The Other Blog

Why am I here?

2012-01-07T17:52:00.000-08:00

Why am I here?

Once in every while, this question passes through me, making me wonder and leaving me at that. A walk or thought down the memory lane or few events from past or some thing so present often leads me to this state of "Why am I here?" And every time, I'm lost in the wonder of my thoughts and to come out of it in more wonder, confused, relaxed and sometimes with a thought of may be time wasted a little, but that's ok feel.

I have no idea what it is but I feel 2006 kinda lingers in me for some reason. It was the new year I came to my city, lovely city of Chennai after my initial training in work, excited, enthusiastic, with so much energy (that I'm always blessed with) for work and everything life has to offer. Phew, I almost ended up losing it all, much to my own surprise and chuckle, by my own will. Alas, the dance classes in JNR, the countless water melon juices after them kept me going. Time spent going in the cab after work to my home, listening to FM was all so nice or the times I have to run and catch buses to reach my home. My frustration to wait for the last leg connectivity in buses to my locality that runs at a frequency of 1 hour at off peak hours lead to me purchasing my trusted warrior, mate, one whom I always reckon on - my Honda Unicorn. It was my first big purchase once I started for work and Im so happy it is my bike. Thanks to my appa for arranging part of the money when I wanted it and I dutifully adjusted it with something else down the line so that my claim above that it is my own purchase stands valid :) :-D hehe.

Going to Tidel back up center for my entire project, establishing myself so well with the clients and leading my own team of 3 members by the end 2006 in my work were all so much positive for me. Lots of time spent with my project and I even stayed up support till 12 AM on the new years eve of 2006-07 in my work that year. Doing countless dance performance with my Moto guys, watching movies with them and so many things were all so enjoyable and time well spent.

I dont wish to over emphasize 2006 here, even If I recollect some moments of my college times it brings back so much of a time well spent with ups and downs and something I would like to be part of again. Same with school or may be till my birth :. In fact my whole life had been good to me. I'm fortunate, thankful and glad about it. May be Im purely lucky or its just me.

Now, where do I go from here? I have few things that I want to do and lot more as well. I only wish for persistence and little bit of good luck on all of this now and going forward. Contrary to what some of my family members think, Im very flexible with things that are of interest to me. And, I still consider myself a clay that is not hard. I wish to remain this way, a moldable state and wish good objects and impressions (surroundings) to be molded upon.

Now, one thing for sure. I have been here before and shall be here again. I'm referring to the state of "Why am I here?"

Mullai Periyar - my thoughts

2011-12-22T10:12:00.000-08:00

In a blog post earlier in 2008, I had lamented about Hogenakkal water issue that came to trouble the farmers of Tamil Nadu. Like most of the water issues that has befallen on TN, it also, unfortunately, had to deal with excesses from the neighboring sister states.

In that post, I had explained in simpler terms 3 things:

1) Geography of TN is such that it is the lowest state in the Indian subcontinent and it depends on water from top to flow down to its borders.

2) How, sister states have started building more dams and reservoirs within their borders to hold more water and use TN as a conduit ONLY when they have all they need and more. Their demands have increased due to increased urban population, which needs water to drink. No denial in that but what will the poor farmer in the downstream do if he doesn't get the water?

3) How, TN also has faulted in not taking care of the small ponds and ground water resources within its soil.

I titled that post as "Now it is Hogenakkal - what next and what more?" expressing my exhaustion at all these water issues the state of TN has to go through every time, time and again. But, never have I ever expected that another issue would come to trouble this water starved land even more.

The facts about TN, which is not very well know to people outside of this state are given below.

1) The most Urban state in the India (more than 50% of this state lives in Urban-semiUrban areas). They live in all these areas for the lack of water to do vegetation in rural areas.

2) The state with less than the national average of mandatory Tree cover. Please see the link for the same.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sadhguru/planting-trees-is-not-som_b_613811.html

3) If rains fail, even for one season, the whole of TN faces drinking water shortage. That is the hard fact. If rains fail one season, there will be water shortage in all cities and towns across TN. Last few years 7-8 years had been beneficial for TN, in terms of rain fall - it has had expected rain fall, not excess, just expected. And, we are happy for that. But it has never been that way before that - famine and drought have occurred in regular interval for every 2 years all through last 2-3 decades.

4) It is well captured by the this movie (1981) - just the introduction of this move captures the essence of the situation. Just see first 3 -4 minutes, you will know the enormity of the issue back then that director Balachander took a movie on this.

Coming to Mullai Periyar, it is a river that originates within TN-kerala border, and flowing westwards and flowing in to the ocean. In order to prevent the Famine and drought, dating even back to 18 the century (and also continuing as shown in the above scene), The Mullai periyar dam is envisioned and constructed to hold the water and push it back to TN via Gravity mechanism as the dam is perched at a height to do that. That is how it works and British designed it that way.

I don't want to elaborate on the how the Dam is built or how the deals were made back in those days. As enough has already been said about it.

But, I do want to talk about the safety issue. Lime may not be the strongest building substance known to mankind, but it has withstood the time for 100 years before Kerala govt brought any concerns. Agreed. Concerns have to be addressed. And, it was addressed with strengthening of that dam in three stages and completed by TN. And, in 2006, Supreme court, highest court in Indian constitution gave a verdict asking TN to raise the water level to 142. The dam is safe. And, restricted Kerala govt and police to prevent any obstacle for TN for further maintenance of dam.

Immediately after this - Kerala made amendments to its existing Rule/law of 2003 saying no govt- state or Central or no court can control this law. And, by their law, they determine the height of dam as 136 ft. And, kerala has full control over that Dam. That is outrageous to an honorable contract that is in place, reviewed again in 1971.

I understand that there have been tremors (count of which has to be verified) in this year and people are really worried about the dam safety. Again, a valid concern. It has to be addressed appropriately. Appropriate is checking if dam is strong again by today's standards and by neutral folks. Technical and otherwise. Then, let us see the next course of action.

Questions to Kerala:

1) Why did you refuse to agree to highest court in India in 2006 and agree to that order?

2) Coming to present day, Tremors happened, but let us wait for a proper study. Before that, why to arouse the fear of people more even before the strength of dam is tested again?

I have Keralite friends all over my life. I like the Kerala girls too for their long hair and munda kannu (big big eyes :D ). And, Keralites and Tamilian are one of the closely associated people of India, with barely no or very less difference between them. So, I value their life, in the down stream. Their fear after the recent tremores is valid and living with fear is worst than living at all. I can empathize with the situation. But, to add more fear stating dam will collapse, is not the right step forward for a govt. It can be the agenda of rumor mongers but not of responsible elected people of a state. They should be pacified and we should wait for a neutral, valid, technical study and have to see what to do next.

Also, no structure in the world, is designed to withstand mother nature fury. We can only hope it is and prepare for the worst and leave it at that. And, in case of Mullai Periyar dam, that preparation was also done by strengthening and we have to leave it at that. God forbid any worst eventuality, the downstream river bunds are high enough to hold the water flowing at full level (per what I read about the river bunds down stream) and Idukki dam can withhold the overflown water. The loss of lives as feared by people may not happen at all.

The intentions of Kerala govt, as expressed by it as safety may not be the real issue here. If one looks back at this issue from last 30 years, one can see a pattern. They revoked rights established by that contract one by one including right of TN on the entire stream and the fishing right, right of TN to determine the water height in the dam and various other rights that were part of the original deal. Now, the only thing that is left standing is the Dam and they want to remove that also. Why? So that TN's right on anything will not be left there.

Why don't they say that Dam is weak, we will build a new dam and give you back the same contract and deal as before? Your only concern was safety, right? Why don't you say that way? Coz, it is not entirely about safety. Underneath the safety bandwagon, lies the human ego and the need to establish rights over something on the kerala border. This is infact not even human trait, this is animal trait - territorial rights and demarcation. Humans are all animals and I didn't quote animal traits to demean Kerala govt nor the people of Kerala. Coz, all humans including TN folks, Andhara and America and everybody have this territorial behavior. If not, how can we define the wars we have fought over ever since we came in to being in to this land. I quoted that human character to just establish that it may not be safety at issue here but something more which is control and rights of property in Kerala land. And, even that character comes to Humans from Animals as we are all one. :)

If we get this reason behind all these clear, even a TN folk will not feel so much hatred or animosity towards Keralite due to this issue. And, vice versa. One fighting for territory, another fighting for resource. We have to accept this is human, to avoid falling victims to hating and hitting each other.

Now, how do I see this issue pan out?

1) Supreme court will again come out with a valid technical detail and the Dam wil be saved.

2) Else, if they find issue, technical or anything, considerable steps need to be determined to establish the safety of Dam again.

3) If it is found to be so grave as portrayed by Kerala - let Supreme court say so. Lets see the next steps after that. TN, would still like to follow Supreme court order; Unlike Karnataka which is not following the order on Cauvery. Kerala which didn't follow on Mullai Periyar.

If some mishap of Kerala govt or otherwise would happen to the DAM or some miscommunication lead to a bad decisions or policies of Central or Kerala govt that would result in TN being snatched of its right to water - I foresee the following.

- TN will block any goods to Kerala from within its border
- TN will stake a claim for bringing the Idukki district to be with in TN. Change the border so that TN shall claim full responsibility for the down stream people. Request and voices in this direction are already being heard in TN. If UP can redraw its state to 4 different states, why can't we revisit the border issue with Central govt so that Kerala govt can feel the pressure of them on the safety issue.

