High Entropy

My tryst with old city, Ahmedabad

2012-01-14T15:14:00.000+05:30

I'm not Twenty Four...I've been nineteen for five years: A review.

2011-12-27T09:13:00.001+05:30

First things first, a monologue:- So this is it. Followed by repeated attempts to get one, I marvellously manage to ruin my hard earned chance as a book reviewer by not sticking to deadlines given my office hours. Had it not been for their praiseworthy Book Reviews Program, I wouldn't have ever attempted a book review. I have received, after a lot of pains taken by their wonderful team, an autographed copy of this entertaining book. I do really hope I get to review more. Optimist, me.

Broadcast:- This is a review for Blog Adda, an awesome place in the Internetz.

Title:- I'm not twenty four...I've been nineteen for five years...

Author:- Sachin Garg

Published by:- Grapevine India Publishers Pvt. Ltd.

Year of Publication:- 2011

Number of Pages:- 223

Genre:- Fiction, Light reading.

Some looking up tells you that the author Sachin Garg has centered the entire plot around a female protagonist very convincingly. However 'Soumya's story in her own voice' sounds meaningful only a tad bit, once you read through the book. A quintessential Delhi girl lands up in a steel plant, gets posted to a remote village in Karnataka, unsure of how to deal with the stuff life throws at her. The characterization is fairly good. The language could've been way better. The story, tailor-made for light reading on random idle Sunday mornings and follows the casual Chetan Bhagat style.

The book starts with how Sachin met a girl named Saumya who post her MBA, managed to end up in the Safety Department of a steel plant in Toranagallu, Karnataka, owing to the erroneous assumption by her hiring manager that ‘Saumya’ was a guy’s name. Though this part wasn’t a stretch, it was. The protagonist is shown as a pampered Delhiite who as the irrelevant and misleadingly designed red and white cover says, loves her shopping malls, coffee shops and short skirts. In stark contrast she is unable to cope with the difficult situations in her workplace after a campus placement in Lala Steel and is unable to find a friend to talk to until she meets a Bengali hippy Shubho. Shubho is also a management graduate and believes in a certain ‘Move on Theory’ of staying not more than 90 days at a certain place. His story takes over in the last sections of the book.

Saumya is in love with Shubhro right away and learns about his experiences in various places. The author has visibly put hard attempts to make his characters ‘cool & different’ through Shubhro’s anecdotes and interactions with Saumya. Mallapa is a colleague, a seemingly interesting character that very disappointingly dies in a fight at the plant, while he too had his share of romance with Saumya. There are rare points where Sachin capture Saumya’s feelings better than most parts in the book. But a lady at 24? 19? No. Saumya should’ve been a 16 odd something given the way she thinks.

The first half of this book is mostly about Saumya coping up with professional challenges while the later second is centered on Shubhro. The former are incidents that girls may identify with, however, could have been paid much more attention to in the book instead of Saumya’s dilly dallying love life. Since that doesn’t glue you to the book, Shubhro’s part is the one you want to read. An IIM graduate with a distorted childhood who goes on to lead a life of drugs and alcohol but does impactful social work wherever he goes. His times in various places of the world have been shown as a blog by ‘Wandering Viewfinder’. His story ends with his ‘Move on’ to the next unknown destination, leaving Saumya intrigued and clueless though both confess their love to each other.

Ultimately, the story could be rated a 2.5 on 5 purely for its change from the usual grind that IIT/IIM aspirant stories throw at us. The author has good ideas. But a lot of work needs to be done on the storyline and character portrayal. The first half of the story is rushed up while towards the end, the book has been interesting to read. Many may find this book easy to miss but since you have nothing better to do on a lazy holiday morning, pass 3-4 hours of your idle time this way. It does entertain and may gain more popularity among the kiddo crowd.

This review is a part of the Book Reviews Program at BlogAdda.com. Participate now to get free books!

Condolences.

2011-10-10T21:14:00.002+05:30

Many changes have taken place since I last posted. I wouldn't use the word 'idols' but two people I respected a lot have moved on from this Earth. They are Steve Jobs and Jagjit Singh. First things first, I wouldn't have known this phenomenon of ghazals had it not been for Jagjit Singh. His death brought a tear, for a reason. I had recently seen him performing live at the IIMA Chaos 2011 festival. With the energy more than that of all the audience put together and the voice as mesmerizing as his, watsching him play tunes on his harmonium and play with Urdu words was far beyond description in words. And this, is/was/will always be 'as usual' with him. He would explain meanings of Urdu words in between his lines and give a funny anectode to garnish it all up. To think of him surrendering to brain hemorrhage is unbelievable. I won't be able to tell you what songs of his I liked the most. I won't be able to tell you what the words in those songs meant because it's fairly difficult to make sense out of ghazals. They can only be appreciated or hated (even though they are the grey-est compositions if there is such a term). I thought he was a magician. Like he could do anything with the so called power of words. The PC Sorcar of music with a beautiful sense of humour. To me he was the coolest singer around.

Jobs of course was a genius. That is all I have to say. But yes, some other people are right in saying 'Heaven will be better because of him'.

My recent encounters with tasty food. (just the pics)

2011-09-04T18:54:00.003+05:30

Just because I got a new phone with a 1.3Mp camera and have a massive influence from MasterChef Australia for the past few days.

Amma's rava upma with mango pickle. You know mom's recipes are always heaven.

At a small shop called 'Jay Bhavani' near my workplace: "C.T.C", a very cheesy veggie mix on a crispy roasted bread slice pieced into 4. Tastes like mini veggie pizza, only with a crisp base.

The traditional dish of mashed potatoes made by your's truly, with a dash of cucumber, onion, some spices and tamarind chutney on top. Was a good, heavy snack. In retrospect, it'd probably go better with iceberg lettuce.

Review: Samsung Chat 322 meets an average IQ'd human.

2011-09-03T01:09:00.002+05:30

This is going to be a long post. It took me hours to write it and I've attached quite a few funny links in between. Pliss to switch channels if you're looking for a haunted house story. Now.

Urge you to look at this post like a B grade tele-shopping advertisement ( or a hearty vent out), I had moulded over the years, two years, a fair dalliance with my phone. It looked like 2.5 matchboxes put together and was called 'Nokia 2730 classic black'. Disheartening to sell it off at such a low price in exchange of the new 'hep' (no really those single quotes are sarcastic) dual sim qwerty that I had researched hours for, in lieu of a phone that supported fm radio, gprs, 3G, bluetooth and had the battery span of an Amaron Claymation (gaur farmaiye on the sentence formation). You see this is not a comparison between two phones or two companies (although it most definitely is, in a way), but is about the user experience. This is a strictly personal account and is based on how I've used the phone, not how the manual wants me to. Then again, I'm a typical user who doesn't read manuals. It is the story of how today's GenY phones can not do what classic 'catch catch phones' can.

