Blinking my Past

Its been long since I read a book. So was trying at my company's shelves and came across the book called Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. I finished reading this book in two sittings.

I don't want give long review about this book, and for that matter even the review in jiffy won't do good. It's not that the book is bad, rather I don't want my reader to get distorted image from this wanna be voracious reader!!! Better, you can get more info about the book here, here and here.

So just let me give the what this book is all about: The book is about the decisions taken in split seconds, our insights over the issues by our instincts, in many of the cases can yield better results than the one's which are taken with deeper scientific understanding, with lot of experience and expertise and great deal of research. The book speaks on more on these lines with interesting real time examples.

In short you get the funda from its tag line: "The Power of Thinking Without Thinking".

Many of us, have taken split second decisions that might have changed us in someway or other. Some decisions or insights might have saved us from serious problem, some might have given happy endings. I would like to share one incident I encountered few years back.

I am kinda guy who shy away girls since my childhood. This was there till I was in my college final year. The usual teenage syndrome which affect all teenagers, except few abnormal mammals, affected me too. It wasn't love at first sight or not even love at all. But it some kind of craze or crush or say something on one girl. She wasn't Ash of our college nor I am Salman of our coll. But I was attracted to her. Never spoke to her. Never asked intro from my friends. Never tried to do anything to tell her. I just kept watching (staring), in other words, sightifying her. This continued for a year. All the usual filmy acts followed but never allowed anything to put myself under bad impression before her.

Basically I was very innocent guy who thought all girls are good, good and nothing but good ideally. I pocessed some of the adolescent straits, like "I know everything", "I can solve all problems", "I am the best" attitude. Bit egotist!! So every incident I encountered with her, I was appreciating myself for my own actions. I thought my actions produced all the incidents. In short, I found myself as the reason for all causes. This looks very funny when I think it over now. But thats how the life was then. No wonder, I learnt the realities of life in very hard way. Thats another big story.

Coming to the point, the following went some time. Few of my friends came to know about this and started to tease and all. I was enjoying all these and life seemed easy. I thought everything going good, until some day I started to realise that something going wrong. Something wrong with myself. I was idealist teenager at that time. I want everything to have purpose and seeking meaningful result for all actions of mine. This started to take beating during this period. I started to realise that things are going without any clear point. The theories I made by myself, which I found later has no hard footing on ground realities, started to give me troubles.

I was in utter confusion. Chaos with all the complexities I bought myself around me. This might not be understandable in words. Just take it, I was in total mess.

This total mess bought cyclic mood swings and in between deep insights how I took things wrong. Thats when I started to mature and got the hang of realties of life. In between these cyclic swings, I had many profound insights. At one time, I felt very strongly to drop everything about the girl I was fond of until then. The Blink happened here.

I don't know what made me to take that decision, but I took it very blindly without any thinking. I made my friends to know about this turn.

Sooner, the girl got committed with some other guy. I felt no hard feeling at all. I felt all was well and went well. Days went, I totally forgot things. After two years, she ditched the guy she was in "supposedly in love" and got into relationship with another guy. How easy it looked??? uh?

I don't say it is blunder or wrong that Indian girl or especially Tamil girl shouldn't do like this. Rather my beliefs and the philosophy would have taken hard hit if this had happened to me. The timely Blink saved me.

Now, all this looks very comical flash back. Never mind Life is like that. :-)

Insipirations from Scott

This is very inspiring story by Scott Adams, the author of the famous Dilbert. In the post, Scott wrote about his miracle recovery from Spasmodic Dysphonia.

This is another story from Scott on "Knowing when to quit?". Take your time and spend on these pages and also look out the comments. Really worth reading.

Thanks Giving

Today, I kinda experienced things which I did while I was in final year farewell. I was with the team working on a new product for my client. It happened that, due to some internal resource changes, I was shifted to the different product of the same client.

Though it is not a big bid adieu, still it feels some where in corner of heart of departing team members I was working close to six months. In fact, we all felt the same way. Some how my team members manage to cling with the same project, but my move was inevitable.

I was moved, overwhelmed and inspired with the thank you mail I received from the client. Though I didn't do anything remarkable, but the appreciation from the client in the form of thanks giving really moved me. I feel elated. At the same time it reminds me more responsibility I would be carrying........

Coding - Its never been so easy!!!

This perhaps can be a blessing in disguise from the mother of web - Google. Imagine thousands of software engineers banging their heads for their delivery, are relieved from coding work. They can now perhaps concentrate on how effectively one can do copy and paste, do cosmetic changes and impress their supervisors. :-) It seems possible now. Already, the Google search engine is helping many souls. Now, the mother has made the life still more easy.