At a humanitarian level, a land, that is once the rice bed of India, the land that gave three yields of rice (unlike any other land in the world) would be left to dry by people who claim to be sister states but refuse to give water for TN. Tamilnadu is already one of the dry beds of India.

Govt of India, better watch out - this will be a wake up call for integrity of the nation itself. If two states (Karnataka and Kerala) can disobey the supreme court order and another (AP) building dams across Palar river to let less and less water to TN, where is the Unity in diversity or Integrity of the nation?

Where are your policies? Isn't water a universal requirement of all people? Shouldn't that be under control of central govt? Instead of state govt which has obligation with only that state?

These issues need to be discussed; water rich states will never understand the seriousness of this issue being faced in down south.

Let me end this by saying this much. I'm not a farmer. Neither my dad is. Or, my grandparents. I have never lived outside of Chennai while in TN. But, if I can feel the gross cumulative atrocities and injustice handed out to state of TN in water issues this much, imagine the rage of a farmer who is ploughing the field for his life? Imagine the bleak future that is dawning on them? Imagine the rage and plight of his son.

Below is the video of Vaiko - I'm posting his video coz I find his speech to be based on facts and listed without any bias. He is even requesting Kerala people to see the new dam approach will not lead to the water through Gravity mechanisms. A very neutral speech with facts from TNPWD engineers on stage. (please see all three parts of the video)

What we ask is Water (and the honoring of existing contract; contract leads to obligation and we will only oblige when we have a contract as this is a multi centuries trust) and what will be ensured is safety and precautionary steps of dam and emergency mitigation steps.

Fear psychosis will lead to more fear. More "if else" question will come and it is a never ending cycle. What it needs is better awareness and a assured plan for any contingency. Slowly, life will move on without fear.

But life cannot, without water - the elixir of life.

Steve Jobs

2011-10-09T11:10:00.000-07:00

I mentioned about Steve Jobs in one of my earlier post last year. Even then, I decided to save off writing about him for later time. I wasn't really sure on how to capture all about him in a post. I have been fighting the same question in the last couple of days as well. Alas, I have decided to just list down all I think of him and leave it at that.

But, never did I think in my horrible thoughts that I will be writing about him after his passing away.iSad. Really, really really sad.

I didn't know much about Steve jobs before my college. Well, I didn't have a personal computer before college and so no clue of him. But, what I did come to know of Apple were the colorful machines and apple computer with their apple logo in colors. Thats all I ever knew then.

But later on my curiosity grew on apple, to know more that Macintosh is different from PC, it doesn't run on windows but on something much much better. But, thats all about Macintosh and me till I owned one myself. But, I become aware of iPod much more earlier and in detail than Mac, thanks to Music and what iPod meant for music. It was this mystical costly player that I could never own, alas I choose to spend a lot of money on it. Thankfully, I got the first generation iPod shuffle as a gift from my uncle and boy didn't I love it. stuffing in my pocket and flashing the white earpieces and the chord. Wow, I will stand out in a crowded bus where all used to have black ear pieces and chord. Though it didn't have any visual, I still loved the portability and the way in which I can throw it, and still nothing can happen to it. I throw my stuff - thats me.

Then came the iPod Touch; a lucky break in a portal competition in bangalore. I was not the original winner, I was a close second. But they chose to give to me a prize coz they liked the way I designed that portal and also had a story to tell for that portal. Others only did the compliance check to showcase the portal. I actually chose to ignore few of the compliance thing coz it was too cumbersome to find and win that point to win the competition. Instead I designed what I liked and explained it in a way I liked. Well, they liked too :). Thats how iPod touch came to me. The first time I could pinch to zoom a picture - aaahhh. What a happy feeling to do what I saw Steve Jobs do in the iPhone presentation a year back. It was indeed magical to pinch a zoom a picture. Now, it has become a standard but boy isn't it a wonderful thing to have in a touch device. The technical side of it is one of so many things we should be thankful to apple for.

To touch a device and communicate - you need to have the following things working.

- touch capable screens, location mapping of your fingers, observing the action that you are doing (say you are scrolling swipe or pinch swipe), then pass this information to the OS which actually determines the swipe functionality I said above, then seeing what screen you are and doing corresponding action. Coz a picture pinch to zoom is different from the browser pinch to zoom, functionality same, app is different and OS has to determine that as well. All this and may be more may be happening just for the pinch to zoom.

And, all of these have to happen simultaneously, so that you can see the picture zoom in front of your eyes, as you do it. Wow :)

Then came my mac - to have a PC that can boot fast is sufficient enough reason for a mac :). Enough said.

Steve Jobs - to me, he summed up one thing. Be yourself. At the core, he never really changed. He did things he wanted to do and did it well. Everything else, he didn't care. He just didn't care.

[There is a tonne of material out there in the net that talks about his visionary skills, drive and how he created things. Im not even going to touch upon those qualities with my writing skills and constrain them. ]

Apart from being oneself, he also symbolized what drive can do. He loved what he did and coz of that, did it well. He was brutally honest in some of his/apple's failures or shortcoming and didn't try to hide behind few good things. He wanted all of them to be good, even the minute details of anything apple, to be good.

A read of the below post by Vic of Google would say how much he cared for the tiniest of tiny things.

https://plus.google.com/107117483540235115863/posts/QNWKwJTFmki

Or, what is the need for a CEO, to come down and explain his store to the world like he did? Explaining isle, products etc..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLTNfIaL5YI

Everything apple meant to him - he was ready to do everything to anything of apple and knew everything of apple.

One of the very few people in the world who can solely claim their entire career is their own. And, the one of the only handful ceos who can do whatever they want with the company - coz it is theirs. Every other CEO in world is off late appointed for few years tenure and they have no connect with company as Steve did with Apple.

Apple has its fair share of questionable policy, platform initiatives, but off late, what I come to understand is that, they are excessively supremely controllable of anything that is apple, coz they love their products even beyond the sale. I dont like their restriction of iOS environment or OS, but they want to make sure that the device doesn't break once it reaches consumer hands. I dont agree with this stand, greatly. But, I have stopped questioning their intent off late.

And, only a person like Steve jobs can choose to be so outrageous with his demands and still pull it off. Who can ever forget the iPod deals?

Apart from being a successful product, iPod needed a legitimate way to download music to make sure that product is sale-able in the market. Till then, music industry refused to accept MP3 downloads as a valid way to get the music and even that format. iPod changed all that. He was famously quoted as saying to all the 6 big music labels, "If I can't sell a song for 99 cents in iTunes store, then there is no deal". Music labels agreed. And, now we have legitimate and easy music downloadable industry in the world.

Same applies with iPhone. Before iPhone, a phone's price, data plan, and the Tenure were all determined by Cellular carrier. When Steve Jobs launched iPhone, he had stuck a deal with AT&T to launch it at 199$ price, for two year contract and unlimited data plan. What you have to notice is that, Apple, a device manufacturer, is dictating a Carrier business when they are launching their product. The status quo till that time was other way around.

A vegan.

And believer in heart and instincts, he did mistakes and corrections. Never one to be ashamed of his actions, he did one of the greatest comeback in history of the world business to turn a company on the verge of bankruptcy to be the most valuable company in 14 years time. Wow.

How respected would you have to be to have your competitors mourn your loss? Google paying tribute in the home page, Wired.com blacking out its entire page. Google and samsung celling their own mobile event due to the untimely passing of Steve Jobs.

I still cannot believe he is gone - Im really pained and shocked.

[Im giving links to some of the most wonderful Steve Jobs video, article around now.]

http://www.fastcompany.com/pics/steve-jobs-obituarites-most-innovative-powerful-different#0

A tribute to Steve Jobs below

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-BXzifkxsk

Think different Ad with Steve Jobs own voice

Im not an apple fan boy, but of Steven P Jobs. iRespect. iLove. iMiss.

The journey from Monday to Friday :)

2011-09-27T17:53:00.000-07:00

Dil to bacha hai ji

2011-05-25T17:16:00.000-07:00

One of the most wonderful songs that I have heard recently is the one above. I first heard this song while going in a friends car and found it to be so melodious and nice to listen to. I also thought to myself, may be it is from 1980's or earlier. Coz it was so melodious.So much so that, I started recollecting this song and humming just after the first time I heard it. And, when I heard it the next time in his car after 2 weeks, I asked it to be played again.

It is a quality of really good song and singer, when it makes one to like the song so much to go and see its video. Rahat fateh ali khan is one such singer - wow, what a melodious voice, so soothing.

After having seen the video, I like this sone even more. :)

- The reaction of the girl at 0:06 and hence forward till Naseerudin shah sit, is so subtle, and wonderful.

She looks simple, nice, and speaks with her eyes and smile, without even uttering a word.

- The look of Vidya balan at 0:48, was beautiful :). So, is at 02:00.

- Arshad Warsi, standing with flower - hilarious :).

Such a wonderful song !! Even if the video was a crap, it is worth to be heard over and over again. But, they made video, even better by keeping it so human and natural and nice.

Dil to bacha hai ji :)

How one generation loves....the next generation learns.

2011-05-18T18:20:00.000-07:00

There are very few videos that will move you - above is one of them.

