pay?” as a natural reaction to your red lines (I meant all that concern for India), you can say- “I did not want to come late to office, fighting with him. So decided to shed the money ”. Now you see- you can as well gather some goodwill if your manager overhears the conversation. And this works out best if it is the end of a month, you will see some one or the other who really went through this, and they can add some more meat to your reason.

P.S. 1: For me reasons are just reasons, they can’t alter some thing that happened, but just something to make you/others happy, so don’t think too much about right/wrong good/bad true/false when you are giving one. Just give something that works.
P.S. 2: I don’t want to over load this post for the sake of retaining interest, shall post other reasons based on the response to this one
P.S. 3: You can add your own reasons as comments; we can work together on productizing your reason ☺

The Bundle

How many times is a ‘bundle of 100 sticks’ stronger than each of them?

Well the answer is not 100. Where does the additional strength come from? Does it come from the thread that makes the sticks a bundle? In-fact not, and further more, the thread by itself is useless without the sticks. It is the unity that makes the difference. Things like these look obvious in case for stuff like sticks, but not so very obvious in real life.

How many times did you really appreciate someone? And how many times of this appreciation is for a deed instead of an achievement? And again the answer is not any number. At least, I don’t mind accepting that I do not do it very often. Not that I am doing a crime or that I am unethical, but just that my sense of reality is like this:

• To do a real difference to the world around me, I have to be successful
• To be successful, I should concentrate on self-improvement
• Self-improvement for me is to constantly compare myself with others, if not dominating them.

This is something that I’ve adapted from the society that I’ve grownup in. And this I think is the case with many of us, just that the intensity varies from one to another. Symptoms of which I see in our group’s chats where the discussions on new ideas seem to die faster, whereas the conversations on tripping live the longest. I remember that when I missed 1st rank in my 3rd grade, I envied the ones who got 1st and 2nd and when I was 1st in the next exam, the ones who got 2nd and 3rd now envy me ☺. Though this struggle appears just in this case, the same attitude appears detrimental when you are up-to something in life. The reason is simple: a bundle is always stronger and that strength is what drives you to what you are up-to.

So I started thinking what does it take to make us a bundle. May be 2 things:

1) Willingness of the individual sticks to form a bundle
2) The thread that makes the individuals a bundle

So first of all the willingness is important. This post is my confession to our group that I will give up my sense of reality and stop believing that “energy can never be created, and that I have to prove others weak to make myself strong(er)” and start believing that "creation is possible".
Standing in this place I started thinking of the twine that makes the bundle. This should be the possibility that each of us sees for us as a group, the possibility of leadership, joy, happiness and achievement.

It is just one day that I’ve taken up this new belief system, and I can see that creation is possible. Candy started writing his blog, our group have been together for dinner after almost 10 months playing air hockey.

Not bad huh? After all, the journey is what makes it worthwhile than the destination itself.

Cultural Shock

Refer to the ‘Wattha Hell Series: The introduction'

I seriously wanted my next post in this series non-political, but looks like the theme 'wattha-hell' and politics have cohesion beyond my imagination.

Flirting at its heights - head of a nation while representing his nation……. desperate in his attempts to amaze a woman (who also is representing her nation)…… in public…… in a ‘supposed to be a diplomatic’ meet….... when the whole world is sympathizing him on his wife’s death (former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto). Yeah I am talking about what happened when Pakistan president Zardari met Sarah Palin, US Republican vice-presidential nominee.

''Now I know why the whole of America is crazy about you.'' says Mr Zardari who proves himself crazier than all of them. This one is the masterpiece - when the reporter asked them to shake hands for a pose our Zardari turned it really on to Palin “If he is insisting, I might hug you” lol ☺ Complete link here.

Can any thing be humorous than this? Of-course there is. Only politics can beat politics. The honored president got a fatwa. Now wait, while getting a blame for whatever he has done is fine, this one has a little twist. The crime according to the fatwa is trails to turn on a non-islam woman wearing skirts.
May be Mr Zardari in all his goodwill, wanted to have a good relationship with America(an).

Short-cut

Refer to the ‘Wattha Hell Series: The introduction’

The best way to get popularity these days is to get involved in a controversy. I really wonder if the people who take controversy as a short cut to the popularity really care about or respect the stand that they take in that particular controversy. The latest is the war between Raj Thakrey and Big B over Jaya Bacchan’s statements hurting the sentiments of the Marathis (while the truth is that she made some statements supporting Hindi or UP).

All the country protested when Shilpa Shetty was hectored at the Big Brother show in a foreign country. When we expect the foreign countries to respect us despite the fact that they are foreign, how can someone expect/entertain statements like Mumbai belong to Marathis. What would this do to the reputation of Marathis living in other states, leave alone those living in other countries. Ain’t this attitude a hindrance to the development of our country?