Ladies and Gentlemen, now introducing, the new product from the mother - Google CodeSearch. Check it out.

The Monster Disk

This Hard Disk from Seagate carries data of whopping 750 GB!!!. Now, all your media content, avi's,wmv's, divx's of the films your were watching from childhood, all thiruttu vcd's, matter movies :-) , Actress pics in all formats(I know each one would have at least 100s in numbers), thiruttu thanamaa edatha photos, everything from sky to earth your mind can imagine, all can be dumped in this single Disk. More on this here.

Namma Thalaivar

Namma Thalaivar World Popular!!! :-)

Can Cinema change our lives?

I haven't watched the latest movie Laghe Raho Munnabhai. But the reviews and discussions about this movie over the internet, news papers and TV channels have driven enough curiosity in my head. This movie particularly done something where no other movie never did. Perhaps the director would have never imagined the kind of impact he is getting now (hundreds of responses are pouring it seems after the movie release).


Couple of days back, I saw a video footage, where a group of medical students in Lucknow adopted Gandhigiri principles and they started to plant trees wearing Gandhian attire. This is what happened after the seeing this movie. I read in one newspaper that the numerologists and astrologer in mumbai are having difficult times, as this movie expressed on the superstitions. In one instance, according to this site, an old couple revoked their decision of seeing Vasthu for their
new home!!!!



The trend of this kind of moral preaching movies is in vogue perhaps. Our Tollywood too has something to offer through the Chiranjeevi's latest movie Stalin. There the philosophy is each one help three people. This movie too made some transformation like Sanjay Dutt's latest flick. Heard about some reviews like the people out of the theaters saying like our lives have been changed by this film. Of course, the Cinema, particular hero worship is much embedded in lives of people down the south than other parts in the country. The organizations like Stalin Chain, have been started by Chiru's fan clubs across Andhra Pradesh. This organization helps Orphaned poor children. It is transforming some lives. Very heartening to hear. Isn't it?

But I have one fundamental query. Whether this kind of change will have impact in long term. It just seems like ephemeral stories popping here and there in larger public domain. Why should we dictate our lives through cinema which is most of the time so unreal? Don't we have enough knowledge through our ancient wisdom or contemporary thinking to implement the transformation we would want?

The questions could be asked in these lines in 'n' number of ways. But where are the answers?? Only one thing is for sure, Cinema is very powerful medium (we have made it that way). I think it will have impact on our thoughts and actions in our day to day life. Its up to us, to find out how we would want cinema to be and how to use it in more constructive ways.

"Be a Citizen ????"

Now-a-days, Open Source Journalism is in vogue. The kind of potential the net users all over the world have is simply mind boggling. The best example would be Slashdot. In one instance, Jane's Intelligence Review, known to be internationally respected magazine, submitted its article to Slashdot readers for review. The review comments from the Slashdot users were enough for the magazine to ditch that article, without publishing. Read more.

Desi versions are also out. But in peculiar yet innovative way. The desi English News Channels have rolled out their own version of Citizen Journalism. "Be a Citizen Journalist" by CNN-IBN. "Be an I-Witness" by NDTV. And the Times Now webportal has its version called "Be a Citizen Reporter".

This strategy seems to be cool. You encourage your viewers to participate in news reporting. This strikes two-in-one deal. Viewership invariably goes up and the news content comes free with video footage, in some cases!!!

But there are many points to ponder on this concept which has very wide scope. This is one such example. It surely deserves a separate post.

Bholu-Lalu :- The Management Guru

Our own Lalu Prasad Yadav has become talk of the town. When I read a small column about his recent venture in ET, I was very curious to know how things actually are. Googled and found quite a good number of stories. Every one from blogs to news papers to TV portals talking about his latest avatar: Teaching management lessons at IIM A!!!

Few months back, he might have worried about his poor amount of attention he was getting in public. Now, the spotlight turned on him. He did some magic perhaps, the loss making railway made a complete U-turn. Some say, he has became darling of corporate houses. Find more here and here and here.

This made a professor at IIM A to do a case study on him. So he is taking management lessons at the prestigious institute.

This the mascot of Indian Railways: Bholu






Perhaps in the future, this bholu would be replaced with our Lalu, waving the green flag. :-)

The caption would read like this:

Lalu The Guard

Position Alternative III
Lalu, the guard showing green flag to the train.

In the name of Religion

To start with, in defensive mode, I am not in any kinda expert or scholar like to talk about on this sensitive issue like religion, God, theism and in the lines. This is my very personal opinions and beliefs.