Being young and brazen, I had been similar ways to the moments expressed in this video. Luckily for me, realization also dawned soon of my stupid or ignorant ways and had the opportunity to mend it as well. However, in life, there would be people who would do most to us but we may never be able to repay or offer them the same things that they offered us. And, we continue repaying everybody else in our life the way we would have probably done for the few, in gratitude as well as also as a lesson we learnt from the very same people who offered us the most.

The last quite was the highlight of this video - may be the strand that keeps our species (or all the species) going in this earth as well.

How one generation loves...the next generation learns.

Un-Changing

2011-05-01T00:01:00.000-07:00

The only un-changing thing is change. Whether it is my life or your life or our life or the life of other living organisms in this planet or elsewhere, there is change. What is change? Is it just a word? If change is the very nature of everything that is, why not have change renamed as nature?

I have observed that certain songs, when I listen to them, immediately transport me back to some other time. Likewise, with few events or some activity, that if I do or am involved, takes back to the last time I was doing the same activity or the related activity. In getting transported to that particular time, I look at my life then and now - to see that I'm pretty much the same guy that I could recollect back myself to.

The things that I enjoyed doing, that I wanted, that I did - have all kinda remained the same, un changed. Yes, due to exposure amongst other things, the gamut of things have increased. May be something got added, few things fell off, blame it on the benefit of time and exposure with life more. Yes, it did bring understanding of few new things and how to handle them - people, the most important of it all. How to handle them, and let them handle me is something I'm learning, may be will continue to learn as well.

But, one thing I wish to refuse, and that is, not being what I'm. Not for any reason that it might be. Not for the age, growth, expectation or what not. Agreed, we need to be according to the norm or atleast limits of its boundary for major part of the time. As that makes exploring new things, experiences, events and responsibilities and everything that comes with it - a great opportunity to grow oneself and change. And, that is important too - something that cannot be substituted at all.

To see this exposure, time and learning as something that will enable the growth amidst the realization of un-changing me, is what the reality is.

Have you blogged lately?

2011-03-14T19:21:00.000-07:00

Movies ~ Films ~ Reflection ~ Life

2011-02-01T05:27:00.000-08:00

Movies - one of the common industry across all of the nations in the world, yet very different in the content of it. The reason for existence of movie industry is very simple - Humans love stories. Yes, we do. When we are young, we had mom and people around to tell stories. Beyond a point, we have movies. This I believe is the single most important reason for the success of this industry.

This is an industry that spawned out of our need for imagination - coz stories are imaginative. Some are factual, some are reflective, some are imaginative. In a way, all the things we do in life comes out of imagination and movies offer us to experience it - visual medium.

I dont know the exact history, well, not much of it at all - but dont know how and where this medium came to existence. It can be traced to drama or puppet show or what not. However, from what I know, they have been a powerful medium, coz they involve people. For the people, by the people, to the people (again, come to think of it, everything is for/by/to the people in the world - where am I going ? ) Movies have been used to pass down messages to the people, for instance in Indian freedom struggle, movies played a role. Even now in life, some movies send across inspirations messages/feel/vibe to the point of being the inception of something ;).

And - movies are also separated out for their content off late. Some of them are called realistic, some documentary, some entertaining, time pass and what not. For eg: A movie like slumdog millionaire may be entertaining, inspiring and treat to watch for many people all over the world. However, it may not be the same way for the guys who live the life of the roles played in that movie. For eg: a guide in Taj Mahal or the waiter person in the hotel. For them, the slumdog movie may not be their cup of tea as they dont want to see what they go through everyday also illustrated in screen with more music and dramatization.

Preferences, separation of movie in to different genre and other things also reflect something else about ourselves as well. The difference that is in all of us - reflects in different genres and preferences and choices. All these difference come in to existence coz we ain't struggling for basic amenities anymore (well we are at one higher level, but not at individual level in most countries barring few). For instance in a poverty stricken country, eg a country in African continent or war torn country in middle east - the choices and preferences may not exist for the movies - coz they are happy with whatever is available as the priorities are elsewhere. An individual can have the liberty of having the option of having options or choices - when his/her needs are met or basic necessary thing for each of the individual is taken care of.

Same logic applies for movie genre or what people enjoy - if the society at large is stressed out or living in a dire straits, a documentary movie may not appeal as their life itself is may currently be documentary types. Movies also reflect the same - the taste preferences of what an audience can afford to accomodate.

Well, all said and done - its still our stories, our figment of imagination and we choose what we want to imagine in the larger screen and be told ;-)

Urad dhal rice and Vegetable cabbage kootu :)

2011-01-22T16:27:00.000-08:00

Uradh dhal rice (also called as karrupu uzhundu sadham at home) is a very nutritious food, one that I got to eat very often all my life. Well that is until I have to cook for myself as now.

What started as casual discussion over skype with mummy on how to prepare cabbage kootu soon turned it a cooking lesson through skype.

Uradh dhal rice and Cabbage kootu both came out well and as a bonus, ended up preparing rasam real quick too (it can be made really quick anyways :D ). I added more turmeric and hence the color of the kootu.

Hmmm...Easy and nice things. Protein power :)

Why?

2010-12-19T15:55:00.000-08:00

Why?

Why do we grow old? physically and mentally? What is the purpose behind it? If we are going to die anyways, why can't we be the same way and die?we can be babies or stop growing old beyond a certain point - why grow old enough in to dysfunctional bodies and die?

And - why, most important of all, Why? What is the point anyways of this life and all these things? What happens 5000 years from now? I dont even know what happened 5000 years ago. So nobody may know of me. Im sure somebody so long ago had similar thoughts as me, and he would have been gone. And, why am I having the same or similar thoughts again? What are we learning as the whole species then? If we all die or do not pass down the knowledge or even if we pass down knowledge, we go through same or similar things - why this birth at all?

Is there any other type of birth available at all? Why am I even thinking like this? What is that makes me think like this? Why does that whatever inside me think like this? What is that I want? Even if I want something/anything - it is all from here, in Earth. We are yet to explore and use outer planets, even if we can be. And pollute them as well, who knows. Then we can get what we want from other planets, till then it is all here. So even if I get what I want, got to leave it while going. Then what is the point of wanting it at all?

Is it all the summation of everything and nothing put together?

Why are we doing so much when we are nothing. When we can't take anything. So should we stop what we are doing or refine what we are doing? What is the point anyways? Then, why?

How globalized are we?

2010-10-30T18:13:00.000-07:00

http://www.barackobama.com/live/

Just finished watching obama live on his website. And, I couldn't help wonder at the globalization that has dawned on this world.

To win an election in the state of Illinois, Obama had to bring in China, had to bring in Singapore, had to bring in Germany. You can no longer say that what you want to do is right, just by the virtue of it in politics. You had to quote example and draw attention to the practices in other parts of the world to add virtue and credential to your argument. It also tells me how interlinked all our actions really are in this world, now.

And, boy don't I love it.

Born Indian, worked for Americans while I was in India and working for Americans while Im here in America. Allright, globalization has to be a two way street, how can I be enjoying it an US not enjoying it. They do, not only in terms of quality of work, time and cost. But the two way street of it. Indo US nuclear deal opens up billions of dollars to american firms to build nuclear reactors to India. American firms engage in upgrading Indian military, air-force and navy. Deals running to the tune of billions of dollars.

China's globalization policies may be slightly different in execution but it is all the same story - two street . US companies get quicker product development cycle with less than a quarter of investment to make the product and that is not the only reason they grudgingly shift the jobs. China is the largest investor in US government bonds. China if it can dare, may shall hold US govt for ransom on account of its investments. No - they wont do it for US companies investing in China run its middle class family.

It is the same or similar story all over the world with globalization. It is more dependency amidst nation. The challenge lies in striking the balance. A nation should be self reliant, driven by home grown and outside innovation but be prepared for crisis. If outside driven innovation and money is not there, it should not lose its livelihood. It shall afford to lose its luxury but not its necessity. I think India is on the path of striking that balance but still far fetched. We need more leaders like Manmohan Singh, P Chidambaram and Montek Singh Aluhiwalia, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, APJ Abdul Kalam. I hope I can add more leaders to that list as well.

US has got Obama. And, may be few more whom Im not aware of.

While watching it live, I was waiting for him to quote India. However, he did not. May be he genuinely believes India is not doing any greater harm to US. Or, he is preparing himself for the India State visit.

PS: For erstwhile Imperialistic nations like UK - please innovate or perish even before you can see. You can make tougher immigration laws and close your markets or make them more open and competent enough to enter anywhere else in the world as well.

Time moves on - but I stay still

2010-10-17T01:25:00.000-07:00

4:10 Am and, as I listen to the songs that are randomly playing in my playlist, I hear one familiar song that I have not listened to for a while now. Songs of the movie Kadhal; and just as the first song started playing, I find myself enjoying and appreciating that song the same way as I did it 5 years back. I like it even now.

It just made me think - that much of my preferences have not changed over the years. May be they have grown to be accommodating and but not lost what is inherent to me. I find myself enjoying the same activities that I did long time back, of course, and new experiences are also thrilling but still the old ones are not being replace. hmmm....

I think - Im the same kid-guy-man-person. Now, probably (hopefully) ever. Well, some people will interpret in a different way and say that we should change over time and grow up and play new role and responsibilities. Well, Im playing all those but wish to retain/remain the same way.

hmmm :)

Titanic

2010-09-05T07:41:00.000-07:00

Watching Titanic now and I'm not sure the count of the number of times I have watched it before. But every time, I watch it, I want to watch it and fully. Its one of the first movies in my life that has fascinated and impressed me in my forming years, during school.

