To my fellow Andhraites

The biggest state of South India breaks into two. The local media and the national channels have made amply sure that this news is not missed. While the international media got a chance to see the new lows of the biggest democracy in terms of the disruptions, national media did not miss a chance to expose the rowdyism of the Andhra MPs. For the 17 seat stake the Congress bought from TRS at a price of forking out a new CM seat, whatever happened is the party. Irony it is - while the people of Telengana have no reason to celebrate in this political ploy, Chidambaram who must be doing Lungi Dance in his Madras Cafe, is shying away from partying!

Most of these are just pass time politics. But what concerns me (and probably many others) is the fate and fortune of Andhra Pradesh and the dignity of Andhraites. For the Telugus who fought hard to establish their identity in 1953, things seem to be at square one again after 60 long years. While it appears now that the Andraites are parasites claiming unlawful stake on the beautiful Nizam city, everyone conveniently ignores the fact that Andhra never wanted Telangana to be merged into Andhra State, in 1953. It was the other way round.

So they were never meant to be together. And the division is just - right? Yes, but there are only 3 problems.

While Hyderabad gave the poor country a few buildings to run the state government, in 1956, a lot was paid back. 13 governments, of 175 MLAs from the Andhra region (along with 119 MLAs from Telengana) built the state centered around the capital city of Hyderabad for 60 years. [Don't give me that argument that Hyderabad is developed by people for all places. No MLA from a different state passed any resolution towards development(or otherwise) of Hyderabad].

"When Money is lost, Nothing is lost"

Gandhi already said. (but who can take that high moral ground!) But then he also said, 

"If Health is lost, something is lost". 

How much is something? Hyderabad will the common capital for both the states for 10 years. Really?? Its like having your bedroom in your neighbors house. A hostile neighbor I should say. I am not even talking about the bigger problems of water, electricity, the government/bank jobs etc.
Well, this can also be a temporary thing. Turbulence is expected when great things happen and some of these could be induced fears.
But the perception that was created by the Telangana movement, supported by the paid media (when Congress choose to support it), hits me the hardest

"If character is lost, everything is lost"

"Its a tale of one city, not a tale of two states" one of the prominent Congress men was spotted saying. It does appear so from what I've said so far - isn't it? Hell, no! It much bigger.
Did KTR (another Raj Thackeray) forget the rampage they created (including breaking the statues on Tankbund) while he is giving these austere speeches on national media debates these days?

The real problem is, Andhra strategically victimized, orphaned and ignored. To all those Sharukh Khans of Chennai Express, Arnab Goswamis, Kumar Viswas-es, and all those who think South Indians are all Madarasis, how would you explain the costal culture of telugu speaking, intelligent and industrious people that has its own identity, different from the Pepper Spraying, spicy foodie, disruption-ists fighting to steal someone else's city. (since I have taken pain to write such a big sentence, you better read it one more time ;) )
But why even blame them, as if own house is in order. We have elected leaders who would do anything to grab Hyderabad (even for a short period), but couldn't ask for a tax holiday for the Andhra after the division. But they have given free money- right? Caste based politics are still more important. Its a shame to see the congress men fighting for the CM post (in the present situation) with election in 3 months. What you pay is what you get!


This post however, is not to just vent my frustration out, even though that is what I have done for the most part. Is it not time that we wake up, and realize that we need to awake the pride and dignity of Andhraites? Like 3 things that were wrong, lets talk about 3 things that can make things right.

May be asking of people to choose the right political leader is too much. But should we not begin there? I don't vote in Andhra, but if you do think about it. Or if have someone who does, can you not ask them if not persuade them to consider this. Should our MP at-lest not talk fluent english/hindi when they represent us, Andhraites in the parliament? Do we not need MLAs who want to grow with the state instead of growing in the state?

