The Boom Paradox

Wherever we go nowadays, whatever be the topic of discussion, everyone ends up talking about only one thing: India is booming.
Yes, India is booming enough for the rest of the world to take notice. It has one of the highest GDPs, its an upcoming superpower, Bush is advising his citizens to learn Hindi, the word 'crores' is common vocabulary, standard of living has risen, every international company is looking to expand their operations in India, now when you need to buy a car you do not need to choose from ambassador or fiat- you can opt for a Toyota or BMW, if you are 30 years old and have been in the IT industry you comfortably own a luxury car, live in a posh apartment and have traveled all over the world multiple times, the stock market doubled in the span of a year, cellphone users are growing by leaps and bounds, India is zipping ahead on the development highway. Yes I am proud to be an Indian.

Now let us broaden our horizon a little more, lets peek outside our window, look beyond the corridors of air conditioned offices and five star restaurants, lets look at some stark reality:

50% women in India are still uneducated.
Female infanticide is so high that for every 1000 males there are as less as 750 females in certain states. In some states the situation is so bad that girls are sold for the purpose of marriage because there is a dearth.
26% of Indians are still below poverty line. In some states its almost 50%.
There are over 40% villages in the country where the children are deprived of education. They are either forced to work with their parents, as more hands to work would mean more money to bring home; or there are just not enough schools providing primary education.

A young child laboring all day in the field, without shelter and protection, sleeping on an empty stomach, hoping for a cool breeze at night for a peaceful sleep and dreaming about going to school someday- you think he cares about India being a superpower? Does India's fast growing economy affect him?
There are villages without pure drinking water, where women queue up early morning in front of tubewells with buckets and pails to ensure their children do not go thirsty. They still light lamps in the evening in their small earthen huts unaware of an approaching storm that could sweep away their thatched roof.
A girl child is killed lest her father has to pay dowry in order to get her wed.
A rickshaw puller loses his wife to malignant malaria since he could not afford the treatment. He then spends his savings to buy a mosquito net so that his children can sleep without being attacked by mosquitoes at night.
An average tax-paying middle class government official still rides his scooter through bumpy roads, satisfies the financial needs of policemen, waits for water supply, sleeps in 40 degree centigrade without a fan because there is a power cut and strives to educate his children and support his aged parents whose pensions of course never reach them. He has not seen Disneyland or sat in BMWs. And this kind of person constitutes a majority of the population. Ask him and he will laugh at the thought of India being a super power.
Even if you want to look from your angle, the angle of a mid twenties successful software or finance professional who pays 30 bucks for a cup of coffee, wears Tommy Hilfiger, watches movies in multiplexes, sits in cool offices of multinational companies, travels onsite to earn in dollars and makes his family proud....even from his angle, he still has to ride through potholes, stay stuck in traffic for hours, bribe government officials to get a simple work done and pay taxes which in turn pays for abroad trips of his elected minister's children.
And you still think we are heading towards being a super power? Yes we have the potential, we have brains and the advantage of being English speaking, we have good primary education, we have a huge population, we also have extremely intellectual president and prime minister and I will never deny that. But there is a long way to go.
Infrastructure, education, disease control, poverty control: these are primary issues to be taken care of. And the root of all these problems is one: corruption!
If only our politicians were honest enough, all the incoming money and our taxes could be utilized for benefits. For providing free education, for improving roadways not only in the four metropolis and Bangalore, Pune and Hyderabad but also in the rural areas, providing pure drinking water and electricity, providing medical support.
Education will in turn take care of other problems like aids awareness, population control, female infanticide, dowry etc. Education will also lead to choice of better political leaders. Its a cause-effect relation.
Unless the growth brought forth by the booming industries is channeled towards the majority of the population in rural India, the growth will only serve to create a huge social and economic imbalance and inequality.
The common man who lives off his daily wages needs to be reassured with care.
Every citizen has to have faith in the government, in the law. To build this faith there is the need of commitment, sacrifice and honesty. And who is willing to dedicate that?
Its good to dream but its important to contribute to achieve this dream. Lets think about it.

Cross promotion at its best

Apple surely aces marketing. Check this out.

P.S: Cross promoting is when two or more businesses promote their products or services together. It works better for businesses that have the same target audience, but are not in direct competition with each other.

Finding my way...