Of-course ‘wattha-hell is the first thing that came across my mind when I read about this article, but how desperate are the politicians to gather some support from the innocent public.

Wattha Hell Series: The introduction

Guys, I decided to start ‘wattha hell’ series of posts on my blog. This is not something that I am writing out of frustration, vexed with the lax ways of human lives ;) or to show my compassion for all the atrocities, obscenities of the society around me or with the concern at the plight of the country … or … or whatever.
So what is this? Inspired by my friend’s series of cartoons on his blog, I too wanted to start a series. And considering the fact that my sense of creativity is little too far for cartoons, I decided to stick up with this series.

Many a times we come across some thing or the other, be in when reading news or watching some programs on TV, happenings at work place, or general gossip where the first thing that comes as a dialogue is ‘wattha hell’. This series is all about those incidents that deserve a ‘wattha hell’.


In Short this series is dedicated to pure nonsense.
All the posts in this series will be labeled ‘wattha-hell’. If you come across anything that’s worth a lot of ‘w-h’s (now you should know that w-h means wattha hell) you can post them as comments to this post or any of the post under this label.

Fried Maggi

‘Dho fried maggi’ I ordered at the counter in ANC(All Night Canteen) before we pulled few chairs to sit in the open air at 11 PM on an august night for a gossip. I had to skip the dinner that day as the apti (aptitude test) for the Juno Online started in the evening and went till late in the night. But I’ve nothing against them for I believed that ‘If you have something in your heart, it will be shown in your eyes' and I didn’t want to take ANY chances during my Campus Interviews. While Bhagawan ji was busy cooking the maggi, we resumed to cooking the strategies to crack the campus interviews. Here I take the opportunity to tell you the importance of having friends who can boost your confidence and make you believe in your strengths - when you need them the most, and thank Manoj for being one such. I was not sure if luck would be with me all the time that I get the questions from the very few I glanced at the last summer but this time it is definitely with me. Then started the weird feeling and prayed to god for 2 things

1. Others didn’t write the apti as well as I did (except my friends of-course)
2. Power to read the interviewer mind so that I can give him the answers he is expecting

A zap on the fast forward button, in filmi style ‘After 3 years’ (with background music of bullets firing) I sit in the ANC as one of those whose minds I wanted to read some time back, explaining my friends in Fiorano the greatness of ANC’s fried maggi.

Thank god that cars have no life/feelings etc etc, otherwise the Honda CRV would have thrown us out waaaay before we reached Pilani because of the awesome (read as awful) roads and the cool driving (I’m sarcastic here) of Delhites. But the feel of being in campus seems to be worth that entire nightmare journey to the land of Birlas’.

Listening intently to the PPT (Pre Placement Talk), (with main focus on the CTC the company has to offer this time), helping the company employees as a placements volunteer, the anxiety to see the Questions when the papers are distributed, waiting impatiently for the extra rough sheet, showing the skills in acting when the interviewer asks some puzzle that I am already aware of etc all looked familiar at the same time interesting to see from a different eye. It is like watching the audience from within the theater screen ;).

Watching the entire episode so closely, I started realizing how silently defining moments of life are made. I was a little aware of what life has for me when I accepted my offer in Fiorano. Congratulations to all those who got placed in Fiorano and for others who couldn’t clear the interview, ‘your destiny is waiting for you. It is just a matter of time you find it'.

This flight back to Bangalore is looking longer than the 30 odd hours of train journey to Delhi during college days (even though trains do not have air hostesses) marking the end of my hectic/brief stay in campus that dug out a lot of memories and added one to the same stack.

Watch-out for the signs

Few signs to tell you that you're wasting your time

1. When someone says ‘you look sooooo beautiful’ without giving you any flower.

2. 18 months in 10-6 routine. No raise.

3. When she says, “IF you felt bad, I’m sorry.” (There would be no if, simply “I’m sorry”, if she is really sorry)

4. You read any e-mail when the subject line starts with "Fwd: Fwd:”

5. You’re on diet but still saying, “McDonald's, ba da ba ba baa ... I’m lovin` it!”

6. You listen to Hard-Metal for any other reason than to show your so called COOL friends that you are COOL too.

7. When the anchor in a reality TV show starts saying, “And the winner is …” Better get up and start applying Olay Age Defying Anti-Wrinkle Replenishing Night Cream.

8. You mail shows ‘Zero New Mails’ more than 70% of the time you open it.

9. Your Boss says ‘You are almost there’ all the time. (You should have been there by now, if you were almost there last time)

10. You stare at an orange juice container because it says CONCENTRATE (I’m actually talking about being over obedient to your boss)

P.S: You can add more to the list as your comments. ☺

Sparks

These days, i've become little busy to write blogs, or rather am too much into routine that i am not gettning topics to blog on.