There are some good things about my new phone. But they are less in number. I'm placing the good part first in spite of having written them later (after a lot of brain racking) so people won't kill me. I should make this clear though, my expectations from this phone were probably too high. But then, I was also considering a Lava B5 against this which to my extreme misfortune, has permanently been discontinued by Flipkart. Hah!

THE GOOD.

It's a dual sim standby qwerty phone with GPRS support. If you search the internet, a lot of plutonians (read review bloggers) refer to this, as QWERTY. Trust me they're saints. Trust me they are wrongest. Do not go by the websites of such reviewers for any phone. It's battery lasts 2-3 days with moderate GPRS and music usage which is great. It looks like a smartphone and colleagues will assume you have a BB (I don't like to use BB for comparisons). It has an optical trackpad with lots of shortcuts around to make navigation inside the phone menus extremely quick. It's a 'chat' phone. Facebook, Twitter, rest of the world etc. can be socially networked at the blink of an eye provided your operator services are fairly good.

The price! This is like the cheapest branded QWERTY dual sim in the market at this moment. Others are non branded and I read some bad stuff about them on the interwebz. Also, I wanted real good resale value for having put in that kind of money. (4k is not really peanuts for people like me, yougaiz)

The SIM switching key is very useful and you do tend to switch SIMs a lot. (Side view in this photo shows the switch) Especially and obviously if you have a 'work number' and a 'personal number'. You can also set up times between which a particular sim will be active. I found this feature particularly useful for workplace users and college girls who change SIM cards more often than earrings under 'A Number a Day' Regulation Act. It would probably be the most useful to those with free SMS plans of one SIM card and low calling rates of another SIM card. (image source: http://www.paktechgadgets.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/samsung-chat-322.jpg)

Funnily enough design wise, I have showered all my love on to the one thing about this phone. And that is the charger. You see a charger needs to be '2-pin', thin rectangularly shaped so that it does not obstruct other adapters for appliances setup in an office cubicle where 'cramped' is the theme of the year for ever. This one is a hero there. Very adjusting to a human's demands.

If you feel up the other side of the phone (the side view which isn't shown here), you'd find the volume keys. Adjusting the volumes is possible even if the keypad is locked, unlike the SIM-switch button which doesn't operate till you unlock the keypad. Good thinking there. So while playing music, I can rightaway adjust the volume without having to unlock the keypad.

For both the SIM cards, however the network, the antennae seem good and SIM refreshing takes place very often and successfully. That's a big plus; unlike my previous phone.

The headphones/microphone set are fairly good.

THE BAD.

Sigh where do I start. Okay least bad first it is.

It has a 1.3 MP camera. You have to take a *LOT* of care if you want your pictures to come out decent. Probably learn some basic photography rules. For this much price, I guess I can do with it.

The phone makes you dance to its own tunes. One cannot 'browse' on the browser with that tinsy winsy optical trackpad that either a) scrolls 1 micrometer per slide or b) scrolls down right to the bottom like Archemedes running out of his pool in exclamation. Same goes for messaging. You're trying to select a contact and it swindles to the phone memory by itself. Sob! My earlier phone cared for me.

It has a qwerty keypad. A wonderful, conscise, well designed qwerty keypad. So would say people from The Land of the Thin Fingered. Pudgy-Fingeristaan however would be disappointed. I was way way quicker in smsing with a basic alphanumeric keypad and a T9 dictionary. Let's just say it takes some getting used to.

When I press the Cancel/HangUp button while drafting an sms, it actually gives me an option of whether I want to save the message or not; a feature I sorely missed in my previous phone.

It's been 15 days and I haven't been able to figure out why the 'apps' on the main screen of my phone aren't working. These are the shortcuts to facebook, twitter, Y! messenger, etc. It could be an operator issue but I do have a functional GPRS (through the browser). I was told to contact the Samsung care when I called up asked the operator's customer care about it.

Contacts can be grouped only when the contacts are in phone memory and not in SIM card memory. Considering it's dual SIM phone this seems logical, but I ended up duplicating my work-SIM contacts on to the phone memory just to have a 'Work' group. Sigh.

You have to press exactly the buttons it gives you the options for. If otherwise, you'll end up in a mess. Use optical trackpad right when you should. 'Select' is interchangeable with pressing of the optical track pad (which is also a button in itself) while 'Cancel' (the one above the shortcut button to browser) is not interchangeable with 'HangUp' button.

There is no back light for the keys but there is quite some light from the screen. Never the less, you can't type with your pudgy fingers on those QWERTY keys in the late evenings and night/in a scarcely lit room, because you can't see the keys.

THE UGLY.

Pressing the top right button (also the 'Cancel/hang-up' key) on the keypad exits all running applications at once unlike my older phone which came out of only the current application. This means if your music player's on and you're browsing the internet, pressing this key closes all open windows including the music player and of course, the browser. You don't want that.

More often than not, if you're doing something else while listening to music, pressing certain keys pauses the player. So you're left with both the earphones plugged in with no sound and are drafting an sms thinking what exactly happened to your phone. Sitting in a noisy bus with earphones plugged in and no music coming into your ears makes you feel like someone did this. Basically, the music player needs much attention.

Do.not.get.me.started.on.the.PC Studio. A dual SIM phone can never survive with that kind of a PC software. (contacts list synchronization between sim cards and phone memory, quick image transfers, easy bluetooth connections....ease of use factor has entirely been skipped I guess, focus only is on the UI appearance. Prefix all of the above with a 'complicated' and you'll know what I mean. )

You HAVE to have a 4Gb or more memory card with this for it to function like a normal chat-phone. And that's an additional purchase.

Do all Samsung phone have this issue of not having a keypad-lock timer (the time it should take for the keypad to lock itself)? When I'm thinking of what to write in an email, I DO NOT want the keypad to go off in the seconds I use for working out the next verb to use.

Whenever the browser hangs into a PC analogue of 'Not responding', pressing buttons switches the phone off and you need to switch it ON manually.

WELL...

Good-Bad-Ugly was after all a good movie no? So is this phone. It takes getting used to. It's is heavily affordable for someone requiring all these features. Unless there's a better phone in the branded market, it's a go for this. Let me point out, this phone needs moderate maintenance. I ended up getting a lamination for my phone along with a properly cushioned mobile cover costing me INR 200.Let it not fall off your hands just like that. Treat it like an iPhone, mate.

But even then, this summarizes everything that I have to say.

For the rest of the things, it performs like any other phone you'd have had (This could never be your first phone).

Queries anyone?

The keyword is travel? The keyword is learn.