What fascinated or interested me was not just the drama in the movie, the wonderful love or the wonderful movie making, which was as wonderful as the love that was showcased in the movie itself. Its the incident itself.

The fact that this was a real incident and this happened in a century that I Was also part of made me empathize with this incident so much. I even had a collection of images, pictures, posters from that movie collected in a small little file pouch that I'm so proud of. I have not seen it in the last few years though, but it should be there, somewhere in my erstwhile table.

Nature and life, gives humans the same lessons, time and again, that we fail to get it also, time and again. However we grow, how much ever advancements we make, ours are all still relatively small compared to whats around us. Trees have been in this land even before us, if Im not wrong. Atmoshphere, air, water. So on. But we need constant reminder that we are not so big and nature has to teach us something catastrophic and take away some of our lives as the cost to make us understand. Alas, we forget it all too soon.

Titanic too, unfortunately stands testimony to the weakness of human beings. The procedural failures in following the rules and other important things while running the ship and the professed PRIDE on some small things such as class and categorizing people as class. How long do we need to realize that we are all one and the same? Stupid class, color, creed, religion and other separation holds only amongst people, but to nature, all are same. All will have to survive for the fittest. That never takes any criterion - and nature reminds us that we are one and the same, even one among the same with itself too, by all these events. Most of which are caused by our stupidity while some of that are natures fury.

And, coming back to the movie, James cameron's one liner about the movie was - "You remember Titanic? Rome and Juliet are traveling in the Titanic". What a wonderful love story, simple and enjoyable. Most of the time, some real happiness are like that, stupid, simple, enjoyable.

And, oh yeah - one of my most favorite scene in that movie is when the diamond is thrown back in to the sea. The way it spirals and goes down, the blue diamond. It had always fascinated me, don't know why.

Cloud watching

2010-08-07T13:01:00.000-07:00

[Well, this has to be the most delayed blog post of mine till date - almost 2 years late]

Cloud watching - wow, what a simple yet fun and pleasurable way to spend some leisure time quiet. Either with oneself or in the company of like minded people.

I had the privilege of such company in the navratri month of 2008 @ ashram, in bangalore. I was with my Ashwin, Vaish and few more at the Radhe kunj place in the ashram and we were sitting in the amphitheatre and just simply watching clouds. We were looking at the clouds and giving names and designs to its pattern in the sky - it was such a simple but wonderful activity to just do that. To see what the natural canvas has for you up in the sky. Seldom do we pay much attention when we look up to sky to notice and start naming patterns and reflect your imagination on the natural canvas.

In my opinion, this is by far one of the best canvas available for a living being and the best entertainment possible for a curious and creative mind. With clouds moving as fast as they are, you are bound to think of innumerable things just by looking up. WOW. I happened to do the same not so long ago at the same place and got reminded of the previous time I did it there. It is such a simple activity and realized that it will enthrall me always in life :)

Disappointed

2010-08-02T11:22:00.000-07:00

Ufffffffff - Im, well kinda disappointed.

It wouldn't be surprising for us to know that politicians are involved in corruption and so forth. But selling one's vote to elect Rajya Sabha polls? Yuck - I don't know if there is anything meaner a man can do in life than this one. Some MLAs are offering to sell their vote for 50L or 1 crore or ever 2 crores to elect somebody. And, who are all coming in to RS nowadays? All big industrialists - who knows how many in the past have come to RS through this means?

I hardly see any tall figure as Industrialists - Ratan Tata , surely yes, one of a kind. May be Narayana Murthy. May be Azim Premgi. I couldn't think of others.

If this wasn't enough - Common Wealth Games is heading to a slow disaster and a bigger embarrassment for the nation :(. An event envisioned for 754 crores has shot up budget by 100 times to cost 75 000 crores and above. THIS IS RIDICULOUS. To put things in comparison, the farm loans waived off by Chidambaram was around 60,000 crores to poor farmers. Here we are just organizing a 50 day event or something. Agreed, it is prestige and other things - but at what cost? Has it improve India and her sports talent at grass roots level? NO. Only stadiums are constructed at Delhi and that too new stadiums are leaking. PHEW. And, now there is this great fact of corruption by Kalmadi - in funds. 25000 Pounds have beeen deposited to a one man company in UK for the last 4 years from CWG funds - gosh. IT IS OUR MONEY. And, some selfish beasts are eating on this money.

What worth are receiving medals from these hands?

And - there are these two "Modi"s. One is Lalit. Another is Narendra. Both are good at doing what they like doing. Management and administration. Alas, if you have done a mistake and dont have the courtesy or the guts to accept it and go through some correction, time will catch up with you sooner than later. That is what is happening in both Modi's camp.

Uffff - Im kinda disappointed.

[Still with a smile and enthusiasm coz life is just the summation of these two]

The way life prepares one for death - Wow

2010-07-19T08:48:00.000-07:00

[Spoiler Alert - This may have nothing to do with death or that biological process or anything. I just have got the title of blog named that way]

I'm a person who can't give up on things that easily. I think I still have this character/quality in me, however, it has come down to a level that Im so happy/proud of. :-)

Being a kid - I cannot even digest losing my wicket in a game of cricket. When we are playing cricket at my aunt's place, whenever I lose my wicket, I will blame the bat or say the bowler bowled a no ball or it was not out or something. I cannot stand losing my wicket or for that matter of few other things as well.

Alas now, I can willingly come forward and give up on few things coz I know in the end I don't take even a penny back. As the famous line in the bhagwad gita goes "What have you brought for you to lose here? Whatever you have taken, you have taken from here". Practicing or being this way is little hard but not impossible, definitely no and it is true for all of us.

Losing what - the materials that we have around us? The things lost by theft, or lost by repair or lost by tear and wear out. All things kinda go away in time. One strange things happened when I fell down on the road recently - after I got up (thankfully, Im ok) but I looked at my bike and it was kinda broke. I felt real sad. I felt like oh my bike - the one thing that is for me with me and the one thing that I reckon on. It is you (hehe, bike gets personalization and almost gets called as life-like-the term YOU). And then a day later, I felt - gosh, how attached am I to my bike. Phew, is that good :D but yeah I like it still, but just got realized of my attachment to it and Im sure it will kinda come down (me :( and also :) ).

The larger, greater loss is of people or relation or with human. If the attachment with bike can be so significant for me, what about with people. It will be much more, right? Yes, it is. However, life (time) prepares one so beautifully. Im still amazed at the fact that I didn't shed a tear when my aachi passed away recently. I did a few when my periappa was around - don't know why, may be it was the fact that I saw the person who has got same or more love from my aachi like me.

When I look back, was I prepared to lose my aachi few years back - Im afraid, I dont think so. Am I prepared now, the moment it happened, well - I didnt have a choice :). But, I think I was much better prepared to handle it and move on than I was few years ago and guess it needed 25 years of my life time to prepare me to lose somebody like my aachi :-).

I think that is what is happening in life - you are constantly being prepared for the current and whats next and you are going through each of it - till the point of losing oneself. At this point, I really wonder at the quote I came up 4 or 5 years back - "All your possession in your life, including yourself is an illusion". Im not sure what prompted me to come up with that quote or what inspired me to say that but guess this post resonates something of it.

Symbolism - life is all symbolic

2010-05-29T13:09:00.000-07:00

I don't know. I don't know if I agree with rebirth or not. I know that all things on earth has earth on it; simply said, all things have grown from earth. Eating, living and dying. And, upon death, the body again tends to go back to earth in one form or the other. And once back in earth, it again becomes part of the cycle that goes on to become the living organism again.

However, I find myself not in entire knowledge on this coz I don't have any personal experience to substantiate on the rebirth scenario. I don't recollect my past experience so far. It could be coz of the following things:-

1) I don't have the skill to know of those things yet.

2) I'm trying to understand something which cannot be understood but felt or known (Im not sure what Im saying here)

3) May be I'm brand new in this world - with no past exposures - yeyyyy (not sure why am I 'yeyyyying' for)

Guruji says - rebirth is there and happening. Hmmmm..I don't have as much experience as Guruji on things or neither am I close to being enlightened yet to know it all.

When my aachi (paati) was lying with out any movement or breath on 25th of may at 10:30 pm, I resorted to give her breath by blowing air through her mouth and few push and pats on her chest to make her heart beat again. Alas, my struggle didn't result in her coming back to life and looking at her body didnt evoke any great deal of emotions in me coz I knew she is gone. But, when my aunts and other people who came started crying, I realized their love and also the amount of love my aachi commanded. However, when I saw my atthais saying " amma unnai naan inime eppo ma thirumbi parka poren" - I understood what that body there stood for. It stood as symbol of what my aachi is. It is my aachi's body. I have to call it now as "aachi's body" and not as aachi as she was no more. So what are you? Are you the body, mind or soul? Mind is inside the body or is body inside the mind (thinking on the number of times we are thinking of body in mind). I know there is something else apart from these two that makes a person - it can be called as soul, prana, life force or self or whatever and what not.

But, my aachi's body there few days back stood as a symbol of my aachi - and evoked such emotions unseen. And, that makes me realize that all the things in life are symbolic. The statue of god we use to pray - is a symbol or representation of different emotions or avatars. And, even the act of praying is an expression of love and gratitude to all including oneself.

