We need an Obama

How I wish that the Gandhis, the Advanis, the Yadavs, the Karats and the Thackerays of this country had the understanding and the audacity to rise against the culture of divisiveness; on the lines of caste, region and religion; which is so pervasive in our country - as Obama does in his remarkable speech on the racial divide in his country.

And on the sidelines, I hope the Indian economy realises soon that we need to be creating enough jobs within the country to support the employment requirements of the ever-growing youth. Obama's speech makes it pretty clear that if he wins, the outsourcing on which we rely so much, will take a serious backseat. What we need to realise is that even if he doesn't, the problem doesn't get solved; we only get slightly more time to come up with a solution.

Liberating

Those who know my daily routine would be aware that I often come back from office after at least 9 in the night; if I am lucky I am back at 8. Today, there was a day of exception. For the first time, in the past 7-8 months I have been working at my current job, I left office at 1815 hrs.
The feeling was so different - kind of liberating.
It was so good to see sun light in the evening; to see people moving around - doing their kitchen shopping at the roadside vegetable market, waiting at bus stops in numbers to get a bus back to home, coming out of offices with their lunch boxes; to see a tempo driver trying to tie a canvas cover-all over his tempo; to get stuck at one of the many traffic signals; to have so much of activity around; to feel life going on; to feel liberated.

tere ishq ki ek boond

तेरे इश्क की एक बूँद
इसमें मिल गई थी
इसलिए मैंने उम्र की
सारी कड़वाहट पी डाली
-- अमृता प्रीतम

found at a comment from rk in http://desitrain।com/2008/03/03/will-you-marry-me/


for those whose screen can't show hindi fonts
tere ishq ki ek boond
ismein mil gayi thi
isliye maine umra ki
saari kadwahat pi daali

A smile is always beautiful

Was just talking with a friend and the discussion turned to smiles; how they are beautiful or how people have to try to get a good smile.
I feel a smile is all about feeling good; if you are feeling good and you have a smile on your face - that's what a beautiful smile is all about.

A few weeks ago I was coming back from somewhere and saw a kid, around 10 years old, hanging out his head from the back window of a car. His face looked a combination of sadness, curiosity and boredom. And something made me wave at him; and he waved back with a big smile; and that made me smile. Not as big as his; but it was a smile; and it made me feel good. From my understanding of the world, and for my sake, that is a beautiful smile.

As I told my friend, "a smile is in itself, by definition, amongst the best beautiful things in the world".

So my friends, if you find that you have not genuinely smiled lately, do all of us a favour and look around you, I am pretty sure you will find something which will make you feel good and make you smile.

Checking the blog this link from blogger

Google News: "In Russia, Medvedev Sweeps Presidential Election"

How Google Snatched Business From Yahoo

Just realised that I used to have a yahoo account and actively used it for mail and chat. I must have created that id back in 2002, when I joined kgp and was introduced to the might of the thing called world wide web. Then, a well known search website, called Google, introduced its mail and chat software, sometime in 2005. And within a span of a few months, it had won me over from Yahoo, a service I had been using for almost three years. And why could it win; I won't go over what was/is better in Google than Yahoo. The bottomline is that more of my friends were using Google Talk and hence I moved to Google and so on...

Just to give you a perspective - just now, I logged into my yahoo mail account after so many days and found that the last mail in my inbox is dated 9th May 2005 - almost 2 and a half years ago. Actually, I had stopped using the Yahoo account completely; was forced to log in due to some reasons this December. I had forgotten the password and other security details; it was a tough job getting the password back :P

PS: I just did some googling and found that Gmail was launched somewhere round Feb 2005 April 2004 (edit: as indicated by Parag in the comments, and I will accept his word on this); and Google Talk around July 2005 (found an article dated Aug 2005 which says Google Talk already launched.). Any idea where this information would be available on Google websites; did some cursory search, but couldn't find it.

EDIT: Parag has summarized the advantages of Gmail over Yahoo in the comments (my post never intended to do this comparison; that's the reason I missed out on these differences :) ). Though I disagree with him on one thing, if I remember correctly, the chat facility from within the Gmail page came much later on than Gmail became common usage. Though personally I prefer the desktop client when I am using my own system. It of course is a great boon when you are on an alien system without the client.

EDIT: I am in no way affiliated to either Google or Yahoo.

Technorati Tags: google, chat, www,

Chak de...Patel

Was just watching the movie Chak De...India. In the climax of the movie, when the Indian goalkeeper Vidya successfully defends the goal and centre forward Komal runs towards her and hugs her; the moment of my life which flashed before my eyes was from 3 years ago; the moment when Patel won that table tennis match and won the sports general championship back at kgp for 2004-05.
To some of my closest friends, this might come out as strange, may be weird; some may not even like it. Some I hope will understand. Whatever it may be; the truth is that moment was and will always remain big for me. I don't remember who played the final game; whether it was Devesh or Chaubey or Srikant Da - I think it was Srikant Da - but I remember that moment was one of sweet success. Result of some very passionate and dedicated work from a lot of us; that success was, at that point of time, so huge that it even eclipsed my getting through JEE. And though only a few days later, a series of events changed the tide of time and what followed was one of the saddest periods of my life; but at that moment I was happy and I was proud; and for that moment, I will ALWAYS be.