Today, I read an article in The Hindu, regarding an Anglican priest, an priest of CE (Church of England) converted into Hindu and continue to officiate as a cleric. source.

There's so much hype all over about this issue. This might trigger digging of stories, studies, research papers, expert opinions on religious practices and global scenario. Discussion on things like: is it right to practice dual religion? would rise and there could plethora of discussions going on. After some time this news will die down for sure. It could vanish quickly or less quickly depending on the media coverage given to it and probability of making celebrity news item.

Why so much hype and importance given to an issue which is a personal decision and effects only one individual. Why wasting so much time and energy? There are many issues that need global attention.

No one is given chance to chose one's religion when he/she is born. When I was born in an Hindu family, my religion became Hindu. I am not given chance to choose the religion I like to follow. Same is the case with every one. This is not in any case of deprivation. Because we never worried about the chance that is never given to us. We accepted what our elders have given to us and followed it consciously or unconsciously in our lives. Few consciously realize and trend their own path like David Hart, about whom this issue is all about.

So its an individual decision and blowing this matter in any size (if not in positive way) , in my view, is just wastage of time and energy.

The Beast Machine

I was fed up with my old P3 machine for a long time. Even to run the age old NFS2 game, I gotto make all other process to stop. My firewall would itself consume all the memory. This made the booting time of the machine to good 10 mins. This also made me to schedule time for other things during my pc boots up. Even after machine is up, if I start to run two or more softwares, the PC would be dead by that time. All brickbats from my bro and sis. At last, I have decided to have new machine.

When I started to ask people which one is better one to buy, every one, literally everyone, asked me to go for P4. I was thinking I could try something else and buy the best within my budget.

I began to hunt all the websites, signed up in many tech forums, started threads to ask people who knows in and out of hardware parts.

To be honest, every one gave me good advice on how to buy. I kept questioning HOWs and WHYs on various components. Answers were simply flowing. Few answers were beyond my understanding. Some how I manage to understand after persisting questioning. The guys out there were patient enough to answer all my queries. This made me feel armed with more information on what machine should I buy.

I was lucky to decide to buy machine during the period when Intel introduced its juggernaut proccy Intel Core 2 Duo. At the same time, AMD slashed its processor prices to the whopping 50%!!!

50% dude!!! Its not a small amount. The 16 k proccy now, I can buy it for just 8k!!! That's what I did.

My new machine:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+
MSI K8N mobo
Nvidia GeForce chipset
512 MB DDR RAM

Though it may not suppress the new Intel Core Duo, still it beats hands down all the machines in the 12 k price range (proccy + mobo).

Now, never experienced, gr8 computing happening at home. At the end of the day, I am contented that I have got the best config at best prices. :-)

Now, am 1+

Yesterday, I completed one year in my company. Now, I am no longer rookie! :-)

My journey to rural India

Real India is in its rural side. This I found remarkably true. Recently, I went to one of the holy places in Andhra Pradesh called golgamudi. There isn't much hype about this place. It is one of the unkown place where locales and few others visit the celebrated saint venkaiah swami shrine. The road that leads to the ashram like temple, is in very pathetic condition. You will never get that kind of bumpy ride anywhere else. If you are not in good old ambassador car, your car is doomed. Luckily I was traveling in that oldie.

Forget roads, the people who flock there, are in their own state of existence. They simply strewn themselves across the places wherever space available. Some people did bhajan, some did business with balloons, fruits, bangles and things like that, some standing in a big queue to get a glimpse of the swami's shrine, few monetarily betters, by-passing everything and getting into shrine, one loud speaker kept emanating songs that attracted no listeners and so on.... There was utter confusion. Inspite of this kind of chaos, people were able to accept things as they were for the reasons unknown and continued in their own state of existence.

The land of contrasts was clearly visible in this place. Some came in sonatas and some on their bare foot. Some took prasadam as God's part take but for some they were food for the day!! As a normal person, I could see oppression written on their faces. They don't ask you why's and how's, rather they simply accept things as they come. Acceptance without any inspection. Who said Ignorance is bliss?

I had an interesting incident there. I met one of my father's old friend. He was in his late sixties. First time when I saw him, his charming face attracted my attention. He was very dynamic and was jumping with joy like a child. I was wondering what could be the secret behind this. Even my 34 year relative could not sit on the ground without help, but this 66 year young man was jumping on the ground and the enthusiasm was palpable.

Later, I found his secret from my father. The secret is: No spice, no salt & no sweet added to his daily food for the past 15 years!!!

Dada in Politics!!!