2011-08-31T21:21:00.002+05:30

I have been meaning to write this for.so.long. Starting this post with a line as cheesy as 'we all like to travel' would be terribly unjust for I'm one of those 98.97% typecast junta who 'like' travelling and claim to have ~~TRAVELLED~~ browsed through Goa under a package tour. Amidst all the ho-hullum of getting a good education the pursuit of life as we know it drains down to a single space for all the 100% of those 98.97% of us. Through films. Yes those outrageously expensive artificial sets are our motivation for this exhausting intellectual conquest. The definition of 'extensive travel' has always, for me, restricted itself to a quintessential 'Gaon ja rahe hain, Dilli.' statement. That's the same thing our parents would tell their uncaring but snoopy office colleague every summer vacation which would essentially translate to 'If you bother me with official work between this date to this date I'll personally sign your transfer to the centroid of the Bermuda triangle'. Even that happened only till we were in school. college was a different ballgame altogether. We basically stuck to the Moaning Myrtle schedule starting at 10.59 pm and pulled some strings to delay those assignment deadlines.

Then there are those lucky few who can afford atrocious amounts of air fuel surcharge and prefer air travel even for very short distances with no time constraints whatsoever. Never would they get that reading under the flickering filament bulb snuggled into a side upper/upper berth shaking rhythmically to tunes of the rails is a tremendously fulfilling experience. But then you've done that too, haven't you? Again there are those who choose to finish up the trip a) within the weekend or b) plan it only when they're refused 15th August's overtime so they'd have to force occupy their minds with all sorts of travel worries and their families won't pile up other 'familial' responsibilities on them.

Then there are those precious rarities who get to travel with a "purpose" (Comprende?). The word travel, must always associate with a purpose. Vacations are not counted as travel. Family functions, O Pleej. The purpose of travelling should range from knowing a culture, knowing the geography to specific requirements like meeting certain people (non relatives), eating different foods, tasks that you'd never do in your ~~normal~~ useless routine. The purpose of travel is to see, learn, know.

Which brings me to this. (It's a link. You've to click on it.) I read about this in the beginning of 2011 and immediately thought it was a great chance. Rigorous, basic/simple, hectic as it may be, one this it is surely not: those defining journeys that fictional protagonists take. It is not a joyride. When you finish the 'Yatra', you come back with so much more to work on. Like your 'to do' list just got an 'ls dir' command. I wish I could go. I want, to go. A large portion of those participants are sponsored while the entire trip takes about Rs.40,000. Maybe one day I could take such a trip on my own. Venture out to a well researched place and give just the right amount of time to know it. Should be quite rewarding, no?

The weakest links.

2011-07-23T11:05:00.001+05:30

This time, the internet is only as strong as its weakest link. Every time I open my readers and feeds' accounts, I'm subject to a vast panorama of information all at the same time. The beauty you see, is in the concept of thumbnails. There is a bold blue headline that tells me what the article is about. Trust me when I say no wisecracks are allowed with the headings. I, as a reader, want to know whether I really want to read the article or not, deciding the same within the first three milliseconds of viewing the title. Then again, there are these little teasers in the name of descriptions which can to some extent, influence the very important decision of reading the article I've just seen the title of. If I find the description inarticulate, inaccurate and mundane, I hop in the next bus and move on fast track to the next read.

But here's the twist. After this long gruelling process of deciding whether to read or not when I eventually end up looking for more, they play killjoy. I have this immense hatred towards links to links. Once the thumbnails are expanded, there's this hyperlink hovering on the top right corner that reads 'Preview'. Aren't expanded thumbnails 'Preview's on their own. Anyhow I click on the buttons they show me. After all I have no say in the design of a website or the way content is presented to me. But then, they cross the lines. The preview only gives me what the thumbnail already did. I do not find what I was looking for, which is 'more'. Instead they ask me to "Click here to view the full story" or "Read more here". I understand their predicament of having more number of hits on their website to generate online revenue. Selfishness takes over and I close the previews and the browser and every reader that I had open. I do believe in charity but you can't make me run after you like this. Links to links are an epic fail system. Have you any idea of what my time is worth? Don't you think I can break deals worth crores in that click-time I spend? No article/content on the internet however good can make me slave to them. Yes, this is how I channelize my anger. Now here's a link, with content.

Hi

2011-07-22T08:16:00.000+05:30

Got my Engineering results. Picture abhi baaki hai.

Les 'Pramod'ables

2011-06-19T15:33:00.002+05:30

Pramod. The guy whose Gmail inbox peaks in interest when IIPM flashes across the web ads bar. The guy who has been through 'The Five Stages' (link) over and over again rubbled under Gigabit loads of shared information, seldom useful. He has just finished his post graduate studies, believes to have enjoyed college life to some extent unlike the undergraduate life he loathed. At his best of twenties he's now joining the endless crowd of I-know-something(s) looking to live it up under the sacred tutelage of Dilbert and Calvin. This chap is a jack of all trades, knows some tech because of the BTech degree he seems to have gotten. Most likely he plays the guitar or the flute. Hates coding but would sign up for FOSS communities, flirts with unknown people on twitter and protects Indian culture and family values like a lion in spite/because of having had a small work based stint in the Amrikkas which in turn he acquired by nodding on all meetings in his first job after graduation. First job of course, was through campus placement. He had attended some 4 campus selection rounds to get selected in 2 of them. Somehow 2 were enough. He chose the one that paid more. Thankfully it was an 'Analyst' position. He just had to learn Excel and not the ballooned resume skill set all over again. Meanwhile he has done a lot of extra work. He bunked half a semester in undergrad to organize the college fest, signed up for blood donation / teaching underprivileged kids (whichever applicable) as a part of his first job's CSR, interned in branded companies during PG, thinks he's a good hip hopper and went through a lot of ups and downs preparing for CAT. There were 'wellofcourse', those failed stints in karate, casio and cartooning in high school. He doesn't read much. Here's a series to Pramod.

Strings we hold and run hard ahead.

2011-06-12T09:58:00.003+05:30

There is although little exclusivity and more 'facepalminess' in being a part of the bandwagon called Fresh Engineering Graduate who writes down his/her college based nostalgia, it is more than justifying the technology that we have in our hands to express, record and reminisce upon our very own comic battlefield of a phase called 'College'. Yes, in spite of advocating the futility of this exercise, here I sit and write about it.That gigantic alteration in outlooks can, believe you me, NEVER take place if you do not have the all access pass made out of a workable combination of class 12 marks, ten thousand recklessly given entrance exams and some funds. Breaking away from the trend, here I describe in reverse chronology, what happened in the four hell-heavenly years, some of which might seem like and exaggeration, backwards with the assumption that everyone went through at least this. Oh and yes, I have restricted myself only to particular observations after skimming through innumerable potential moments and names.

