Random Ramblings

4 months Ago - I turned on the Bluetooth on my cellphone to transfer some images of myself on to my laptop! But, for some unknown reason my laptop's Bluetooth wasn't working. Damn! I couldn't even transfer my pics. It seemed that it was a conspiracy to deprive me of my happiness. Somehow, I jugaadofied a data cable and managed to transfer it. But then, Bluetooth leads to a lot more convenience and pseud-pana. And for next few months at home I didn't have any source to jugaadofy the data cable. I spent next 4 months abusing and cursing IBM Thinkpad and its useless hardware and software (whosoever would have been the culprit). I asked many people on how to cure this illness, but in vain. Probably my hardware was faulty. Or maybe it was software that was root cause of all evils happing inside my lappy. Due to lack of proper efforts the mission to find the culprit failed and was abandoned In last few days, I managed to buy a new cellphone that has a data cable. But again da...

I must confess that I have a fascination for travelling. More often than not, I get excited by prospects of traveling - not just by seeing new places at the destination, but also by the journey with train journeys being my favourite. It gives me immense pleasure to see towns and cities pass by, observe people at different places, to just get a feel of places as they come and go by! As a child I used to know many trivial details about the routes I was travelling on and nearby routes and trust me, it was extremely interesting, and it keeps me interested even today! Recently, while travelling in Delhi, I suddenly decided to take a longer route to my destination, which required to travel on metro train in all three different lines, with 2-3 stations in each line. I had no deadlines, no pressures to reach somewhere. And it was wonderful. Passing through CP , Chandini Chowk , Old Delhi - the places about which we have been hearing since childhood. One way of looking at it can be kind of a ...

Some glimpses of one of the best landscapes in the country. Why long for Alps when our own old, enigmatic yet beautiful Himalayas provide such magnificent and picturesque sceneries!! Have a look. Enjoy. Location - Garhwal Region, Himalayas which lie in the state of Uttrakhand.

http://www.rediff.com/movies/2008/may/27khan.htm Above is the link of an interview of Mansoor Khan - The man behind movies like Qayamat se Qayamat Tak and Jo Jeeta Wahi sikandar. His life went in following sequence - Son of a successful film producer --> IITian (... and dropped out) --> Went to USA for further studies (... and dropped out) --> Made few successful movies --> Settled as a farmer at Coonoor, far from the maddening crowd, to appear only once in a blue moon There is nothing special about this interview, but it is about a person who did the thing best seen in proverbs, philosophical monologues and books like The Alchemist - " Follow your heart", something which very few of us end up doing! Prima facie, it may look like fickle mindedness and a person being uncertain about things ... but ultimately he is in the exclusive club of ones who followed their heart!

(Disclaimer - Please do not think that I don't know spellings ... my numerologist told to use the above spelling for eediyot and add a k before it, this will help generate more TRP and comments for the blog) Time 7 : 30 - 8 PM, 8 - 8 : 30 PM .... 10 : 30 - 11 PM Venue - Zee TV, Star Plus, Sony entertainment etc. etc. Figure this - A family drawing room belonging to an extremely rich business house occupied with a mixture of emotional and scheming characters - 1 saas, 2 bahus, 1 son (+1 who makes an entry unaware of what is happening), 2 random distant relatives, 3 random cousins, all mouthing dialogues that have earlier been said by actors ranging from Nirupa Roy to Rajesh Khanna, followed by a long silence, 13 camera angles for same scene (top view, side view, cross sectional view, lateral view, 45 degree elevation view) , flashbacks and memories that last few episodes, good people becoming evil, evil people actually being un-evil, rebirths, amnesia, a background score that often ...

“Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity.” - Albert Einstein I guess most of us would have wondered how relative things are. Uninteresting things appear to move too fast, and good things get over quickly ... at least it seems so! The way time seems too pass in different settings, the way things in recent past seem to be too distant, just because the set up and the surroundings have completely changed. Hanging out with friends in college canteen just a few days ago seem to have happened ages ago; and at the same time, things in college which happened two terms back seemed to be a thing of recent past! Why only time? A change in atmosphere/ surroundings can completely change the way we look at things. Same thing which appear trivial piece in the jigsaw puzzle of universe, when viewed from college campus may look extremely essential when viewed from inside a wild life sanctu...

One of the important tools used by marketers for identifying potential market is market segmentation, in which subgroup of people or organizations sharing one or more characteristics are grouped together. Using similar concept, people can be segmented based upon their basic philosophy or their basic approach towards life. It might be extremely difficult, as not all may express their beliefs openly. Maybe few sort of weird approaches mentioned below might help. One such method can be segmenting on basis of their movie or book preferences. For example a person whose favorite book is The Fountainhead or 1984 is likely to be different from a person whose favorite books include Sidney Sheldon and likes. Or a person who likes reading The Catcher in the Rye over and over again might be different from the one who prefers Eric Segal instead! Similarly a person whose favorite movies includes likes of Jaane bhi do Yaaron or Rang de Basanti would be different from a person relishing Suraj Bar...