Kolkata will be in quite jubilation while its most worshipped idol is back to business. Not completely though. Few months back, when Sourav Ganguly had his worst times, being dropped from Indian team and eventually thrown out of it, Kiran More told that Ganguly would never return to the team until he is in the selection panel. That shocked me. I was wondering what could be the rationale behind this saying. Now, we have enough clues.

He wasn't considered for the team when he scored decent 40s in his last Test match innings he played. But, he is now included in the 30 member list, for the performance of total of 24 runs in four matches in county cricket series.

Recently, Bengal cricket board election took place. Ganguly told that someone is playing with careers of players. That someone in attempt to retaliate called our Dada as bacchha. This much quantity of verbal exchange was enough to encourage one of our selection panelists to consider Sourav for the Championship Trophy.

Ganguly might haven't got timing right in the cricket field all these days, but surely he got one now in the political field.

Delhi 2008!

I am afraid that Delhi may not host Common Wealth Games in 2010, raising the bar set in Melbourne 2006. The kind of infrastructure needed, we can only dream of, unless some serious actions are implemented. The kind of bureaucracy we have, in our country, is perhaps the worst hurdle to leap over. A country which is planning to bid for Olympics in a decade, has to showcase its event staging capabilities at this scale. This is our best chance. What we need is inspiring leadership which take us across all the hurdles and stage a truly global event and showcase India and its potential in these unentered waters. Shouldn't we challenge like, Delhi will be ready by 2008 for Common Wealth Games ???

The Orkut mania

It sent shock waves to all those fresh grads from college in my company. For some, it felt like some one snapped their very life thread. For many, the justification of existence made nullified. "Oh my God !, if that is not available, then what I am going do here... dig dung cakes or what? !!" said one fellow (that guy is in free pool!). My friend is about make a friendship (may be something else) with a girl through Orkut. He was so surprised and overwhelmed that a girl is scrapping him ("replying" him in orkut lingo) for the first time in his life. When he is about to make finishing touches to mark their friendship/"some"-ship, the page came crashing informing him that the www.orkut.com is blocked by my company's proxy servers. He was in a deep shock. A shrill of current passed through his whole body. He was like "What the heck? Why only me? Every time. Time and again it is happening. A friend. Just a friend I asked. Why God?? Why??? What wrong did I do. One lady friend..... and then it may develop to.......". Cursed himself. The whole day he looked like a person whose soul has been looted. Poor fellow. Never mind, he did his finishing touches somewhere else. There were series of outcries to find external proxies and by pass through company's proxies. Few people found them. In hours they are also blocked.

Into serious thoughts, I think there can be different opinions about how good Orkut can be best used for. There can be unending arguments how best the Orkut can be used as a social networking tool. I am not extensive user of it. But I still feel, if it were introduced as social networking tool, it should remain so. But, in my opinion, it is becoming more like just another place where people hang around and discuss silly things, join insane communities. Of Course there are good things you can do with it. But there are things you cant or not advicable to do in public space. For example, recently I came to know there were writings (scraps) on love proposals between two fellas. Committing personal relationship in full glare of public! Is this mean of exhibitionism? or you call something else? Personal things gone to winds in this social networking place.

Who is John Galt?

This is the question I try to answer. Those of you read "Atlas Shrugged"” by Ayn Rand, might have got idea what I am talking about. For those who didn'’t, do have guts to ask me, for which you will get an awkward reply cos I am still thumbing through the pages. I don'’t say that I have little or no time to update this blog, but it is kinda become, spending lesser and lesser time towards my creative side. It is being eaten upon by so-called important things. More I work on my dreams, more revealing is harsher reality. Self-doubt consumes like anything. At these times, self-confidence raises the morals to great heights. It instills courage, when you are in utter pain, stress, despair and anguish. But still one corner of my heart says go through these pains for the better tomorrow. I think this hope is running everyone lives. Going through this phase and hopefully I will wade through successfully.

When something is extracted from you and end up losing energy to liven up your dreams, you look for something that motivates you, inspires you, energizes you.... I am looking for that inspiration. I am searching it. I am in hunt for its source. In short I am trying to get answer for: "“Who is John Galt?".

Life is a journey

Ya I mean it. Life is a long journey. Everyday I travel. Day in day out, I travel. Traveling is not my passion, or my boon or not even my curse, it became my duty. When I was doing higher secondary schooling, I had to travel 10 km by bus (thru MTC ) to reach school everyday. For those two years, I nearly traveled, 12,000 kms. Wow ! Then came my college studies. That's even worse. I expected to be better but this time the journey became longer. Blame on my college for not providing any transport facility near my place. So I was forced to use two modes of transport, both by MTC bus and EMU train to reach my college everyday. I used to start at home when many start to dive into deep slumber. arghh!! So how much did I travel ? Another 33,210 kms added to my traveling kit. Wow!! another milestone touched.