The fourth year is a turning point academically and otherwise. Technically, you end up with a fairly thorough perspective that integrates everything you've studied so far in a way that all subjects fit exactly into the jigsaw puzzle called engineering. But besides that with people, all the barriers, layers illusioned in the previous years are broken down. We all know we're friends, batchmates and will never cease to be. We all have come here to make something good of ourselves. We all know each other too well. And guess what, we all work as a unit now. Synchronizing activities, scheduling classes-assignments, brightening up our brains happen. A lot of our cherished and celebrated teachers have now left. A new breed has joined in. But then the twist in the tale is that all the complications are removed. Every question you had in these four years can be satisfactorily explained with the help of the most simple, basic laws of science and society. Everything's out in the open, thankfully. Also, since college is to end soon, we have finally started having some fun together. There's a steady growing nostalgia which ends up right here in the form of rantful writings. Your friends are as lunatic as yourself but they're the best lot you could have. And yes, we preserve this, right here, locked in the cages of time.

Third year. Technologies take the fore. The year when our teachers virtually begged us to stop being school kids and grow up. The year when we fiercely competed one another, trying to prove our superiorities, mark our territories carrying with us a mind that knew nothing of the 'outside world'. When I say mark our territories, I may have meant it beyond academics :) ....College had new MBA students. Our canteen was make-over'd and looked like a beauty (well, relatively). The library was revamped and it was fun to sit in the quiet up there on the top floor of the 'D building'. Personally on this hand, I was still partially cocooned. But I was working on it. Through Facebook, interactions with the entire class happened. (People had made gmail ids too). The discovery of 'the other side' of people who I daily see and talk with happened. Seemed like there's a lot more to them than I thought. The discovery that everyone wanted to do well, but doing well they defined differently. Third year was really positive, productive in spite of being a sinusoidal show of academic performance. People went about in groups which appeared difficult to break into. We had started thinking about our 'future', what we wanted to pursue after graduation et al. We were in fact, then growing up a tad bit.

Second year marked the beginning of real engineering studies. Some friendships formed, were still hanging on tightropes between acquaintance, friendship and fiend-ship. Rapid group dynamics. While the second half of this year marked introduction to the other side of the class, the first half predominantly remained uneventful except for the discovery that our seniors were real, talented, intelligent people trying to make a mark in this wide wide world. There were tranfer students, diploma students et al joining the breed. I had seen 'full' classrooms for the first time. The system of making a master copy for assignments to be passed on to the class was put to place firmly by now. The ignored corners of the college were being renovated. Juniors were joining in and we were fussy about becoming the seniors only unto ourselves while watching a repeat telecast of not having an inkling what college was about in these juniors. The muddy parking lot used to be a mess during the rains. Some really good teachers and begun their depressing encounters with us, managing a little good deed in improving us here and there. Fortunately for me, I had taken to attending events outside the college walls. Interaction with scores/crowds of the student community provides insights equal to none. Even listening in on conversations at the next lunch table in a college other than yours is like a steady flow of Gigabit sized information. I had started writing. For myself in blogs, for junta in some magazines. Efforts to unite the class activities through internet had begun. Efforts to change had begun. Second year was also about expanding horizons. Participating more in any kind of event we could lay our hands on technical or otherwise, meeting new people, making new friends and what the jargonizers call 'professional networking'. Resumes were being filled with data too.

Fresh out of school, fiercely resistant to change, I carried filmy impressions of college, nearly on a mission to protest and uproot the system where people always had to have fun, nobody studied, nobody cared, nobody knew nobody and nobody knew nothing. An introductory session on the first day of college, conducted by who would later be known to man as one of the 'cool'er teachers required us to talk to the person on our right and introduce them to the class after a while. This is how it all started. I introduced someone to everyone. The classes were thought of as 'real' classes just like I did in school. Note taking, Listening, SQ3R principle were all in place. The end of the first half of first year would mark a latent but lasting impression since I found the subject I wanted to know more about, through a technical paper. The smallest of achievements meant something. Meanwhile my class folks seemed to be from very diverse backgrounds. Language barrier and fairly big cultural change turned me into a distant, inaccessible and cocooned turnip. I barely interacted beyond pleasantries, small talk and lame humour, was frowned upon when questions were asked, would prefer being left alone, peacefully reading complicated books in the library or munching on the canteen's not-delicate delicacies. First year ended with a huge bang and it wasn't an Ode to Joy. Acads had been ignored. Already. And yeah, there was a funny fresher's party thrown for us. I mean, it was FUN-ny.

In spite of the stark cluelessness in these four years, we change ourselves and others in way like no other. Everyone observes. Everyone judges. And that's very okay. In the end, everyone knows something about others. Everyone has learnt somethings about themselves. I for one, have met, known and will remember and wish well for, some good people. College is fun. Everyone should have a chance to experience it. There have been a lot of sweet and sour notes. Surprisingly, they do make a legible tune.

Summer now takes its toll. Really.

2011-06-07T13:07:00.000+05:30

While we continue to experience the hot summer 'loo' in our lungs like never before, motionless and chilly winters like never before, people who have adequate hydration too, suffer from heat strokes (that includes me) and likewise for the winter counterparts, it has become very...very necessary to keep our surroundings in the required temperatures for us to even just function. Sprinkling water all over the ground around the house every morning and evening has now become a routine. Short bursts of untimely rains although are a relief but aren't expected. This is what I'd call a 'heavy summer'. The heat just rests on your head like some metric ton carbon dioxide bubble. The logic that earth is a pressure cooker, ozone is the lid and plants are the 'whistle' that prevents the cooker from burst now fails miserably. We are cooking, Houston.

Re-engineering the brain with daily routine

2011-06-07T11:54:00.000+05:30

Why something would work. What makes it better. If this can be removed altogether. What would happen if step-by-step is replaced with objects altogether. I have not used interrogations here for a reason. Our daily routines are complex processes. Forget the bigger decisions, if you would care to look it up, functions like 'staying awake' are actually a result of numerous chemical reactions. We end up training our brains to work in a certain way through our growth. Once the brain gets accustomed, actions are nearly sub-conscious even though they have a high error rate. If instead of practicing the same process in the same way over and over again we attempted different approaches, the brain/neurons is/are forced to make new connections as a part of 'Re-Engineering' itself. With continuous re-engineering, there is a possibility of using more than just 2% of our capacities which would ultimately mean more out of the box performance. Of course it has to be a step by step process albeit a continuous one. Take the simple task of writing for example. You write with your write hand. Let's say for a week you did it with your left. You learnt. For a week you wrote the same thing with both hands simultaneously. You learnt. for a week you wrote different things at a time with both the hands. Rinse and repeat with drawing, sport activities and buttoning shirts. The important thing here to notice is that the new task should be practiced only for short bursts of time (like a week) just to force a connection. Switching to the next task in the next week is itself a new process. Then by the end of 2 months, you have advanced motor function in your hand.

