Tangled Web

Bicycles, Canals & Museums - Amsterdam Trip Part 2 of 2

2011-03-24T22:16:00.000-07:00

After a lot of scrambling & running around, I was travel ready! As usual, travelling across timezones is no fun. The best part of long flights is the inflight entertainment. I finally caught up on my Oscar movies - Black Swan and King's Speech. Loved both the movies. The former was a tad bit disturbing - my kind of movie ;)

First impression of Amsterdam - the entire city seems to be under renovation and there are too many bicycles. I thought driving in India was scary... I almost closed my eyes sitting in the cab and seeing the bicycles weave in and out of traffic. And the next amusing thing - most of the cabs were Mercedes! Nice!

It was an action packed week. The first 4 days had meetings throughout the day and "rest of the day" went in updating documents and preparing meeting recaps. I think by Thursday my brain had stopped working. But thankfully I got Friday to do some sightseeing. And that was the only day of the week when it rained!! But that did not stop me.

I think I covered the usual suspects - Van Gogh Museum, Rijksmuseum, Nemo Science Center, Anne Frank House and an evening canal cruise. It was an easy city to navigate. They have a canal hopper - you can take a 24 hr pass for the canal boat. It has 4 routes that runs from 9 AM to 7 PM. You can hop on and hop off at stops. And they also have an hour and a half evening cruise that takes you round the city.

Few observations: The city is beautiful and old. They have a Queen's birthday coming up and so the entire city is being renovated. There are lots of brick buildings that are hundreds of years old. Every building looks as if it is leaning - this is because they all have a hook on the top of the building. That hook is used to haul furniture up the buildings since most of the buildings are narrow to take furniture up staircases or elevators. The buildings are narrow for a reason - if they are built facing the canal, additional tax needs to be paid for the square area that faces the canal.... so narrow & deep buildings! I think the city has more bicycles than people! There is a common joke that the canals are 3 meters deep - 1 meter water, 1 meter earth & 1 meter bicycles!!

The most emotional part of the trip was my visit to the Anne Frank house. This is the house where the Frank family hid from the Gestapo. Eight people hid in a cramped up office space until they were finally caught. No one knows who tipped off the Gestapo about the Frank family's hiding place. Anne's mother died of starvation in Auschwitz. Anne and her sister died of typhus in Bergen-Belsen just a few weeks before this concentration camp was liberated by British troops. Only Anne's father survived. He went on to publish Anne's dairy from their days in hiding. And the rest, as they say, is history. Being in that house, seeing the videos, reading the excerpts from the diary - couldn't hold back my tears.

Queen of Alternate Flows - Amsterdam Trip Part 1 of 2

2011-03-22T18:43:00.000-07:00

It would be an understatement to say that the last couple of weeks were hectic. It all started with a new project. From executing projects that run for at least 12 - 18 months on an average, doing a 6 week project felt like a welcome change. But boy, was I wrong! It just means that all the pressures that get spread over a 12 month project now gets crammed into a 6 week schedule! The project also required a 2 day trip to Portland and a week long trip to Amsterdam. Yay!

It was all going great - booked the tickets, got the lawyers to file paperwork for my Schengen Visa, started preparing for the meetings and so on. First kink in the plan - the consulate appointment got scheduled on the same day as our trip to Portland. We did a few last minute rescheduling and moved the trip out by a few days. Then the lawyer informed us at the last minute about additional documentation required from the client. We pulled a few strings and got all the paperwork done. Finally, we got the visa application documents and noticed that the lawyer's office mixed up my name in one of the documents. How can a simple process get so complicated? And then I realized, this is just the beginning. I went to consulate and they informed me that my passport is too old! I got a 20 year passport issued in India when I turned 18. It sounded like a good idea then - no need to worry about renewing passport for a while. But apparently Schengen visa has a requirement that the passport cannot be more than 10 years old. I saw the whole trip going down the drain. And on top, I would have to work Amsterdam time from US and dial into all the meetings! Such a bummer!

And then we found out that Indian consulate is super efficient and can issue a new passport on the same day. It just takes an additional fee. I went to the consulate and got a new passport. And then the scramble for another consulate appointment started. The lawyer's associate was on leave and did not see the confirmation email from the consulate for my appointment. But I just took a chance and went to the consulate anyway. I filed that paperwork just 5 days before my travel date. The consulate said they will overnight the papers to me and I should ideally get it a day before I travel. But no guarantees... Perfect! As if I did not have enough things to worry about.

Finally, a day before my travel, I got my passport back with the visa stamped. More about the Amsterdam trip in the next post.

What I realized in the entire process is that I am a Queen of Alternate Flows. Working in IT and with business teams, I prepare a lot of usecases. Each usecase ideally contains actors, entry & exit criteria, usecase flow and alternate flows. For a US resident holding an Indian passport traveling to Schengen territory, I think I have covered almost 90% of the alternate flows. Why does everything have to be so complicated in my life? I bitched & moaned a lot about this to my mom. And in her infinite wisdom, she reminded me that I keep focussing on the negative. I overlook the fact that I am healthy, I have a good career, I have loving parents & friends, and so on. When you put it that way, life is good!

My Next Kitchen Experiment

2011-02-07T18:32:00.000-08:00

I love experimenting in the kitchen... I am not a very intuitive cook. I rely heavily on recipes and assume that it is accurate. The most difficult part for me in a simple recipe is statements like "add salt to taste". I know that different people have different preferences when it comes to saltiness of a dish... but I am always scared that I am going to add too much salt... and so invariably all my dishes end up with very less salt. But this recipe is by far the best I have seen: Boiled Water Recipe. I can't wait to try this one!!

Half Time Let Down!!

2011-02-06T17:23:00.000-08:00

I dislike sports! I've never played any sports and never liked watching them either. But I watch Superbowl - 2 reasons - ads and half time show. And boy, am I disappointed!!! The ads are average. The saving grace is the movie previews. And OMG! The half time show was such a let down! I love the Black Eyed Peas. But this is pathetic... Maybe the acoustics is screwed up... I was so glad when Slash came on stage... and then Fergie decided to destroy one of my most favorite songs! Usher was average...and the Time of my Life was not really a reflection of what I was feeling!! It was a little better than the rest of the songs, but Thank God its over!!

Invisible 3D Glasses

2011-01-31T14:53:00.000-08:00

Browsing around the online Hindu newspaper, I saw an article - "Students explore career avenues". Of late, career choices especially by students and the thought processes behind it has been very much on my mind... So I decided to take a closer look at this article... It was a fairly mundane article about a panel discussion on 'Career Opportunities for Higher Education' at Periyar Science and Technology Centre campus in Chennai... But what caught my eye was this picture that went with the article and more important, the caption under the picture ("Students try out 3D glasses at one of the stalls at Chennai Science Festival on Monday. Photo: S.S. Kumar"):

I see ONLY one person in that picture wearing glasses... and that (to my untrained eye) does not look like 3D glasses! Maybe proofreading and newspaper editing are potential career choices!

Social Networking is on my mind

2011-01-26T12:00:00.000-08:00

Today morning Facebook asked me "What's on your mind?"... My answer - "Social networking"

It all started a week back when one of my cousins sent me a friend request on Facebook. I have never spend much time with my extended family. There are just a handful of relatives that I was close to because I saw them more often. Rest of them are people I used to meet maybe once a year or two while I was in Kerala. After moving out of Kerala, its more like once in 3 or 4 years. But they are family and maybe facebook is how I can get back in touch with them and make that connection I never made years ago. So I accepted the request. In the next couple of days, I got a couple more requests from other relatives. Accept!

Yesterday, I was talking to my mom and she suddenly asks me - "How can I see you on Facebook?". WTF?! My mom wants to friend me??! She heard from one of my aunts that her son is my friend on Facebook and he heard of my new job and my move to SFO and he even saw some of my recent photos. There are two things mom wants to know - why am I not sending her any of my pictures and how can she sign up on facebook to see them!!

My dad is very tech savvy for his age. My mom is a creature of necessity - if she absolutely has to, she goes online. I have always encouraged them to be online, chat with me, use webcams, et al. But I am not so sure about Facebook - for purely selfish reasons. Over the years I spend away from home, I have evolved. The person that I am now is not necessarily very transparent to my parents. They know me very well - but not all aspects of my life. Living so far away from doting parents, I try to shield them from small fears and anguishes in my life that I share freely online. I don't want them to worry too much about me. Do I want to start censoring what I post? Do I want to go back to being the child who had to explain each and every action (because I know my mom will ask questions about each and every post)?

So I went to bed yesterday wondering about social networking and our virtual lives. Today there is an article in NYT where the "Pope Warns of Alienation Risk in Social Networks". He appreciates the possibilities of social media but reminds us that it is important always to remember that virtual contact cannot and must not take the place of direct human contact with people at every level of our lives. It got me thinking again... It is true. Since I read about what is happening in the lives of most of my friends, I don't feel the need to call them or email them that often. An occasional 'Like' or a quick comment back is the level of contact I have with some. From being a person who used to write 5-10 page letters, I became a person who wrote 2-3 paragraphs in email and now I am down to a few words in a comment box! It definitely sounds like the the risk of alienation is very real.

I still don't know if I want to friend my mom. But I do realize that I owe a few long emails to some of my close friends!

Que Sera Sera

2011-01-24T12:16:00.000-08:00

When I was just a little girl
I asked my mother, what will I be
Will I be pretty, will I be rich
Here's what she said to me.

Que Sera Sera,
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours to see
Que Sera Sera

Well, not really. I don't think I ever asked my mom what I will be. Maybe its because being a girl born into a middle class Indian household, my options were pretty clear - you either become a Doctor or an Engineer. If you are not smart enough to make it, you can always study Home Sciences and get married as soon as you reach the legal age (or somewhere close enough).

I was a smart girl (or so I believe). Since I had already seen my future as a doctor or an engineer, everything I went through in life was an obstacle course with a very clear end result. I can make it on my own - I don't need a scholarship and so no point in wasting time with arts or sports. I spend most of my waking time with books - most of them were academic. I did not like competition and/because I did not like losing. Growing up, I realized three key things about me - (1) I am not very patient with people and their problems (2) I take failures personally and develop insecurities and guilty complexes (3) Last but not the least, I feel dizzy if I see someone else bleeding. I think that made the choice pretty clear in my mind - if I cannot listen to other people's pain or if I feel guilty each time I cannot cure someone or if I cannot stand blood, I have no business being a doctor. So engineering, it is. With my options narrowed down to one, it was smooth sailing.

I was very proud of my math and physics skills... and my first doze of reality was when I started prepping to get into IIT. I am not as smart as I thought I was! Stuff just started going over my head. I had two options - work harder or give up. I took the easier route. And my parents helped - they wanted me to stay as close to home as possible. So IIT was not an option! Yes, I have an excuse to give up. Getting into the Engineering College closer to home was a cakewalk for me. But the fact that I gave up on IIT kept me awake at night. Then came the pep-talk from my parents - "If you always keep looking up at things you do not have, you will never be happy. You should be grateful for things you have that others don't." Made perfect sense. I was back to feeling like a superstar.

4 years in Engineering College - very little of that time was spent studying. Living in an extremely protected environment, I was not equipped for life in the real world. So I spend most of the 4 years learning basic social skills and failing miserably at that. The only friends I made (as usual) were people who dared to initiate a conversation with me and were not put off by my total lack of empathy. 3 years into college, my dipping averages made me revisit my choice. Slowly, I realized that Electronics Engineering is not same as repairing household electronic gadgets by trial and error (my dad and I used to do this a lot). I was too proud to fail at anything and so I put my head back into studying. A mandatory C programming course in the third year sparked my interest in software. By the time I graduated, my averages were back up to respectable levels and I had a job at a leading software services company.

Its 12 years since I graduated. I worked in the same company till a month back. I went through phases - I wanted to be a programmer for life; I wanted to be rich (don't care doing what); I wanted to be a project manager; I wanted to be a technical consultant; I wanted to be a business consultant. And I found couple of other personality flaws. I hated change - so I stuck with the same company. I hated confrontation - so I did whatever I was asked to do instead of what I wanted to do. Finally, something snapped. I decided I wanted a change - not because of any reason - just because I wanted to prove to myself that I can handle change. Quit a job I held for 12 years and started at a new place. My most recent aspiration was to be a business consultant and so I took a job as one. Its too early to make any judgment on how the new job is going to pan out but for me, personally, it was the best decision I made.

Now that I know I can change, I am back to the original question, What will I be? I wish someone had told me while I was growing up that the future is not ours to see. I wish I had not set goals so early in life. I wish I had taken the time to figure out what I wanted to be. I wish I had been more open to change. I skipped evolution and went straight to a stereotype. Maybe I would have been good at some performing arts. Maybe I would have been a good teacher. Maybe I would have got a useless degree in philosophy. Maybe... Is it too late to figure out now?

New Beginnings

2011-01-01T19:45:00.000-08:00

I wish I could say that 2010 was an amazing year. But no... it was just like all others. I worked crazy hours and tried to avoid dealing with my life... same old same old. I don't want to jinx it but I have a good feeling about 2011. For a person extremely resistant to change, this year is starting off good.

I quit a job that I had for the last 12 years!! This is the only job I ever had and in spite of lots of disappointments and differences of opinion & expectations, I stuck with it... And now, I feel free. OK, I am scared s***less... but it feels great to embrace a change. I also moved back to the west coast. After 6 years in Seattle, I knew that I loved living in the west coast but I did not have any points of reference to compare it to... After a year in Central US, I know for a fact that I like the west coast better. SFO should be good - lots of old friends, and lots of possibilities.

Lets see how this year pans out. As usual, no resolutions for New Year. Why make them and then feel guilty when I break them (which I always do). Fingers crossed.

Consequences

2010-12-06T16:31:00.000-08:00

Every action has consequences... and this includes body art. Tattoos mean different things to different people - fashion statements, reflection of their ideas/ideals, following a fad, and so on. Anyone who gets a tattoo knows that it is a permanent thing. That's why most tattoo artists recommend that you think long and hard before making a decision on the design and its placement.

Extreme Makeover: Criminal Court Edition
A Florida judge has agreed with a defense request to have John Ditullio’s tattoos covered up by a makeup artist so that they cannot influence the jury in his murder trial.

If a guy gets a swastika and some other crude insults tattooed on his neck, it is a decision he needs to live with. If that is going to bias a few people, well, tough break!! He must have believed in something about it. If he was dumb enough to get tattoos that he regrets, deal with it! Why should a judge allow cover up of the tattoos by a makeup artist?

India in April

2010-04-03T20:14:00.000-07:00

I had not seen my parents in 3 yrs. And I moved to the middle-of-nowhere away from all my friends. And its crazy-time at work! I had a sudden attack of home-sickness and I booked my tickets to India. At that point, I did not care that I was going to be in India in April... And now, I am paying for it. Sweltering Kerala and a quick trip to Chennai! Moral of the story: Dont be impulsive when it comes to India!

Three years... lot of changes. Few things I noticed so far...

It is a loooooooooooooot more hotter than I remember

The traffic is worse (if that's even possible??!)

The people are nosier

The roads are narrower (my mom says it is because I am broader)

There are definitely good things too...

Mom's cooking is yummier - after retirement, she has had lot of time to try out new recipes and now she even has a brand new kitchen!

Internet is faster... much much faster!

More channels on TV (maybe this is bad... coz now there are more tear-jerker soaps for mom)

Met a childhood pal and gossiped for couple of hours (aah... such relief!)

And the pièce de résistance... the Sania Mirza-Shoaib Mallik engagement. Every channel was showing it as Breaking news!! When the Tiger Woods story was all that I could see on TV, I used to think that things are so different in India. We still know what is headline news and what is a tailender... I guess things did change here too!! First news was their engagement... then comes the drama - his first wife! And to add tadka, Shiv Sena issues a statement that Sania should not marry a Pakistani - she should marry an Indian!! Fun times indeed.

Another 3 weeks to go...

Use Case

2009-12-17T08:30:00.000-08:00

Use Cases are one of the most important aspects of application development... The more elaborate and descriptive a usecase, the clearer the understanding... This is one of the best examples of use-case I have seen in a while now. Masking some items to keep the "user" anonymous.