Likewise, all the gestures in life are symbols. The act of hugging a person is a way to bring the two hearts together, symbolizing closeness. The frown on the face symbolizes anger. Even words are a way to symbolize or convey something. Gestures and even the consequent action is also symbolic of something else in life.

And, my aachi (grandma) symbolized something really simple things but that are far greater in life - love, resolve, determination. She is a classy and gutsy woman. GUTSY. I underline it. It is simply stunning to know what she had to go through in life single handedly and what she stood for even till her last days.

Some tit bits about her:

1) She calls paal/pal (milk) as Vella thanni (white water) - coz Thattha name is Palvannanathan. And she like all age old tamil ladies, doesn't want to utter her husband name so calls pal as vella thanni

2) After the death of thattha (at her early age of 33), one fine day, she decided to make herself a mattress by using all the veshti's of thattha. She rolled all the veshtis of thattha and layed one on top of the other and had a separate cloth to cover the bunch of veshtis and got herself a mattress. She slept on this mattress in the floor till she was literally forced to sleep on cot only by doctors few years back.

3) My mom (whatever difference of opinion apart) has such a great level of admiration for her in-law that she had sent a write up about her life,how she struggled and how she got the entire family to survive the hard times to a tamil magazine called, Mangaiyar Mazhar. This was sent few years back. This was her pure admiration of this woman - not coz she was her in-law. Actually, nowadays, in-law and admiration are antonyms :D

4) She was instrumental in many members of her family being in job or getting the first job in the early days of 1970's and 80's.

5) And, she has been with me ever since I was born. My aachi.

Period

2010-05-25T14:11:00.000-07:00

Somebody who has been part of my life, my self from my very birth - is no longer there PERIOD

It feels weird for me to even blog now but I have only blog to just scribble.

I guess I will realize the effect of this loss only in days to come.

Some part of me says that this is life

PERIOD

Rested -> Felt like Rusted -> Now, the urge is back. I can sense it

2010-05-09T05:13:00.000-07:00

I got rested off late due to changing project requirements and project change. But I guess the rusting started even before the resting.

And - guess this rusting is due to the age old knowledge - lack of activity. Thanks to rusting, I feel the sense of uneasiness in me growing up for a long time now and has reached its culmination. And, I feel, despite the rustiness I would be able to at top of my performance in a very short span of time and notice. I mean it.

However, the afore statement should not be interpreted as an indicator of the way I used my spare time. Well - most of it sort of got whiled away in one activity or other. And, that his in a sort of increased the urge more.

And, I feel I'm ready to do lots of things that I want to do - really lots of things. Work majorly and my interest in the same. I have all the tools, and just waiting to rev it up. Let those times come - and I will post pretty soon on the same as well.

Yeyyy...My family

2010-04-28T06:38:00.000-07:00

This is my family.

Well - me and my appa both of us are not Kamal - C'mon, I'm not even making that comparison. May be, in looking good scale, I will back myself up to be up against Punnagi mannan. However, what is unsaid of me is I'm a crazy Thalaivar fan.

But, yeah - my mom is good looking. And - both of them rock in their support towards us, and each other. A fact that got illustrated even by a stand they took last month in support of me. They simply rock coz they don't enforce but suggest and give more than they ask.

And, coming to my sister, with whom I'm currently in a fight - coz she seldom understands (she is half as my age, that explains her level and ability to understand). But similarity can be drawn to this video with her. She also dances Bharatnatyam - and I make fun of her dance. She definitely is more loquacious now, I hope it comes down in future :-D.

But, we (all of us in family) feel good when seeing this song - may be coz of the character identification we unknowingly draw with this song. And, I somehow feel that a family with a bro and sis is actually wonderful coz you get a chance to enjoy (and suffer :D) a myriad range of emotions and battles and happiness.

Mannipaaya

2010-04-12T09:08:00.000-07:00

I love this song- not just for

Ar Rahman and Shreya Ghosal

But for the lyrics which seems so beautiful....

Unnai yenni yengum
Idhayathai yenna seiveyn..
Idhayathai yenna seiveyn...

Happiness

2010-03-14T13:00:00.000-07:00

Happiness - that is all it is all about.

Ensure two things in life, always:

1) Happiness in this present moment; see if you are happy now, else make yourself happy.
2) Happiness in the moments(years) to come - work towards it.

There are various things said about happiness:-

Life is a pursuit of happiness - life will always move towards happiness as it is human nature, to be happy. However, life should not be pursuit of happiness - it should be, happiness in the present/every moment and pursue what you want. Else you will not have time to be happy when you are pursuing it always.

But, see if you are happy in your present moment. Else do what it takes to make you happy.

Make others happy and that gives you happiness

True - the happiness that one derives from making others happy is boundless compared to other material happiness. Happiness in making a child smile; happiness in helping mom/parents; happiness in making some stranger happy by your genuine help or act of kindness.

However, there is one question that lingers here - what if you embark on a journey just to make others happy and compromise your happiness or unable to see that you are really in to it or happy, would you be able to complete the journey or task, merely by the drive to keep others happy. To put it in simple words, what if you find yourself not happy by doing something for the sake of others or making others happy? (Friends, comment your answers for this question, please). I say, Live your life and make others happy, in all your actions and deeds. And, leave the rest of activity of being in that happy state to others. You can only make others happy but cannot feel it for them. You see what I'm saying? To put in other words, you cannot live others life in order to make others happy - you have to live your own life. If others expect such a thing from you - they are being cruel to you. Most often, those others are people who are the closest and dear ones to us.

But, if your ability to be happy is so integral to you, would you still go for a failed compromise and choose practicality over happiness for flawed reasons?

However, I can't understand decisions and other whatever taken without considering happiness in to the equation. "What good is your life in that case if you aren't giving yourself or others the chance to be happy".

we are all told the following things at various points in life, in some cases, repeatedly.

"Be practical"
"You will not get what you want always"
"Things have changed. Time has gone. It is a different world now ".

The aforesaid things are the reality and is a well known truth. However, change yourself to accommodate reality and facts. Change is the only permanent thing in life - but it has its own dimensions, and sides, like that of the coin. People should see it not only from their side or dimension alone - but from the other side and the dimensions as well.

If changing yourself still aint bringing happiness, change yourself further to change the environment and the set up you are in - for happiness is all that is about it in life.

Men of Quality are not threatened by women's equality

2010-03-06T03:52:00.000-08:00

A man who treats woman as his property is stuck in the era of inequality. And a woman shall never let this happen - Nathan SP
--------

Cautious, careful people always casting about to preserve their reputation or social standards never can bring about reform. Those who are really in earnest are willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathies with despised ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences - Susan B. Anthony

Women themselves have the right to live in dignity, in freedom from want and freedom from fear - Kofi Annan

Sexual, racial, gender violence and other forms of discrimination and violence in a culture cannot be eliminated without changing culture. -- Charlotte Bunch

Women are the only oppressed group in our society that lives in intimate association with their opressors. ~Evelyn Cunningham

The thing women have yet to learn is nobody gives you power. You just take it. ~Roseanne Barr
----------
Advanced Women's day wishes to all the wonderful women in life :)

Curiosity is the most powerful thing you own.

2010-03-04T20:08:00.000-08:00

In 1991, when I first saw Terminator 2- Judgement day with my dad in Alankar theatre in Chennai, I was scared. How can a person get bullet hits and still walk along, can melt down and back to life again. How can computers walk at all?

My dad had no answers. But he did what he could - took me to that movie.

Few years rolled over and when I was in 9th standard, me and friends watched the same movie at a friends place. We were completely engrossed in to that movie and started discussing it, without having any clue. And, it was dusk by the time me and a friend of mine started back to my locality in a bike (cycle). And, on our way return, out of no where we heard this huge sound of engines and machines rattling up and smog raising engulfing the entire road ahead. For a second, we had our hearts in our mouth - me and my friend. I was still in that movie inside me and to see such sudden change of things right in front of us in a peaceful locality was a shock to me.

Well, thanks to Chennai corporation, that was the mosquito repellent sprayer vehicle which rattled up spewing smoke at us.

And, then started my romance with James cameron's film. I have seen almost all of his films, barring one or two. And, I have seen all of his films multiple times over. It is through this films that I realized that I have struck a similar chord with the man. Science fiction, Space science, Exploration, the thrill of it and boundless amounts of excitement this nature and our minds have in store for us.

And, I saw the following video a short while back and I told to myself, James Cameron, no wonder I love you.

Some of his inspiring lines from the speech are...

Curiosity - its the most powerful thing you own.
Imagination - is a force that can actually manifest a reality.
Don't put limitation on yourself.Other people will do it for you, don't do it yourself.
Failure is an option - but fear is not.

PS: Another author whom I love is Michael Crichton. Sad that he is no more :(

I do

2010-02-24T22:38:00.000-08:00

I DO

And, I have to do lot more in life.

TED - Bill Gates talk on Energy

2010-02-18T11:00:00.001-08:00

Bill Gates talks about Energy at TED;

Link to original talk if the video does not display

Orkut - now and then. And, when......?

2010-02-04T23:06:00.000-08:00

http://www.orkut.com/Main#Profile?uid=2880291781645158378

I have been accused of living my life in Orkut at one point of time in 2006. That is how insanely I love orkut. It is my first social network site and the one that I really thrived on. I love meeting people, connecting with them and orkut provided me an opportunity to do that online what I never could do so far in the net.