Then comes my second point. I have friends who have started small businesses (like Dairy, poultry etc) in Andhra. Please encourage them. Invest with them/in them, if you can. Most of us have very short term goals. Have you ever decided where and how you want to spend your life after retirement? If you are an Andhraite, you should consider returning back- that is the only way you can keep your stakes alive in the building of the new state. My personal stand is, I will move to Guntur, whenever I have something substantial to do (at this point, it looks like its either when that region gets IT opportunities or when I get to a point where I rise enough capital to start my own firm)

The most important thing though is, keep talking about it. For long, we have been told that all talk is not good. But not talking is worse! If you talk, may be 5 others will. If 100 people talk, may be 1 person will do (something about it). If 100 people do, 1 might succeed. We need at-least a few 100 success stories, to get the dignity back! You start by talking about it.. Share this post if you think it makes sense, comment on this to let me know your thoughts. And one day, we will deliver!

If an Andhraite can become the 'next Bill Gates', how practical is it (not) for Andhra to become the next Silicon Valley? Wanted to leave you with this positive thought!

The Heart

What is the most complicated thing in the world?
The heart probably; but this post merely tries to engross myself into amazement on what the size of this complex thingy should be/would be.

Having spent 4 prime years of my life in BITS, a part of my heart lies there in Pilani, in some corner of VK QT. Am sure that there will be many others who would agree with me that their parts of their hearts are also roaming around rent-less in FDs or some other Reidis of the campus.

But here is the point; Pilani is not the only place that a part of my heart has ever set up a permanent camp. How about Guntur, my domicile? Not sure if bigger or smaller than Pilani version, a part of my heart stays there too.

And the lists of places continue- Bangalore probably holds the greater part of it, with some part shared by Bay Area. And not to forget Vizayanagaram, the place I was born or Jangareddy Gudem – the place that brought me up and took my dad away from me!
So many pieces; aren’t they?

And whatever piece remains in me - its overloaded with a hell lot of stuff. Remember the iPad that is there for a long time now (and never actually came to me). And all those cool looking shirts, SLR cams, laptops, bikes, cars, and (OK, let me stop here). Ufff, should be Very Very Very much stuffed.

And this is after we throw away our hearts on all those good-looking girls of the planet and given it completely to that one special person* after a lot of trail(s) and error.
And how can you downplay all those friends and family that have a special place in there.

'I Love APIs', and if you are like me, your heart should have been by now, full of XML, Java, or all those crappy looking circuit diagrams or flowcharts. Technology and work I mean, an ocean by itself.

And now what should be the size of this heart - should be pretty massive to fit the above requirements description in logical terms.
But if it is, how many liters of water would be required to fill it up with tears or how many kilos of happiness would be required to fill it with joy? Somehow all that it takes is a little praise/compliment.

So what do you think the size be?
Scientists say - the size of a fist!
Can't be… Can it be? It does feel very very heavy sometimes…

eNjoy,
Morus

*PS 1: If you still remember where you saw that *, it was just a generalization.
PS 2: Tried to, but couldn’t avoid the psenti part.

Did I Win?

Read an interesting news article recently - the list of top failed countries. Pakistan as one of the top failed counties in the world. The first reaction to the news is a subtle happiness, for some reason that I don’t know.

May be this is the success of all the news hungry media/politicians and the so-called patriotic movies that stole a part of my hard (not really) earned money. For whatever reason, this country is my enemy and the first reaction to the news that it is in the list of failed countries is my victory, even though I have no role to play in its success or failure.

And then when I talked to few of my friends about this news, they too share the same happiness. So I am not the only one who is thinking iniquitous

A little more research on the same topic suggested that few other countries – Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh are also in the top of the list. God all our neighbors failed. Now is this a good sign. May be not.

And then I am confused, not because I have to rule India and talk to all these countries every week and day, but because of the weird correlation that came to my mind – the competitiveness in me. And I think all of us at different levels; share this attitude – fervor to win. And along with it comes this mysterious happiness on others failure, if we consider them as competition.