Ok, now out of college, into the work. Things should be better this time. But, the traveling God (if exists) never satisfied with my journey. He put me into another quota of seeing the Chennai's traffic, suffer from the pollution and see endless number of road side shops cramped with each other. Yes, this time too. Again another journey. Journey to work ! Another 30 kms daily to reach my office. Already 5000 kms covered, still continues.

My traveling mileage reached 50,000 kms so far. So this post I made to mention its significance. Man, its 50 k ! Is it time to rejoice or still believe in "Life is journey" ?? Dunno, may be "Life is long journey", or is it "Journey is Life" ????

DVD Mantra

I bought a LG DVD player recently. I have so far seen movies in DVD format only at my friends home. So I never bought any dvds. No idea how much does it cost n all. People in Chennai would invariably know where Burma bazaar is and what for it is popular. For uninitiated , it is the place where a series of shops lined up in very crampy space selling latest electronic goods at cheaper prices than its counterparts in the city. One can even get latest import goods.God knows how they get it so cheap with good quality. Anyways, Burma bazaar(any one knows how it got its name do tell me !) is also popular for its Dvds & Vcds. Once I went there to buy few popular english movies, I was surprised to see a sea of dvds and vcds piled up (or dumped!) in front of elevator size shops. I came to know there are two varieties of dvds available. Locally named(or real., dunno.) Blue dvd and Gold dvd. Blue dvds are cheaper.You get it for as low as Rs.30. One can get three-in-one movies and some times four-in-movies in one single dvd. Imagine four movies in one single dvd and that too for Rs.30, human psychology tells you gotta have best deal. I thought the same bought few movies. But human psychology some time doesnt tell you the other part of the story until you realise it. Me too realised only I played those cheap dvds. Poor sound, poor video clarity, scenes cut and many more. Arghh.... Damn those shop owners who said their dvds are better than what are available in next shop and gave me his business card,with a warm smile, saying "please refer your friends this shop " !

'Brain' Virus

First PC virus - Brain, has just celebrated its 20th birthday. It infected the boot sector and spreaded through floppy disks of the age. It is considered to be no way in comparison with its modern counterparts. Interestingly the first virus(Brain) also called by the names such as Pakistani, Lahore, Pakistani flu !!!! . Two brothers from Pakistan wrote this virus to protect their software from infringers. They wrote their address with their phone numbers in the virus and notified the affected that they can contact them for vaccination !!! Here is what they included in their virus code : - source

Welcome to the Dungeon (c) 1986 Basit * Amjad (pvt) Ltd. BRAIN COMPUTER SERVICES 730 NIZAM BLOCK ALLAMA IQBAL TOWN LAHORE-PAKISTAN PHONE: 430791,443248,280530. Beware of this VIRUS.... Contact us for vaccination...

They are the true virus writers !!! Ha ha.. :)

Agely observation

Its been long time to post here. Time and again I try to keep up with you folks but, damn work time I couldn't but look for a escape.

I am now reading a book called " The World Is Flat : A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century " by Thomas L.Friedman . May be I couldn't give review of the book or for that matter my opinion as I am marking on initial pages. This morning while I was reading, I remembered of a small note in one of Swami Vivekananda's biography. I will reproduce, in my own words, about one of his thoughts.

The thing goes like this, the world was influenced by many sections of people all over the ages. Initially the world was lead by people who are philosophers in nature like Aristotle. People followed their wisdom and their speech. In Hinduism caste division terms, world was lead by Brahmins. Then came Kings who ruled all over the world. In Hindu terms, Kshatriyas. In the late twentieth century world was more influenced by business people. Things like globalization had profound impact on people's lives. In Hinduism, the influencers were Vaisyas. The next in the row of Hindu's lexicon is Shudras who roughly equivalent to the people who do services.

Thomas Friedman in this book started with the factors that influenced globalisation in recent years. Though I haven't finished reading this book, I got hints from his initial pages that the influencer of next wave of globalization going to be Service Industries. He predicts that a person can book a table in a restaurant through a call which traverses across the boundaries. That is, the booking actually happens in a remote call center that may be located way across the globe, and things like that.

The period influenced by businesses(at present) might be followed by the age of Services. People will serve other people. That might definitely influence the way we lead our lives. If that happens, it will reaffirm Vivekananda's thoughts .