Having said that, this post is a look at what Orkut is now (so called new version) and how I still like the old one better to this one. And, my own suggestions on it's road map - for I love Orkut and as a member, I'm allowed to have my vision for Orkut. C'mon, Eric ain't the only person who has vision for Google products :-D.

I can't list down and do a through a differentiation between the old version and the new version. However, I'm going to list down the key features that I noticed and why the new one doesn't seem to be just right yet.

Old Orkut

The UI has three vertical pane - better and intuitive way to navigate.
Scrap book opens up in a fully blown page retaining the left pane which helps in navigation.
Photos are displayed in much bigger size - which is really good.
There is a difference in content when you switched between home and profile page. The middle pane displays different data while the left pane remains the same and maintains the consistency in navigation. Right pane is also there - which can go away and display some thing else if needed.

New Orkut

The UI has 2 vertical pane display.
Scrap book opens up in the same place as the updates from the other user would be.
Photos are displayed in a small size compared to the previous version.
The right pane - it is as static as the old HTML is. All I can see is three boxes on the right side of the display that doesn't change if Im viewing the home page or profile. It is just static and to be frank, kinda annoys me too.
All the friends are displayed in the friends box. I don't think anybody would want to view all their friends in the same tiny box using a list sort of UI.
Rating the user as Fan or Cool or Sexy is not present. Or, Im not able to find it.
Color customization is an ill equipped customization and not feature rich and also for the below point.
OLD Orkut appears when,

I click on the fans on profile
Settings
Manage friends
Manage communities
More info link on the profile page.

I think the rendering of old UI is still called or used for some of the links. And this brings about inconsistency in the look and feel.

I LIKE

The ability to approve members on home page
The option to view friends based on their classification/groups.

Remove

Search Web button. If I want to search the web, I will use google in a next tab. I dont want to have an option that lets me use Orkut to search web - too many buttons. And even if it is there for a purpose, it needs to be presented in a better way.
Remove multiple links in the page. Profile is listed twice in the page. And, Home and Profile stands as two separate tabs on top - looks incomplete.

Please see the below image - Green is the one I like; Red needs another look by orkut folks.

Vision

Orkut can mimic the real world socializing - this brings in a huge scope of things that can be part of Orkut but select few can be tried and tested as feature. Like,

Get Introduced to - this feature can be used by members to get introduced to other members.
Collaborate more with google's other social products. Bring in features that can involve interaction between orkut and Picassa, Blog, Maps. These are all web user driver app and they can be integrated with orkut in more ways than one.

Curious question to Google

Why is orkut coming up in the first few listings of the search of my name? Is it a conscious decision by apple to not promote its own app in the listings? Not even my blog (this one) gets listed in the search results of mine. See below.

This is how it is - Now and then. Orkut. Question is when? and what do orkut has to offer and when?

iPad

2010-01-27T11:07:00.000-08:00

It is quite a feeling to write about Steve Jobs, right after I did about Bill Gates - I'm going to save it for some other time.

However, this is about one of his creation - iPad. As I watch this event, online and hear it, I feel the endless urge to be part of creating something like this.

Bill Gates - to enable pc what it is now

2010-01-23T16:27:00.000-08:00

Bill Gates - one of the world's richest man, ever. And, I haven't worked with him, yet, but have always worked on one of his company's software all the time of using computers.

Three years ago, when I was having a casual discussion with work people on various things in world, we gradually drifted to the topic of computers and PC. And, my friend commented saying " he is the one who made software industry. No one till that point thought of writing software and expected to be paid for that". It was not a working thing or business model till Bill pushed it and struck insanely rich. People had worked only on hardware and hardware people worked on softwares for them.

And, by writing this post, I have in no way diminished my interest in opensource or some of the apple products, but have to concede that almost all of my computing have been on windows products. And for the question of "Is windows operation system the best one for PC " I decline to comment, much more than what is already known. However, it is till date the most successful platform for personal computing and using which the majority of the industry grew and thrived and thrives till date.

I have used apple Macintosh, Linux but couldn't quite come over the fact that what is that windows has that enabled it to be most used (market share) till date and why and what the former don't have?

Having said that, my appreciation for Microsoft is mostly for the aforesaid reason and the one below as well.

Bill Gates - To enable pc what it is now (mostly good and little bad)

http://www.gatesnotes.com/

would you apple?

2010-01-21T09:24:00.000-08:00

Would you apple?

Rumor has it, apple is working on its own search engine as well. http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=6800&tag=nl.e539

And, Google will not be the default search option in their latest iPad or iSlate or iWhatever. It may even be pushed down to their other products to be removed as an option.

Why does everybody jump in to search bandwagon? I would write a new post for that - Watch out for that.

But one thing that impressed me was how easily some of the really cool technology giants interfaced and used each other products - for eg.
1) Apple having google as the default search option.
2) Mozilla having google as its default search provider in the browser tab
3) Motorola using Android OS (Google mobile OS) to build its new range of smart mobile phones.

Now all of these synchronization (or) integration stands at tender hooks, which can or may fall off soon.

Possible reason :-

Google launching Nexus one - mobile phone that is targeted at the mobile market
Google launching Chrome browser - that is targeted at the browser market.

Google was tipped to target and hit the Mighty Microsoft - and it did, and does. For chrome OS is going to come out as well. Their first success was the search (away) from Microsoft and the Gmail.

However, Google now is treading in to the market space of its technology friends - who may not like it and severe their association with google.

Let us just wait and watch this space.

live 100 % every single moment

2010-01-18T21:29:00.000-08:00

Live 100 % every single moment. Whate ver you do let your attention be on that. Even wasting time is fine - but dont waste and attempt or pretend to do something else the same time.

Im so in a not so describable state - but still I think I always retain my cheerful state. I think it is a fault with me - I dont know how to feel sad or get dragged on or be overwhelmed by some of the mundane things in world. Im by default happy and at at times that doesnt seem to be appropriate - I dont know why.

I have my wants and what I want I know.

And, coming back to 100% feel - this repeat thought got reminded this time by looking at AR Rahman song....how good it is , all time. He does what he wants and gives it all.

And, not everybody is as lucky :-). And, the extra effort required to do something you like will always pay off but expending that extra effort and also having clarity on those things amidst confusion in your surrounding really makes me not do anything. how conveniently have I found a reason - phew.

Nevertheless - live 100 % every moment. Peace

There are always opportunities in life

2010-01-11T21:03:00.000-08:00

Life is nothing more than opportunities and there are plenty of them. We miss some and we hit some and still there are plenty of them - it applies for things personal as well as things work wise as well.

I dont think there is anything as work wise as well - what you are, what you are. Personal or workwise.

There are plenty of opportunities in life - that is what I want to tell myself and never is it ever late.

It is a confusing post reflecting my state of mind :)

Where are we heading to?

2009-12-19T07:12:00.000-08:00

Just look at the above video - and well you feel that the revolution in the IT world and advancements in technology is changing the world as we know. It captures the gist of how IT, computer and internet is changing the world so fast that we can't even comprehend the change. If you ever going to leave this earth now and return back in 5 years, Im sure you would feel completely lost with the advent of technology. And, it can be so true even for the most tech savvy person too.

It made me feel really happy about the type of work that IT is involved and the type of work I can do. I'm always game for programmatical challenges (and would love to fail and learn rather than read and learn the concepts), but having been in IT company for more than four years now, I know that development is not the only activity - it is also one of the activity. And, all of them are importanta.

Enough of digression in to IT company working arena - let me continue on for what I wanted to blog for.

As if the video above is not exciting enough and its prediction an exciting journey that we are going to be embark on, Im completely at awe of another phenomenon - AVATAR.

I haven't watched the movie yet. I will soon. However, I'm already thinking of it's ramifications in various spaaces.

As a kid, when I watched Terminator 2 - I didnt understand it much at all. When I watched it again in my high school, some of it started making sense to me and I woke up the realization of robot or artificial intelligence playing its part in the human race in the future. [And, one hint that Im going to give myself in this blog is that I may be part of the AI driven sales related work and lets see if that would realize :)]

That was an exciting idea for me then and even now - and this idea was brought in to our lives by cinema and by one man, James Cameron. It wouldnt have made such an impact as a cinema and concept if not for the manner in which it was depicted in the movie. And, it wouldnt have been possible to depict it that way if not for the advancement in IT.

And, now Avatar, the movie, takes it to the next level. Many of the reviewers are saying one comment about this movie - whatever one were to imagine, it can be brought and depicted in the cineman. The technology to do that has been invented by the movie. This can be really exciting for the cine world on the technology and how it can further showcase great stories [if they have ;-)] - however i'm intrigued by another fact here.

Does this forbode what is to come? Terminator 2 brought in cinema what can be done in reality now (or already in reality at different level) the robotics and AI. And, does this mean that whatever one imagines, one can bring to effect using technology, if not now, in 2154??

Oh My MY! I so want to Live and live till that time and even beyond too [my appeite for living never ceases]

As excited as I'm, I shudder to think of the consequences of such a capability - has anyone read the book (Sphere) or watched the movie by the same name? [The book is much better than the movie] The aforesentence is a testimony to the gist of the concept Im attempting to put word to. The author of the book, Michael Crichton, has imagined and has described all his imagination in much detail in the book, however the same cannot be replicated in the movie. See what I'm saying?