I have a bad sense of direction. Whenever I reach a junction I am confused whether to take a left or a right. Sometimes I go with my intuition. Sometimes I don't think, just drive. Most of the times I am wrong and then I have to look for an appropriate place to take a U-Turn. If I don't find an appropriate place I keep driving, knowing well that I am headed west when I am supposed to go east. Soon I am lost. If I am alone, not queueing up other cars behind me, I make a call to my GPS service (A on the phone with google maps :D) . Yes I need a GPS but they can also be out of date. I get worked up and begin to fret and then terribly miss my country , miss the Indian GPSs.
You know what I am talking about: the autowallahs and rickshaw-wallahs or shopkeepers or any pedestrian...just simply stop the car and ask "Bhaiya yahan se X tak kaise jaaun?"
There will be enthusiastic replies with detailed gesticulated explanations.
Bangalore autowallah:"Madam, left maari. Next circle right maari."
Calcutta rickshaw-wallah:"Didi, shaamne giye baandike jaan. Tar por crossing'e daandike ghurben"
Mumbai taxi-wallah:"Pehle left maarne ka hai, phir aage signal se right maarne ka hai"
Chennai autowallah:"Madam english. No hindi"
Then you reach till wherever they have guided you and repeat the same question with a new bunch of people.
I like it :) and I miss it :(


While writing about junctions and directions my mind began to draw an analogy of the situation to decision making.
Yeah I am always at a junction when it comes to critical decision making. There are invariably multiple paths to choose from and each looks equally likely and prospective to the other. Some paths can be ruled out with little effort but ultimately there is always a bifurcation to choose from. I try to take a more professional and analytical approach: weighing out pros and cons on excel sheets, color coding the choices,assigning them weights and sorting the columns. There is almost always a tie. Then there are calls to help services: A, mom-dad-B and sometimes friends. That leaves me more confused. Since now I have 3 for the matter, 2 against the matter. Should I try another couple of people? Its like tossing a coin in the hope of heads; if heads appears stop else toss an odd number of times till you get the maximum occurances of heads! Silly I agree, the fact that I opted for a second toss itself indicates what I am inclined towards. The risk in this case however is that there are no autowallahs and pedestrians and shopkeepers whose directions I can blindly follow. In this case there is no opportunity of a U-Turn. In this case if I am lost I have to find a detour. Myself. With the aid of my gut.

Isn't making a decision for equally prospective untrodden paths always a gamble? Maybe not for many, but for people who belive that good and bad coexist and that there is no such state as utopia it might be a little more confusing. Yes we can estimate consequences, make a few future predictions, look in the blind spots, have a hind sight and foresight but how accurate can we get? If we choose path 1 today it could lead our life to a completely different track. In just a split second if we had chosen path 2 where would we have landed? How would it be if I could trace back my life to the split second decisions that I have made, opt for the other paths that I rejected earlier and see what life had in store for me. It would be an opportunity to prove or disprove the "grass is always greener on the other side" myth/fact. No, I am perfectly happy with my today...just curious.

Not equal to equality

A medical student died in protest of the increase of quota for higher education admits to Indian institutions and the media is not willing to cover it. The quota is for backward classes (supposedly people who belong to a lower caste in the social structure and who are minorities)

Are these so called backward classes really backward? They study in the same schools, eat the same food, work in same organizations, earn the same money, get promotions based on their performance, have similar social life and are treated equally (Yeah, wake up this is the 21st century. We don't believe in untouchables!). How many times have you mistreated your friends because they were OBCs? Have we not shared lunch in school and studied and played together? Do we not interact with them freely and openly without any biases? At least if we are going for higher education we are wise enough to surpass this discrimination.
Then why this inequality?
From personal experience:
I remember distinctly: two friends, with the same background, same social status, same 14 years of schooling in one of the best schools in town, attended the same coaching centers, aspiring to be engineers. A gets a rank of 200 and B gets a rank of 370. A always wanted to do Computer Science from the best college but doesn't make it in the counselling session. Why? The cut off for CompSci seats was at rank 175. But B belonged to a minority community so he happily sails into Computer Science in the best college. A is disappointed and forced to take up Electrical in a less ranked college. Surprisingly B's family's household income and financial status was way better than A's. Her wish: I will marry a person from a minority community, at least my children will not have to face what I faced.

Why should a person who has not worked hard enough for an examination or maybe is not sutiable enough, get a better admit than someone who is much more capable than him just because the former's surname catogorizes him as a backward class. Aren't we losing out on better professionals?