It’s more like this – all the while you struggle to reach the top. But when you succeed to reach there, then it will become all the more difficult to celebrate it, because you might have lost friends in the journey who would otherwise cheer you. And then you will keep wondering why you are not on cloud 7 at-least if not 9 at your victory.

Well it is not as worse too, but sometimes, a little exaggeration is required for your eyes to see the truth. But seriously, many a times the concept of victory looks dappled – especially if it comes because of other party’s failure. The only thing that can keep your sole at bay is the conviction that you played fair.

eNjoy,
Morus

With the Present - one more time

“It's already late. The traffic of the outer ring road will be insane. And the 3 signals! I am surely to miss the train.” This used to be part of the travel packages almost all the time. Well, you can read that almost as certainly.

But this time it is a little different. Letting 3 buses go at 1 AM, drinking the tea from the platform vendor is not something that I generally do. Just to be transparent to my usual self I chose these reasons - the first bus was crowded, the seats of the second bus were not good and the conductor of the third bus was not shaved properly.

While these reasons will not satisfy my usual self that has mastered the world of reasoning, today I choose to enjoy my journey.
No advance booking, no enquiries of the routes. But this time, the time is spent on all the important unimportant things like copying all the new songs to iPod, thinking about the book to read on the journey.

Part of the excitement is that I am going into the deeper parts of Karnataka to spend time with my dad - the same place that my dad took me when I was 2 feet tall. Now both my Kannada knowledge and my height grew alike (meaning not enough). Nevertheless I can understand if not talk a little more Kannada now.

It feels great to set your foot in a place that you know nothing about - nothing but the fact that you have been there in some distant past.
Yo man! Life is long. (Or I am old!)

This feeling is close to what I used to have back then - the distant past. The magnetic chessboard was all that I cared about and some company to play and loose the game against me, watching the bright round light of the coramandel express.

I think the similarity is that I am living in the present - in both the cases.

Of course it is true that even if I take bike rides, I will reach the 180 odd kilometers by tomorrow morning. But the point I am trying to make here is that I generally loose the charm in life because I am more concerned about the uncertainty of the future, taking it for granted that the present that has not gone wrong is in fact a stage for celebration. (Err, curse my English for yet another long sentence!)

Let me leave you with this thought -
Did you ever have this urge of forwarding all the songs in your play list expecting the next song to be better; while all of them were in-fact the songs chosen by you and your favourites. I have it often - more so when I’m psyched. But now I've been using iPod only to write this blog, enjoying all the songs in my play list.

eNjoy,
Morus

Happy New Year!

Let me start this blog and the year with my status message on IM

History will remember 2009 as the year of slowdown... but lets forget it while we are marching into 2010... Happy New Year

I just closed the 67 open browsers in firefox, safari, and sea monkey and quit all of them before I opened this window to pen down this post.

The 30 minutes rain drive back home locked me at home for the remaining part of the day (not that I had plans otherwise). So decided to take a step back and plan on how I will welcome the New Year now that partying is ruled out.

Not a difficult task at all, looking at my room that was like the Xerox store - full of papers and the white marble floor self decorated with the dust that got accumulated for ages.
Definitely I needed to clear this mess before I plan of my welcome to the New Year.
But before that there are other things that I had to address in the list of my personal mess, like my hair (that falls more than it grows), that needed a haircut for more than a ... (don’t even remember for how long) and by the time I am done with these basic un- screwing up, I realized there is a little time left to plan or execute anything.

But then, when the clock stuck 12 and 2009 mentally departed from my mind I needed no more thinking or planning about this welcome party! I am not partying, not even watching TV exclusive New Year realty shows (that sucks anyways). But I liked this, conscious effort to clear the mess of the past and welcoming the future with a clean board to write upon. Closing these 67 tabs was one such effort.

And that in itself filled me with energy that was long concealed in the pretest of busy life!