I hope, out of the few souls, that have been with me through those times, there would be at least one who would understand this oddity.

Not so crappy Valentine Day poem

There was a time
when I had some things to say,
some words I did utter
but the meanings went astray.

Neither did I say it all
nor could I hide it.
The time was tough; you a good friend.
At the end, we sailed over
thankfully, without having to pretend.

I know you don't read my blog
but pray you visit this once.

though it doesn't change a thing
and words are so few;
just wanted to finish my story
i was truly in love; yes, with you.

Crappy Valentine Day Kavita

was talking with a friend; turned out he was working on his resume; so started giving him funda in the form of a poem. fir laga bahut dino se kuch post nahi kiya, to ye poem hi post kar dun


seems u very happy happy
found some girl chirpy chirpy?
(T says: naaaaaaaa)
tune itna bada no bola
mere curiosity ka gate khola
smile hai tere chehre pe bada wala
jaroor hai daal mein kuch kaala
(now T tells me he is working on his CV)
cv banata hai valentine ke roj
arre gadhe jaa ke koi bandi khoj
(T says koi nahi milegi, he has given up)
kaisa pessimist hai tu yaar
koshis kar baar baar
aisa kya ho gaya tere saath
ki pyar ki ab kar bhi nahi sakta baat
(T sends a sheepish "hehe")
bas yahi smile to tera raaj hai
tera genius to saath ka saaj hai
koi to hogi ladki tere dil mein

naam likh de uska apne will mein
jaake dikha usko apni wasiyat
samjhegi tab wo teri asliyat

phir wo pyar karegi tumhe itna
goldman ka profit is saal nahi tha jitna

well that was it, when this idea of posting it here struck me.
BTW, those who feel like udaaoing majak and terming us loosers based on their notion that valentine's day evening should be spent with a person of the other sex; fyi, this guy is amongst the biggest winners i know; and me...well i hate myself for being modest :P

Which one is worse?

I would definitely be asking myself this question if I were a US citizen.
Which one is worse?

• FBI tapping into citizens' phone lines without the "normal" due process of law
• The same wiretapping lines being disconnected because FBI could not pay the fees for them

Harbhajan, Symonds, Ponting and an Insurance company I can't name

Fjrst, read this: http://kpowerinfinity.wordpress.com/2008/01/06/monkey-man-and-other-stories/

must say, the maid stuff is awesome.

Interestingly, i knew that this stuff had happened in the test match; but was not very much into it; didn't think of the issue to be so big. All the day I had an insurance company (damn those confidentiality clauses that i signed; can't even write the name here) , Aamby Valley and a beautiful girl on my mind. But when I came back home and logged into my Google Reader; the Indian blogosphere and my roommate were there to bring me back to reality. This issue is indeed big.

Now that i think of it, I did have a discussion with a couple of colleagues over this issue. Though, the discussion was more on the Harbhajan and racism stuff than Australia's lack of sportsmanship. My mind was overwhelmed trying to understand the reinsurance businesses surrounding this company and budget limits for my company offsite; so wondering about why calling a man with black skin color as black is racist was a good respite. But I am so sorry I didn't put time aside to think and discuss aloud to understand the flow of events that led an umpire to ask the fielder instead of the third umpire about the validity of a catch and so on.
As my roommate told me, it is a matter of national importance, of my country's prestige.
I hope this doesn't caste shadows on my patriotism.

for a bigger,and serious, post on the same issue, visit the-outburst

Black Holes

Black holes are holes just to outsiders; to the insiders, they are full; like a cup brimming to the top.
So, it's just a matter of being on the correct side. Strange, how knowledge and revelations are different...
Well, let's make this one black. Go, go, go

New Year, New Goals

Happy New Year
Wow, another new year
2007 was really great; one of the most eventful of my life. So many things happened. Made some wonderful friends at my first job; cleared CFA, switched industries and joined a new job, flew for the first time, and flew for 13 times in the whole year; went to the US; and a few other things.
Now comes 2008. Many things in mind that I would like to do this year. The list starts with answering a few questions that I have had for quite some time now, the most important being what I want to do in my life. There are a few others, but they are of the sort of flixter's never ending quiz; and only time and experience can answer them.
So the most important question is related to my career; where it is going and what I plan to do with it.
Apart from this, I need to take care of my health; especially after seeing the poor health I have been keeping lately; what with frequent headaches and cold. The remedy consists of, among other things, correcting my sleep routine which means going to bed early and waking up early; getting into some exercises, join a gym; and getting a firm hand on my dietary habits; let's start with having some decent breakfast everyday.
Next comes what I want to do with my extra time. Whenever I get time and opportunity, I go to Vashi or some other place, away from my flat. But when I get stuck at this place, I am left with nothing to do. Thoughts of joining some organisation working for improvement of children's conditions in our country has always been there in my mind. I think I should join CRY and spend some time there. Also, need to regain my reading habits. It has slowed down lately.