Is this *equality* that the government is trying to portray or is it one more of their strategies to win the minority votes?
I don't think they are doing away with discrimination by raising reservations, they are encouraging it. They are provoking people to continue their belief in caste and stratas.
This is the defeat of merit at the hands of discrimination.
This is a hindrance to a well developed nation.

Thrills and chills

Back after a long vacation...

Theme park thrills
Rides that sent chills
Shamu's splashes
Dolphins' dashes
Penguins and seals
In control of fast wheels
Simulated earthquakes
Twister - so not fake
Shark attacks in Jaws
Eaten by dinosaurs
Loony toons
Scary goons
Back to the future
Islands of adventure
Haunted mansion
Magic kingdom
Shrek in 4D
Laughter and screams
Alien encounters
Dangerous roller coasters
Revenge of the Mummy
That feeling in the tummy
Fairy tale parade
Fireworks in the end

Thank you Walt Disney for 4 days of unadulterated fun!

(That was some effort in trying to rhyme! )
Walt Disney's contribution to humankind is magnanimous. Just the fact that his creations can bring a smile to the faces of so many of us irrespective of age, can distract us from our thoughts and worries is an achievement in itself.

On our drive back we were discussing the fact that all these rides, roller coasters and simulations do manage to thrill us but the fact that we know from deep within that we are safe and nothing can happen prevents the completion of the adrenaline gush. So, the question is what kind of an *aritificial* enviroment can actually arouse real fear, the spirit of real adventure like say falling into a lake of crocodiles, unarmed, feeling the movements of their slithery bodies in the water, being able to see the sharp teethed open mouth of the animals at an arm's length knowing that there is nothing that can save you other than yourself or being actually pushed from the top of a tall tower without any seat belt or rope protecting you or pulling you back, where you know that in a few seconds you will land on your face on the ground below, smashed, your bones shattered or maybe enter a deserted haunted house alone without a torch or a weapon, hearing eerie noises whose source you can't trace back, feeling a sudden gush of wind on your neck, where you have to feel the walls to move forward or being in the middle of an 8.3 richter earthquake where you have to run to save yourself being buried under concrete, the walls collapsing an inch behind you, people screaming.
The conclusion derived from the discussion was - induce an artificial nightmare. Hypnotize the adventure-seeker and throw him into those situations in his dreams. There he has no seat belts or weapons or the knowledge that its just a ride and it will end in sometime. He is alone facing his worst fears. That should be a spine chilling!

Geekily cool

Ok, looks like I am a nerd, haha. By the standards of this quiz anyone who has spend 4 long years in engineering school and is into a software job now will be a nerd. Stumbled upon this from a friend's blog and because I had nothing better to do, I took it. So if you are finding ways to kill time, go ahead and check it out.

I had always associated nerds/geeks with messy-haired, bespectacled middle aged men in laboratories working on rats and gas emitting colorful liquids. But in recent times the scenario has definitely changed. Gates, Page, Brin, Jobs etc have raised the bar and set a new trend. Now its cool to be geeky.

Ok here are a few questions that I think, if one can answer correctly, is into geekdom, at least in the computer world.(No I dont know some of them myself but have seen people around me do it).
Before you proceed if you do not know who all the people I mentioned above are, lets talk about something else.

1. Do you know more than 4 languages (if you are thinking of hindi, english, french then....well proceed if you want to pass time)
2. Do you know how to read a core dump and debug it?
3. Can you create your own smilies and use it on an instant messenger in about 5-7 mins?
4. Can you explain Eistein's theory of Relativity to a 7 year old?
5. Have you contributed to a wiki?
6. Have you gotten your hand dirty in open source?
7. Have you been on Ruby on Rails ?
8. Given a Windows desktop and internet connection how can you transfer songs onto your ipod which are not on sale and can only be streamed? Time limit to implement: 5 mins
9. Are all your gadgets synched? address book,calendar, to-dos etc on laptop, cell phone, palm
10. Have you explored into home automation?
11. Do you still use Mapquest and Yahoo finance and IE 6?
12. Can you explore Mars anytime?
13. Can you build your own Tivo?
14. Have you printed documents or sent videos through BlueTooth?
15. Have you worked on more than 3 different operating systems?
16. How many utilities have you written for your own convinience?
17. Design the next generation photo album and photo frame. Time limit: 3 mins
18. Do you know the PS3 release dates?
19. Do you know how to keep your web page safe from web spiders and spambots?
20. Are you in the habit of solving cryptic crosswords and playing Sudoku?
21. Do you read Engadget and Gizmodo?
22. Do you shop from ThinkGeek?
23. Do you listen to concertos?
24. Do you think PI was a cool movie?