For those of you, for whom occasions like New Year are just another day, try this – just try to complete something(s) that is (are) long pending and just wait for it to come. You are sure to make it a special day!

Stay tuned… a lot is to come into this space in 2010

Happy New Year!

eNjoy,

Morus

P.S: Just got myself a pen name – Morus (not sure how long it’ll stay though)

Only they didn’t

I am up to a lot of things these days, and to be frank all of them are quite urgent to handle and very important for me.
I would have been surprised if I managed all of them… even decently sound. But the present circumstance, I definitely am not surprising myself. Well… partly because I’ve been bought into the fact that I cannot handle all of them effectively.

One of them is my Guitar. This is my second attempt to learn Guitar, and I believe that I am far better this time than my first attempt. But that’s where I stopped. Not able to go any further I’ve stopped going to classes for almost a month. That is the equal amount of time that I have actually gone to the classes. One of my reasons was that I would get time to practice my entire backlog if I had time to practice. I am proving myself wrong till now.

Hmmm, this is not one of those confession stuffs. I am not even complaining, but this is what came to my mind when I read this today:
“The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo: adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of sport you might say. But that’s not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in mind. Folks seem to have just landed in them. But I expect they had lot of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn’t. And if they had, we shouldn’t know, because they’d have been forgotten. We hear about those that just went on” Sam Gamgee chatting with his master Frodo in The Lord Of The Rings. If a good sentence can change a life, I don’t need anything more inspiring than this.

How much of wisdom can these old tales give you? But only, if you care to open your ears and listen. Not everything is relevant to what I am. I definitely am not one of those who want to go out and try adventures. But surely all the people/characters in the famous stories are remembered because they didn’t turn back at lot of chances that would have come to them. And here we live as their legacy. And for those who did, they just never mattered… like many others.
Well… I don’t know what I really would do this time, but here I have a chance to turn back (as always).

Allz for good

A trip to my native was not a very rosy one this time. This post is certainly not to bother you with them, as those grievances are my private treasure. Weird ways to encourage children do dads’ possess- one such was the archaic tales that they tell us. This one particularly looked too simple to be interesting, but made a lot of sense when I think about it later.

Long ago when the world was relaxed, was a king who ruled not so prominent province. He has a minister whom he is very close to, and took his counsel for almost everything he does. Very encouraging he was to the king, and helped him keep his calm in the times of need. One sentence he used to advice too often that it almost became gibberish in that kingdom “allz for good”. Whenever the king was discontented with anything, the minster would tell this to console and encourage his king.

Like any other royal blood of his time, the king liked hunting a lot. He used to go on hunting very frequently. And he used to fancy the rare animals that fell for his arrow. The horns of the antlered deer that hung in his room were his souvenir of pride. In one of those hunting outings, he was upset that he could not fell any wild animal. The very few that he spotted also managed to escape successfully. Thanks to all the professional hunters, the animals in that forest either perished and the survived fittest are now too tactful for king's hunt. Suddenly the king gave a sudden shrill of agony. Blood was all on his chariot by the time he realized that an arrow stuck to his thumb, and removed it. Probably some hunter shot at him, attracted by the sound he made, or it could be one of his foes, no one ever knows.
The king rushed to his palace, where the imperial docs treated the hand and his pain. But the thumb has to be removed. The king was very upset that he can no longer hunt, and that in it qualifies the loss of thumb as the greatest disability. He was very much wretched, when he was telling his minster of the disaster.

The minister felt pity of the king, and advised him all the political stuff like asking the king to ban the professional hunters from entering the forest for a while. And about his hunting, he said, “don’t worry! Allz for good.” The king was expecting some exceptional advice from him, but he is very upset for his advice not just seemed useless, but also looked like ridicule. His frustration reached another highs, and shouted on his minister. He fired him and abandoned him from entering the kingdom for life. Insulting king and proving worthless in the hour of need is the greatest mistake for a minister, told the king to rest of his counsel.