So that's a broad list of things to do this year. Need to make it more concrete and more quantified.

Elected Dictator

That's Vladimir Putin for you, Time magazine's person of the year 2007. This rather long article details Putin's rise to power, how he has been able to revive Russia from the days of Yeltsin and the problems that Russia is facing today. It's a must read; giving insight into the widespread corruptioin in Russia, the powerful leader's personality; and most importantly the way he has commandeered the ship with the right balance of democracy and dictator-like authority; earning himself the title of elected dictator from the author.

Goldman or Goldmine

Just read a report on CNNMoney about Goldman Sachs' awesome earnings this year; when most of other banks either reporting losses or huge writedowns, and the remaining few showing moderate gains (thankfully, DB is one of them), Goldman has shown record profit. However, what made me post this entry is one statistic on the report - "If ($20.2 B on employee salaries and bonuses) were to be handed out evenly among the 30,522 employees of Goldman ..., that would come to about $661,400 a person".
$661,400 on an average ... wow!!!

Pillars...

Life moves on, people change, friends change...life moves on. But some pillars are always there.

Searching for something on my gmail, i came across mails from my wing-mates, from each one telling what they had to say about the rest. And that led to memories...

Guys, this is an ode to those times. Our relationship was not perfect; far from perfect. But we were there during tough times, and good times. We learnt a lot from each other, we developed with each other; we found solace in each other; and i found an island of comfort in you when i was surrounded by the one of the very few dark times of my life.
Looking back, I couldn't have asked for more. Those memories are amongst the very core pillars of what I am today. New pillars get added, new stories get built, but these are there to stay.

Another Indian Achiever

Vikram Pandit is the new CEO of Citigroup. Go, go India. Wait for the time when this will be the norm and it won't be blogged about like this.

How many Maggies have you had?

Well, anybody who is from Kgp, or for that matter any decent Indian hostel, would know that for those years Maggi is practically the students' staple diet. It was mine too, back in college. The good thing is even after leaving college, it is not rate for me to have Maggi as dinner. So tonight is one such night; and an interesting thought came in my mind...what if I had kept count every time I had Maggi...what would that count be today? what would it be when I die, or Nestle goes bankrupt or ends producing Maggi, or I get a partner who loves to cook for me, whichever is before?
...OK, lets remove the last of the above triggers, that wont stop me from having and enjoying Maggi... [:)]

Maine Pyar Kiya

Was just watching the movie. I first saw this movie on a Weston Black & White tv on a Diwali night in the early Nineties. Those were the days when a recent hit movie on DD1 was an annual feature; and with little or no advertisements. So watching the movie reminded me of those beautiful old days; jab apan nanhe munne aur pyare se they...and most importantly innocent they. The only loud noise that I knew on that Diwali night was the noise of a bidi bum and an aaloo bum...not that of Saki Naka traffic! I was reminded of the times of Chhathh when we used to go to river banks at 4 in the morning and used to love it, surrounded by family, friends, good folk music and joy. Today, I don't remember the last time I saw sunrise; don't have any records of the traditional folk music; let alone participating in those big family gatherings. Well, I guess that all happens with time and I am able to accept it. The thing that I don't like is that slowly I have grown insensitive and emotionless. The tendency of seeing nafaa-nuksaan in everything has grown. Being a little tough in today's ruthless world is required; but at the cost of losing the human inside you - that frightens me. Perhaps that is why I still find stupid things to laugh at and let my imagination run wild and try to let myself loose when that child inside me wants to play (note the "try" in the last of the three activities). I hope this helps me be what I want to be at the end of the day - a good natured, companionable human being. The sad part is I am fully aware nobody can be just that in today's world.

From the Past

While going through the assortment of random notes, post-its, credit card receipts and bills that I had brought from Bangalore, I found the following note written by me sometime in May-June this year:

Pain is the glacier from which all the rivers of courage originate. All that is required is a valley that needs to be irrigated.
There is a duel - inside me - how do you choose sides. I am the two teams, I am the referee, I am the audience...how the hell I decide which side to choose. Even the duel is not well defined. One side is stronger cause ...
I need some all consuming work.
Work is the respite. An idle brain is the worst enemy of a genius.

Well, I did choose; actually I gave in to one side which got some impulses. It was bad, I learnt my lessons; and then life moved on.
But finding this piece was a good reminder of the struggle and the fact that I am capable of writing something that, at least to me, sounds a little bit poetic.