What you need to make your day ? There can be a zillion answers Maybe, getting a promotion and a pay rise, or getting a praise from an unexpected quarter, or maybe getting your pay cheque on first of every month ... probably getting something you earned or you deserved! ... Or maybe, getting a call from an old friend ... just to have a chit chat! ... and few more such standard answers. Or maybe, the answer lies in something extremely trivial Like - Watching a really funny poster on roadside Eating an extremely spicy roadside chaat, and desperately asking for drinking water. Or seeing a 6 year, class 1 kid smiling at you and in the process showing off his front teeth which aren't there. Or cracking a really bad PJ and laughing for minutes together, and realizing that you are the only person who laughed ... and this making you laugh even more! Or discovering that old chocolate lollipop in a store and relishing it! Or reading an interesting line in a newspaper article. Or listening to...

Below is one of the signs I saw at the extremely busy Platform number 1 of Allahabad railway station recently ---> I wonder, How 'secret' or 'intelligent' the department's services would be !

This is a song by Silk Route, and I have been listening to this in infinite loop since few hours now. (Actually I never heard this song earlier. Heard it first during a performance by Silk Route in our insti recently!!!) The tune is nice, but the best part are the lyrics. Some of them do fill me with a mixture of self-consolation, self- pity, and just a smile with few questions in the eyes !!! Among many lines, I especially love - " itney bure bhi hum nahi…" and " duniya ki is bheed me...Sabse peeche hum khade " In long run, this may probably not end up being considered as a great song, but maybe it will be a cult song in future ... or maybe it is a cult song even now! _______ Lyrics of the song (copy pasted from after google search) " Zaara naazar uthake dekho Baithe hai hum yahi Bekhabar mujhse kyon ho? Itne boore bhi hum nahin Zamane ki baaton mein uljho na Hai yeh aasaan janana Khud se jo agar tum pooch Hai hum tumhare ke nahi Teri aankhon ka jaadu Poor...

"Events in life are not governed by a normal curve, nor are they by an exponential or any other exotic probability function. They are in fact, just an output of some random number generator." No matter what likes of Stephen Covey or anyone says or philosophize about life, we cannot undermine the impact of things over which we don't have much control, on our lives. Yeah, It is about the decisions and actions we take but they may be just one of the many many inputs, and one of the extremely few over which we have some control. What say ?

Much has been talked and written about the Indian tour of Australia, of double standards, of sportsman spirit, of 'integrity' or absolute lack of it, of the extent a team can go to dominate, of the yardsticks used to evaluate 'our team and 'their team'. And it feels bad that Indian team has been at the receiving end of all these. Yes. There have been other teams at the receiving end in the past, if not to this extent. It has been a height of double standards by the Australians coupled with incompetent and probably highly biased umpiring. It makes me feel that "All teams are equal but some teams are more equal than others" Like many others, I usually accept that errors are part and parcel of the game, and criticize them, but usually like to take that in stride and not make a fuss of it. But there are times when these 'errors' are not actually 'errors' but something much more and may probably make us question the very basic terms like 'sp...

Mera New year reolution ... rather wish ... is the entire song "Main zindagi ka saath nibhata chala gaya ..." (the Non-smoking part of it !!) How about this ! Esp. the lines ---> ________-- "Barbadiyon Ka Shok Manana Fizul Tha Barbadiyon Ka Jashan Manata Chala Gaya" "Jo Mil Gaya Usi Ko Muqaddar Samajh Liya Jo Kho Gaya Maein Usko Bhulata Chala Gaya" "Gham Aur Khushi Mein Farq Na Mehsoos Ho Jahan Main Dil Ko Us Muqaam Pe Laata Chala Gaya " ________-- Almost th whole song is covered! Still ... Amzing philosophy methinks!

It was going to be a very short night. Maybe just couple of hours of sleep. Next day had few presentations, few project submissions and exams nearing. He don't care much, but nevertheless he had to pass. He was worried about that. And more so, as he had spent last few hours doing nothing except boozing. But for next few hours he had a more important task in had. That was to catch on with some sleep. Suddenly a voice woke him up. It was completely dark. Probably a power failure. Damn! His heater was not working. He was trying to sleep when suddenly that man covered all in black woke him up. He had probably left his door open. He did not introduce himself, but for no reason the two started some conversation. "What are you doing here?" The stranger asked Seems he has been caught unawares. Someone from outside world knew that he was doing nothing in the institute apart from just whiling away time boozing, gambling with few friends, sleeping, watching useless stuff on computer...