But have been reading quite a few of them, and felt this one exceptional - "Chetan bhagat speech @ Symbiosis pune". Read it fully and leisurely and you will surely appriciate it.

Many a times, when it comes to *selling happiness* things begin with childhood and stop with college. It feels a little odd to me, as all the time i was a child i wanted to grow *big* and when i was in college, I've have had a constant eye on the career after college. When ever i see kids trying to impress that they have grown up , i feel that i was no different from ordinary children. But still why do many a times we keep hearing people yelping about the life that is past, something that you really wanted to be the past?

When i hear a very good review about a movie or a book, i feel very excited about checking that out. And i feel disappointed sometimes even if it is good, claiming that it is not up to the expectations. May be same is the case with everyone of us, may be we fail to live up to the expectations we set for ourselves in our dreams/immaginations etc ? And may be that is the reason we fail to see these sparks in people when they grow older?
But the fact we fail to realize is - No one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending!

Coming back to the post of Chetan Baghat, this is what i liked the most of it and highly relevent to the thoughts running in me. (It sometimes feels that other people know more about me than myself)

" Most of us are from middle class families. To us, having material landmarks is success and rightly so. When you have grown up where money constraints force everyday choices, financial freedom is a big achievement.

But it isn’t the purpose of life. If that was the case, Mr Ambani would not show up for work. Shah Rukh Khan would stay at home and not dance anymore. Steve Jobs won’t be working hard to make a better iPhone, as he sold Pixar for billions of dollars already. Why do they do it? What makes them come to work everyday?

They do it because it makes them happy. They do it because it makes them feel alive. Just getting better from current levels feels good. If you study hard, you can improve your rank. If you make an effort to interact with people, you will do better in interviews. If you practice, your cricket will get better. You may also know that you cannot become Tendulkar, yet. But you can get to the next level. Striving for that next level is important."


Hope that you also enjoy the post as much as i did.

Live Differently

Are you one of those who want to live differently? Do you take extra care to make sure your presence is felt and respected? Do you dream of, yourself as an emperor in the world of yours? Then this one is just for you. Am not talking about an empire or something here, but a house (an apartment rather) that matches the hype I’ve given. If you are one of those who follow news regularly, you might have heard of this “World's first rotating skyscraper unveiled in Dubai”. The 420-meter (1,378-foot) building features 80 apartments that spin a full 360 degrees around a central column by means of 79 power-generating wind turbines located between each floor.

I am trying my best not to mull over the questions my mediocre physics had raised on the stability of such a huge structure which is free to rotate at its will (or rather at the will of its master). Check this video out to understand how different people think. An expert of the video is the architect David Fisher challenging one of the fundamental techniques in constructions that the structures are to be built to resist wind. And this guy has just taken a U turn to make use of the same wind energy to rotate them.


Read Full Story at Telegraph.co.uk

May be there will be a time in future when we see intelligent buildings that think, move and even fight among themselves. May be a subject for a fiction movie/novel something like “raise of the buildings” or “battle of the edifices”? (Gosh I am getting creative ☺).

Coming back to reality, rotating apartments is all you have as of now. The apartments will take between one and three hours to make a complete rotation, and at 30,000 dollars per square meters, Just about 36 million dollars (Rs150 crores) for a home. And not just it, there is another trade off. You have to move to Dubai if u are interested in this. (Yes, this is being constructed in Dubai). Too much to spend for a house huh? There are things that money can’t buy, but for others my salary is not enuf ☹

Cross Roads?

These days I rarely get to think of anything other than the happenings and work @ office. And should say that I’ve met an Oasis on my recent visit to my grand father’s place. A get-together of all our cousins and relatives after I entered the software world is not just a dream after all. Many things came across in our discussions and conversations but the most significant one, I think was ‘the cross roads’ (that is what I would like to call the endless series of group discussions and debates on my cousin’s after 10th academic career).
My friends from Andhra would be quite aware of such a drama happening at home, if taking biology stream was your choice, more so if you do not fall under any of the reserved sections. It seriously is amazing to see the knowledge people retain on the career-oriented stuff amid their addiction to the TV serials that take the audience to the new heights of nonsense each day (while, doing a plastic surgery to change the character artists stopped shocking me of late, a recent brain transplant stunt to retain a character’s memory after it is dead, left me bewildered. What is interesting is, they do it at the ease of changing the hard disc of my PC, and the audience still finds it convincing :O).

This poor chap had taken 2 valiant decisions, 1. Wanting to be a doctor while the rest of Andhra is engineers 2. Announcing his decision and staying open for an opinion (This blog of-course is not a poll asking for what would be better for his career). Though in his case it is highly visible (at-least to me) that he is being pressurized to live others’ life, many a times there is a subtle pressure on all of us from the family/friends/society from taking the path we wanted to when we are on cross roads (be it career, hobbies, love and anything that is important to YOU). The irony is that the people who make these brick walls are the people who care for us, who are afraid that we may not succeed or that we are being hasty, immature et al.