Students preparing for aptitude based entrance exams (like say CAT/GMAT) stand a better chance when they practice full papers. The reason? Re-engineers the switching time from one topic to another.

Once challenging your own brain becomes a lifestyle, identifying solutions technical/managerial problem statements at work becomes very easy. Now I'd go out and contradict myself with the statement: you are better at learning, provided you learn daily. Don't find ways to learn less when it's the opposite that works for you. And what's the best part, with daily activities, you stand no chance to worry about the failure scenario.

'Click'

2011-05-22T16:45:00.000+05:30

Haven't come a long way but then

Sounds we have heard, places we've been and people we've seen.

Now that we're all walking away from our own streets

We are looking for something

We're wriggling our ways out thinking,

We'd get ourselves somewhere better perhaps

We are happy in choosing struggle and fear over the free treats.

We form definitions and limits we can try and break

If there is a perfect system, it's fake.

Amidst all this noise we work,

We fight it all because we have no other choice

Most often we fight our own voice,

Then, even then we pick it all up over and over again

and walk right ahead like there's no tomorrow.

What do you say, when it's all gone away...

2011-05-05T23:04:00.004+05:30

Chomp Chomp Chomp...
Nom Nom Nom Nom

*Shuffle Shuffle* Chomp...

"Oh shoot, he's seen me watching him", I thought. So did 7 others in that set of four cubicles. What do you do when a co-worker dressed in all formals, sits in the cubicle beside yours and munches roasted nuts all day long, carelessly, without the courtesy to offer you some, noisily relishing each nut as he/she pops it into his/her mouth? How many of your colleagues chew gum citing breath refreshment as a reason? You awkwardly shift your position, adjust your chair and rest your palm to your forehead so you don't have to watch. When you can't stand it anymore, you get up, roll up your sleeves, pretend you're stretching after a long set of excel lookups on your computer and move to the next cubicle to munch... munch on some gossip, some water cooler chat just because the cubicle neighbour's pre-occupation with snacks seems to never cease. He/She will never desist.

Interesting though how this generous time gap between two *life altering* tea breaks is considered the longest wait in this universe. Excruciatingly more painful than the wait of results after exams, the wait between your results and college seat allocation, or your first salary. There are certain 'buddies' who always help you get through these tough times. The first ranker among them (as per a universal merit list) is music. Thou shall not let your supervisor know but shall stealthily resort to hideous stereophonic equipment and style your hair just about enough to camouflage it completely, just like the investigative agents. With those wireless headsets out, girls are having all the fun. You are to be physically prepared to stretch out your neck hard, for you might get a candid glimpse on a colleague's friends' Kullu Manali trip photos while he/she Facebooks (hard to think of Facebook as a verb, even now). Closely following is the need to call up long-lost-new-found-on-Facebook friends, giving them your expert career advice and counsel making you the job messiah, limited however, to your set of four cubicles only, hidden in a plainly visible section of the office. Also, you have to walk while you talk. It gives you your daily quota of exercise. Even the walk to the rest rooms and back counts.All this during a call, since you're paid to be busy. Paid in peanuts. You change your own lunch time everyday to knowingly have it clash with everybody else's and end up with no seat on the lunch table all over again, just so you could be the next in waiting. As you are waiting for a table, you are morally obliged and 'corporately' trained to not work until you finish eating. While all these small steps matter, here come the biggies. Even if you have to risk your life for it, go and read the newspapers, magazines and tabloids lying on that table by the receptionist, have a smoke, buy toffees with the most crackling wrappers to keep you up while you stare at your LCD monitor just so the world knows you're bored, shake your head showing your safe landing back with earthly people after every telephonic conversation and whenever you catch anyone watching what you're (not) doing, just close your eyes and take a deep breath signifying stress relief... enjoy the look of admiration and respect that falls on your after that gesture. It counts. It is indeed, body language.

These are the small joys we have at work. In spite of all this work gets done. *Because*, of all this work appears to have gotten done. We are a productive bunch of people who love corporate life. You wouldn't want to miss this for anything.

Do I have to say this is only humour? *Fist pump* See the title again.

In the circle or above.

2011-05-01T13:16:00.004+05:30

Fear. The word itself has been ingrained to generate negative emotions in the animal mind. Why? No one knows. It has also been known to promote its own status over and over again, especially in these past few years. The 2012 end of the world which is apparently brought forward to 2011, could possibly be the happiest ending in contrast to the daily and hourly death in our fights for food, clothing, shelter, education, jobs, marriage, money, retirement and even entertainment.

The word 'system' and 'society' now overlap each other in spite of holding contradictory meaning. Creating things that illusion us unto a so called 'beautiful magical world', making us work hard for/against toward and away from things that we may or may not desire is such a strongly embedded trend that we forget. We forget that it is for ourselves that we need to live, or not. We forget that it is not necessary to get caught in the never ending vicious loop and you can always remain a spectator. It is not necessary for things to come to you or for you to go to them. What is necessary however, is to disconnectedly go through the process. The word 'journey' is often associated with the word 'life' and it'd be quite a misnomer. Here, no one is ever asked to do something without a reason, whether meaning well or not. No one is ever asked to question or give answers, if any. All those words we carry in our dictionaries mean nothing because they were 'created' by us. That, is the illusion we live in. We say nature has a language not realizing language itself is an artificial concept.

While it is imperative and still an individual take to question everything you see, here believe or not, it's always good to realize that we have the power to choose to believe and force ourselves to will. To convince ourselves of why something is right or why something is wrong. Just like it is for us to believe it doesn't hurt walking on a burning coal bed. But we force ourselves. We 'will' against it. That's the fight we win. And it trickles down to our day to day lives in so many forms that we overlook.

At the expense of completely losing relevance and going against my principles of quoting movie dialogues, this is something I remember from 'The Weatherman'.

"I remember once...imagining what my life would be like, what I'd be like. I pictured having all these qualities. Strong, positive qualities...that people could pick up on from across a room.

But as time passed, few ever became any qualities I actually had. And all the possibilities I faced, and the sorts of people I could be...all of them got reduced every year to fewer and fewer, until finally they got reduced to one to who I am. And that's who I am the weatherman."

Train journeys.

2011-04-12T09:48:00.002+05:30

Mandir ka prasad and reserved sleeper births in trains were close to equality. How would you rush for groceries if there was an impending famine? The quintessential April noon totally outdid my subconscious temperature gauge too. Even now, I am very fond of train journeys because they give you a stopped-time feel. You can do nothing when you sit in a train and taking frequent snack breaks wont kill the need for you to sit still in wait, especially in long journeys and then you begin contemplating, retrospecting; things you would run way from on a normal sane afternoon. This day was different because the faces looked more morose than they did in my teens and childhood and I didn't have a Chacha Chaudhary in my hands earned via effective blackmails and promises to do well in the next exams. Siestas were partial and left you even more tired. If I looked down from my side upper birth I would see a passenger below and below.