His short province was seeing its king’s gloominess, and the minister's little sentence became a story rather than an advice in the empire. After a few years that looked like a lot more, the king went out wandering into the same forests just to revisit his golden days. The local cult there kidnapped the king and took him to their leader. They were performing some ritual as it appeared to the king. Few people are setting the fire, and he felt that it was made to burn him. May be this is a cannibal tribe thought the king. He being a king would not matter, as the tribe seems to be unaware of any king or kingdom. All his warnings, pleas proved in vain as they didn’t know his language. His death seemed inevitable, and even a king could not help himself. The priests started performing rituals on the king. Suddenly the priest stopped the ritual, took kings hand and spoke in a harsh voice to his men and the leader. And then astoundingly the king is left free.

Shocked at the unknown miracle that saved his life, he retuned to his palace. He summoned the scholars and asked them to enquire about the tribe and what happened to him that night. He then learnt that they were performing one of their sacred rituals and had to give a human sacrifice. But since the king lacked a finger, he was not eligible for the sacrifice, and hence they left him free. He immediately remembered his minister and his “allz for good” advice. Had he not lost his finger, he would have been dead – sacrificed to god. His repentance has no limits, and he could not have peace of mind till he met the minister and apologized.

Well a very short moral from this long story. The good advices can sometimes be boring. & . it doesn’t harm being optimistic. If you felt this post is too simple to be interesting, think about it later, you may find it make some real sense.

TeNseD

A small vacation should refresh me, as I would not be thinking of the office work for sometime was my excuse to go to my grand parents place last week. In more than one ways, taking a small vacation like that is a good thing- that I would love to write as a separate post (and hopefully, will do that too). BUT back to work after the vacation is in-fact horrible. I had to deal with the two repelling like poles. Coolness (the marketing term for laziness) that I had acquired during the vacation was setting me on back-foot, while the heavy swell in office work which was waiting for me like the tide in the 'Airtel impatience add' that levitated and would fall on me once the buffering is done. I wonder if I feel any better than the rope that is being used for the tug of war between two sumo wrestlers’ groups.

Amid all this, Wednesday was the day when the work dump won over the coolness, and my workstation got me as the prize of its victory. A phone call got me back to my senses and I looked at the top right corner of my Mac where the clock showed 11 PM, feeling the shrill that there is a lot of stuff pending while my energy reserves would be over soon. The dogs that would guard our colony for free; would be waiting to show the new Joinees how to bark at the people (strangers or not is immaterial), if I reach our lane escaping the rash traffic of the outer ring road. But the workbench is grinning at me flashing the 17 bold items on my to-do list and the 10 odd un-replied mails. The dinner that I missed would have been the last of my concerns if my stomach did not complain. But with a slight pain, it is warning me that it can go on a strike if I neglect it.
Replying to the urgent mails in the most important list, and wrapping the other things, I set to home and feeling bad about the unfinished work, and feeling good about breaking the inertia with respect to the office work, while 3 other colleagues of mine are still in The Matrix waiting for their phone call.

The security guy Khan who would always give me a good night smile is looking tensed too. Then I started wondering if I saw one face that wasn’t tensed from the morning. He was tensed that he forgot to do something, he was telling me about that as if the world is goanna end tomorrow. He forgot to get the evening newspaper and put it on table. With just 3 people left in office, those too waiting eagerly to call their day off, no one would even think of the evening paper. The thought of someone getting restless about things that wouldn’t matter brought a smile on my face. As I am sure that I also contribute my part to this pool like panicking when India is loosing a cricket match, or feeling embarrassed that others on road are watching me paying fine for breaking the signal. None of them would make any difference to what I am and what I do. But… that is how I am ☺. The only solace is, I am not the only one, and I have the world of people in my company.

Qualified Blogger ?