Yeah thats geekdom!

One of my favorites: (brownie points for decoding the message)

Aromas

Recently I discovered that smells influence my mind more than I thought.
For example the fresh smell of the new pot pourrie that I have kept in the wide mouthed vase on my bedside table soothens me when I settle myself in bed with a book at the end of a long day.
Or the fragrance of sandalwood incense sticks in the house arouses a pure and clean feeling. I can almost hear the sound of conch shells from our little "thakur ghor" (small temple in the house) at home in the evenings.
I love the smell of wet earth. It is the identity of the elements, of Mother Nature. Nowadays the same smell makes me miss India. For some reason I cannot associate that smell with any other land.
The aroma of a freshly baked cake, right out of the oven reminds me of childhood birthdays with family.
The smell of strong, freshly brewed coffee links to concentration, late nights and deadlines.
The crisp smell of the pages of a new book excites me. I associate it with adventure, wisdom and collection.
The smell of washed and ironed linen transports me to the hospital bed where I had stayed for 4 days during my surgery last year.
The smell of petrol, I associate with the Iraq war somehow.

There are several other smells that mean more than just a smell to me.

Of course I will write only about fragrances.

Survival of the Fittest

David Blaine survived after being immersed in water for 177 hours and attempting to break the world record for holding his breath underwater.They said he was doing this to test his physical, mental and emotional endurance.
This morning while driving to work we discussed the possibility of the evolution of a more tolerant species if the likes of David Blaine united and gave birth to a new generation. Is evolution too in our hands?
What would the evolved species be called? Still couldn't think of a good scientific name. From Homo-Erectus to Home-Sapiens and the subspecies Home Sapien Sapiens to ? That means a few centuries later we will be considered a primitive species with a less developed brain and our fossils will decorate museum shelves with a sign: "Home Sapien: The Ancient Man" !!!!!

Another interesting fact discussed- the current population of the world is 10% of all the humans that have ever existed on this planet. Now thats a big number. Are there enough resources to support this ever growing population? Will we face a global oxygen crisis someday?

P.S: To-dos: plant a seed every year

The theory of the Alien God

Aliens - do they exist?
God - does He exist?
What if God = Alien?
Possible?
I think so....
I am quite certain that we are not the only privileged lives in this universe. There has to be other stars that has given birth to life ...maybe in some different form....maybe the elements that sustain lives there are beyond our knowledge or imagination...I mean every life form does not need to survive on Oxygen and water. They could be surviving on something entirely different. Something we can't fathom.
Maybe they are way advanced than us.
Maybe they are way behind us and we could teach them a lesson or two.
Maybe they are having fun watchin us.
Maybe they have given us a time period to establish ourselves on our own.
Maybe they are running some kind of an experiment on this planet to see how far this living race goes.
Maybe one fine day they'll come out and tell us we did well, it just took us 4.55 billion years to get to the internet age whereas some other planets are still inventing the wheel in that much time.
Or maybe they ll come and tell us we are losers, our competitors are capable of flying themselves, communicating telepathetically, controlling weather and disease, have supercomputers instead of brains, have discovered other forms of life on many other planets and toured the universe - all in 4.55 billion years. We are slow and stupid. We have to surrender to the superior race and learn from them!

If this is happening and we are being controlled by one central alien race, then isn't God= Alien?
He sees us, controls us, decides our destiny by scribbling some lines in our hands and sends us here to this planet. Then he puts us through some tests to see whether we survive or not. Depending on how we do he sends us on our next mission. If we are good we are sent on a better mission maybe even to a better planet which we humans have decided to call heaven. If we are bad we are sent to an inferior living race. Thats called hell.
He ensures the planets don't collide and that the magnetic field is just right to keep everything in place. He deviates dangerous comets from colliding with this ecosystem. He distributes energy from a central repository to different stars. After all he is experimenting. The universe is his laboratory. The planets are his testbeds. The stars are his resources. We are indeed nothing but the equivalent of lab-rats. So much for our superiority complex! We the homo-sapien-sapiens ( I m not sure whether I belong to the homo-sapien-sapien species 'cause when I was in school we were called the Homo Sapiens) should give this a thought and work harder towards advancement.