Yes, there were humans sleeping below the births, on the floor, reminding you of Kira Argounova's train journeys during Russian Revolution. The train stopped at 74 stations without counting my end A and end B. Octogenarians kept asking every two minutes whether their station had arrived. The facilities were a different story altogether with their most glorious moments being those prior to having any passenger on board. This was the mango people ride. Aam aadmi ki savaari. A huge Chatty Kathy herd was gossiping over a humble lunch of boiled potatoes and raw tomatoes taken in whole. Here's a pseudo world. The one that exists only for the time you are on a journey, restlessly waiting to end. Nobody wants to stop right there and remain travelling to nowhere. God forbid if one of those howling children in the compartments develop a liking to you for you shall have to muster your energies and entertain the kid, try and make it laugh while it runs and hides behind the mother, fearful. People hope for a miracle, that the train reach early. Meanwhile they introduce each other and rip off anchors of popular shows simultaneously stating how 'Roadies teaches you life skills'. There is 'Pepsi' being sold for Rs.2 among the 2 a minute bunch of snack sellers on the train. No, this is not the beverage/cola that comes in a bottle. 'Pepsi' is colloquial for flavoured ice sticks packaged in plastic and look like mini Jedi weapons. The entire compartment reeks of onions every minute or so till the next Bhelpuri-wallah does a round trip down and up the bogie. A train journey like no other, where I discovered 'Pachak Amla' is still available to the sane world.

I'll miss the pages.

2011-03-23T09:24:00.000+05:30

Cursing my class' weird fellows for not having attended the already once a week lecture and leaving me all by myself in the Godforsaken summer afternoon, I happened to enter the college library today. It gave out a major 'Main Hoon Na' scene feel. Temple bells ringing, librarians waiting for the devout first step with the 'kalash' entry. Last I entered the place in 2010. Now call me names all you want but this time it was different. Those neatly stacked white fresh pages in hardcover beckoned. Forgiveness is asked for glorifying this but I was indeed floating and ushered into the seating area. It'd be one of those last few times I would have access to this beautifully quiet place amidst all the college ho-hum before I graduate.

I was probably still a college junior when this heavenly abode underwent a makeover. Prior to that it had shifted 3 times (wild guess) but even then, carried Shakespeare's abridged works in the name of non-technical racks. I remember seeing people manhandling food and issued books at the same time. Now that grumbling careless students were 3 floors, 2 entry registers and 3 librarians (who look like discotheque bouncers) apart, words and pages had regained their original respect. It was a creepy stalkery moment when I actually ran my fingers through those big racks of text holding mysteries and stories untold (all geek context) while nobody was around. Every time I entered this library, truth be told I've experienced a tremendous urge to shut myself in and everyone else out and just start reading from scratch with no intention of memorizing, studying or drawing conclusions but just, for the sake of reading and pondering pleasure. Just like you watch random TV shows but like them because you don't have to sit and make yourself think about what's going on. Right from what we called 'Mathematics-I' to cryptography, neural networks, production technology and journals of management case studies, it now has it all like the 'hep' star of the college people usually go out with. My oh-so-dear college library reminded me of so many things amidst the repeated and rising guilt pangs of almost not having read non-technical work at all in these four years of engineering studies. It reminded me of all the 'research' I did in my first year as a very serious (not) psycho-frantic student, the assignments I made master copies of with well written answers too, the whole concept of having the access to something you can pick up any time if you'd just visit... like the eagerly awaited copies of 'Digit' and 'EFY' magazines so you could look for the latest trends and gizmos. It reminded me of the school days when issuing fiction was a matter of pride and finishing an Enid Blyton in record time was the only target to achieve for a day and that kinda work I loved, genuinely.

While I may miss some of the other things a tad bit less, I'll miss this place, the smell of fresh/old pages, the quiet and just the overall ravishing awesomeness of my college library. Sigh, I hope I'm allowed to visit these paticular four walls even after I graduate.

Kids These Days

2011-03-19T23:04:00.003+05:30

Call me paranoid, the famous hashtag from twitter now hits like a tight slap on the face. I never realized it when I myself as a child talked with adults like I was the wisest sage and was still endured with adoration. I don't have that patience. Such pain to see, hear and talk with people who are 'kids' in my eyes. I'm talking of the tadpole India. Preteens and children. Have you heard them talk lately? It's like, the whole parent-protecting-the-child-from-earthly-stuff is now an adage.

To bring my point across properly, I'd have to switch to Hinglish.

Six pack unko pet mein 'foola foola' dikhta hai. You won't know what school they go to but they'd know your bade bhaiya from your chote bhaiya from your spouse from your brother's wife's chacha though seen only once. Also, you'd jaw-drop at the things they learn in their 'paathshaala'. They blatantly ask about your 'single' or 'non-single' status and the why and how as well. They'll ask you why you don't have a kid. They wait for your answer if interesting. There are kids that outwardly offer you money for helping them learn something. They'll sing 'shiela' to you like there's a mushaira/FTV show going on. They'd start their popping and locking and pelvic thrusts and expect 'awws'. Nursery rhymes are going extinct, at least the standard ones but Bieber songs are welcome. (Belly dance is a hot favourite among the girls aged less than 12). They'll make many 'hari sadu moments' for you. God bless thy soul if you are in the august presence of bosses/relatives or colleagues and they use swear words like it's no big deal (thankfully it's very likely they'd pronounce 'em wrong). They don't fly kites, play 'satoliya' or compete for the quickest assignment completion in best hand-writing but would chew on gossip girls' episodes and all other Roadies/Splitsvilla stuff out there.

And at times there's this innate urge to tell them to stop. Just not talk. However, somethings still haven't changed. There exist kids who say to themselves, "1..2...3..start" before they start performing/singing. They still move on to the next thing that catches their wondrous eyes & mind as quickly as you blink, while you're stuck thinking,"how in heavens do they know all this?" or "what would they do with this kind of knowledge?". Maybe they are all the more scared these days. Maybe they are all the more courageous to face that fear. Children are becoming tougher nuts I say. They can travel for hours at a stretch in local trains and state buses to and from school while you struggle for that coffee mug in your office. But then, they make me bow down a li'l bit more everyday.

That musical day in college.