Complicating Simplicity

2009-11-16T12:38:00.000-08:00

I love my gadgets. I think it is hereditary. I got it from my dad. I remember my growing up years where dad used to come home with one new acquisition after another - digital clocks, stereo sets, calculators, portable televisions... Eventually I had my own income and I set out on my own conquests (ok... shopping trips). And I discovered cell phones. I still remember my first Siemens cell phone. In looked like a brick! It was big, it was heavy, it was unwieldy. But that was just the beginning. There was a Nokia invasion in India and I was captured. I had a new phone every 6 months! Sleeker, fancier, more and more features... and then I got my dad hooked on it too. We were almost competing on who had the better phone.

And then I came to the US! This country has a knack of complicating the most simplest of things. In India, every Ram, Shyam and Hari has a cell phone. The rate plans are simple: you either have a pre-paid or post paid phone. There is a fixed rate for each minute you talk, each SMS and I am assuming the same applies for data usage too (Browsing on Cell Phones was not the in-thing when I was in India last). You could buy any cell phone you like (and can afford) and just put in your SIM card (unless you were stuck with a CDMA connection which was not too popular).

Buying a calling plan is so complicated here... Are you chatty or do you just want to text? Do you browse a lot or do you just want to check your e-mail? Do you want to talk equally every month or do you want to roll over your minutes? And oh yeah, these are the only 10 phones you can buy - which one do you want? I hate this. Currently, I have a Nokia N80, an HTC Diamond and a MotoRokr - all of them are unlocked and not bought from any of the Cell Phone providers. When I first picked out a T-Mobile connection 3 years back, there was no option to buy a plan without a phone online... So I walked down to the nearest store. They gave me the whole song and dance about some T-Mobile applications I will be missing out on. But finally I got a plain old SIM card and a plan. Then started the cumbersome journey of adding new services. Each time I try to add a service online, it asks me to pick my phone. And surprise, surprise! My phone is not one of the phones that they offer. But there is a workaround... find a phone that has similar capabilities and pick that one.

Recently, I moved to the middle of nowhere. And T-Mobile has very bad coverage here. So I decided to switch to AT&T or Verizon... and guess what? I cannot do that online because I don't want to pay another 200 bucks for a phone that has lesser features than my current phone!! Another trip to their store, I guess. I wonder why cell phone companies put up with this. They have so many cool call phone models available in Asia Pacific which they can sell here too... People can buy it based on their spending power. So why lock down the choices that people have? And why force people to decide whether I want to talk more or text more... what if I want to talk more this month and text more the next month! Why can't it be that you pay x dollars a month and you decide what you want to do with that money - text, talk, browse, rollover, flush it down the toilet, whatever!

Like the Deserts miss the Rain

2009-11-08T16:02:00.000-08:00

I miss Seattle... my life there and everything else about the place. I have lived there close to 6 years in the last decade. After Kerala, this is the longest I've lived anywhere. It really is a home away from home for me. After living away from my parents for so long, my friends are my family now. And I had a handful of really good friends in Seattle - people who knew me well, who were there for me if I ever needed help, who would be there to rejoice in my happiness, who would come and just sit with me when I am sad and dont want to talk. All the things that family would do. I miss the Wii Battles (which I always lost), the parties, the potlucks, the BBQs, the shopping... And most of all, I miss the two cutest and most adorable kids I have ever known. I miss the evenings and weekends I spent with them. I miss their silly squabbles to catch our attention. I miss those naughty smiles, those tiny little hands pulling me around... and I miss their mommy too. I don't think my own sister would have taken such good care of me, if I had one.

Why do I keep going through this whole cycle of starting over? I dont think I can take too many more of this. Its bad enough that I am away from my parents and missing them terribly. I hate feeling like I am somewhere and my heart is elsewhere. High time I learned how to maintain boundaries!!

FamiliarITy

2009-08-27T13:22:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: This post is based solely on my observations as an IT services professional for the last decade. Your point of view might be different. Deal with it!!

Familiarity breeds contempt, says the adage. In an ever competitive world of consulting, outsourcing & services industry, familiarity breeds a lot more than just contempt.

In most IT services companies, the client relationship managers take up the dual responsibility of sales too. To stay ahead in the rat race, you always have a new strategy or solution. Assuming you have a great product or service to sell, the deal clincher is how you market it. This is one place where familiarity is a foe. If your client has known you for years and have seen you in action, he/she would know your limits by now. They have seen your negotiation tactics, they know how far you would go, and what your breaking point is. There is no element of surprise. There is limited room for negotiation and as a result, lesser profit margin.

The biggest complaint you hear from couples who have been married for ages is that their spouse takes them for granted. Same applies to a client relationship too. In long client engagements, you start getting treated as one of their own! There are definitely advantages to this. But it has disadvantages too. The bar is being raised constantly. Your client might have employees who have worked with them for half a century and knows everything inside out. You cannot keep the same people around for that long. The career paths and the company direction of IT & consulting firms is different from their end customer.

To get your foot in at a new client, you might have agreed to some aggressive timelines and billing rates. But if you were not proactive enough to set the expectation that this is a one time deal to prove your proficiency, you are in big trouble, Negotiations & changes of billing rates and SLAs are difficult with long term clients. If your star performer is being billed at $x an hour, you can increase that $x to some extend based on market conditions or what not. But there is only so far you can push without straining the relationship. The same person could be positioned at a different client location at a higher rate.

Last but not the least: you snooze, you lose! Business trends and technology is changing at a blinding pace. Unless you work in different environments with varying management styles and problem statements, you lose your competitive edge. You tend to practice & preach the client's way of doing things just because you haven't explored any other options. This not only hampers your career, your client is also losing out on any thought leadership from you.

So I guess the best adage for today is "Variety is the spice of life!"

OK to be Gay in India

2009-07-02T10:56:00.000-07:00

In a landmark judgment, the Delhi High Court legalized gay sex among consenting adults. This repeals part of section 377 of Indian Penal Code on grounds of violation of fundamental rights. India is finally upholding the part of our constitution that says "The State shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth." In its 105 page judgment, the bench noted that "It cannot be forgotten that discrimination is antithesis of equality."

I am sure there are going to be repercussions from political and religious stalwarts. In fact, the Catholic Church in Kerala was quick to point out that "Legalizing gay sex will open up the society to some sort of sexual anarchy. Perhaps Indian culture is being eroded by the western promiscuous culture." I can't wait to hear what the Hindu extremists and the Muslim fanatics have to say about all this.

For a country that still upholds a lot of conservative beliefs, this is a giant leap. The legal aspect of same-sex relationship is taken care. But the social stigma associated to it will take a lot more time to disintegrate. Even though monumental, this is just the first step. There are still issues of marriage, adoption, legal status as dependents, inheritance, etc which needs to be figured out for same sex couples. After all, California is still fighting Prop 8!

Self Help at its Best!!

2009-05-23T20:36:00.001-07:00

Happy Birthday!

2009-05-10T11:34:00.000-07:00

1998: Turned 21 on Mother's Day. I remember the day clearly. It was my last year of Engineering. I already had a job offer and I was to start at the job end of that year. I was going to be away from home and on my own for the first time in my life. Every year, my parents used to throw my a birthday party and the guests always were the same - Sreedevi and Peelu... sometimes Indu & Nisha too. But this year was different... there were boys ;) Just a couple of friends from college but it was a big deal for me and a new worry for my parents. But I had a blast. It was a birthday filled with a lot of hopes... Hopes for an exciting future - looking forward to a career, independence, new experiences, responsibility, love and eventually a family and a home - a turning point in life. I remember joking that day about my kids being able to celebrate my birthday and Mother's Day on the same day once in a few years.

2009: 11 years later, another birthday on Mother's Day. 11 years back, I imagined that I would be able to celebrate Mother's Day with my kids by now... It feels like I am once again waiting for life to take another turn. Some of the aspirations from 11 years back have come true... I have a decent career; I make a good living. I am independent. I had my share of new experiences. There was love... but there was loss too. There is a house... but it is not a home yet. Over the last 2-3 years, I feel like a hamster running in a wheel... It is the same routine over and over... And I am waiting for life to begin again... But while I am running in circles in that wheel, time is slipping by. I know that life doesnt happen... I need to make it happen. But I seem to have lost the will to live... I still have dreams and hopes and desires... but I have given up trying to realize them.

I feel like I am asleep and my wake up alarm is a lullaby and so I just keep sleeping.

Happy Birthday to me! And on this day, my advice to self is "Memento Mori!"

April Fool!

2009-04-01T10:43:00.000-07:00

Finally, it's spring!!

Nope... fooled you. Its snowing in Seattle!

Forgot to pray? There is an app for that

2009-03-29T21:45:00.000-07:00

This is the age of apps. Not a single day passes without me seeing the Apple iPhone ad claiming there is an app for just about anything. If you are a believer, I assume you pray everyday. Do you have days where you are running late for work and forgot to mumble the everyday prayer before rushing out of your house? And have you spend that entire day attributing any small thing that goes wrong to the forgotten prayer?

Well, say goodbye to forgotten prayers. There is an app for that! Well, not an app but a subscription service. Information Age Prayer has a paid service available that uses computers with text-to-speech capability to incant your prayers each day. Even if you forget, your computer will remember to pray on your behalf.

You can pick the religion you belong to. If the religion you follow is not currently listed on the site, you can always e-mail them suggestions to include the religion! But in the meanwhile, you can pick an "Unaffiliated" prayer! Just like you car, you can either have a DX version at a low cost or pay more to get an LX version. And in this f***ed up economy, you can even pray for financial stability at a discounted rate of $3.95 a month. Oh, but if God does not seem to be answering your prayers, the website has a no refund policy!

Seriously?! If you dont remember to pray, then you dont really believe in God that much. You will remember God when you need something. And daily you keep praying just in case He/She is listening and decides to penalize people who dont pray everyday. So the prayer is either because of a selfish need or fear of retribution. If you believe in the all mighty and powerful God, how can you think that he will be pleased with you automating the prayer?

Coming to think of it, this is not much different from how things used to be. Growing up, my mom used to tag me along to the temple. On a regular basis, we had the DX version of the prayer where the priest mumbles our prayer along with a bunch of others. But once a while, we'll have the LX version where the priest is exclusively praying for us! Only difference is that during those days, we actually turned up at the temple and stuck around to ensure that the prayer is being delivered.

Motivation

2009-02-19T10:40:00.000-08:00

I think I should become a motivational speaker. I am sure I can motivate people to give up on life!!

Tie or Die

2009-02-06T12:14:00.001-08:00

In 1942, Mahatma Gandhi encouraged Indians to "Do or Die". It took another 5 years of doing and dying for India to become a sovereign socialist secular democratic republic. In 2009, there is a new slogan from Sri Ram Sena: "Tie or Die"!

Sri Ram Sena - a right wing Hindu group - is planning to marry off couples celebrating Valentines Day out in the public. They either have to tie the knot and become man n wife or tie a rakhi and become brother n sister!! According to Sri Ram Sena founder Pramod Muthalik, "Valentines Day is a Western concept and most often celebrated by Christians. We will try to stall the celebrations at any cost." They plan to roam around Bangalore on V-day and force dating couples to marry. In Mangalore, they have also issued a warning against women wearing noodle straps and tight jeans. There have also been attacks on couples at pubs. When asked about the pub attacks, Muthalik defended his supporters saying "Whoever has done this has done a good job. Girls going to pubs is not acceptable. So, whatever the Sena members did was right." Sri Ram Sena feels that they need to put a check on all activities they classify as "anti-Indian" practices.

Seriously??! How much more ridiculous can moral policing get? India is a democracy and Indians have a right to live their life in whatever way they choose. There are laws in this country and if you do not abide by it, you suffer the consequences. No other individual organization has any right to decide what is allowed and what is not, or try to police people. Our constitution states that we have liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship. So who is Muthalik to say what to believe or express. Even if V-day were a Christian celebration, why should it not be allowed in India? No one seems to have any issues with a holiday on Christmas!!

And while we are on the topic, I was just wondering... what if
- a couple who are married (not to each other but someone else)
- a couple of homosexuals
are caught by Sri Ram Sena celebrating Valentines Day? Will they also be forced to marry? As far as I am aware, Indian judiciary criminalises polygamy and also "carnal intercourse against the order of nature."

Update (Feb 10, 2009):
And janta decided to react... The Pink chaddi response from Consortium of Pubgoing, Loose and Forward Women. This is inane! What do they expect to accomplish by this (other than disposing off old chaddis)?

My White Dark Christmas

2008-12-25T17:28:00.000-08:00

Growing up in a city where climate was always hot and sultry with intermittent rain and monsoon, a white Christmas to mark the end of the year was a dream oh-so-perfect. And like all my dreams that come true and turn out to be my worst nightmares, my white Christmas also met with a dark end.

I live in Seattle. It rains... always! It's cold... most of the year. And I love it here!! I like cold weather; I dont like being in the sun much. But this is a city where it snows for like a day or two in a year and that too just for namesake. It leaves a thin white layer of powdery snow and then things are back to normal. Wet and cold! But no, not this year. It's been snowing for a week now. I have like 6-8 inches of snow outside. And in a city that is not prepared for this weather, it is a nightmare. The roads are slushy. There is a layer of compact snow and ice in every walkway. Most cars and drivers are not used to it. And I am no exception! And last year, on a whim, I decided to move from level ground to an apartment at the top of a hill!

I've been working from home for a week now. In the last 7 days, I have ventured out twice - my excuse was that I need to stock up on food... but I think all I wanted was to be around other human beings! It was horrible driving in the snow - especially on the slopes up to my house - with no snow chains and I dont drive a 4WD. Its frightening how your mind wanders when you spend hours at end cooped up within 4 walls.

And today is Christmas. I have a beatiful tree lit up. But it does nothing to my mood... Last year, I had gifts under the tree (OK, I bought them for myself... no matter how pathetic that sounds). This time, I did not even get a chance to buy myself a gift! This is officially the darkest Christmas I ever had. I hope and pray that this is just the case of night being darkest before the dawn! 'coz I honestly dont think I can take much more of this.

Bursting Bubbles

2008-12-07T00:47:00.000-08:00

We try to protect ourselves by building bubbles around us. It's an alternate universe inside. You believe what you want to believe. You turn a blind eye to the obvious and disgrace your intelligence. And then, one fine day, some passerby unknowingly pokes your bubble - they did not see the bubble, they intended no harm - and the bubble bursts! And you are not safe anymore. Not from your thoughts, not from your deeds, and especially not from your awareness of being a fool!

TSO is Rockin'

2008-11-09T01:34:00.000-08:00

It was an awesome evening. I saw the Trans-Siberian Orchestra live at the Key Arena. And what a show it was!!! 3 hrs of amazing music and breath-taking laser shows. I have been a TSO fan for a while. Their music rocks. I never thought you could make Christmas music sound like heavy metal! But the actual live experience was something else. They have like a 100+ member crew to manage just the equipment for the laser and the pyrotechnics! It felt like Diwali and 4th of July all rolled into one. And the music... what do I say about the music. The show I went for today was the second one of the day. They would have had like an hour of break in between the two shows. God knows where they find all this energy!

High Points of the show
- Christmas Eve in Sarajevo
- The guitarists alighting from the top of the stage on hanging square panels
- The guitarist and the violinist beamed up to the middle of the auditorium on a square panel with a whole rocket launch effect of smoke shooting down from the panel... you really wouldn't notice the ropes holding the panel in mid air... it almost looks like a jet pack!
- The solo performances by each of the pianists
- The narrator - as they rightly put, he can read you a phone book and make you feel like you are listening to a story!
- The blonde bombshell who belted out a bunch of high pitch notes center stage
- The perfectly coordinated blonde singers... (I wonder... is blonde hair an entry criteria for all women vocalists in TSO??)
- The laser and fire works ofcourse!

And the piece de resistance... O Fortuna from their upcoming album.

One thing I strongly believe after watching TSO is that guys should have long hair ONLY if they play guitars or violins and they get to run around the stage banging their heads!! Oh my God! All of them had beautiful hair! And by the end of it, I was almost expecting the lead guitarist to break his guitar on stage! But I guess that's where they draw the line...

So if you have never watched TSO live before, please do!! Its worth every penny you spend on it!

PS: OK... so this picture sucks... But with so many lights (and no cameras allowed), this is the best I can do with my cell phone... and can't really ask the guys sitting in front of me to move their heads out of the camera's view, now can I?