And, the Novel is also about the ability to imagine and manifestation of the same - if such a technology do exist, or comes in to our life in 2154, are we human ready to handle such a capability in a positive way?

Where are we heading to?

This is how it is

2009-12-16T05:25:00.000-08:00

I'm going to continuously surprise myself by my abilities for the rest of my life.

Flex -- RESTFul API -- Ruby on rails.

2009-10-27T05:35:00.000-07:00

Flex--RESTFul API--Ruby on rails.

I have began.

The Other Blog

2009-10-23T04:39:00.000-07:00

What is the other blog?

Well, it is the other blog that I have. I have another one and it is no longer active and hence the other blog.

I will publish some of my posts from my 'the original other blog' hahhaha in the legacy post section here and will use this blog extensively for work, technology and every other thing that I like.

Let me begin. Welcome!

The World I live in

2008-10-15T11:20:00.000-07:00

I have all the time in the world...and I have all the things in the world that I can learn......Known is a drop and unknown is the ocean.....it is so true in this life...and especially true...in the life of a software proffessional coz no matter whatever you could have studied (Bachelor of Engg) to become one, or all the learning you do while you are a s/w proffessional, is never enough. You would still feel that there is sooooo much more to learn...and various situations when I stand quiet..wondering...what is being talked around...only reinstates the fact that I need to know more.

Known is a drop ..unknown is an ocean.

Yet, All the world is my stage and I can play the role I choose to. Day b4 yesterday, b4 leaving for office...I had this high energy....was jumping and moving/dancing for some tune being played in computer and I was really happy and enthusiastic...and I kept on telling myself....I have got all the time in the world...to learn and finish off few pending tasks and be eager for more :-). And it felt good.

For no reason, during work, suddenly I felt all the enthusiasm drain out and only skepticism come in and confusion over few things regarding work only compounded those feelings. So much to my high energy and feelings :-D

Still, It's a beautiful life.

I have it all and can get only more in the times to come. :)...My family is really kewl..and nice..and good...with my relatives....and friends..who are really kewl...it sseems a bliss to be living..and this is how I live in :)

AND.....

There is this other world, where I face disappointment, anger, sadness, anguish...pain...and frustration almost on a regular basis. It is a straw in me....which kinda sucks away the life from me..however indifferent I chose to be. The disappointment over the helplessness on the situation or the lack of my action or the excess of which could result in worser results or the apprehension about the prospect that is awaiting me. There are various other things that Im not able to explain but one of those feeling is intent to blog about the same senses....to give a vent for them.

I believe most people in this world have these two worlds.....one world...in which there aint any big issues and the other world, which crops up once in a while to remind and drain most of our gains from the other world.

However, I still believe, its a beautiful world coz it has these two worlds within it....as a part of it and still chugs along...I dont have anything to lose, as I always carry the hope of fixing the other world to betterment :-)

who am I ?

2008-10-04T23:47:00.000-07:00

Who am I ? Such a simple question ain't it ? Yet, the answer for this question varies from one person to another....and that underscores the individuality of each one of us. The fact that we are all differrent in one way or the other.True.

Or is it true? Are we really differrent. Last week of september threw up a an inspiring incident out of an accident.

Sixteen year old Hithenthran from Chennai met with an accident and was pronounced brain dead in the Apollo hospital. His parents took the bold decision to donated some of his organs to the people who are in desperated need of donor. They donated his kidney, cornea, liver and Heart. All these organs are serving and helping somebody else to live in this world now. His heart is beating in the body of a girl who was suffering from heart failure. The story of how Chennai traffic police did their job in the quick transportation deservers appreciation and another blog.

(http://www.funonthenet.in/forums/index.php?topic=108352.0)

(http://www.hindu.com/2008/09/24/stories/2008092458800100.htm)

Lets get back to the topic. Are we the body that we have now? in that case, Hithentran is still living in the bodies of another people. It is very important to note that his heart has gone to a girl child. This should serve as slapping reminder to people who differentiate girls and boys (men and women) on some ridiculous criteria. In my opine, there aint much difference to a man or women but for the few physical difference which are there for a purpose and that doesnt warrant a discrimination between the two sexes to the extent seen in different parts of the world. What is needed is discretion. Period.

A quick search on the internet brings back the list of organs that can be donated to others after one's death and that should seal all the discrimination amongst human beings on the physical criteria.

Allright, we've been talkin on the physical level...what about the mind? That is the place where the real difference exists. Or does it?

what sort of feelings do you go through in your life? Happy? Sorrow? Angry? Depression?

Put in the same situation, almost all the people in the world would experience the same feeling.

We feel sad when some one passes away.

We feel happy when our work has won accolades.

We feel angry when we were treated rudely/badly/inappropriate manner.

We feel when we encounter

There is not much difference in the way we all feel given a siutaiton. Do you see what Im saying?

However, the way we handle how we feel (read as emotions), can bring about the difference.

Let us touch upon another aspect on the mind level - thought process.

Do you think you have the control over your thought process? Well, I dont think we have control over our thought proces. I can be wrong here, but that is a remote possiblity.

Thoughts come and go whether we like it or not. You can brand the thoughts as good thoughts or bad thought but they come and grab your attention (or drag your attention from your activity) and goes. However, they will stay if you grab them - see the difference. They grab your attention initially and leave the option to you - if you grab it, you will be in the same though else you will be out of it. Simple.

Ok - even in Mind level, we don't seem to see much difference between humans coz there are not much options left. ;-) wink wink.

Physical level - there is not much difference between humans.

Mind level - there are not much difference between humans.

Then, shouldnt you consider yourself to be fools if you see difference amongst people and discriminate them based on trivial things such as sex, place, caste creed and religion. Give me a break.

We are all one.

If we are all one, who am I? May be there is something that is unique (read as different about me) about me that sets me apart so that I can define myself. But what is so unique about me if we are all one and the same ????

Who am I ??

I'm a muslim; I'm a hindu; I'm a christain; I'm a jew

2008-10-04T11:24:00.000-07:00

On the occassion of Gandhi jayanthi, I had the opportunity to watch a wonderful movie named Gandhi (no surprises here :-D). I regretted and realized the mistake of not watching this movie so far and also how ill informed I was about Gandhi and too a good extent of the various devlopments that shaped Indian independence. The movie was good on the handling the content of Gandhi and Indian independence and fitting it in to 3 hour time frame of movie standards. I'm not much of a movie critic and will stop at this level.

In that movie, Gandhiji utters a sentence which goes like - I'm a muslim; I'm a hindu; I'm a christain; I'm a jew. It was such a wonderful expression which speaks of oneness in humanity and the intent of Gandhiji to convey this message. If I juxtapose the unfortunate events happening in present day India, I wonder how can these self proclaimed saviors of religion who hail from this land claim their affliation to one particular religion alone? - when the father of nation can proclaim that he encompasses all of them.

Also, Gandhiji couldnt complete his planned trip to Pakistan. I wonder all the good that could have happened had that trip to Pakistan been completed by Gandhiji. The innumerable battles and fights for border issues, the two wars India and Pakistan fought, the creation of a seperate nation of Bangladesh, the Kashmir issue and most importantly, the mistrust amongst the people of the two nation. All these could have been potentially avoided had that trip happened or so I think so.

????

Now it is Hogenakkal - what next and what more?

2008-08-16T03:05:00.000-07:00

For all the people who don’t know about Hogenakkal, please Google it and you will be greeted with results that take you to a beautiful, pristine waterfalls present inside Tamilnadu, close to the Karnataka border. Now, if you can see the image (map of south India) then it wouldn’t take much effort from you to understand a simple geographical thing I’m going to put across. Tamilnadu has ocean surrounding it on one side of its entire border and on the other three sides are the states – Andhra Pradesh on top, Karnataka on top left and Kerala on the left.

A simple observation would reveal that Tamilnadu lies at the bottom (geographically) of the Indian states. And, TN doesn’t have any perennial rivers originating inside its border – very tough luck huhL. Well, not really or until till recently. We had the sister states on the border of TN sharing the water they received in an altruistic manner (per agreements though) – kudos to them. Ok, what has changed? I will blame it on the easiest of reason in the world today – population explosion. The number of people depending on the water increased across all the states and sister states are now finding it difficult to share their water per agreement/or nation forbid “supreme court ruling”.

Why the difficulty? Take for instance, Karnataka’s agricultural land cover. I don’t have the exact statistics but the cultivatable land inside Karnataka’s border has increased manifold in the last couple of decades and all these fertile lands need water. The same statistics exist inside TN also, but the percentile increase is much lower thanks to the lack of availability of copious water, which is required to make any land cultivatable.

Ok – how did KN get abundant water? Simple – they build more dams on the down Stream of Cauvery inside their borders to hold more water inside their borders. Hey, it is the duty of the KN Govt. to protect and provide for its people. And, they are doing that splendidly. However, they may be doing that at the cost of people of TN.

How? Let’s see that.

The more the dam they build, the more their capacity to hold water inside their borders and less the flow to TN.

The Cauvery water is also being used to supply water to the Bangalore city. This was not the traditional usage of Cauvery water inside KN and it put extra pressure to hold more water to quench the thirst of an ever expanding Bangalore city

Lack of skillful utilization of water inside KN, crop rotation is not much prevalent and all the crops cultivated are water consuming.