Deep down I had an urge to support this chap, tell him that it is okie to follow what your inner voice tells you (this inner voice stuff, I read in one of the self help books recently. Its not my own!! ). But I had no answer to the thousands of questions that hushed me up when I tried to tell him that it is sensible for him to follow his heart. The best one I would say is the example one of ’em quoted about a not very bright distant relative of mine getting settled in a s/w company where as another bright (again) distant relative of mine still struggling to complete his MD/MPhil in medicine. I have no answers to any of these but for sure the concept of ‘proof by example’ is awful in practice.

When I think about all this a little later I started making complete sense of Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch saying in his last lecture that “these brick walls are there for a reason. They're not there to keep us out. They are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something”.
After all a diamond is another piece of coal that did well under pressure. I pray to god that I see another diamond being made of my cousin.

A Billion Dollar

Have you heard of the open source database MySQL? If yes, have you also heard that it is acquired by Sun Micro Systems? And it is a whooping one billion dollar deal (can some one help me finding out how many zeros does a billion have !!!!).
So here is a company started in 1998, made their first release in 2000 as an open source and now made one Billion dollars with the head count of just above 400 employees(most of them working remotely).

This left me wondering as to what it takes to achieve a feat as good as this. It is this curiosity that tempted me in digging more non-technical details about MySQL. Isn’t it impressive that “More than 100 million copies of MySQL's database software have been downloaded and distributed and an additional 50,000 copies are downloaded daily”? And what is more interesting is that only 1% of the users actually pay MySQL for using the product and their support.

“The world self divides into those who are ready to sped time to save money and those who are ready to spend money to save time ” says Marten Mickos, the former CEO of MySQL who is now a senior vice-president of Sun (sounds so simple and true once you hear it.. right?). It is in-fact true that there are more people who spend time to save money compared to those who spend money to save time. But those are the people who made MySQL famous and powerful, compared to the ones who spend money to save time.



Doesn’t it look simple? Start a company, make it an open source, increase the popularity and sell it for a Billion dollar in 5-10 years. Or may be it looks simple only to see others doing it. May be spending those 5-10 years in wild goose chase isn’t that easy after all. But the fact is ‘you'll seldom experience regret for anything that you've done. It is what you haven't done that will torment you when you look back in life. The message, therefore, is clear. Do it!’

Nostalgia

“Seasons change, friends move away, and life goes on from day to day. Flowers fade and streams go dry and many times we wonder why. Yet we can always be assured because God tells us in His World, that unlike changes in the weather, friendship goes on and lasts”

All good. But why am I thinking all this when I am supposed to watch the "Enchanted”? Is it all because my team lead is leaving the company today? Or is it because my buddy here in US office has resigned? Or because Anil pined me out of the blues and for some time transported me to the BITSian days, just to make me realize that I miss them the most. Its not the first time that I am sitting here all alone feeling nostalgic, with thoughts flowing, but the only difference is that this time I decided to tap them into my blog.

Many of us at some time or the other would have felt empty about leaving our friends or family, may it be parting or you going to a new place or it may be them, going away from you. When it is you going to a different place, this can in-fact be covered up with you trying to be busy stumbling with the change, and we call it getting settled or say adjusting to the new …(whatever) ☺. But if it is they moving away from you, you have no option but to feel helpless about the fact that you can never be the same person that you were.
The first time this happened to me was when my brother was going to his boarding school for his +2. It is not that I will not get a chance to meet him again, but my route would be completely disturbed with out him in it.
And then, you will start realizing that the life, which you thought, was all yours is not in fact being built by you alone.

And again it is completely personal as to how we react to this fact. But what I choose to pull out of it is that… We may part our friends or family temporarily or permanently, but the friendship and their love will remain, not just as our memories but also as our selves.

Screw the snooze

Blogging has always been one of my fantasies, yet didn't dare writing one myself. Has always been convincing myself that I am too busy to write one, and will start doing it once I get free time. Some thing that is as impulsive as snoozing the alarm when it starts. May be its true with all the other aspects of life, may be its true with many of us.

For sure, I feel good when i hear Srk saying 'two letters D O ' or captions like 'now or never', 'one life to live' etc etc, none of which will effect the things after that. Dunno if I alone am as hopeless as this, or its the pretty normal to be this way.

This is just an attempt to break the paradigm and start blogging, something I love doing. For all those who share something similar, keep watching.. You may find some way to screw the snooze (a simple belief that "Breaking the inertia will make a difference") or some example that will make you feel good about the fact that you are not doing what you love doing, even if it is watching the sun rise/set or going to jog everyday.