Finally!

2008-11-05T13:07:00.001-08:00

Stephen Colbert (during Indecision 2008 - The election coverage in Comedy Central): "This is a night long overdue. At long last the US has fulfilled the greatest part of freedom, we have a President who is Hawaiian!"

I dont think I had any doubts about the outcome of this election. Its high time this country had a change... a positive one. But I am in withdrawal already. The last few weeks (if not months) of late night talk shows were so much fun! Tina Fey might not be too happy... now what will she do with the Sarah Palin costumes?!

Dyslexia

2008-09-29T17:35:00.000-07:00

I am a regular reader of the Scott Adams blog. Today's post was interesting - he is on the list of famous people who have dyslexia.

The first time I ever heard of dyslexia is 8 years back when I came to US. I did all my schooling in India. And in India (at least in the 1980s), if you had trouble reading or spelling, you are just someone who is not smart enough or you are too lazy to study!! You could never claim immunity behind an illness. No one that I grew up with was diagnosed with dyslexia. No one had ADD, ADHD or any of those fun illnesses. I never heard of anyone who was allergic to peanuts or is lactose intolerant. Coming to think of it, no one had restless leg syndrome either! I am not saying that none of these illnesses exist in India - these are unknown conditions and you just deal with it as part of day to day life!

I think this country is the most paranoid of the lot. Anything other than normal is scary. And normal itself is a very narrow category. The drug companies realized that they are sitting on a gold mine and started identifying all these illnesses. I don't mean to be insensitive to people who are afflicted with any of these illnesses. A headache might be a symptom of a lot of things. But it could also be just a headache!! You keep hearing these commercials of wonder drugs (which you have to ask your doctor about... apparently listening to the ad makes you a better diagnostician than someone who studied medicine for years!!). And you might have some of those symptoms. And so eventually you start thinking that you must be sick!

But then I digress... I was talking about dyslexia. Curiosity got the best of me and so I checked out the website to see who else is there in the list of famous people with dyslexia. And the first thing that caught my eye is this picture of Billy Banks - the Tae-Bo guy! Click on the image below for a larger view of the image.

Either whoever put this picture in this article has a good sense of humor or I have some illness that makes me spot such oddities.

Phantasmic!!

2008-09-28T01:27:00.001-07:00

Long time back, I heard the songs of this Hindi movie named 'Hamesha'. It had this one song with an amazingly eerie tune. No surprise. It was a rip off... of the Phantom of the Opera. Obviously, the next step for me was to listen to the original. And that was when I fell in love with the Phantom of the Opera. Few years later, I got hold of the book. Loved it. And then few years hence, the movie came out. The soundtrack was spellbinding. The sets were amazing. The movie was so-so. And I decided that I wanted to see the musical.

Few months back, I heard that the Broadway tour of Phantom of the Opera is coming to Seattle. Did not waste much time in booking the tickets. And ever since, I've been counting days. And Friday was the day! I watched the Phantom of the Opera at the Paramount theater in Seattle. It was nothing short of spectacular. I am totally and completely in awe!!

For starters, Paramount theater is not much to look at from outside. This is the first time I ever went in. And oh my god! Appearances are surely deceptive. The chandeliers and the decorated ceilings transported me to another era!

And the Phantom!! I never thought you could do so much on stage realtime! The sound effects, the stage settings, the cast... I dont have words to describe it. The first scene where the chandelier is turned on... the scene where the Phantom takes Christine on a boat... the scene where the Phantom overhears Raoul and Christine sing of their love... all of it... it gave me goose bumps. Hats off the the crew that managed the stage and sound. It was impeccable. Its been a while since any performance moved me to tears.

This has been the best time I have had in a long long time!! Thank God for small blessings!

Do you get it?

2008-09-12T11:21:00.000-07:00

I dont... wondering what? The Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates ad for Microsoft. The first one was about the two of them buying shoes! The second ad started airing recently - Seinfelt and Gates living with a family so that they can get in touch with real people... WTF?!

Why is Microsoft paying money and admitting on air that they are out of touch with the real world? I am assuming there is a bigger picture here that will get clearer with subsequent ads. But they better get to the point fast 'coz I dont see any story building up in the first two ads.

The whole getting-Seinfeld-to-do-Microsoft-ad was so hyped up. I should have known that this is just like the movies... The more publicity the trailer gets, the more the movie sucks!!

The Old and the Beautiful

2008-09-05T12:18:00.000-07:00

I love gossip and drama as much as the next girl. And this year's election is starting to give soap operas a run for their money.

When I heard Palin's name as the running mate for McCain, it sounded like an awesome strategy. I am sure there were a good amount of women who would have voted for Hillary just because of her gender. When she got dropped off the race, there was a small trace of hope that Obama would choose Hillary as his running mate and by default, some of those votes would have gone to him. But then he didn't pick Hillary. So now some of the pro-Hillary voters would have decided not to vote at all and others would have been forced to evaluate whether they are actually democratic or republican.

And then comes the twist in the tale - Palin in the mix. I never thought McCain would choose a woman as a running mate. But it felt like a strategic move. She can pull some of the gender biased voters to her camp. But from the day the running mate was announced, it has been one drama unraveling after another.

Scene 1. Former beauty pagent runner-up announced as running mate
Scene 2. Rumors that Palin's youngest son born in April was actually the son of her daugher Bristol
Scene 3. Above rumor squashed by the announcement that 17 yr old Bristol is 5 months pregnant
Scene 4: 17 yr old Bristol will marry 18 yr old Levi (father of the child) and their failies claim it is NOT a shotgun wedding

Wow! Too much drama in too little time.

Now, lets step back and look at Palin's political views. She is a convervative Republican (is there any other kind??). She is pro-life and is opposed to abortion in all cases (including rape and incest) except when necessary to save the life of the mother. While running for governor in 2006, she supported abstinence-only sex education in Alaskan schools. She said "Explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support". And she favors capital punishment stating "We have a right to know that someone who rapes and murders a child or kills an innocent person in a drive by shooting will never be able to do that again".

After McCain announced his running mate, Palin addressed the crowds and said "It was rightly noted in Denver this week that Hillary left 18 million cracks in the highest, hardest glass ceiling in America. But it turns out the women of America aren't finished yet, and we can shatter that glass ceiling once and for all."

I am all in for shattering the glass ceiling. But equal opportunities to run the nation is not the only ceiling. Raising women to equal footing in the society starts with small steps. If a woman impregnated by rape cannot even choose whether she wants a constant reminder of the incident, what ceiling are we breaking? If abortion is killing, so is capital punishment. How can you be opposed to one and still support another? In both cases, we are taking a life that we cannot give back.

And looks like "abstinence only sex-ed" to horny teenagers doesn't work either! Love can be blind. And teenagers might want to get married before they get a chance to see the world or do something with their lives or get a job. And they might even want to raise children before they even figure out safe sex. But doesn't the pregnancy and the marriage plans sound very shotgun-ish? After all, the girl's mother is a vice presidential candidate and a lifelong member of the National Rifle Association!

I am not much into politics. But this race just got very interesting. We already know that the country prefers a black man over a woman president. Now lets see how the not-so-experienced black man and his "presidential candidate drop-out" running mate fares against the septuagenarian elitist and his "hockey mom" running mate.

Jobs no more?!

2008-08-28T10:27:00.000-07:00

Everyone dies... someday or the other. We all expect it to happen later rather than sooner. But with cancer, the equation goes a bit out of balance. In 2004, Steve Jobs announced that he has pancreatic cancer. Forewarned is forearmed. The press started off on his obituary. Apparently it is common practice in media to have obituaries prepared for the rich and famous. But I guess someone in Bloomberg (the online media for business and financial professionals) decided to play God. Yesterday, they went ahead and published the obituary!

Obviously they retracted it. But not before Gawker caught hold of it. Read the 17 page obit at Gawker.

Mistakes happen. Since Jobs is not really "no more" yet, I am sure someones job at Bloomberg is no more! But it was interesting to read the obit. The list of people to contact for comments is pretty impressive including bigwigs from Oracle, Microsoft, Disney and Google. Among them is also an ex-girlfriend who "knows a lot of Silicon Valley insiders and may put us in touch with others". And the whole write up about his life makes an interesting read. Almost feels like I landed on his wiki page. The best part if where they talk about impact of his death on Apple stock price. And if the price drops, there is a separate paragraph already written on what to include!

Nokia, How do I love thee? Let me count the ways

2008-08-06T15:05:00.000-07:00

Nowadays, one out of five people I meet have an iPhone. Its not like the world, all of a sudden, got bit by a gizmo bug. I think it has a lot to do with our innate need to touch and feel things. The fact that all the controls in iPhone are touch sensitive works in its favor. The lack of tiles of buttons to press is its charm.

I dont own an iPhone. I totally love the touch sensitive screen and features. So I got myself an iPod Touch. From the day I got it, the most commen question people ask me is "Why didn't you get an iPhone instead?". Based on my mood at that time, my response varies from AT&T contract duration, plan rates, love of Nokia, et al. And I think all of them are true.

One of the worst things about the wireless technology in US is the lack of availablity of Nokia phones. OK, so before you argue with me saying the Nokia is available here too, let me tell you this: 6610, 6600 et al are not the type I am talking about. This country is running a few years behind on phones compared to developing countries like India. I had a Nokia 6610 in 2004!! It was simply awesome. But that is so 4 years back. In mid 2006, I bought a Nokia N80. I got here in 2007 and not a single person I met had ever heard of that phone. Everyone here was carrying a MotoRazr (So lame!!!).

Usually, I never hang on to a cell phone for more than a year. But it is almost 2 years and I still have my N80. The phone is definitely great. But it is more because of the lack of options here. I am waiting for N96. It's launch is slated for Oct 2008. And an unlocked version from China or Singapore will be available online a week after it is launched.

Why is my N80 so great? It acts as my phone, fm radio, mp3 player, and camera. I also use it to browse (but I agree that it is not so comfortable in that small screen.) and watch videos (in the bus, anything to kill time is good). I also read e-books on it and use it to read work related word and excel docs in it during commute.

Case and Point: This a snap of Mount Rainier taken on my N80.
The Nokia N80 has 2 cameras: a 3 megapixel camera located on the back for still photos and video recording & a 2 megapixel camera in the front for video calls. The 3 MP camera offers pretty much all the features of a full fledged digital camera.

The iPhone has a 2.0 megapixel camera located on the back for still digital photos. It has no optical zoom, flash or autofocus, and does not support video recording.

I am sticking with Nokia.

Mamma Mia!

2008-07-20T00:16:00.001-07:00

I have been desparately waiting for the release of The Dark Knight. But so have been a ton of other people. I reached the movie theater a bit too late in the evening. All tickets were sold out. I didn't have any other plans. So I decided to watch Mamma Mia instead.

And what can I say, I LOVED IT!! In fact, I am all set to pre-order the DVD. There was nothing so spectacular about the movie - it was just another romantic comedy but with lots of songs. I guess it was more about the nostalgia tied with it. I grew up listening to ABBA. When I was growing up back in Trivandrun, we had a stereo tape recorder in my dad's room. And he had a few cassettes that were his priced possessions. This was the time when cassettes were expensive. And especially, English cassettes! He had to go through the 80s version of pre-order to get the cassette - get the owner of a cassette shop to get it from out of town. And I used to listen to it over and over, again and again. For years, I couldn't make out all the lyrics. But I used to sing along with my own version of it. After almost 15+ years, the cassette is still there back home and it still plays (OK, it skips a bit 'coz I wore it down and it broke in mutliple places. It's now superglued in). And today, while watching the movie, it was a flood of all those memories. By the end of the movie, I was literally in tears - I was missing my parents and home like crazy.

The movie was good too. Meryl Streep was AMAZING! The rest of the cast was also really good. Each of them did their own vocals. It was a bit odd seeing an erstwhile James Bond singing!! But Pierce Brosnan was good. And so were the others. I think I'd like to see the musical sometime on stage.

Indy meets ET

2008-05-26T21:21:00.000-07:00

Saw Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I am a huge Indy fan. So I loved it. Each time the theme music played, I got goose bumps. But if you are not an Indy fan, dont bother watching it.

Best thing about the movie is that Speilberg and Lucas did not try to make Ford look any younger than he actually is. The character itself is shown to have aged. Indy is still funny as ever. Ford might be old, but he's definitely still HOT! Cate Blanchett was simply awesome as the Russian baddie.

On the flip side, the story line was not strong enough to sustain a 2 hr movie. Maybe its years of hype that made me feel so. I was expecting something out of this world. But not literally! Jones is an archeologist - a glorified "grave digger". Archeology is supposed to be a study of past human life and culture... aliens and spaceship doesn't fit into the picture at all!! Yet another let down was Shia LaBeouf - he's not really there. He was trying too hard to be cool and funny and Jones-Jr-esque. But he really fell short.

Anyway, if Lucas wants to make a few more sequels, they can always start with Henry Jones III. But Indy will always be Harrison Ford!

Bolly Blogs

2008-05-21T22:04:00.000-07:00

The latest Bollywood trend - blogging! Heading the bandwagon is Amitabh Bachchan and Aamir Khan. There is also the IntentBlog (started by Mallika Chopra, Gotham Chopra, Deepak Chopra and Shekhar Kapur) - the blog that uses media to engage a community and has contributions from Bollywood celebrities (SRK, Rahul Bose, Anupam Kher...). Other contributors at IntentBlog include a self help guru, spandex-clad Hollywood star, one half of Eurythmics, and even Guru Pitka.

For me, blogging is just a means to vent. I blog when I feel like it. There are no obligations or targets. There are some months that have multiple blog posts. And then there are months where there is none. This is something I do for myself. If there are people who read it, it is just incidental. Instead of keeping a journal, I just choose to write it online and open for public. If someone sets a target for me that I have to post at least once a day or week or month, I am sure I'll stop blogging. The moment you attach targets & expectations, it becomes a routine and maybe even a chore.

So why do celebrities blog? I refuse to believe that they do it for the same reasons as I do. Thanks to the paparazzi, their lives are already under public scrutiny. I dont think any of them need more of this.

Big B has his blog at www.bigadda.com. This site is owned by Anil Ambani's Reliance BIG Entertainment. It is a social networking site. In a world of orkut and myspace and facebook, it takes a lot of effort to launch yet another social networking site. So how do you drive traffic to the site? Ambani is fishing and Big B is the bait. This is just my opinion. Big B might actually have felt an urge to blog. But hey, doesn't my theory sound more plausible?

So why is Aamir blogging? I haven't found any conspiracies there yet.

The Seattle Groper!

2008-05-20T20:46:00.000-07:00

I've been back in Seattle for more than a year now. A few months after I got here, in the news, I remember seeing a report about some sexual assault. It was about a man who groped an Asian woman and ran off when she screamed. And I thought... What's the big deal? I've witnessed and even been the victim of similar incidents in India. And that is one of the biggest reasons why I hate being in my home town. I never get a sense of confidence when I am there. But then I digress from the main topic - the groper.

Since the first news report, I kept hearing multiple reports of similar nature. It was becoming a pattern. It was happening in Rainier Valley and on Beacon Hill in Seattle. It always happens near the Metro bus stops. And the targets were always Asian women. The age group of the victims ranged from 13 - 50! According to the news report, the attacker is a black male around 40 yrs old. He's 5 feet 10 inches tall with shaving bumps on the left side of his face. And yesterday there was a similar report - and apparently this is the 23rd attack.

Now the news just appalls me.
1. This is presented as the headline news. I understand that this is a big issue but I wouldn't call it headline news or breaking story that warrants a 10 minute coverage! Especially when it puts focus on our inability to do anything about it.
2. This is not just sexual assaults. It is a very racist act too. And he even attacks teenagers. So he is a pervert, racist and a pedophile! 23 attacks and still no arrests!! After almost 10 months of attacks, we are still just warning people!
3. The media seems to be more active than the cops. They know the localities where attacks happen. Even in the locality, they can narrow it down to Metro bus stops. They have some description of the guy. And he is actively assaulting Asian teenagers and women. If he has such a predictable pattern, how difficult can if be to catch him (if they want to)?