Answer any 3 of the following:

How do you add an image to the blog post?
How do you retweet your friend's tweet?
What is the wikipedia site in france named as?
What steps can you take to prevent spam commenting on your blog?


This can be one of the sections in the 5th Grade Examination paper soon.
Be prepared to teach your children about the social media, and for partime bloggers like me, watchout for a graduated batch of Bloggers who may come out some premium institutions soon.. to compete/subside us.

Okay, this may be a bit of exagitation, but the news has it that online communication and social media to be made a permanent part of the UK’s education system.

Experts from the article:

No, it is not April 1st yet. The British government is proposing that Twitter is to be taught in primary (elementary) schools as part of a wider push to make online communication and social media a permanent part of the UK’s education system. And that’s not all. Kids will be taught blogging, podcasting and how to use Wikipedia alongside Maths, English and Science.

Children will also learn “fluency” in handwriting and keyboard skills, and how to use a spellchecker. Luckily they will still be taught how to spell themselves, rather than rely on Mr Clippy.

Personally, i felt it a little funny.... But you know... the Britan way, everything has to be tought from a book... Who knows, we may soon follow that.. But one thing i wish i had in school was SPELL CHECKER. My teachers used to have a competetion in finding the maximum spelling mistakes in my paper. Every time each one of them would feel that they have definitely won after correcting my paper, as that would be the maximum spell mistakes in the history so far.
When i search google for SoAnadSo and it asks me do yo mean SoAndSo?, I used to wonder "How do u know that.. Are you Mr Brahmaiah (my english teacher in college)",

I wonder how my life would be without a spell checker.... Horibal (i mean.. a misspelt horrible)

Hope the next gen kids will not face any problems with spellings like me, if spell checker is made a part of the education system.

P.S: I am writing this post without a spell chekar, and leave the competetion of finding mistakes to you.

Back Then

On an otherwise boring weekend, setting up mail client for my gmail account on my Mac gave me something to think about. For some time I was irritated that the client is downloading mails from the time the account is born, which was in 2006. Those are the days when gmail was introduced and brought ‘.’ Into the legal mail id characters. I was too excited to see this and hence created an ID with as many of them as possible making m.s.a.sandeep my gmail account.

While the client is downloading the mails of its account’s sunup, I’ve been transported to the 2006 days, digesting with difficulty the fact that its been 3 years since my psenti sem (In BITS Pilani, we call the final semester as psenti sem). Those were days when a forward mail from friend with ‘Sardar Ji jokes’ makes me laugh full out. Not only would I forward that mail to all my wingees, but also go to each one of them to make sure that they get the joke. They surely used to laugh, if not at the joke, at my desperate attempt to make them laugh.

Those were days when the world (rather my world) was a lot younger. The gift that he would buy to his friend for their friendship anniversary was the top concern for one of my friends, not the financial concerns and the family responsibilities that he is now deep into. Meeting professor for project after an era of idle life used to be trouble of the time, not the present project deadlines and the job security, for the other. Those were also the days when a gate-call from or to girls’ hostel used to be an achievement, .01 raise is CGPA used to be a celebration. The biggest disappointment was when India looses the world cup (2003 world cup), not when share market collapses. In short, life was quite simple and lively (or livelier, if that word is not a myth).

And then there was this vast invisible world. When I repeated a course, or shed blood to see my friend as our assoc secretary, there was no reason. I used to like this picture a lot, for some reason that I am unaware of. For me this is the picture of a train that is traveling on high skies whose tracks are invisible. May be this is the picture that is close to my feelings when I was following my instincts, and not the morass. The ‘invisible rails’ in the picture is my invisible world, which I used to believe in.



Now I know too much to believe in all those. The invisible world is now a stroke of luck, or a coincidence. Now I know that I’ve to be concerned about my investment returns, but not calling home when promised. I know that forward mails are funny, not fun… and a lot more.

For sure, “Ignorance Is Bliss”

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.

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.

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.