In addition to that, if all the states to the north of TN block water flow how will this state ever get water?

Ok – here is where leaders of TN have failed. They have not paid sufficient attention to small and large water bodies inside TN and that resulted in them draining away. Also, effective and efficient practice of farming was not encouraged and not much time and effort went in to research of farming.

However, having said, they have started to focus on this regard recently and ‘rain water harvesting’ implemented compulsorily in Chennai city is an example. And, the proposed sea water to drinking water plants in TN also stands testimony to that.

Solution on national level:-

1) Make a governing body or society for farmers across the nation; if govt. doesn’t do it, its high time farmers took the initiative themselves.

2) Nationalize all the rivers and give the control to an independent body of eminent and appropriate people.

3) Linking of all the rivers in the country should start and start right now. Implementation of this activity should be in such a manner that it takes in to account all the nature’s flood and drought pattern.

Some of the aforesaid activity needs lot of political will and commitment from parties dedicated to the welfare and progress of the nation. Also, farmers all over the nation should empathize and understand each other’s problem and should co-operate with each other to effectively use the scantiest of resource – water, the elixir of life. All of us have the same source and instead of competing for the same, cooperation should be the way forward.

It pains me to read about the regular flooding in Orissa and other northern states in our country while Tamilnadu, Andhra Pradesh and some parts of Maharashtra are constantly gripped by drought. We have enough intellect and money power to fix this disparity existing in our country.

Let there be enough resolve to fix this crisis in our country, which I believe would solve much of the agrarian crisis in our country.

Jai hind!

88888

2008-05-13T05:17:00.000-07:00

88888

What is this? Eighty eight thousand,eight hundred and eighty eight of what??? Does it involve any money? Well, if it does...then lots of people will be hooked to this number with majority of them hoping to get the money, with each expecting the same amount (88888) :-D. Seldom people realize the joy of giving.

All right, enough of this digression(intentional ) from the context of the topic. 88888 stands for a time line - 8th August (8th month) of 2008, starting from 8 pm for a time period of 8 minutes a wonderful thing will befall the citizens of the Chennai city - Yes, they will get the immense knowledge of themselves. Yeah - I mean it. Do you want to dare differ with me? well give a try ;-). The knowledge that they would get in this 8 minutes would be of a women who has taken care of all of us in all the ways possible, she has fed us, she has given us shelter, she has has given us the place to stay and she has given us, ourselves - the real AMMA in true sense. Our Mother Earth. Pardon your weak intellect if it mistakes this reference to any particular political party ;) :-D

88888 - is a campaign organized to highlight to the people the harm they have done to earth in the form of pollution of land,water, air - the environment on the whole. As a result of it we are facing something called as GLOBAL WARMING - wow kewl jargon. What is global warming - globe warming. Simple :-D. But the issue is not any laughing matter.

Why is it raining in Bangalore and Chennai during mid summer?

Why is Ooty and Darjeeling getting progressively hotter year after year?

Why are our monsoon getting erratic?

Most importantly, why did so many catastrophic natural disaster seem to occur more often in the last 10 years?

Some of the disasters I can remember on top of my head are :-

- Gujarat Earth quake

- The Tsunami

- Kashmir Earthquake

- Hurricane Katrina

- Myanmar Flooding and hurricane (last week)

- Earthquake in China (yesterday)

Have you ever wondered why these things are happening? If you have not so far - then please do. Mother earth is reacting for whatever bad that we have done in the only way she knows - through storms and weather and climatic changes. Now hold it - What bad have we/I done? Hmmmmm...Good question....what bad have we done.......If you don't really know....then as the old age saying goes...it is better late than never to know of them....

First step that you can do is support the campaign 88888 (http://www.88888.co.in/)

For 8 minutes, on the 8th August 2008 at 8 pm, turn off the lights, wherever you are and look at the beautiful sky. We only got one Atmosphere and one land to stand on or build yourhouses or skyscrapers upon :-). Please do this much for her.

Ok - switching of light does what to mother earth??? You save so much on the usage of electricity. Imagine Chennai city completely dark and quite, with the knowledge for 8 minutes....wow. This is such a huge and symbolic gesture that as people of this city..that you can do....Nothing else. The Tamil nadu Government will take notice of the people's action, The Indian Govt. Citizens of various cities in the world would be watching us with inspiration and will take this forward. Your chance to be the change you want to see in the world.

Switching of your light wouldn't enable you to save any electricity coz you can't store electricity in the first place :-D...How many of you didn't know this simple fact??

88888 is a campaign aimed at switching of the lights of your house or work place but it switches on your awareness - that is what it is all about. What do you want? A bulb that runs on electricity or the glow of your knowledge?

The choice is yours.

Y to the E to the S - its YES !+

2008-05-09T03:06:00.000-07:00

YES!+ or Youth Empowerement Skills workshop is an amazing and must try for anybody between the age group of 18 - 30 years of age in this world - enough said.

No, I'm not kidding. That is actually enough said about the yes+ course coz the only qualification is for you to be young (as specified in the age group above ) or young at heart ;-). If you are going to think of any other reasons not to do this course, just do something for me in the next 2 mins :-)

Go to www.google.com and type "Yes+" in the search bar and see the results for yourself.

Now,

Go to www.youtube.com and type "Yes+" in the search bar and see the results for yourself.

Finally,

Go to www.orkut.com and type "Yes+" in the serch bar after logging in to the site and see the results for yourself.

This course is rocking all over the world and it doesnt really require much from you than few hours of your time for yourself :-). Please do this much for yourself as there is nobody else in this world who can care much better for you than yourself.

I'm back - Astlavista baby ;-)

2008-05-08T22:17:00.000-07:00

Its been a while since I posted anything in my blog and offlate restricted my activity in blogger to to just commenting on bawandinesh.blogpsot.com. To be honest, that blog has increased my logging in to blogger often than anything else.

Hmm...who is this Guy Bawa?? (Baws..as I call him)...well....he looks pale white in color...and has long hair...and heck a lot of grey matter inside the outer hair strands ;-). He can talk about anything from cooking great foods/baking cakes to health to UN to Yoga to Sanskrit to Maths to Financial planning to reading books (yoooooo lots of them) and what not....

What not?? - Piano baby...he is, as one of my friend put it, is an exponent in piano playing. I had the privilege of watching him play with another European great piano player...last year dec in Blore...hmmm....that was a kewl concert.

if you get your chance to meet him...dont forget to ask a question or two... ;-)...you will be surprised with the answers...and most of the time...it will be a single word reply - 'SO'. I dont really have any clue as to what one will make with such a short reply :-D......

Other than that.....he heads WAYE with his trusted friend...Dinesh (he deserves another blog..do watch out for that).

That's about it with regard to Bawa/Bau/Khurshed or Baws or atleast for now ;-)

PS: Just now sent me blog URL to Bawa and incase he drops in to my blog...wanted to have an updated blog awaiting him ;-).

Also, I have added an image of me with Baws from last year dec time. I will be having my arms across Dinesh Bhayya and Baws- WAYE is in between my arms ;-)

chaooooooooooooo

Bandh- I'm liking it............

2007-03-31T00:06:00.000-07:00

31, March 2007 - bandh(total shutdown) in the state of Tamil Nadu in India. As a hail from this state and the state (or should I rather say the ruling party) has called for bandh in protest of Supreme Court order. I wonder if protesting a SC order is legitimate under our constitution? Or the better of my sense seem to remind me that its we who created these constitution and anything goes in this world. I believe this is enough of digression from the subject of this blog to the points am making in the above sentences.

Yeah - why am liking this bandh? I have never seen so many people being in their homes (respective homes, btw) and just about finding ways to wile away their "forced" break. It is funny to see the kind of activities they resort to 1) sleeping 2) cleaning 3) TV taking the major chunk of activity on this day and all other worldly matters comes as the 4th point. But, I'm not liking this band for these reasons also. It is some thing more and a thing for which I'm so passionate about, the nature (Earth - wow our only place).

To think of the number of Vehicles off road in TN in this 12 hour time period is mind boggling. It is estimated that almost 98 % of vehicles (that would normally ply on any other day) would be off road for this 12 hours. I'm so happy coz this is the time frame that the nature mends herself. To the number of ecological and other natural damages we have done to our very own environment, it stands as a pathetic testimonial to our lives. The pollution of vehicles, the industrial activities and all other activities (phew other bad acts of our pollution are not coming to my mind now :( ) that has quite literally left our nature in coma. This bandh could just give a break to the eternal pollution of our lives, though it is momentary, in relative terms to the earth's lifespan and our acts of pollution. But I'm still glad and liking it.

We always under estimate the nature's capability to mend herself. Left to its natural activity , this nature could amazingly spring back to its original form of past years and make Chennai less pollution free in a short span of time. The advantage of this are manifold. Decline in the respiratory problems of people ,better water, and more cohesive ecosystem that could turn out to be a better place for us to live and share.

A better nature is the panacea for all our present troubles and that begs the question why we aren't looking in this direction of achieving the same.

How about a thought ????

2006-06-11T22:09:00.000-07:00

Well.....I've been wanting to have a blog for long time.....to share n express my feelings....finally have done it....

I will start posting more n more soon....

wat you say about this small sentence I coined?????

"All your possession including your life is an ILLUSION "

Sounds ridiculously easy to read but try comprehend it in every walk of life....n have ur say.....