New Toy

2008-05-15T10:13:00.000-07:00

I gifted myself a new iPod Touch on my birthday. 5 days since I got it... And I am totally loving it. I have loaded it up with songs for all my moods :) And I've some of my favorite photos, wallpapers, et al loaded. Decided not to sync up contacts & calendar since my cell phone already has it. Now I dont have to keep a bunch of CDs in the car. Love the touch screen. Love the way it goes to wide screen mode when I turn it hortizontally. It hooks up with WiFi networks. And the battery life is just awesome!

OK... so nothing is perfect. There are somethings I just hate about it.

Automatic sync of music: I have a bunch of my music on an external hard drive and I dont keep it hooked up to my laptop. I loaded it once to the iPod. The next time I auto-synced it, it started wiping all the music from the iPod out since the hard drive was not hooked up. So now I have to manually sync it. Painful!! But I am a very patient person :) [yeah, right!]

No games: What the f***. Even the cheapest cell phones have atleast 2 games. With all the funky features, the least Apple could do is add some games. I can play games from the browser but what if I dont have a WiFi network around? And even worse, I can't install any games on my own unless I hack it. I dont see the logic behind it. Apple is not gaining anything from this. Its not like they sell their own set of games that people can buy!

No bluetooth or even IR: With all the bluetooth enabled headphones available now, its weird that Apple does not have bluetooth in their iPod. There are bluetooth adapters available that can be plugged into the iPod. The iPhones are bluetooth enabled. So why not add it to the iPods too. Is it to promote iPhone sales??

Now, the obvious question: Why did I buy an iPod instead of iPhone? Three reasons:

(1) NO ONE makes better cellphones than Nokia

(2) I hate having a 2 year contract with AT&T on the cellphone plan

(3) Unlocked iPhones without the AT&T contracts are more expensive and not supported much by Apple

21st Century Superstitions

2008-05-07T11:21:00.000-07:00

Most of us grew up hearing about superstitions from our parents or grand parents.

Breaking mirror brings bad luck
Spilling salt causes arguments
A black cat crossing you is bad luck
Horse shoes are lucky
13 is an unlucky number

We grow over some of these... But if you spend most of your life's savings on buying a house, you definitely want to ward off bad luck. So you go to someone who is good at Vaastu Shastra (similar to Feng Shui). You might not really believe in it but somehow if someone tells you that the house is "Vaastu-compliant", it makes you feel a bit relieved. If they say that something is wrong, you end up being worried and start looking for ways to correct it. Same thing happens with arranged marriages in India. If the horoscopes don't match and your marriage ends up being bad, the blame is on the horoscope mismatch and not really the incompatibility of the people's basic nature.

NYTimes had a recent article on appeasing Gods with Insurance. The article was about people buying traveller's insurance. They believe that not buying it is tempting fate. If their flight doesn't crash or their luggage doesn't get lost, they consider it money well spent. If you ask me, there is nothing logical here. Haing or not having an insurance doesn't change the probability of a mishap. Its almost like Murphy's laws.

I have heard people say that their iPod/mobile phone/camera broke down right after the warranty period. The marketing industry knows this. So they sell extended warranty. When someone offers you extended warranty and you refuse, and if the appliance breaks down after your warranty is over, it reaffirms the belief. These beliefs are not restricted to people who believe in God or people who are religious. Even atheists and people who believe in logical reasoning beyond everything still succumb to such notions.

According to the NYT article, the logical explanation for such illogical beliefs is "Because calamities are so vivid and easily brought to mind, we tend to overestimate their probability when we intuitively judge what will happen if we tempt fate."

I consider myself a fairly logical person who like to see the facts before I believe in something. But I still try to get up on my right side from bed in the morning. My parents used to tell me that if I woke up on my left, it will leave me grumpy all day!!

Mission: Impossible

2008-04-30T16:48:00.000-07:00

People kill in the name of God and religion. We call them fanatics. But what do you call someone who wants to kill God? Stupid!

CNN reports that a teen in South Carolina accused of plotting to blow up his high school told police that he wanted to die, go to heaven and kill Jesus.

He believes there is a Jesus and there is a heaven. But he does not believe that killing innocent people might land him in hell.If he dies, he goes to heaven (or hell). What if someone (say Jesus) in heaven dies (or gets killed)? Where do you go from there?

And again...

2008-04-27T21:41:00.000-07:00

Apr 2006: Moved to my new apartment in Bangalore and went through all the madness related to the move
Apr 2007: Moved to WA and had to set up nest from scratch in Bellevue

Apr 2008: Moving to Issaquah

A new pattern, I guess. I am changing residence every year. This is a big deal for me. I am highly resistant to change! And I think its good to move away from comfort zones and take a chance, once a while. Lets see how it all pans out.

Earn vs. Burn

2008-04-24T11:57:00.000-07:00

Project Management Expense: 1.5 Million USD
New software package, vendor services & hardware: 8 Million USD
Labor charges for development & testing: 15 Million USD
Cojones to question earned value for burned dollars: Priceless

There are some things money can't buy.
For everything else, there's Master Card!

Press Here to Die

2008-04-02T00:20:00.000-07:00

Life is so easy in this hi-tech age... Everything is just a click away. And now, Germany is taking it the distance. You can actually press a button if you want to die.

Perfusor, available for rent, will give you an injection of potassium chloride at the press of a button. It is intended to be a mercy killing device. Since a doctor or anyone else is not administering the chemical, it is not assisted suicide. You are killing yourself. So no one else to blame!

Someone actually said that this machine is "an act of Christian love". I wonder if the Vatican concurs.

Read more about this here

Denial

2008-03-27T23:18:00.000-07:00

What makes human beings different from the rest of the species on this planet? I guess one of the differentiators is our ability to observe things, correlate them and make decisions.

If you've seen a horse race or a horse carriage, you would know what a blinder is. Per wiki, many racehorse trainers believe that blinders keep the horse focused on what is in front of him, encouraging him to pay attention to the race rather than other distractions, such as crowds. This works fine because there is a jockey who can make decisions. So winning a race is more about the jockey's ability to guide the horse to the finish line than just the speed of the horse. What if the jockey also wears a blinder?!

It is amazing how seemingly intelligent people sometimes act as if they are jockeys wearing blinders. Denial ain't just a river in Egypt!

Miles from home

2008-03-09T21:32:00.000-07:00

Swallows are excellent fliers. They are mostly migratory and often return to the same territory each year.
It was believed that sailors with a swallow tattoo would always return to their homes and families as well. Sailors with one swallow tattooed on them had traveled over 5,000 miles and a sailor with two tattoos had traveled over 10,000 nautical miles and denoted a very experienced sailor. If a sailor had the misfortune of dying at sea, legend had it that a swallow would carry his spirit to heaven. And if a sailor had a friend who passed away, he may get a tattoo of a swallow with a dagger through it's breast. But swallows are also an enduring symbol of love and loyalty.

Resources or Assets?

2008-02-24T14:51:00.000-08:00

Few years back, when I was travelling to US for the first time, I had a long chat with my dad. Being an only child, my parents and I have a very co-dependent relationship. Distance has always been difficult. And around 10,000 miles between us was pushing it too far. Dad asked me why you want to go so far off. I had my standard response - It helps my career; it helps me grow. He couldn't understand why it has to be in a far off nation where I dont belong. In his opinion, growth in career is meaningful when you get respect from others you know. And all the people that matter or I know or care about are mostly in India. So where is the pride in becoming something in US?

Years later, all that conversation came back to me. And I think I know what all that means now. Last week, one of our projects got cancelled. Mandate from senior management was that people in that team need to go back to India in 2 days if we cannot place them elsewhere (i.e., if they are not billable). How do you wrap up your life and family and go back in two days? If you are travelling to US from India with 2 days notice, you have family there who can wrap up things after you. But when you are leaving a country where you are an alien, how do you manage it? Who is your support system? The organization you work for was supposed to be the support system. But we have reached a level where people are resources and software is an asset!! What is the point of growth in an organization where, at the end of the day, you are just a billable resource? Where is the pride in that?

Politically Correct

2008-01-23T19:41:00.000-08:00

Nowadays, we are so particular about being politically correct. Even kids are catching on. The funniest I've heard so far is in today's episode of 'Two and a Half Men'

Context: Charlie (f****s anything in a skirt) says he is in love and is holding off sex till the relationship has a solid foundation. Everyone thinks he is high on some drug!

Evelyn (Charlie's mom): Well, we can rule out ecstasy. I mean, that's a powerful aphrodisiac... I've heard.
Jake (Charlie's pre-teen nephew): Nowadays, you're supposed to say "African-American disiac".

Who's your daddy

2008-01-08T09:01:00.000-08:00

Commuting to work today morning, I was tuned on to 101.5 FM and heard this ad (not verbatim, my memory ain't really that good!)
Woman: "My husband always had concerns about the paternity of our daughter. I was sure of it but he had some doubts......" The ad went on to talk about the woman's concern about privacy in getting a DNA test done. Now you can initiate a DNA test in the privacy of your own home. The Identigene DNA Test is now available at your nearest RiteAid!! And apparently the kid's father was her husband after all... and life is all rosy and peachy now. The punchline: If you have doubts about who the biological father of your child is, try Identigene!

The IDENTIGENE DNA Paternity Test Collection Kit retails at $29.99. With an additional lab fee of $119 (sent in with cheek swab specimens collected from the alleged father and child) the total cost for a paternity test is only $149.99. Everything you need to collect and mail the specimens to the lab is provided in the kit, including easy to follow instructions.

Now, hypothetical question: Alpha is married to Beta but had an affair with Gamma (Beta's best friend and also a married man!). Alpha has a baby and it could either be of Beta or Gamma. Beta doesnt know about Alpha's affair. Gamma doesn't know that Alpha has doubts about her childs paternity. If Alpha wants to keep this whole ordeal private, she needs a DNA test done. She buys the IDENTIGENE kit. Now how do they expect her to get a DNA sample by swabbing inside the mouth of Beta or Gamma without them knowing it!! Seriously! Maybe IDENTIGENE should accept hair samples. Its definitely easier to get!!

[I had a half an hour bus ride after I heard the ad. I had lot of time to think about it :)]

Update (Jan 9, 2008): I am impressed!! Identigene must have really good web content monitoring. It picked up this blog entry and someone actually responded with a comment!! Alpha will be very happy to hear the comment. I googled the name of the person who added the comment. Per most web sites, Michelle Council is an executive director of Identigene. Now I am not sure if monitoring blogs is part of the job description of an executive director. Or is it just a prankster pulling my leg?

Either way, the comment reaffirms my original belief: The best way to counter sarcasm is cuteism.

End of the World!

2007-12-28T10:19:00.000-08:00

A bunch of techies... day after day spent in meetings reviewing pages and pages of documentation... finally, a break... and bottomless glasses of wine! Awesome combo. Conversations start with project work and then slowly move to holiday plans, families, dream vacations... glasses are getting refilled without us noticing it... and then we hit THE topic... Dec 21, 2012: The new D-Day.

Alcohol makes every idea and concept sound so brilliant!! So after the get together, I got home and actually googled 2012. I was amazed at the number of sites dedicated to this idea. Since I have stumbled upon this wealth of knowledge, I thought I should share it :)

The Maya civilization is a Mesoamerican civilization that was culturally very dynamic. They had a system of distinct calendars and almanacs. The Tzolk'in calendar combines twenty day names with the thirteen numbers of the trecena cycle to produce 260 unique days. The Haab' was the Maya solar calendar made up of eighteen months of twenty days each plus a period of five days ("nameless days") at the end of the year making it 365 days. Neither the Tzolk'in nor the Haab' system numbered the years. The combination of a Tzolk'in date and a Haab' date was enough to identify a date to most people's satisfaction, as such a combination did not occur again for another 52 years, above general life expectancy. Because the two calendars were based on 260 days and 365 days respectively, the whole cycle would repeat itself every 52 Haab' years exactly. This period was known as a Calendar Round. The end of the Calendar Round was a period of unrest and bad luck among the Maya, as they waited in expectation to see if the gods would grant them another cycle of 52 years. Since Calendar Round dates can only distinguish within 18,980 days, equivalent to around 52 solar years, the cycle repeats roughly once each lifetime, and thus, a more refined method of dating was needed if history was to be recorded accurately. To measure dates, therefore, over periods longer than 52 years, Mesoamericans devised the Long Count calendar.

The Mayan name for a day was k'in. Twenty of these k'ins are known as a winal or uinal. Eighteen winals make one tun. Twenty tuns are known as a k'atun. Twenty k'atuns make a b'ak'tun. The Long Count calendar identifies a date by counting the number of days from August 11, 3114 BCE (0.0.0.0.0). The Long Count days were tallied in a modified base-20 scheme. The last digit goes from 0 - 19 (i.e., 20 k'ins). The second last digit goes from 0 - 17 (i.e., 18 winals). The third & fourth digits from last goes again from 0 - 19 (i.e., 20 tuns and 20 k'atuns). The fifth digit from last depicts the b'ak'tun. December 21, 2012 is 13.0.0.0.0, the first day of thirteenth b'ak'tun.

The Popol Vuh is a book written in the Classical Quiché language containing mythological narratives and a genealogy of the rulers of the post classic Quiché Maya kingdom of highland Guatemala. It also contains some stories about the creation of humanity. According to Popol Vuh, we are living in the fourth world. Gods failed in the making of the first three creations and then in the successful fourth world creation, humans were placed. In the Maya Long Count, the previous creation ended at the start of a 13th b'ak'tun. The previous creation ended on a long count of 12.19.19.17.19. Another 12.19.19.17.19 will occur on December 20, 2012, followed by the start of the thirteenth b'ak'tun, 13.0.0.0.0, on December 21, 2012.

Call it religious conditioning or whatever else; we have always been fixated on a doomsday prophecy. The date keeps changing, the explanations vary, but there is always a doomsday. And right now, it is Dec 21, 2012. But the interesting fact is the most websites call it, "It’s the end of the world as we know it". Isn't it an REM song? If I remember right, the song goes on to say that "I feel fine".

Some even say that 2012 is when the human race will be enlightened! Yeah, right!! There are people getting enlightened everyday... its the big and small things that happen in your day to day life that gets you there. And it is a life long process. The world is not going to change. The people are not going to change. Both the world and the people just evolve.

The only scientific significance I could find for the D-Day is this: The date December 21st, 2012 A.D. (13.0.0.0.0 in the Long Count), represents an extremely close conjunction of the Winter Solstice Sun with the crossing point of the Galactic Equator (Equator of the Milky Way) and the Ecliptic (path of the Sun).

The day also has some astronomical significance. The Ouroboros is an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon swallowing its own tail and forming a circle. The depiction of the serpent is believed to have been inspired by the Milky Way, as some ancient texts refer to a serpent of light residing in the heavens. The Milky Way is this serpent, and viewed at galactic central point near Sagittarius, this serpent eats its own tail. During the solstice on Dec 21, 2012 the sun will appear to rising out of the mouth of the ouroboros. Greeks call this phenomenon Suntelia Aion (means 'End of Age'). Coincidence?

Is this me?

2007-12-07T21:38:00.000-08:00

Bag, Borrow or Steal

2007-10-23T09:44:00.000-07:00

No, its not a typo. It's bag, not beg. This is the NetFlix idea taken a step ahead (or a step too far??). Bag, Borrow or Steal is a Seattle start-up that lets you rent handbags and jewelry along the same lines as DVDs at NetFlix!!

I love watching movies; I love the idea of having them delivered to my door step; I love the idea of watching them at my convenience and paying no late fees. So NetFlix works great for me.

I love handbags. I love fancy jewelry. But renting handbags and jewelry used by someone else... I don't know, I really dont like the sound of it. I know that people rent tuxedos and evening gowns and wedding dresses. But that is like a one-day thing. After a day, its returned, cleaned, et al. But a handbag that is rented to someone for as long as they want to keep it and then returned - I dont think its the same as a tux. But then, if you are a brand-junkie and don't like being seen with the same handbag more than once (and dont want to blow your whole paycheck on this overhead), maybe this is for you.

So will you bag, borrow or steal???

Ride the SLUT

2007-09-18T21:17:00.001-07:00

There are a lot of infrastructure enhancements happening in Seattle. The latest in the list is a streetcar line with an unfortunate acronym - South Lake Union Trolley! It took the officials a while to notice the impact of the name. They officially changed the name to South Lake Union Streetcar. But the funny thing about catch phrases is that its catchy!!!