I think I can use this theory to justify a lot of things that have mystified me earlier :D
Wow!

P.S: I am not drunk or haven't seen a sci-fi recently. I like to imagine.

For every mood....

Sunshine, a balcony facing the ocean, paints, an empty canvas and "If I were a painter and could paint a memory"
Early morning,the warm blanket, post dream confusions that provoke a mischievous smile, a shower, hot breakfast and "Sunrise sunrise looks like mornin' in your eyes",
Rainy afternoon, coffee, sound of water drops trickling down the leaves, old albums with black and white photos and "Don't know why I didn't come"
In the midst of a sunflower field, bright blue sky, chirping of birds and "A little girl with nothing wrong is all alone"
Moonlight, riverside, a bonfire and "What am I to you...."

Whats the common link?
Norah Jones rocks!!!

Evolution of Indian television?

Had been to N and A's for dinner. They have a subscription to a hindi music channel. I was excited to watch Indian television after eons but what followed was a culture shock. I mean what is Indian television headed towards really? What they try to portray by aping the west is not the real India....not the soul of the people or the essence of the culture. There are innumerable music channels playing the same songs which are either remixes or *inspired* hip-hop numbers. The videos look all the same, similar looking girls, similarly dressed (read skimpily) and similar dance steps (read obscene). Or the other channels run the never-ending saas-bahu soaps!
That set me thinking about the evolution of Indian television in my quarter life.
My earliest memories of television was Lucy on Doordarshan. I simply loved it as a kid. Then there was Yeh jo hai zindagi on Friday evenings and of course Chitrahaar on Wednesday evenings. That was our only choice and we were content. Our viewing was also restricted by mom. Ramayana/Mahabharata, Bikram or Betaal, He-Man, Spiderman, Quiz Time (Siddharth Basu rocked!) , The world this week and a few more was all she let us watch or all that was there to watch. 9 o clock news on DD (Salma Sultan was one of the news readers) was religiously watched.
At that time the possibility of having 50 channels seemed unfathomable. "50 channels, that too all night, you must be kiddin!"
DD2 arrived when I was in my teens....superhit muqabla was the first countdown show I had ever watched and it seemed like a cool concept. But very soon there were hundred other countdown shows and it lost its charm. Cable tv had just been introduced but it had the power of hampering our studies and so was kept away. Then one fine day dad realized that espn and star sports would let him watch sports 24/7, so we stepped into the world of more than 2 channels on television!
First few months I was addicted .... Wonder years, Crystal Maze, Mash, Bold and the beautiful on Star, Nonie and Danny McGill on Channel V, discovery channel, BBC , Star Movies ........
Hip hip hurray and Banegi apni baat on Zee I was hooked to too.
Later there was Mastermind, the Big Fight, Cyrus on MTV, Friends, Dharma and Greg, Mr.Bean and many more interesting shows which I enjoyed watching.
Down the years the influence of Bollywood percolated through all the channels ... and one fine day Ekta Kapoor conquered. Thus followed the downfall of Indian television. Well, downfall not for the profit makers and lot of the junta- the rising TRPs were evidence ... but for a sensible television watcher, it was a catastrophe!
Now television is a money making factory churning out serials from the same plot instead of the media of mass communication that it was intended to be..... very much like current newspapers, where Page 3 is the most read and the frontpage headlines include stories about celebrity affairs leaving space for important issues only in a small corner inside. And noone is to be blamed for this other than us - 'cause they make what we demand. They ape the west, we follow. They make run of the mill soap operas, we cry 'cause Mihir died. They portray women clad in small pieces of cloth, the stores start selling them. They copy songs, we download the ringtones on our mobile devices. They dance to our tunes, we dance to theirs. Fair enough!

Self assessment

Met up with P after work on friday to go for a movie. None of the movies in town seemed interesting enough so went for dinner instead. Margarita, nachos, pasta and an awesome desert called the Molten Chocolate Cake...it was sinful :). Had a late night *adda* at her place talking about various things ranging from serious topics to the not so serious ones. Slept on the drive back home and the inertia of sleep stayed with me the next day too. It was a sleeeeepy saturday.

Some realizations after the chat.... I am paranoid about the future and my ambitions, restless about achieving my goals, worry about something or the other all the time, don't share my deep down feelings with anyone .... and these things are not evident to anyone with whom I interact on a daily basis other than those who are close to me.