2011-03-02T12:10:00.001+05:30

That heavy monotony of six monthly semester exams seemed to have taken to us. First day of my eight semester and people in college look like they were tired restless ghosts in a service taxed graveyard. Lectures were boring and labs were like data entry competitions. I didn't set foot on college till this date after that for people had begun conversing in the bad stinging forms of irony and sarcasm, to not overstate. The only thing I enjoyed was my guitar lessons. Electric guitars are a rarely traversed road after a girl here learns acoustic for domestic boasting purposes. The guitars weren't brought home so my folks wouldnt throw me out for those screeches I made.

The 'let's make it large' moment was when someone from the academy told me I could now go in for local competitions. Home ground is quite obviously the safest place to exhibit your bathroom guitaring skills. So there I went asking for permissions to single handedly arrange a concert. It'd be two weeks of heavy persuasion amidst loads of college work to finally give it to me owing to my 'academic focus'

Photoshopping posters happened. I didn't want to publicize it much. No sponsors. Asked my college friends for audio systems, woofers, laptop with filler music and similar stuff. The posters claimed it'd be a 9.00 am to 11.00 am concert. Yes, you read that right. As much as I'd convinced authorities to permit me to hold such an event, I was asked to do it within college hours. For a no-infrastructure event like this, the only suitable time seemed to be this. But yes, everybody could participate by bringing their own instruments. They'd apparently get a chance to play on stage. Venue was 'The Shed': a fairly wide workshop like area of my college where all the gatherings used to happen with a garden on either side for students to sit if required.

The word wasn't quite that out till 2 days before the event. People just thought it was some lame junior trying to spice up his/her resume with 'organzing' experience. My class folks most definitely knew and were kind enought to RSVP with a 'will come if free' sms reply.

Cut to the concert. 10.50 am and there were some 30 people waiting for me to start. 3 of them got their own instruments: a flute, a casio and a mouth organ. "Okay, this is gonna be some work", I thought. I started sharp at eleven with 'Rock On' title track. I'd altered the orginal track to play only the drums through the speakers so as not to make it mundane. The setting up time was like 1 hour or so. I was in casuals and worn out sport shoes. So while I started with the Rock On tune, I added some of my own chords and beats to it. I started seeing some feet tapping. Thank Goodness for those woofers. They were good in bass. That required thump was present. I raised the groove. I could also see some tiffin boxes opening :)

Weeks later I came to know there were smses flowing for every 15 minutes there was a 7 plus in the head count after 9.45 am. It was then that I requested one of the other instruments, the flute to be brought on stage. I knew he had to be a good player, from the way he held it. With some luck I'd ended my stint on a slow tune therefore his devotional beginning didnt sound much of while I put in all the chords and techniques I learnt to make it sound like a rough 'jugalbandi'. The other one, the mouth organ girl was a fairly novice player but was good with old film songs from 'satte pe satta'. A big challenge it is to thrown in elec guitar with that kind of music but then old classic guitar songs always come to the rescue (chura liya). While more people came in with instruments, I decided to give these a rest and played 'boulevard of broken dreams' chords for a while. And there, it was. One guy with a synthesizer, some rhythm lovers with tiffin boxes and benches lying around and the students singing. It was way past 1 pm that winter afternoon and people didnt mind the sun. And the way the entire crowd joined in on Rock On songs was a sight. The namesake concert had just turned into a real one... I ended the event at 2 pm with a scolding from my audience profs for the delay and some great photographs. One college memory etched.

Odisha and the arts waiting to get their due.

2011-01-13T22:15:00.001+05:30

Odisha has always been the land of handicrafts and handloom, while parallel the nation has its second biggest contribution from handloom in manpower requirements, the first being agriculture of course. Most of the commercial crafting happens in Cuttack’s distributed villages separated by some 2-3 km. Tens of thousands of weavers, artisans and craftsmen are well into their day’s work when rest of the nation has not even seen the dawn break. Ikat, Khandua Pata, Bomkai, Bandha, Pasapalli in handlooms and Pata chitra kala, Nilgiri utensils and Sambalpuri textiles are the main attractions of Odisha handloom and handicrafts.

There’ve been major discussions on why these weavers aren’t being given their due. Suicidal reports are on an all time rise. The wages of weavers do not change for decades but price rise keeps hitting them, trapping into the vicious cycle of raw material crunch due to lack of money for not having sold the previous work. Again, the supply of these raw materials is a different chain of sad events altogether. Silk yarns have to be imported from other states, supply does not satisfy the demand, shortage yields to black marketing increasing yet again, the prices. The Cooperative Society means, as opposed to the private traders is believed not to be beneficial, while some hold the opinion that private traders are worse. The raw material and design briefing is usually given to the weavers beforehand.

Most work on daily wages. Two days to finish a saree fetches the whole family on an average, Rs. 1300 a month. Imagine if you had to be creative on that kind of salary. Film stars are you listening? Moneylenders control even the cooperative society indirectly, thereby creating an acute financial shortage, especially in Kalahandi and Sundargarh. Starting capital on the other hand is Rs. 10,000 for say, 10 sarees including the raw material procurement, transportation, efforts and trading costs which then cycles in a credit basis.

Moving to the Pata-chitra-kala scenario, the deftness, discipline and control that these artists display while at work with their appreciation for detail is amazing and can be realized only once witnessed. Preparation of the canvas itself takes 5 days, involving tamarind seed paste preparation (Niryas Kalpa), attaching two pieces of cloth with this paste, adding clay mixed coating of the pastes, drying and polishing, cutting into required sizes and the smaller but extremely regular series of steps in between. Once prepared, a Pata Chitra painting is finished in a week for standard designs. Special work may take as much as 3-4 weeks. And with the given wages, their investment in the form of time and effort is undoubtedly not returned.

There is a dire need to commercialize more, these age old crafts, not only from Odisha but from all the states, transparency in trading consists too many indirect influences. The artisans, craftsmen and weavers are heavily unaware except for the cooperative operations. And in this grind, either the man of the family or one of the many ‘daughters’ shall end his/her life. A routine grind this is.

What’s with Women and these buzzwords?

2011-01-06T18:04:00.000+05:30

What are these words? Why are they used with such profuseness even in this new age century of so called ideologically advanced people in relation to the role of women in society? ... Jargon right?

Yes, empowerment, rights, self-help, education are very much around. Wait, you didn't know? Look for yourself if you wish to:

Empowerment: Because power is when the husband comes home drunk and beats the wife for not giving her the money to buy. When she has to give in to all sorts of 'pressures' in an office before the promotions and related events. When they are empowered by flames of someone else's harassment; even her own because she's the first one to go and throw kerosene all over her instead of having the patience to sit back and resolve the core issue smartly. Because empowerment lies in one's own hands. No it's not the rat race being discussed here. Just that, you need to sense the slightest opportunity of growth and strike the right hammers with full force. Education discussed later in this article, financial independence, ratio skewing in workplaces, voicing your opinions through all the available media, travelling the world fearlessly et al are always up for grabs only if you snatch the chances and work really hard to go through its demands, the sensible ones of course. No, the Women’s Reservation Bill is a secondary bailout off the issue in this discussion.