A local coffee shop, Kapow!, is selling T-Shirts that read "Ride the S.L.U.T.". And needless to say, its selling as fast as coffee in Seattle!

English!!

2007-09-03T14:27:00.000-07:00

Do you think your English pronounciation is good??? Try this...

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

Ingenious?

2007-08-20T09:22:00.000-07:00

China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission!

My first reaction to this was how pretentious are we getting?! Reincarnation, in itself, is just a belief. It is not exactly a scientific process. And to try and regulate something like that!! Its like a George Bush idea! And since when does a communist government start worrying about monks and reincarnations!!

But on second thought, is it really that ridiculous an idea? The motive behind the regulation is to cut off the influence of the Dalai Lama. He is 72 now and planning his succession. Per beliefs, the Dalai Lama's soul is reborn as another human to continue his work. As a spiritual leader, he holds a lot of respect among the people of Tibet (and all over the world). And with respect comes some amount of power too.

The regulation is almost like imposing the power of the government and the law above religion and spirituality. It is very difficult to question religion and beliefs of the common man. These are very deep rooted. Years and years of conditioning make them unquestioningly following these beliefs. [And it’s not just about the Dalai Lama. It is true of all religions.] The subset of people who question these beliefs is minimal. Rather than question their beliefs, the government is opting to accept it. They are taking it a step further, infact. They are projecting themselves as a higher power by trying to regulate and thus rule over this religion.

If that intent fails, the government still has the right to tell the people who the new reincarnate of the Lama is. The Lama would have informed the government!! They could position anyone they want in this role. Even if the monastery claims someone else as the true incarnate, it will kind of split the people into two sections depending on who they choose to believe.

The regulation is truly multipotent. Divide and rule. It works!

On a lighter note, I am waiting to hear Hollywood’s reaction to this?

Let Down!!

2007-07-13T22:24:00.000-07:00

Just got back from watching Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Out of the five movies so far, IMHO, this was the worst! I don't know if it is because I read the book and then watched it. From my last post, you know that I watched all other movies without reading the book. But I don't think its coz I read the book.

The movie looked more like a very long trailer... bunch of scenes put together with not much continuity. The movie jumps from scene to scene very abruptly. Its almost like part of the film got left out in the editing floor. And, thanks to the book, it was obvious that lots of stuff got left out... and worse, some stuff got modified!

But its not all bad... Out of 10, I would still give it a 6.5 - 7. The cast is great. The best part of the movie is Prof Umbridge & Bellatrix Lestrange (even though she had less than 10 minutes of screen time). Coming to think of it, even though the movie was more than 2 hours long, the actual screen time for most of the characters were miniscule. And ofcourse, Harry, Ron and Hermione looked more mature. Maybe they should rush with the shooting of the next two books 'coz the cast is growing up real fast!!

A Very Harry Week

2007-07-09T13:32:00.000-07:00

During my college years and into my first few years of employment, I was totally & completely addicted to visual arts (ahem! OK, I admit it... television!!). I wouldn't touch a book to save my life! Considering the very limited time I spend reading my textbooks, I am surprised that I graduated from college. On the contrary, I had a friend who was glued to books. Each time I went to her place, she had a new pile of books to read.

I first heard of Harry Potter from her (I never read the newspapers either... so I did not know that it was a bestseller!!). People (including my friend) were pre-ordering the book!! Whats the big deal?! It's a childrens book for crying out loud! Me, being the "visual arts" addict I was, waited for the movie. I saw the first one. Loved it. Waited for the second movie. Loved it too. Waited for the third movie. You get the pattern, right?

Eventually, in an attempt to curb my TV cravings, I started reading again. But still stayed away from Harry Potter (childrens book, remember? I am a grown-up!!). My friend recently blogged about pre-ordering the much awaited final serving of Harry Potter. And the IT world was abuzz with the Harry Potter spell on Amazon. And on July 1st, I saw the trailer of the Order of the Phoenix. Must have been an Imperius Curse, I guess. The next thing I knew, I was driving to the nearest Barnes & Noble.

I bought the Order of the Phoenix and the Half-Blood Prince. Started reading... I finished reading both of them in 3 days (working days, mind you... all I had was mornings & evenings & sleepless nights). I just couldn't put the book down! The moment I finished the books, I pre-ordered the Deathly Hallows. I still need to read the first four. And to top it all, this was a Harry Potter weekend on ABC Family. They showed the first three movies... And HBO was playing the fourth.

All in all, a very Harry week.

Wear Sunscreen

2007-07-06T09:18:00.000-07:00

No, I am not giving beauty tips. Its getting hotter in Seattle but that has nothing to do with the sunscreen tip either.

After a long time, today I heard the song Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen). This song was produced & presented by Baz Luhrmann. The lyrics were written by Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich.

Midweek Hiatus

2007-07-04T18:06:00.000-07:00

I wish all weeks were likt this one... a holiday on Wednesday. I was quite productive at work on Monday & Tuesday since I had today to look forward to. And I expect tomorrow and day after are gonna be good too since the weekend is so close by :)

Its almost 6 PM... and its 83°F outside!! This is one thing I hate about the climate here... Back home, in summer, its usually hottest from 10 AM to maybe 3 PM... the eveings are not so bad. But here, it gets so hot in the evening... I cant keep the windows & blinds open coz of the glare of sunlight on my TV... and I cant keep them closed coz it feels like I am sitting inside a sauna. There is no winning!

Coming to think of it... isn't it ironic... I spend most of my life in a country where summers are long and hot and sweaty (not to mention power cuts & water shortage). and I am cribbing when I'm living in a place where there is barely 2 months of summer!!

Grass... Green... other side... enough said!

Self Deceit

2007-05-23T15:09:00.000-07:00

"Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what
each man wishes, that he also believes to be true."- Demosthenes

You love icecreams and have been suppressing an urge to go splurge at Baskin & Robbins. But the thought of all the calories have been keeping you away. While you are battling your cravings, a friend comes along and offers to buy you icecream... their treat!

You had a fight with your spouse. It could have been your fault. But your ego doesn't permit you to apologize. You finally decide to apologize and plan a romantic dinner. But you spouse calls up to say that he/she has to work late and won't make it for dinner.

Do you think God is telling you that one icecream won't do much harm? It is not your fault and you don't need to apologize.

NO! God is not saying anything. It is just your mind at work. We tend to misinterpret coincidences as fate or God's will.

We will convince ourselves of anything and everything that we want to believe. And we are so desperate to believe that we throw common sense out the door. The logical part of your brain keeps nagging you with facts. But you like the fictional setup weaved by your mind. And one fine day, you wake up thinking, "How stupid can I be?!"

Just curious... Are women more susceptible to such contrivances?

Bullfighter

2007-05-02T14:57:00.000-07:00

I had a meeting scheduled for today with two VPs and a few Senior IT Project Managers of an upscale retailer. It was a "pseudo sales pitch" where we are in a "win-win" situation. I had a conference call yesterday night with our "core team" to "touch base" on our "POA" for this meeting. The call started at 9 PM and went on till 10:30 PM. And in that 1.5 hrs, the phrase "apple-to-apple comparison" was used atleast 35-40 times!! Had the call gone any further, I think I would have screamed at the next mention of that phrase!!

Consulting & IT Services have coined a bunch of jargon we use to evangelize. It is next to impossible to talk to a consultant without hearing one of these "catch phrases". The IT services companies use atleast one these in each and every sales pitch they do.

mission statement, leverage, core competencies, bandwidth, touch base, paradigm shift, take it offline, win-win, think outside the box, brain dump, circle back...

What we don't realize is that prolonged exposure to this jargon makes us very irritant. An article in the Boston Globe points out that the world is wising up to the stale smell lurking behind your fragrant façades. They correspondent feels that we're coming around now to a time of simpler language and clearer communications.

And while doing some research on my increasing contempt for corporate jargon, I came across BullFighter - A software that fights the "bull"! In 2003, Deloitte Consulting developed a new program called Bullfighter that searches documents for jargon and unnecessarily complex language. Once installed, the Bullfighter toolbar appears in Microsoft Word and PowerPoint documents, and works much like the spell check feature. In 2005, Deloitte announced that they are no longer affiliated with Bullfighter software or its support. Current and future Bullfighter versions will continue to be available at http://www.fightthebull.com/bullfighter.asp, free of charge.

I also came across mention of two books... the names sound interesting. Some day I should get around to reading them, I guess.
Why Business People Speak Like Idiots: A Bullfighter's Guide
OfficeSpeak: The Win-Win Guide to Touching Base, Getting the Ball Rolling, and Thinking Inside the Box

The Unexpected

2007-04-12T14:03:00.000-07:00

"Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get." - Mark Twain

Seattle is known to be one of the most depressing places in the world, thanks to the gloomy rainy weather all year long. There is barely 3 months of summer in this city and rest of the year, it rains. Personally, I love this weather. I am not a "summer-person"! I love the rains. I love the greenery. And most of all, I love the occasional surprise sunshine :)

The joy that unexpected surprises (pleasant ones, ofcourse) bring is really amazing... Let it be sunshine or anything else that you wished for... :)

Deja vu... almost

2007-04-09T14:17:00.000-07:00

Apr 2006 [Madness]
I was setting up a new home... buying stuff for my new apartment, and all the frustration with the "Indian customer service" (one of the best oxymorons ever).

Apr 2007 [Deja vu... almost]
After living in that apartment for less than a year, I moved back to Seattle for a project. And I am doing the exact same thing this April also! Setting up an apartment... buying stuff for the apartment.

Differences...

First & foremost, its so easy to do it here... I can do all my research online and just go the stores and pick it up.
I know what all to buy... I guess it comes from experience :)
Great customer service... They value my time and I value theirs!
Me and my friends have to do all the heavy lifting & assembling and the works... In India, you can get everything done! It cost me 100 INR to get 3 beds assembled in India - each bed cost me around 12000 INR. Here, it costs me $40-60 to assemble one bed and the bed itself cost me only $99!!
Most important of all, last year, I was looking at the latest and best that money can buy. Budget was not one of the key things on my mind. This year, the only thing on my mind is budget. If these stuff can last me a year, I am happy... isn't that odd? I put all my life savings on an apartment and then move to a cheaper version of it!!

All said and done, I am officially settled in my new apartment. It hasn't started feeling like home yet... Eventually, it will, I guess.

Sleepless en-route to Seattle

2007-03-25T11:04:00.000-07:00

3/24/2007: Time... no idea. Place... somewhere above the Pacific Ocean

Can you imagine sitting in a cramped up seat with negligible leg space for 17 hours? If you are an Indian and have travelled to US, most probably, you answered "Yes"! And you fully empathize with me.

I can't sleep. And after watching two movies back to back, my eyes are aching. There are at least 3 babies crying in the flight. So decided to jot down some stuff.

This is the third major "move" in my life - first was from Trivandrum to Bangalore after college, and the second was from Bangalore to Seattle for my first onsite assignment. Like my current move to Seattle, the previous changes have also been pretty painful for my parents. I am an only child and my parents and I have a very strong co-dependent relationship!

I hate admitting this... but the first two times, I was not so sad to move away from my parents. The move to Bangalore was the first whiff of independence in my life. After living under my parents watchful (and definitely, loving too) eyes for 21 years, this was a welcome change! And the move to Seattle was my first trip to a foreign country. So I was definitely excited.

This time, its different. I actually felt sad that I am leaving my parents behind. They are both growing older. And over the last 2 years, I have reconnected with my parents (post all the adoloscent attempts to break away from them). I dont think of them as a hindrance to my independence anymore. And this time, I am also leaving home!! Yes, Bangalore is home now! Trivandrum (as beautiful a place as it might be) is not in my list of favorite places to live in. Thinking of all this, I really wish I could just go back home right now... Never ever thought I'd feel this way!

Three glasses of wine... and I am still not sleepy... So next in agenda is watching Casino Royale (yet again).... Bond is definitely a pleasure to look at ;)

Rat Race

2007-03-19T08:54:00.000-07:00

Times of India had a very interesting article today... "Now, 4-yr-olds take tuitions".

It reads that even while court and Delhi Govt is debating on whether 3 or 3.5 year olds should be going to school, many parents have gone a step ahead and started sending their little ones to private tutors!! Some say that their child is weak in Hindi. Others say that they want their kids to be ahead of the class. Parents want their kids to learn things in advance to ensure that they score well in kindergarten!!!

Private tuition for pre-KG and KG kids!! Can you imagine that??!

During this Feb and March (the board exam months in most parts of India), all TV and radio channels had special programmes on how kids and parents can deal with examination stress! OK, anything where you are getting evaluated, rated or judged is stressful. I used to find all my exams stressful. My parents say that they did too in their schooling days. But I dont remember it reaching such a frenzy that kids and even their parents need professional help from counsellors! With a population of teeming millions, it definitely is a rat race. But in my opinion, the problem with India is that everyone wants to be a doctor or engineer or someone like that. We no longer hear children saying that they want to be a police officer or even a teacher. Those a lowly occupations! Kids are not encouraged to pursue their talents. There are kids who are gifted painters, musicians, cricketers, et al. But these are not viable money grossers. The Indian cricket team might be making millions even if they suck at their primary profession. But out of a population of millions, only 11 make it to the team... and our players have a shelf life of almost 15-20 years!!

Getting back to the original topic, parents inject a huge sense of competition in kids right from the time they are toddlers. Pretty soon, we'll hear about kids on KG and lower primary getting counselled for stress... The sad part in all this is that they miss out of something amazing - childhood!! They are busy going to school and then to tuitions and then doing homework. When do they play? When do they bond with other kids of their own age? When do they learn about teamwork and kinship? We are nurturing a bunch of mechanical beings... we study round the clock as kids and then we work round the clock as adults! And by the time we retire or realize that we are missing out on life, it is usually too late!

[PS: I am not putting all the blame on parents... All these ideas have their origin in our current social setup. And parents are just going with the flow.]

Reminds me of a quote... The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat!

International Womens Day

2007-03-08T22:57:00.000-08:00

March 8 - International Womens Day. There are two ways to look at this:
1. We celebrate men and their importance all through the year. And let us take one day out of a whole year to appreciate the weakling woman.
2. We praise the lord Jesus Christ on Dec 25. We pay reverence to Gandhiji on Oct 2. And equally divine and noble are women. So we celebrate women on Mar 8.

We had a Womens Day Celebration at Infosys. It was organized by the Infosys Womens Inclusivity Network (IWIN) - an initiative for promoting gender sensitivity at the workplace. I am also a part of this group.

The key events were a panel discussion on "Women inclusion and its Business Imperatives" and a "Young woman leader contest".

The panel was an amazing group of successful men and women - Sanjay (Head of Infy Corporate Planning), Pravin (Head of Infy Retail Business Unit), Jamuna (Delivery Head of Infy Banking Business Unit), Prerna (VP of Infosys BPO) and Sharad Sharma (Managing Principal of Orbit Change Interventions)

Honestly, my expectations were set a bit low since the topic of women inclusivity has been discussed to death, resuscitated, and discussed further! There was only one difference - this is the first time I was attending a discussion that had more testosterone on the panel than estrogen.

Few of the highlights of the discussion that stuck with me are these:
1. Glass ceilings can never be broken from just below. Initiatives like IWIN can provide a push from below but we need action from above too. There has to a perspective change in the top leadership.
2. Womens inclusivity is not a social cause for Infosys. Its a business need. To flourish, business needs talent - male or female. Almost 48% of the population in India are women. And we cannot ignore such a huge mass.
3. Women respect boundaries while men push the boundaries. Women do not self promote while men do. This innate arrière pensée puts women at a disadvantage. A change has to happen in women too. They need to push forward and demand their share instead of standing back and waiting their turn.

That's when I realized... the discussion was not prosaic since it was totally inclusive... inclusive of not just women but men too... It takes a yin and a yang to make the circle complete.