On some contemplation I realized why I am this way ..... one - don't want to drag anyone into my problems, they are mine..yes I can discuss but noone can be in my shoes so its entirely my responsibility to solve them, no point cribbing about them , two - I am heading towards being a perfectionist...this raises the bar of the standards I expect, be it in work or people or anything I am involved with , satisfaction does not come easily, three - ambitions which were ingrained into me in childhood are beginning to take shape and I am restless to get till the end, I need tangible results, four - in the bigger picture I don't see my contribution being significant enough..... what exactly am I on this planet for? writing code? I am on a constant search for inner fulfillment..... I know I will do it but when? five - I always compare myself to everyone around me, good or bad .... that makes me more ambitious.
I have to work on calming down, relaxing and taking life as it comes. Maybe I should dance and paint more often, they are an outlet of my pent up thoughts and unexpressed feelings which I feel noone will understand. Its meditation for me and I should start soon....now.

Twins are reborn

4 and 3/4 years back an attack planned by our fellowmen killed thousands of other fellowmen, ruined the families of many more fellowmen.....
When I visited the site in the middle of the night a year back in the midst of a bustling city I felt a lot of things that I hadn't felt when I had seen the incident on television....
I stood there looking up at the other mammoth structures above me and imagined standing there on that day witnessing a structure twice the height of the mammoth structures I was seeing, collapse, seeing people jump out of windows from 100 floors above, flame and fire, rubble and concrete, screams and sirens, blood and tears............
The area was surrounded by metal fences with pictures of the incident and the rescue process, there were numbers and facts written on boards for everyone to read but what caught my eye was a bunch of fresh flowers placed in front of those gates with a note that said "Happy Anniversary Honey - love you always"................
Today I read this.
Will they stand up again, fearless and majestic? Or will they be haunted by memories and scared of the future?They have a reason to.

Rainy days and errands

I hate paperwork! Running from one place to another just to get a signature?! Taking an appointment a week in advance just to submit a paper or get an approval. I mean why can't there be a simpler process?? Took an afternoon off today to complete the paperwork and nothing got done!!!! Was compeltely annoyed and to add to it it was ranining all day, continuously and I hate rain when I have to be outside running errands and when the edges of my trousers get sloshed with mud, eeks.

To vent out the frustration a lil bit, had a good meal of chalupas, did some shopping at Circuit city...A and I had been planning to get a cam for a long time cos our previous one wasn't working anymore and moreover ours was 3 years old, too ancient in comparison with the latest models in the market. After innumerable arguments about whether to buy the slimmer one or a bigger one, the trade off being the quality and features of course , after some market research and trying out a couple of them we decided on the canon sd450, small , less shutter lag, good quality pics and SD card. The only problem with these slimmer cameras is they don't take AAs, so we have to carry the charger just in case the battery dies.

To vent out a lil more of the frustration after the dragging day, had mango milkshake and listened to some awesome tabla and sitar jugalbandi on full volume.....that was truly relaxing.

Tomorrow is Friday , will have lunch with all the Indian ladies in our division. The invitation for the meeting was hilarious - "Lunch and gupshup" !

Whats with age!

Pool party at N's was great. Barbecue and a swim at 8 o clk in the night was crazy! Even crazier was the fact that we were not permitted to use the pool beyond dusk and that we set off an alarm trying to open a door and also while playing chicken in the water I sprained my neck! Totally crazy but enjoyable, certainly! (Brought out the child in us for sometime!)

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Watched That thing you do today. I had seen the movie before on Star Movies when I was in high school and at that time it had seemed like a nice movie. Today I just couldn't concentrate or enjoy the movie...the predictability of the story, the boyish faces, the teenagerish dialogs and cliched direction got me bored.....
Am I growing old?? (I know I am but this is a serious symptom, no more lovey dovey scenes or sob stories for me. Or maybe I have just matured as a movie watcher and critic. hmmm)

'Oceanic' music

Indian Ocean in concert was terrific! They played all my favorites: Kya Maloom, Hille re, Jhini re jhini, Ma Reva. The good part is that before they played each song, they outlined the meaning and the significance of the song and how they came up with it. Good instruments, great music, awesome lyrics: a terrific show all in all.
Their music is indeed extraordinary , the 'depth' of the lyrics, the 'vastness' of the variety of instruments, rhythms, vocals and the languages in which their songs are written, the 'versatility' of the members, the 'strength' of their voices, their 'cool' attitude and the 'liveliness' of their performance really made them live up to their name: Indian Ocean.
At the end of the show they left an open question to us: what would you call their music? world music and fusion is not what they wanted to hear ..something different. They mentioned that their music at one time seemed similar to sufi but it wasn't Sufi so they called in Loofy !
I think I would call it 'oceanic' because an ocean is beautiful, soul moving, inspiring, pleasing to the ears, a pleasure to watch, deep, meaningful, vast, versatile, strong, cool, blue and full of life - just like their music.