How often do we hear the above mentioned words? Especially in situations when there are chances of someone not taking anything well, or a comment not going down well with audience; in the situations when one needs to be politically correct and socially correct and be seen as morally upright. But if we remove the facade of the mushy gushy all-OK things, we can look into sort of ugly interiors of what respecting the sentiments mean ... and what it hides. Some of these reasons for expecting someone to respect the sentiments can be - 1. Person/ groups whose sentiments need to be respected are not open minded enough to hear a counter point of view, and my not be capable of any rational thoughts in that matter 2. There is something undesirable, or something ugly, or even something cancerous that needs to be hidden. 3. The truth might be extremely uncomfortable one, and ignorance might be a better option. 4. Deviation from the accepted norms is not desired. Reason - It has never been done so ...

Figure this - Some (publicity hungry!?) lawyer sues Mr. Narayan Murthy for showing disrespect to our national flag! Some other (publicity hungry!?) lawyer sues Sachin Tendulkar for showing disrespect to our national flag by cutting some Tiranga cake! There have been many other controversies related to insult on national flag, and pertaining to millions of code of conduct to deal with it. But, probably these two have been he most high profile ones in recent times! But all seems too idiotic to me. Probably these two persons in question have contributed million times more to the nation than those 'petitioners'. And they are being belittled on basis of doing some act which they think is a proxy for insulting national flag, which they believe is a proxy for disrespecting the country. Hadh hai ! But, a part of blame lies with the kind of laws and code of conduct that exists for national flag. Maybe, we are too much concerned about proxy for respecting a nation, than doing something c...

X to Y - "You have done this and this. It is a shame. You shouldn't have done this" Y replies- "So what? What you did in that case was also not right" This and that could be anything that is most likely to be some deplorable act. X can be anyone - an individual, an organization, or a political party. Although in public domain, it is usually political parties that are more dominant in following such approach. For instance one political party says - "X party did wrong thing by sanctioning misuse of power to kill innocent people in the village". And other retaliates - "... (blah blah blah) 13 years ago when they were in power, they allowed killing of hundreds people in their state". Such examples are many. Without taking any sides, I think this is too dominant in our system. Instead of not doing wrong or accepting the wrong doing, we often justify it saying that it was of less intensity than others and similar things! Such 'holier than t...

I have often seen people confusing individualism and selfishness, and using both synonymously. They may usually not accept it directly, but it is often clear from their attitude and mannerisms.The moment you drop a hint that you are an individualist, eyebrows are raised as if looking at a selfish person! Yeah, both emphasize upon living for yourself, putting yourself first and all such stuff. But I believe that there is a fundamental difference between the two. While individualism is about living for yourself without causing harm to or belittling others, selfishness is essentially living for yourself often at the cost of others. It is somewhat like an analogy of making one line bigger (given two lines of equal length, drawn using a chalk) . You can either make one bigger by extending it using a chalk ... or you can rub the end of one line to make the other bigger! What say? Ayn Rand would probably agree!

An organized communal riots, gaining the proportions of a pogrom ... but the popularity of the person in command (Mr. M) increased and he got a landslide victory in elections! 5 years later - Mr M walks away (rather runs ...!) from a popular TV show when quizzed about his role in that pogrom. A (somewhat questionable!) TV sting showing Mr M's role in that riots Mr M banning TV channels which are about to telecast that! and Mr M and his aides refusing to come out clean ... Still he continues to be at the helm of affairs. He ruled the roost for a long time despite his highly questionable conduct (... without giving any defense, but rather perpetrating hatred which makes us believe more in his role!) Still, he rules the roost (at least as on Friday 26th October, 2007) ... rather he is allowed to ... Without taking any sides, I am just tempted to ask are we living in a civilized society, where we are driven more by hatred than anything else? If yes, what kind of civilized society is...

What if I suddenly realized that my life is going as per the script pre-decided by some novelist, and I actually don't have any control over it? What if my life is nothing but a non-stop uninterrupted TV show, running for 25th consecutive year with me unaware? Wat if I am actually living a century before, and am actually on my journey to know the future of the world? What if in reality ghosts are the only things that exist, and humans are merely an illusion ? What if time was actually not moving in forward direction? What if on one fine day I find that they are about to demolish the earth to build the inter-galactic superhighway? What if trees and animals suddenly interchange their roles and vegetarian plants eating only animals, while non vegetarian plants eating both plants and animals? What if I am suddenly arrested just for imagining these all as I am committing a thoughtcrime ? Seems like an overdose of fiction and movies! Am I getting, rather sinking deeper and deeper into th...