The "Young Woman Leader Contest" reminded me of all the Miss World contests... Politically correct answers!! People stopped short of saying "world peace". But then thats expected. If you asked me "What would you do if a fire broke out during the meeting?", I am definitely not gonna say that I'll panic and run to save my life! Few of the contestants had a good sense of humor... when asked whether a woman can be James Bond, a contestant replied in the affirmative. But she also went ahead to point out that Bond's boss is M - a woman! She makes Bond do all the hard work! One of the questions fazed me a bit... Indian states have had a few women Chief Ministers. Who is your favorite and why? The contestant and me - both paniced a bit. I dont know what went through the contestants mind... But I could not recollect the name of a single woman CM!! My general knowledge is not that bad... So I guess old age is starting to spin cobwebs in my brain. The winner of the contest was a lady who replied that the two major contributions the Brits made to India are English and the realization that unity in diversity is the key to success.

Every year, United Nations conduct a panel discussion on March 8th. The topic for this year is "Ending Impunity for Violence against Women and Girls". Another relevant cause in the Indian context. There are so many instances of infancticide, child marriage, rape, physical abuse, etc that goes unpunished in different parts of this country.

My final conclusion: An International Womens Day is a necessity. The reason is not either of the two mentioned at the beginning of this post. Like Sharad Sharma pointed out in the panel discussion, stereotyping of women into particular roles exists in reality. We need to acknowledge this as a fact and take steps towards breaking those stereotypes. Centuries of prejudice and social conditioning does not disappear overnight... Baby steps... thats what we need to make now. If each one of us do our bit towards the cause, maybe a generation or two down the line, we will be able to do away with a special day to celebrate women.... Everyday would be a man's day and a woman's day.

Pride or Prejudice?

2007-03-06T22:33:00.000-08:00

Rs. 1 million worth of food meant as holy offering at Orissa's Jagannath temple was destroyed because a foreigner had entered the temple premises!! Priests at the temple saw this as an act of defiling the premises and they performed rituals to cleanse the shrine. A mud pit was dug inside the premises and the holy offering was thrown in it. The American visitor who was not aware of the restriction on entry of foreigners to the temple was fined Rs. 209!

That is just amazing - you destroy around 22000 USD worth of food and charge the so-called "culprit" just around 5 USD!!

Why do we feel that the presence of a foreigner or a non-believer makes a temple impure? Is the God, whom we believe in, so intolerant? A temple is a place of worship. If there are a few people there who do not believe in any God or believe in a different God, what difference does it make?? Are all the Hindus going to the temple fully devout? There will be a whole bunch of them who are there because of some guilt in their mind, some would be there to demand something from God... very few are there just because they want to worship God!! Isn't it always about what "I" want?

And bury all that food in a mud pit... How crazy is that??? There are millions of Indians who go hungry everyday. There are children dying of hunger all over the nation. You can find a huge number of beggars and slum dwellers near every temple. Couldn't they have just donated the food to them? I don't think they would mind it even if it is food rejected by God!!

Growing up in Kerala, I have seen temples that do not allow non-believers, women, et al. OK, so its easy to spot a woman. But how do you find a non-believer?? I have seen temples that close down and cleanse the entire premises because a child puked in there!! OK, so if someone pukes, clean off the vomit. That's it. Why should they say that it made the temple impure and it needs cleansing??! As per these very same priests, God made human beings. And God knows that if we are unwell, we will sometimes puke. So will he/she mind??

Women cannot rule over men

2007-02-22T00:56:00.001-08:00

Pakistani woman minister Zil-e-Huma was shot to death by Muhammad Sarwar. He believes that women cannot rule over men! "I have no regrets. I killed her out of the conviction that she was leading an un-Islamic life and spreading an evil influence on other women," Sarwar told interrogators in custody.

So much for women's lib!! Forget equality... at least start giving some worth to a woman's life. Religion is not something that can be forced on people. I have never rear the Koran and I have no idea what the take of Islam is on women being involved in politics and government affairs. But I do believe that every human being has a right to choose... to choose his/her life, job and even religion! When did God appoint us humans as executors of his will?

Sarwar belongs to a local religious group, and had allegedly killed four prostitutes in 2002, but was acquitted for want of evidence. I guess this time also he will get away since he was just serving God!!!

Rocking Chair

2007-02-19T05:49:00.000-08:00

Thats what life feel like now... gives an illusion of movement but life is exactly where it was. No changes! Just moving back and forth!

Racist Brits??

2007-01-27T10:08:00.000-08:00

If you are someone who reads Indian newspapers or watch Indian news channels, the name Jade Goody will definitely ring a bell. To the uninformed, Jade Goody is a regular in the UK reality show - Big Brother. Till 2 months back, very few Indians knew of such a show. [FYI: We have our own desi version of it - Big Boss airing on Sony TV.] The show first came to media attention when Bollywood's own Shilpa Shetty was invited to join the new season - Celebrity Big Brother. Jade, her mom, her ex-boy friend and a bunch of others were also part of the cast. And Jade Goody's current claim to fame - racist remarks against Shetty!!

Breaking news in all our 24-hour News channels. Front page news in leading newspapers across the country. Goody makes racist remarks. Britons are racist!! Media created such a huge furore. Every channel was showing an aggravated Goody and a weeping Shetty. It was so "disdainful", even the Indian Govt decided to intervene! Our Tourism Minister invited Goody to visit India to experience the country’s "healing nature".

Is this what we have been reduced to??? Racism is a serious issue. In all parts of the world, people have been fighting some form of racism or the other. And we are trivializing it by such stunts! How can reel-life be equated to real-life? And since when is some dumb reality show actress an epitome of all Brits. [While we are on the topic, Jade's claims to fame also include her abundant ignorance... She used to think that Saddam Hussein was a boxer!!!]

Its said that "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone." In India, we still segregate based on religion, caste, language, sex and everything else possible!! Who are we to call anyone racist?

And its a reality show, for crying out loud!! This is how they make money. Thanks to Goody's racist remarks and the hoo-hah following it, the ratings of the show was sky high. And Shilpa Shetty was paid more than 3 crores for being part of this cast!! She knew what she was getting into. [If she didn't, she's even more stupid than Goody.]

On a related note, isn't human nature weird? We criticize people who are mean. But Simon Cowell is still raking money through American Idol. Big Brother still comes back every year. Donald Trump still says "You're fired!" season after season. And these shows are getting meaner and meaner by the year!! And their approval ratings also keep going higher and higher.

Is it how it's really meant to be

2007-01-25T08:00:00.000-08:00

Is there someplace far away, someplace where all is clear
Easy to start over with the ones you hold so dear
Or are you left to wonder, all alone, eternally
This isn't how it's really meant to be

Well they say that love is in the air, but never is it clear,
How to pull it close and make it stay
Butterflies are free to fly, and so they fly away
And I'm left to carry on and wonder why...

- Sheryl Crow ["Always on your side" ]

Hello 2007

2007-01-01T00:10:00.000-08:00

A new year begins... And wow, what a beginning it is. We have given new meaning to the phrase "start on a clean slate". Iraq managed to wipe Saddam off the world before the new year began.

I wont talk about what the entire world thinks about Saddam Hussein and his execution. But he is definitely the biggest hero in Kerala today! Newspapers and TV channels have heralded him as sacrificial goat in the altar of American imperialism. All politicians have raised major hue and cry over it. A minister even wrote a poem! And ofcourse, there was a hartal in Kerala today!

It was quite revolting for me to watch all the Malayalam news channels today. It was Bakrid yesterday. And the maulavis had a field day with this. They stopped short of just proclaiming Saddam a humanitarian!! And everyone was eager to discredit George Bush. OK, so I am NOT a Bush fan. He is definitely one of the worst things that ever happened to the United States. He doesnt deserve any credit in bringing Saddam to justice.

Why is it that we tend to forget the gory details so soon... OK, so Saddam was hanged. But he did stand trial (whether its fair or not). He lived a really long life. What about the 150 odd people he massacred in Dujail? And what about the tens of thousands of people killed in chemical warfare at Al-Anfal in an anti Kurdish campaign led by Saddam? What did these people do? Did they live long and full lives? Crimes against humanity... this cannot have any punishment lesser than death. Well, pacifists may claim that we cannot take a life that we cannot give. Only God can punish. God has never been known to come down in person and act. He needs a medium to act through. And God cannot have a wish different from what has just happened!!

So it definitely is a Happy New Year!!

The year that was...

2006-12-29T06:46:00.000-08:00

January
A good start both in office and at home. At work, preparing for a major milestone in the project. At the home front, working hard to tie all the loose ends to get my apartment in shape.

February
A major milestone for my project... we successfully completed Retek implementation for one of the concepts of our client. After two years of hard work, this felt great!

March
More hard work to get the apartment done. Realized that I am not half as bad as I thought I would be at interior designing. The house is actually starting to look like home :)

April
Finally moved into my own apartment :) Feels great to have a home of your own! Also met one of my online pals for the first time in person!

May
The last step before turning 30 :(

June
Relaxed life...

July
Relaxed life starting to edge on boredom.

August
Met a childhood pal after a lifetime... well, I am exagerrating ofcourse. It was just like 2 yrs or so. But life does change a lot in 2 years. But it's always good to know that you still have friends who can take one look at you and know exactly how you have been doing. Thank God for small blessings.

September
First Onam in my new apartment with my parents. It was really awesome. Felt like old times.

October
Life slows down again!!

November
My mom turned 60. We had a family get together at her ancestral house. It felt good to reconnect with extended family after a looooooooooong time.

December
After ages, I'm spending a Christmas and New Year with my parents. Mom's yummy food (good), hours watching mallu programs on TV (bad) and totally dry and smoke free environment (ugly).

Coming to think of it, 2006 was a good year. Hope 2007 is even better ;)

none

2006-12-10T07:00:00.000-08:00

I've been looking in the mirror for so long
That I've come to believe my soul's on the other side
All the little pieces falling, shatter
Shards of me,
Too sharp to put back together
Too small to matter,
But big enough to cut me into so many little pieces
If I try to touch her, I bleed...

New and Improved: Bond, Don and Umrao Jaan

2006-11-25T10:46:00.000-08:00

Casino Royale... it’s more like the making of the James Bond we have seen in all other Bond movies. The novice double-oh... no fancy cars (except the classy Aston Martin), no gadgets, just plain muscle power! OK, so the new Bond is not as sly or smooth as the earlier ones. He is more of a hunk than a charmer... but hey, I am not complaining!!! Yummmmm! And definitely an awesome movie... I guess this is the only Bond movie in which we would see the emotional side of the man... and Craig definitely stole the show.

Don… SRK’s version of the Big B hit. I’ve watched both the movies… and I give all my votes to the new Don!! Way better than the old one. For starters, I am not an SRK fan. And I am not a Big B fan either. So this is as objective as it gets. I especially loved the “twist” in the story. And hey, the original had Pran with a limping leg walking on a tight rope across two high rise buildings with one kid in each arm!!! Farhan Akhtar definitely did a good job… “inspired”… but unique.

Umrao Jaan… only one word to describe the movie… Yawn!!! I have NOT watched the original movie. I have only seen the songs. But Aishwarya doesn’t come anywhere near Rekha doing “In Aankhon ki masti ke”. And no matter what the real life scene is, AB Jr and Ms Rai looked DEAD COLD in the reel!! Even the songs in the new one are forgettable. They should have kept all the old songs… at least the audio CD would have sold!!

Judge a Book...

2006-11-07T05:38:00.000-08:00

by its cover... thats what we are good at. And that is one of the key aspects of advertising. The product you sell can be just about average... but you put a good cover and get it endorsed by a celebrity, you pretty much have a winner.

Why should Gods be any different?? Yes, I am back to the last blog topic - 'God for Sale'. Today, I went to the afore mentioned temple. As usual, I did not have much to tell God, or complain about or demand for. So I spent most of my time looking around. And my eyes fell on a close up of the hoardings that I have been seeing in the neighbourhood. Quite an advertisement, it was!!

The goddess in the temple has always been very simple and humble to look at - the idol, I mean. This goddess is supposed to be very powerful but the idol is very small and looks like a normal woman - two hands, two legs, one face, nothing flashy!! The advertisement was definitely pumping up her image quite a bit... Eight hands, crown on the head, and the costumes - oh my god!! Shouldn't the deity at the temple match the one on the pamphlet? Did they think that she is going to look less powerful and rake in less money if she looked more human??? Will her believers construe her as less powerful with just 2 arms???

I am spending too much time talking about this issue - in the blog and in real life too. I guess I am just pissed off by this over commercialization... or maybe life has been so boring of late that I just need something to rant and rave about!

God for Sale

2006-11-05T10:00:00.000-08:00

After almost a year of keeping away from Trivandrum, I am finally back home. Its my home town... but there is something about this place that just makes me feel like I did when I was a teenager... and I'll give anything to shake off that feeling! Anyway, thats a story for another time (maybe).

We moved to this house in Trivandrum when I was nearly just 3 yrs old. And from that time, there was a temple near the house. This time, I saw some hoardings in the road about the temple management trust and asking for donations and the sort... As far back as I can remember, this temple was run by a family of priests who stay right next to the temple. So I was curious about how they became so management savvy and started a trust... So here is the story I got from my dad...

Apparently, there were some renovations happening to the temple. The temple has some considerable property - part of it is the actual temple and rest of it has a small ritual ground and a small podium for weddings and the sort. One fine day, a bunch of people (few of the rich spoilt brats in the area and a few trade union members and some local goons) together took over the podium and the land surrouding it (except for the place where the temple is). They claimed that they are the management trust that runs the temple and this property belongs to the trust and not the priests!!! The whole ruckus went to court. And these "upstanding" gentlemen coerced the priests into an out of court settlement. The trust will pay the priests a meager amount for the property and a seat in the trust for one of the priests. And the priests will hand over the entire property and temple administration to the trust!!

Nothing so shocking about it... this happens in most property disputes. The fact that bugs me most is something else - the trust is now "demanding" donations from the public staying in the locality in the name of the temple and going to use that money to pay off the settlement amount!!! And the people are actually paying the money! Now, isnt that convenient??? We are practically just gifting them the temple!!!! Everyone living in this vicinity understand very well that a good percentage of any donation they ever make to this temple from now on will go directly into the pocket of the trustees... (With the priets running the temple, the percentages would have been lot lesser) And this money (looking at the profile of the trustees) will definitely go for booze and other such indulgences.

Now this is good business... some of us are real suckers for religion. And others have become so passive that they will do anything to avoid a conflict. Everyone just says that this is how things work here... Escapism at its best! A bunch of goons are gonna make a really good living selling God!!! The things we do in the name of society!!!

PS 1: I voiced my opinion to my parents about this and asked them not to pay anything to these people. And as expected, I got an earful from mom...!

PS 2: As much as I love my parents, I can't wait to get out of this city... now, isnt that also a form a escapism??!

PS 3: Whatever!!!

Liar Liar

2006-10-13T23:42:00.000-07:00

Its a bright sunny Saturday noon. And guess what I am doing??

I am in office :( Well, last week there was a Karnataka bandh. In lieu of that, we are working today. Ways to keep billing days intact and keep the money flowing!

This reminded me of school days. I did my schooling in a convent school for girls. Each of us were given a handbook at the beginning of a school year. The first few pages were general info like phone numbers, prayer wordings, et al. Rest were blank. If there is a message that the teachers/school needs to pass on to the parents, they come to each classroom and write the message on the blackboard. We are supposed to copy it on to the handbook and show it to our parents. Kerala being a state of regular strike, bandh and hartals, the most common message used to be "Tomorrow is a holiday. Saturday will be a working day with 's timetable".

I did not want to go to school one day. Reason: One girl was bullying me. She scared me so much that I was petrified at the thought of seeing her again. But it was a matter of life or death for me at that time. So what did the evil genius in me do??? I wrote the holiday message in my handbook....

Such a lousy liar, I am...
What happens when my parents see other kids go to school tomorrow?
What will I do on Saturday when they drop me off at school and there is no one else there?

Coming to think of it... even now, I am a pretty lousy liar! And I am still easily bulliable. The only difference is that I am not the puny little girl any more. I have enough (more than enough, infact) girth and can fake a straight face.

PS: As much as I try to forget this unfortunate incident, each time I have a working weekend, my parents remind me of this. They just totally enjoy pulling my leg!! So mean, aren't they??

Inside the Actors Studio

2006-10-02T07:49:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: I am a sworn movie addict. I am more obsessed with movies than with movie stars... So my opinions could be biased!