Eventful weeks

Its been a while ..... the past weeks have been hectic
A recap of what I did in the past few weeks:

Beach trip to Wilmington: long drive, sand castles, cold water, cheese sandwiches, sunsoaked siesta and sunset....beautiful

Weekend trip to Ashville, Smokies and Gatlinburg: Friday evening we arrived at Ashville. It is a small quaint town with a very lively and arty downtown. The city was awake till the wee hours of the morning. We walked down the roads watching street artistes perform, stopping at small coffee shops where people were seated outside and having a good time listening to live bands performing, the noodle shop where you could custom order noodles, a big standing iron where I posed uncountable times to get the right shot, and old and young couples walking hand in hand.
Saturday we drove through the Smokies to Gatlinburg. The smokies (Great Smoky Mountains, one of the most visited National Park in US) were beautiful in spite of being barren. They are renowned for their fall colors.... it was foggy and chilly and rained a bit, but the wetness added to the beauty. The smokies were inhabited by the eastern band of Cherokees till Europeans came to occupy their lands and a lot of them were forced to vacate. Some of their clan still live there having adopted professions related to tourism. So very often you can see Indians (or whom we Indians call red Indians) dressed in regular denim and t-shirts selling mementos and handicraft in small shops in the valleys.
Gatlinburg at the foothills of the smokies is a small town in Tennessee, a major tourist attraction. A small town with a lots of stuff to do.... Guiness Museum of Records, Ripley's believe it or not, Ripley's haunted adventure, sky lift, a huge aquarium, horse riding etc. There was a candy store which displayed the entire candy making process which was intersting. The popular food around the place was pancakes and donuts. Had a long and adventurous day.
Sunday we visisted the Biltmore Estates in Ashville - America's largest private owned residence - the same place where the movie Richie Rich was shot. and yeah it was H U G E! With over 200 rooms and 46 restrooms, stables, gardens, swimming pool, lawns,a pond, stables and even their own winery. The most interesting part of the house was the kitchen, pantry, refrigerator and laundromat - the technology they used in that era was fascinating. At a time when not every house had electricity the house had an indoor heated swimming pool! The views from the rooms were beautiful,peaks at a distance and lush greenery. Not only was the architecture or technology appealing, the history of the place was fascinating..... walking through rooms, hallways and staircases where a 19th century family resided, their lifestyle, incidents were a great experience. There was a flower festival in the gardens, got to see some beautiful tulips. An old man playing soft tunes on his keyboards in the wooden covered path amidst the flower beds added to the serenity of the place. The winery was our last stop. They walked us through the entire process of wine making , including distillation and fermentation. There was a wine library - a cellar where old wine stacked in shelves had been preserved for years. Then there was the wine tasting experience.... the connoisseur that I am (:), the only knowledge of wine that I have is that they are made from grapes and could be either white or red :D) .... first time I learnt the difference between chardonnay, reisling, chenin blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon, chiraz etc. After tasting some nine different types I decided that I like the sweeter white wines ( now I don't remember their names :( ).
After the Biltmore tour we headed back home .... from a long relaxing weekend to Monday morning blues, from quaint beautiful small towns in the midst of mountains to city life and traffic.

Other than the trips the other events of the weeks include a new hobby: cryptic crosswords, some progress in my thesis, a party at J's place where we played taboo against the guys and defeated them (;-) ) by coming up with new strategies ("Sounds like pottery starts with L" hahhaa!!!) , a first round interview with my dream company which went well, some new clothes and a shoe sale, a surprise gift with a message hidden in an anagram engraved, ice age- the meltdown at the theatre with the kids, PI - a crazy movie, the thomas crown affair - same ol thriller, being cyrus - another evidence of changing Bollywood, zinda - let down compared to the original movie OldBoy one of my all time favorite thrillers, first time attempt to make capsicum stuffed with paneer, cleaning the closet, germination of the plants which we had sown in the beginning of spring and B's first attempt at DJ'ing under the alias DJ SnowGirl (hilarious)

That was a good recap, I think!!