I've been down with fever the last few days... sitting at home, all I could do was flip channels. I saw Oprah asking Mathew McConaughey about any language troubles he had with Penelope Cruz. Moving on, Tyra Banks was getting tips from Iman (Mrs David Bowie) on the right shades of makeup. And ofcourse, there was our very own Simi Garewal in conversation with the Bachchan family and Big B's near-death experience in the sets of Coolie. The regualar E! shows were talking about whether Suri looks more like Tom Cruise or Katie Holmes; whether Beyonce looks good thinner or curvier and the sorts.

After hours and hours of channel surfing, I ended up in Sony PIX - a new addition to the Sony Channel lineup. And I discovered 'Inside the Actors Studio'. Its a one hour show where the host James Lipton interviews some celebrity. All I can say is it puts all other chat shows (with celebrities) to shame!! He started off from the childhood and talking about their up-bringing and concentrating on how that affected their acting. Then he went on to ask about how they got into acting and if they had any struggles and the effort that went behind movies and the sort... The most surprising aspect - NO GOSSIP!!! I saw 4 episodes till now - Sissy Spacek, Richard Gere, Angelina Jolie, and Will Smith.

And the most hilarious part of the show are the 10 questions he asks everybody in the end...
1. What is your favorite word?
2. What is your least favorite word?
3. What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?
4. What turns you off?
5. What is your favorite curse word?
6. What sound or noise do you love?
7. What sound or noise do you hate?
8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
9. What profession would you not like to do?
10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?

Any celebrity (or wanna-be) out there who wants to take a shot at these questions???

Parents

2006-09-09T09:18:00.000-07:00

Cant live with them... cant live without them!!

As a kid:
I totally doted on my dad. He was my idol. I wanted to grow up to be like him - strong and sensible. I thought mom was just a sentimental fool... she never voiced any opinions. And I thought that she was a fool to give up promotions and progress in her career just so that she can be in the same town and raise me and take care of dad.

As a teenager:
I hated everyone... hated the world. Wanted to kill myself. Parents were the only reason why I didnt... Well, maybe I didnt have the nerve to do it either. I thought that I was a big disappointment for dad n mom and they deserved a better child than me!

As a twenty-something year old:
I couldnt wait to get away from home and have an independent life. It was a dream come true to move to Bangalore. And it was even better to increase the miles between parents and me and move to US.

As a maturing adult in my mid twenties:
Started realizing the importance of family. Especially, started realizing the importance of the role my mom played in our family. She kept us grounded. She made sure she was always there when I wanted to talk or when I just want a hug. And it was all possible coz she decided to stay at home and work near home.

As a girl nearing her thirties:
Hate it when parents treat me a kid. Love it when they visit me. Feel very sad when they leave. Cant imagine life without them. Really appreciate the role they played in me being the person I am now...

OK... so all of these are good things. The 'cant live without them' part.

So why is it that I can't live with them?? Well, I hate it when they treat me like a kid and then go ahead to tell me that I need to get married soon! On one hand, they say that they are so proud of me and all that I have accomplished in my life. And then in the same breath, they say that my life is still so incomplete and unhappy coz I am single. Well, its always about being single!!

So there... I rest my case!

PS: All this onslaught was coz my parents just left after spending a week with me... only 3 hrs since they left and I already miss them so much!!!

As usual...

2006-08-23T01:00:00.000-07:00

I made a total spectacle of myself!
I really need to enhance my self restrain skills!!
And learn how to handle booze better!!!

Sex just for fun?

2006-08-10T09:41:00.000-07:00

Consider sex not only as an "instrument of pleasure" but also as "a tool to procreate".

Oh no, thats not my opinion. The Catholic Church in Kerala makes this suggestion. They feel that India is heading in the same direction as Europe and USA. People opting not to have kids. Decline in the number of church goers. And so on.

The news further says...
Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. The Catholic Church in Kerala, concerned about the declining population of the community, will now ask the believers to embrace the Christian concept of sexuality that blends love and procreation. In other words, to have more children. Father Paul Thelekkat, spokesman of the Syro-Malabar Church, told the Hindustan Times: "There is a drastic fall in Christian population. The recently concluded synod of bishops had expressed serious concerns over the drastic fall in Christian population. So there will be some serious efforts to address this."
Reference: http://www.zeenews.com/znnew/articles.asp?aid=313420&sid=NEW

Thats an interesting take!! OK, so maybe Christianity is on a decline. But is having more babies the answer?? As it is, the population in India is too high. Maybe people dont want babies. It is a personal choice. The church is saying that people who can afford to raise kids should have more children. Wont it be better if they adopted a kid so that some homeless kid will have a future? Isnt adopting more of a good Samaritan act than having more kids of their own.

Practicing a religion is a matter of choice. What guarantee do we have that the kids would actually be practicing Christians? They might choose to be atheists.

Cannot wait to hear what the church says next!!

Idle Minds

2006-07-24T09:30:00.000-07:00

I see a bunch of them everyday around me... my team. I hate admitting this but I have a team of 25 resourceful individuals... and atleast 20 of them are sitting idle.

Why?? (I am very bad at project planning!!)

De-merits of running a project with a huge operating margin (OM). The key factor in the big profits that IT companies reap is their OMs. In simple english, OM is the amount we bill the client less the cost company incurs to have a team and execute the project.

Two easy ways to make a better OM - increase the billing or reduce the cost. There is a limit up to which you can increase billing. So we move to cost. Having experienced people in a team means higher cost (coz of higher salaries, duh!!). And this is where the 80-20 rule comes into action. 80% of the work is done by 20% of the team. And rest of them... idle minds.

And an idle mind is a devils workshop. People think too much. And most of them are not very productive ones. They start comparing work, salary, onsite opportunities... and all of them are so youndg... so they start chattering... and this disturbs other people... and it becomes a big issue!! So time for me to be the "uncool" PM. So people start spending more time online browsing and chatting. This again violates company policy that you are not supposed to use internet for personal or unofficial purposes. Again, problem! I tried giving some in-house projects... and some learning materials... but no one seems motivated enough!

I have an easy solution... how about releasing the idle 80% and retain the working 20%... my senior manager however did not sound too thrilled with the idea. He wants me to find innovative ideas to keep the team occupied!!

Blog Block

2006-07-20T09:01:00.000-07:00

The Indian government provided a directive to the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in India to block a handful of sites which host blogs including Blogspot, Typepad and Yahoo Geocities.

The reason behind such a decision - some terrorist groups are using blogs to communicate with each other!! OK... so they use telephones and mobile phones too. They might even be using Yahoo messenger or a GMail account. How about banning all of them too? Terrorists from other countries seem to be infiltrating into our nation. How about stopping all international flights landing in India?

Almost every invention ever made in the history of mankind have been used for both good and bad things. Just because something aides in bad or illegal things doesnt mean we can just ban it. Inventions lead to their misuse... so can we just stop invention?

Yes, terrorists used blogs to communicate. But what about the Mumbai Help blog set up to assist the victims and to provide information?

So much for democracy and freedom of speech...

And funniest of all... I can still add a post to my blog. But I cannot read it. People in the rest of the world can still read them :)

Mumbai... Terror Tuesday!

2006-07-11T10:35:00.000-07:00

7 bomb blasts in Mumbai... till now, 140 dead and 260 injured.

Mumbai has been having a long streak of bad luck. Bomb blasts, buildings collapsing, floods... These calamities have claimed so many lives. One common thing across all these mishaps is that we were not prepared. And neither were the police or the goverment.

I am watching the news now. Blasts at 7 points on Mumbai western railway line during rush hour. The blasts happened inside local trains. The intent is very clear. Maximum damage!! This was definitely a highly organized attack. Yes, there is no way to plan a mitigation strategy for a bomb blast. But the common public is furious. They are asking for answers. What is being done to ensure the security of their lives?? Where is the tax payers money going? How much longer before life returns to normal??

Aimless Wandering

2006-07-08T23:28:00.000-07:00

That is what my life has become now... And now that I think of it, its been like that for a while now. I've been just whiling away my time. One day to another - no specific agenda, nothing to look forward to, nothing planned, and finally nothing accomplished. And today, when I think of tomorrow, or the month after or even the year after, there is nothing I am looking forward to. No aims, no ambitions. Till 2 or 3 years back, my life was always a count down - a count down to some specific achievement or target. But now...

SEP

2006-06-26T08:14:00.000-07:00

"An SEP is something that we can't see, or don't see, or our brain doesn't let us see, because we think that it's somebody else's problem. That's what SEP means. Somebody Else's Problem. The brain just edits it out, it's like a blind spot. If you look at it directly you won't see it unless you know precisely what it is. Your only hope is to catch it by surprise out of the corner of your eye."- Ford Prefect

Now, there is something tricky here... SEP is something our brain doesnt let us see. And our brain works in strange ways. It perceives things mostly to our own convenience. Or maybe, we tend to supress the logical thoughts and distort it to match our convenience. Either way, we find means to justify the things we do and the things we dont.

Would life be easier or make more sense if we did not treat things as an SEP based on our convenience? Maybe... Maybe not...

Fickle Life

2006-06-13T04:31:00.000-07:00

Today's headline news:
Angry at the screening of 'Fanaa' at Amber cinema hall in Jamnagar, a youth from Rajkot set himself on fire in the hall's toilet on Sunday afternoon during the intermission of the 3 pm show. In a statement he issued from the hospital, he said, "Such incidents of self-immolation will continue until Bollywood star Aamir Khan apologises to the people of Gujarat for his utterances against the Narmada project as well as the state."

Now, I am confused.
1. Our constitution very explicitly states that "All citizens shall have the right to freedom of speech and expression". The only "if clause" here is that it should not affect the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States, public order, decency or morality, or in relation to contempt of court, defamation or incitement to an offence. Isn't Aamir Khan an Indian citizen? And assuming he is, did he say something that affected any of the stuff listed here?
2. Is it fair that you penalize Yash Raj films just because you have a problem with what Aamir Khan said?
3. If you want to penalize Aamir Khan, boycott his film! Why do you want to go to the theater, pay money and watch it half way through and then set yourself on fire.
4. Why do something like self-immolation in a public place? What if there was some inflammable material near by? Would Aamir Khan be held responsible for any other people who die in the theater or will this person who decided to burn himself take the bottomline?
5. And most important of all, assume this: You spend all your savings to build your dream house. One fine day, the government comes and tells you that they want to build a road through your property and they have to demolish your house. They offer your meager or no compensation. Will you take it lying down or would you do an Arthur Dent-style protest and lie in front of the bull dozers?? Now extrapolate the scenario to lots of poor farmers who stay in the way of this dam. I do understand that the Narmada dam is for the bigger good of people in Gujarat & Rajastan. But what is the price that the public have to pay for it? Are they being adequately compensated?

Such a waste of human life... there are so many ways to protest. Why set yourself on fire? Dont we have any respect for our lives? Does this person have any parents? Did he think even once about what would he will put his parents through if he actually died?

Ideally, this is the kind of news I ignore. Such extremely crazy news is now a common thing. But it got my attention because that same day, I got the news of the death of another employee in my office.

A girl in her mid-twenties... very friendly, smart and incredibly talented, an avid quizzer, ... the list of adjectives seem endless. She went for an outing with her project team to a waterfalls in the outskirts of Bangalore. She fell into the water and the currents were so rapid that no one was able to save her. They could not even recover her body. Her father was a senior official in Indian army. Some of the people from army came and did further search and finally more than 24 hours since she disappeared into the waterfall, they recovered her body. Imagine the plight of the father who had to light the funeral pyre of his daughter. A girl who was full of life. A girl who wanted to live. A girl who was sensible enough not to burn herself over a movie. She lost her life at her prime.

And a man who was senseless enough to set himself on fire on something as trivial as a movie and protest over an actor survives with just 50% burns!!!

Is life fair???

Sufi

2006-06-07T10:17:00.000-07:00

I suddenly have a new found interest in Sufi music. The songs have influenced me so much that I even did some digging on the tradition and heritage behind it. (all information thanks to Wikipedia)

Sufism is a mystic sect of Islam. Practitioners of Sufism are known as Sufis. Their religious practices are based on divine love. Qawwali is the devotional music of the Sufis. It gained mass appeal thanks to performers like Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the Sabri brothers, et al. Qawwali in the form we know it today was essentially created by Amir Khusrau in the late 13th century in India.

Qawwalis are classified by their content into several categories:

A hamd is a song in praise of Allah.
A naat is a song in praise of the Prophet Muhammad.
A manqabat is a song in praise of either Ali or one of the Sufi saints.
A marsiya is a lamentation over the death of much of Ali's family in the Battle of Karbala.
A ghazal is a song that sounds secular on the face of it. There are two extended metaphors that run through ghazals - the joys of drinking and the agony of separation from the beloved.

Qawwalis tend to begin gently and build steadily to a very high energy level in order to induce hypnotic states both among the musicians and within the audience.

OK OK... enough cut and pastes from Wiki... right now, my playlist looks something like this...
Abida Parveen - Meri Bukkal De Vich Chor
Abida Parveen - Naraye Mastana
Kailash Kher - Allah ke Bande
Kailash Kher - Teri Deewani
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan - Aafreen Aafreen
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan - Akhiyan Udeek Diya
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan - Biba Sada Dil Mod De
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan - Jhule Jhule Laal
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan - Nit Khair Mangaa
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan - Piya Re Piya Re
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan - Sanu Ek Pal Chain Na Aaye
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan - Yeh Jo Halka Halka Suroor Hai
Rahat Fateh Ali Khan - Mann ki Lagan
Richa Sharma - Badi Lambi Judaai

Lonely at the top

2006-05-28T05:25:00.000-07:00

Another 12 months and I will be 30... May is always a month of introspection for me. Its my way of trying to be wiser with age. The last year had been very eventful. After years of hardwork, I finally have my own team to manage. And the years of sweat has finally materialized as an apartment of my own.

Work used to be fun when I used to write code and do research. But I dont find the charm in management that most other people do. I had so many friends a few years back. But now, even though I am very friendly with my team, I feel a distance. And it has to be there... because end of the year, I need to appraise these people. For an unbiased opinion, some amount of distance helps. But on the flip side, it gets very lonely. As much as I appreciate the respect I get, I miss the informality.

A month back, I moved into my new apartment. I spend the last month with all the excitement of a new house owner. Everyday I found something or the other to buy for the house. My mom was also around sharing all the excitement. A week back, she left. And now the emptyness of the house really bites me... It hurts to wake up every morning in an empty house, to cook just for me, to clean up the house knowing that no one else is going to see it, to step into the rooms that remain locked up most of the time.

It really is lonely at the top. Sometimes I see myself standing alone in the balcony in the middle of the night, the cold breeze blowing, with so many other apartments around where I know that there are people living families to share their happiness and sorrows, kids wailing the night and sleeping off as soon as their moms rock their cradle. And in that moment, the pride of reaching the top melts under the warmth of my tears.

I was jaded, suffocated; it got too hard to breathe
But never got as high as I needed to be
You know life becomes worthless when they steal your dreams
I just couldn't live with what was left for me
And I couldn't run far enough from the truth - what's the use?
Yeah, it's lonely at the top
Happy is one thing it's not
- Bon Jovi

Tall, thin and fair

2006-05-14T07:31:00.000-07:00

These are not just adjectives anymore. These are ambitions!! What do you want to be when you grow up? Long gone are the days when kids responded saying doctor, engineer, pilot, et al. Now they just want to be Aishwarya/Bipasha or John/Abhishek. Girls want to be tall, thin and fair. Boys want to be tall, macho and fair. That is their idea of perfection.

Switch on the TV and these are the ads you see...1. A dark skinned girl is getting engaged. Everyone says "lucky girl" coz she got a fair guy. So she uses a fairness cream. Lo and behold, on the day of the wedding, she is looking very fair... and everyone says "lucky boy" coz he got such a pretty wife!!2. A girl is feeling depressed coz she cant fit into a pair of skin tight jeans. She tries the new miracle drink and before you know, she is sporting a pair of skinny jeans and surrounded by guys.3. A guy wants to be in the basket ball team. But he is too short. So he is depressed. He walks half an hour everyday on some magnetic insoles and he is the next Michael Jordon.

What are we trying to say here??? To get a guy/girl, all you need is looks... In a country where a big part of the population is starving coz of poverty, we are now seeing girls who are anorexic. On one side, we have laborers sweating it out in construction sites and factories making rugged bodies... We also see young guys using steroids to pump up their muscles.

Are we getting so addicted to the skin deep beauty and the 6 pack abs that we are even willing to jeapordize our health? What happened to staying fit coz you want a longer healthier life? What about having pleasant manners? What about nurturing your intelligence?! And what about self esteem!!!!

Emotion or Commotion?

2006-04-12T06:55:00.000-07:00

77 year old veteran Kannada actor Rajkumar died due to a cardiac arrest. I am not a Kannadiga, I dont understand the language much but I am a resident of Bangalore. I have never seen any of his movies. The first time I ever really heard of him was when the sandalwood smuggler Veerappan kidnapped him.

Rajkumar - an idol; a superstar; a humble man. This is what news channels say. They also say that it is the end of an era. The death of a superstar and an idol is sure to invoke a lot of emotions in the people who adored him, supported him, loved him and will definitely miss him.

I understand that aspect. But why should the emotion give way to commotion??!! People were gathering in groups and burning tyres in the middle of the roads. News channels are showing people throw kerosene into the fire. Police was having a bad time managing the crowd and maintaining order. Why??? Why should you protest at the death of someone?? OK, if an idol or star is killed in a premeditated manner or with some selfish intent, I might understand... But a 77 year old person dying of a heart attack.... that is so normal. What is there to protest?! What do you achieve by ruining public property and by making a normal day impossible for the people...

What is happening to us, to our values and our sense of responsibility? Why do people react like this? In my opinion, this is not reverence to the dead. This is sheer disrespect to the person who died and also to the fellow citizens! People who dont raise a finger at social issues and things that really matter in daily life are up and protesting a natural death!!!! From social beings, we are becoming anti-social animals.

Madness

2006-04-11T09:47:00.000-07:00

That is what the last few days have been... Almost 3 years after putting down all the money I ever earned and borrowed, my apartment is ready. I am moving in end of this week. So so so so many things to do to make a house out of a building... and even more effort to make a home out of the house.

Two entire weekends on buying furniture and drapes for the house. Now running all roung the city for lights, fans, TV, washing machine... all the things that brings the semblence of a house to the four brick walls it used to be. And the red tape and total lack of respect for time and money. People who put up a fight if I give a check instead of cash makes me wait 6 hours for the delivery of goods... and shamelessly ask for a tip!

While waiting and grumbling and cursing the people responsible and the entire country, I am reading Atlas Shrugged. Now, I have a new found respect for Ellis Wyatt. I understand why he set fire to his oil fields. I admire John Galt for never telling the world about his new motor... Why? The world doesnt deserve excellence let alone perfection. The world is in love with mediocrity. "Lack of respect for time is acceptable because this is how things work in India" - says my mom. As per dad, "atleast we can afford all this... we are waiting after paying for things... what about people who cant even afford all this".

I dont buy the attitude. Nobody just handed me the money. I worked day and night for it. I earned it. And by virtue of that, I earned the respect for the time that the money buys!!!

What the hell... I am just blabbering... Thanks to one who nets the dot for listening patiently to all my rambling for an entire 3 hours... I am sure he'd never accept another dinner invitation from me :)

Beer & Guilt

2006-03-31T22:17:00.000-08:00

Friday was a mix of highs & lows. Down 3 bottles of beer, I am floating to a beautiful high. The evening takes a sweet turn to a romantic high. And slowly the beer starts wearing off... And then there is the guilt... Is this for real? Is this right? But somethings are so sinfully sweet to just let go.

Friends?

2006-03-26T05:13:00.000-08:00

10 years ago...
I have a close cirlce of friends. I am very picky about the people I get close with. It takes me a lot of time to trust someone. After studying in the same school for 12 years and living the same neighbourhood for even longer, I have just a handful of friends. But we are inseperabale. We grew up together. We share our little secrets, ambitions, whims, fantasies, books, casettes, everything. It was more of a sisterhood than a friendship. We made innocent promises to be together for ever and ever. We will always be there for each other. We swore that we will tell each other as soon as something great happens in our life. We will always lend our shuolders if one of us want to cry our hearts out. Irrespective of career and family, we will always make time for each other.

Now...
I am almost alone. Most of my friends are married and some even have little toddlers. Some have migrated to distant lands. The ones closer to home have other priorities. Even if we ever call each other or meet, we have such varying interests now. Some of them want to talk about the exorbitant donations to get their little ones into school. Some talk about the difficulty of maitaining a work life balance. Some want to talk about failed relationships. And all of them agree that I am the lucky one... I am still single and living my life on my own terms. And I beam with pride. Yes, I am living THE life.

Yes, I really do feel proud of who I am today. A good career, a secure life... But I miss those hours I used to spend chatting with my pals on phone running up my dad's phone bill. I miss the days when the biggest decision I had to make in a day was which dress to wear. I miss the days when my mom used to take care of me when I fall ill and my friends visit me so that I wont feel bored. I miss having friends to hang out with on weekends. And worst of all, I miss having someone to talk to when I am feeling down.

And now, it is so difficult to make new friends. I dont socialize much. So my avenues of meeting new people are limited. In office, it is difficult to make friends with your teammates because eventually you need to do the bossy role too. And the peers are all busy in their own worlds. Infact, now I think I talk to myself more than I do to anyone else. It might sound weird or even crazy but what the hell... I always respond to me in words that I want to hear... Its almost like having an alter ego that it very much real!

Bollywood Torture

2006-03-14T06:30:00.000-08:00

The Chinese are the pioneers in torture techniques. And now Bollywood has its own claim to a new torture technique - Himesh Reshammiya. Anyone who has heard the song "Aashiq Banayaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Aapne" will know what I am talking about.

So who is Himesh Reshammiya? The first time I heard of him was when the movie 'Tere Naam' released. He was the music director of the movie. The songs were really melodic and hummable. He followed it up with a few more hits. And slowly when I was starting to like his compositions came his musical faux pas.

When I heard the song Aashiq Banaya Aapne for the first time, my impulse reaction was the flip the channel. But then it was playing in ALL the channels! It was impossible to spend a single day without hearing the song atleast once - on TV, on the radio, at all the pubs, everywhere!! Maybe the lyrics are good... I dont know. I could never listen to the whole song! (Well, I did listen to the song fully once... or rather I saw it once with the original video. And at that time, I was more interested in the steamy scenes with Emran "Kiss me" and Tanushree "Ex Miss India".) There is something about Himesh's voice that is downright irritating. The sharp nasal tone is just painful on my eardrums... And the worst part... with one hit, he became more confident... and started singing more... All the songs sound the same... The same tune, similar lyrics, and the same nasal voice!!

While he was on the downward spiral in the popularity match, I happened to see Zee TV's Sa Re Ga Ma Pa challenge. My god, he is so irritating... its not just the voice, its the attitude and arrogance. OK, so he can compose music which is not too horrible. But he is not the best. Infact, he is not even one among the best...

What makes a man so arrogant?
And why does he always sing with his eyes closed and head tilted up and the mike pointing upwards???
And his expression is as if he is in excruciating pain... as if he senses the feeling of the audience!

Confused...

2006-03-11T05:52:00.000-08:00

Life is zipping past me at breakneck speed. Looking back, I cant help but think...
Did I falter somewhere?
Did I take the wrong path at the crossroads?
Is it too late to make amends?

"When everything seems like the movies
You bleed just to know you are alive"

The song is not helping much...

And the award goes to...

2006-03-05T07:20:00.000-08:00

The Oscar Fever is on. All TV channels are talking about it. The world is looking forward to the red carpet event - who wore what? who came with whom? who did not turn up? who gave the best acceptance speech? and oh yeah, who won?!

Radio City - Bangalore's FM channel - also started talking about it. In one of the morning shows, the RJ mentioned that the highest paid actors in Hollywood do not usually walk away with the awards. (I dont know how true that it). Then she went ahead and compared Hollywood with Bollywood. As per the RJ, in India, the highest paid actors also get the awards. The example she quoted: King Khan.

Now how ridiculuous is that!! How can you compare Oscars with Bollywood awards?

For starters, which award will you compare it with? There are so many to pick from!

1. Asian Paints / Hero Honda Star Screen Videocon AwardsLux / Fairglow / Pan Parag Zee Cine Awards
2. Hero Cycles / Kenstar / MAX Stardust Awards
3. Electrolux Kelvinator / Samsung International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) Awards
4. Manikchand Filmfare Awards
5. Sansui Viewers Choice Movie Awards

And ofcourse, the National Film Awards.

PS: Doesn't the above list look like some endorsement gig?

Some of these are judged by a jury. Most of them are judged by public and is solely based on popularity and box-office success. Going by that, yes, Shah Rukh Khan rules. He gives block busters. He gets awards. But is he the most talented actor around? Did he give the best performance of the year?

I dont see a single National Award in his kitty. OK, maybe National Awards are not the most impartial awards. But still...

Anyway, forget all the awards. Inspite of having so many movies made in this country, we sent 'Paheli' for the Oscars!!! Need I say more... This year, there were movies like Hazaaron Khwaishen Aisi, Black, Parineeta, Apaharan... No, we decided on Paheli!! Anyway, the Oscar panel was smart enough to filter it off up front.

Three Cheers to glitz, glamour and cheesy love stories!!

Simple Life?

2006-02-26T21:40:00.000-08:00

Today’s top stories (from leading news papers)

The use of key logging programs are gaining popularity with cyber thieves. They silently copy the keystrokes of computer users and send that information to the crooks. A fraud ring in Brazil stole about $4.7 million from 200 different accounts at six banks since it began operations last May by using key logging. A similar ring, broken up by Russian authorities earlier this month, used key logging software planted in e-mail messages and hidden in Web sites to draw over $1.1 million from personal bank accounts in France.

A deadly strain of bird flu was discovered in domesticated turkeys in France. Earlier in the month, bird flu among chickens had been confirmed in Maharashtra and Gujrat in India. The fear of a pandemic was aggravated by the Oprah Winfrey special on Bird Flu in which the specialist (Dr. Osterholm, Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy) mentioned that neither America nor the rest of the world is prepared for a pandemic.

Last week, a Delhi Court acquitted all nine accused, including the son of former Union Minister Vinod Sharma, in the case of sensational murder of ramp model Jessica Lal. The trial and investigation had been going on for almost 7 years now. Today, the Delhi Police have initiated a quiet inquiry to unravel the role of policemen who allegedly botched up the investigation deliberately, thus facilitating the acquittal of the accused.

Where did my simple life disappear? Everyday begins with news of terrorists and thieves. The news channels have shocking exposés every day. Are these the only things that happen in this world or are the news channels just messing with us? The general population is in a perpetual state of paranoia. People now panic even at the smallest of unrests. Parents overreact even if their kids have a common cold.

Now, people not only have to worry about their own lives and problems, they also have to live in a constant fear of an airplane crashing into their office or catching a pandemic flu from their afternoon meal or losing their credit card number while booking movie tickets!!

Somebody make some stronger aspirins!

Damaged Goods

2006-02-23T09:30:00.000-08:00

Hypothetical Situation 1
You have car and you really like. It has a dent in it. One fine day, somebody bangs their car into yours and majorly damages your car. How would you feel? Would you feel a little less bad about this accident because your car anyway had a dent in it. A few more damages doesnt matter much.

Hypothetical Situation 2
You cut yourselves shaving in the morning. Bad start for a day. You are walking to your office. A mad woman comes across you in the sidewalk and just slaps you for no apparent reason. How would you feel? Would you feel a little less bad about getting slapped by a lunatic just because you already had a cut on your face. One more injury doesnt matter much.

Real Situation
In Italy, a man in his forties forced his 14-year old stepdaughter to have oral sex with him after she refused intercourse. The man was arrested and tried. The man lodged an appeal arguing that the fact that his stepdaughter was not a virgin should be taken into consideration during his trial as a mitigating factor.
The supreme court agreed, saying that because of her previous sexual experiences, the victim's "personality, from a sexual point of view, is much more developed than what would be normally expected of a girl of her age. It is therefore fair to argue that (the damage for the victim) would be lower" if the abused girl was not a virgin. This means the man could now be handed a lighter sentence.

News Courtesy: http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/02/17/italy.abuse.reut/index.html

Are we still in the 21st century or did I miss the earth rotating all the way back to 20th or 19th century?

Irrespective of whether a woman is a virgin or not, a violation of her body has the same effect. Even if a rape victim was a virgin, her biggest concern is not that she is lost her virginity. It is the fact that her body was invaded without her permission. The emotional scars runs equally deep. The offense done by the rapist is equally cruel and deserves similar sentence!

What do you think?

Paris "Mother Teresa" Hilton

2006-02-17T08:09:00.000-08:00

Socialite Paris Hilton has reportedly been asked to play celebrated humanitarian Mother Teresa in a movie biopic. Indian director T. Rajeevnath has contacted the hotel heiress about taking the lead role in his new film, which will chronicle the late nun's life. He tells MTV.co.uk, "My agents in California have contacted Paris Hilton. Although there are several actresses willing to play the role of Mother Teresa, the most widely respected and loved person, the history of the actress who is finally chosen for the role would have to be analyzed thoroughly before she is chosen."

News Courtesy: http://www.imdb.com/news/wenn/2006-02-16/

I have only 3 words - OH MY GOD!!!

What will opinion polls look like?

In which movie did you like Paris Hilton most?
a. Mother Teresa
b. In her personal sex tape

V-Day Special - Part 3: Yin-Yang

2006-02-13T10:34:00.000-08:00

The whole world is made in pairs... Pairs that are different. And the differences complement each other... Man and Woman. Good and Evil. Right and Wrong. God and Satan. Love and Hate.

This is my Valentines Day Playlist... Love and Hate. Pain and Pleasure. Tolerance and Vengence... the total package called Life.

(PS: I just didnt have the patience to put these songs in any logical order... so here it goes, sorted alphabetically )

Annie Lennox - No More I Love You
Bee Gees - How deep is your love
Bon Jovi - You Give Love A Bad Name
Bonnie Tyler - Total eclipse of my heart
Bryan Adams & Barbra Striesand - I Finally Found Someone
Celine Dion - Because you loved me
Chris Isaak - Wicked Game
Cutting Crew - I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight
Dan Hill - Sometimes when we touch
Frank Sinatra - The way you look tonight
Goo Goo Dolls - Iris
Guns N' Roses - November Rain
Jamie O'Neal - All By Myself
Jefferson Starship - Nothings Gonna Stop Us Now
John Denver - Leaving on a Jet Plane
Mark Antony & Tina Arena - I want to spend my lifetime
Michael Learns To Rock - 25 Minutes
No Doubt - Don't Speak
Olivia Newton John - I Honestly Love You
Police - Every Little Thing she does is Magic
Puddle of Mudd - She hates me
R.E.M - Losing My Religion
Roxette - It Must Have Been Love
Six Pence None The Richer - Kiss Me
Sting - Every Breath You Take
The Corrs - One Night
The Drifters - Save The Last Dance For Me
U2 - With Or Without You

Wish you a very happy Valentines Day (whatever that means to you)

V-Day Special - Part 2: My Funny Valentine

2006-02-12T10:34:00.000-08:00

You think that love songs are all cute and mushy... Think again!!! Some of the craziest love songs ever...

"My funny valentine;
Sweet, comic valentine;
You make me smile with my heart.
Your looks are laughable;
Unphotographable;
Yet, you're my favorite work of art. "
- Frank Sinatra

My comments: Not-so-good-looking girls like me have something to look forward to now

"I wanna be the itch that you scratch
Wanna be your chair when you relax
I wanna be your razor when you shave
Wanna be the habit that really makes you crave

I wanna be - your hot tub - when you’re dippin’
I wanna be - your bathrobe - when you’re drippin’
I wanna be - your cocktail baby - when you’re sippin’
I just wanna be right there - more than anything I swear
I wanna be - your underwear"
- Bryan Adams

My comments: Yeewww!! Gross!!

"Lucky that my lips not only mumble
They spill kisses like a fountain
Lucky that my breasts are small and humble
So you don't confuse them with mountain
Lucky I have strong legs like my mother
To run for cover when I need it
And these two eyes that for no other
The day you leave will cry a river
Whenever, wherever
We're meant to be together
I'll be there and you'll be near
And that's the deal my dear"
- Shakira

My comments: This is what happens when people who don't know English translate their Spanish songs!!

So what say you? Do you know of any such songs?