Ambitions again..

As a child I wanted to be a teacher since they are the people I idolized ....I wanted to dress like them, talk like them, know everything in all the subjects like them, have the authority to scold other children like them :-)
Then came the doctor phase when I was gifted a doctor playset, complete with a stethoscope, a lab coat and a syringe. I remeber doing surgery on my stuffed toys, splitting their stomach with a pair of scissors, taking out some cotton and stitching it back with needle and thread. I used to apply Burnol over the cut to make it look like raw medicine applied over an incision. Erich Segal's Doctors contributed to that ambition.
Then one day I developed a fascination towards designing clothes. Liked the cool way in which figures were sketched and colors were splashed to make an outfit. Liked the idea of designing clothes with a theme or a meaning. I remember the trip to Paris was when I was at the peak of that ambition.
One fine day architecture occured to me. A perfect blend of creativity and mathematics. Fountainhead happened. It changed my way of thinking. Made me feel I could change the world with designs. Dad's friend was a naval architect and somehow that term sounded cool ...naval architecture was my ambition for some time.
For a very brief period of time I wanted to be a lawyer, the glamour and oratory skills of some of ma's colleagues impressed me but soon I realized I could not lie straight faced and usually lost all the arguments to my mom :(
Biology was my favorite subject and I thought I would make a good doctor till I went to submit my joint entrace form to a government medical hospital in Calcutta....there was a man who had lost his hand lying on a stretcher, blood dripping....there was a death in a nearby ward and the cries and howls of people filled the entire hallway .... I could not bear it .... I could not bear to see people in pain, suffering, crying ..... I realized it was the end of my dream. I would never make a good doctor. The dissection of toads in biology classes was something I could not get over, it used to haunt me in my dreams, made me nauseous at dinner. Medicine was removed from my list permanently.
Since I loved Biology and medicine was not going to work out I thought I'd take up genetics or microbiology and become a research scientist. But zoology/botany seemed the most boring subjects on the planet and soon I realized I would not be able to live my life working on animals and plants.
Economics attracted me once but soon turned out to be dry and materialism oriented.
Accounting class as an elective in 10th standard was fun but repititive.
Dancing brought out the best in me and I was perfectly happy doing it. But doing well in academics hindered the chances of taking up dancing as a profession.

Engineering was there at the back of my mind but I did not know if I really wanted to be an engineer...wouldn't it be dry and mechanical? I had never touched a computer till then.

I walked into engineering thinking that it would be like math and physics, interesting and philosophical. Some of the courses I hated, some I liked and some I loved and the rest is history ...

Today as I sit here coding and debugging I ask myself "Is this what I have come to this planet for? Is this going to be my contribution to the world? Writing software for corporate benefits, taking home a good pay packet, eating, sleeping and getting back to work again next morning? 10 years down the line where will I be? same cubicle maybe in a different company, may be here, maybe higher in the hierarchy managing people who do the same writing software for corporate benefits, taking home a good pay packet, eating sleeping and getting back to work again next morning.........."

I am starting my search for the right dream again..... a new list and a new set of ambitions

Decision after confusion

Today I took a big decision that could prove to be a turning point in my life .....
Today I tried diplomacy and learnt I am bad at it......
Today I re-learnt that honesty will never let you down .....
Today I realized again that there is nothing more peaceful than a clear conscience!
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Unwinding....

Today I had a long day, long enough to be saturated to the brim...one of those days when I forget about my meals, gulp down cans of diet coke, do not browse or chat or read the news, change my clothes in 5 secs flat, when the rest of the world outside the computer screen seems unfamiliar....
That set me thinking as to what are the things that I could derive the most comfort from....
1. An hour long hot shower with 93.9 fm or bubble bath with a book
2. A quiet walk by the lake
3. A phone call to my sis....complete entertainment! The conversation would include the description of an eventful day , about calcutta's weather, about complaints on how mom is partial with me, about the tv serials which everyone watches, about the times in the future when she is gonna come and stay with me and drive me nuts, about her friends' relationships, about dad's regularly repeated questions, about new entries to her shopping wish list from here, about how she never understands what I work on and study :) etc etc etc
4. A good movie
5. Cooking something new
6. Painting
7. ............ actually coming to think of it all I would do once the issue gets fixed is crash!!
Sleep is priceless!