Rights: Of course this has been the part of a plethora of discussions over the decades. It is no coincidence that those discussions mostly ended on property issues. So what right do you exercise in your mother's womb? Because well after that, it’s just a matter of chance and ‘family’ you are born in, as to whether you’ll remain alive enough to talk about rights. Girls are asked to change even their first names after marriage. Girls are seen to suppress their opinions on innumerable occasions. These are rights that go beyond legal mention. The rightful part of course, doesn’t exist yet. And yet, there are just so many legal arguments found quoting the Constitution.

Education: Ah don’t we all or the aunties surrounding us watch the countless serials that have very recently taken to spreading the wonderful message of educating the girl child? It doesn’t hold water that the message itself is almost in code language understood by far only by those who have at least passed their class X boards with some prominent language courses in it. Have you ever wondered what they make out of words like ‘Constitutional Rights’ or ‘activism’? Moving on, isn’t there this whole ‘training process of 20 years’ phenomenon in semi urban and urban families for girls to become what is termed ‘marketable’? A lot of planning goes into that as well. Only specific courses can be pursued, if at all. Only certain co-curricular activities can be entertained, if at all. The definition of the term ‘Education’ itself contains the word ‘kitchen’. Oh you didn’t realize? Haven’t you ever looked at the matrimonial section of the newspaper and wondered, “Where does all that come from?”

The ‘Self-Help’ Phenomenon: This phrase somehow takes me to an office. A lady works drains her brain, files up all the paperwork in a neat and organized manner (or am I overstating?), returns back home battling heavy city traffic and starts cooking for the entire family, eats last only to finish leftover food. Yes, she’s totally helping herself. So much for financial independence. One more type of self help is when either they turn anorexic influenced by celebrity figures or binge on account of a bad day when the day hasn’t even really begun. Most of all, they help themselves when the poverty ridden class either forces them to turn beggars and/or hookers somewhere.

When we define feminism in our articles, we still associate the phrase ‘radical notion’ with the idea of women being people. She is grown from seed like a tree in a revered garden and then given off to another they say. Domestic violence, eve teasing, abuse, trade and an entire catalogue that we offer with a proud variety: Now it is known why 'saving the girl child' is important.

Just, let there be no extra grey layers and no chance thereof created unnecessarily en route to development. If development in the true sense of the term is underway, let it be pure in nature.

To believe and what not to believe: misinterpreted mystique.

2010-12-27T22:18:00.000+05:30

My article written for Youth Ki Awaaz (reposted here):

“It is not disbelief that is dangerous to our society, it is belief” – George Bernard Shaw

A modern, suave and predominantly accepting, believing and forward India is also privy to a layer of dark crime ridden multitude when it comes to Tantra. Locking up people for years, increased number of assaults, looting money worth crores, sacrificing children/infants are incidents only recently surfacing to the eyes of people all thanks to the people oriented, trying to be utterly pointed media we have created today. Lord only knows how many have been victimized. Also notable is the fact that young and adolescent women are the most targeted of social classes. The once land of snake charmers is now looking like a land of only poisonous snakes. Then again, they call them ‘doctors’ of a kind.

Tantra was originally ritualistic in terms of word roots but did evolve into a system of beliefs that did not ONLY consist of also yoga, mantras, gestures and symbols. Robert Brown notes tantrism as, “It is not a concept that comes from within the religious system itself, although it is generally recognized internally as different from the Vedic tradition. This immediately makes it suspect as an independent category.” Such is the power of these beliefs that people are willing to go through the stark tortures of phony mystics claiming to change the course of their life, for pettiest of things like winning lotteries let alone marital bliss, health disorders, examinations results and ending up in a psychological tightrope of trauma for they cannot themselves speak of the rituals. In the lottery ticket case, the god man even asked for Rs.11000 apparently, before applying his ‘Tantra’ dissolving the entire purpose of the exercise. Phony god men of course exploit this kind of naiveté, especially of parents with a girl child, to loot atrocious amounts of money, beat, molest and brainwash the girls in the name of ‘cure’ to finally run off and repeat the cycle with some other family. In the process, they also give sedatives and other drugs to the ‘patients’ in heavy doses which may adversely affect their health, physically or mentally. So much for spirituality. Parents of those children watch helplessly sometimes, happily the others.

Most of the times, these cases are unearthed years too late and the agony of abuse remains etched in the minds of victims. Many a times the police cases do not yield proper action because of lack of evidence and silence. Sacrifice means direct strangulation of a child most of the times. Of course, the animals are not to be asked about. People partaking in such heinous superstition led activities belong to the urban middle class in equal measure or more, as the lower socio economic strata that includes slum dwellers and such. When you don’t have anybody, any animal and cannot substitute ‘Narabali’ with the Vedic recommendations of wheat and grain, you just snatch the neighbour's kid and sacrifice it. Is this what we’ve come to?

Tantra per se is a philosophical system and is not bound by such fake practices. It’s a parallel running ideology coming from the three fundamental and ancient traditions of India: Mantram (the knowledge), Tantram (the rituals), Yantram (the way of life). However, with so many misinterpretations of the true meaning, this layer is bound to thicken. Then again, there is a choice. A choice to take the good things and leave the bad, not unheard and unnoticed, but removed and ostracized, because as is said, every worthy belief must stand the test of doubt.

Multilateral cooperation with India

2010-12-23T16:48:00.002+05:30

My article written for Youth Ki Awaaz (reposted here):

http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2010/12/multilateral-cooperation-with-india-prospects-and-opportunities/

Very simply put every country requires different things to survive. They trade what they have in abundance with other countries to get what they don’t in terms of food, energy, resources, weapons, raw materials, technology, services and even culture. However, international dominance shall not remain in the hands of one country alone soon considering the rapid growth and technological advancements in various countries, especially in defense. This means, it cannot be US, China or Russia alone and the days of triangulated rule are gone.

The dominance will now be distributed as three to four centers across the globe. Now depending on how the bigger nations collaborate or chose not to, the resultant world could be ONE of the following possibilities.

a) a shared-bus system of nations with an international backbone allied to all nations branching off and feeding back

b) a hierarchal network with a network of superpowers handling a sub network of countries and so on, or

c) A mesh of cooperating countries.

Nations have entirely different governance systems and bilateral talks will not suffice their resource requirements. To reach an agreement between more than two nations is an exercise much more demanding than the usual bilateral talks/agreement and is a diplomatic tightrope. Conditions put forth by countries involved in a multilateral talk always tend to remain constricted and inflexible, not to forget much influenced by the geographic status quo. This factor isn’t so powerful in bilateral talks for it’s only a two-way agreement in question with more or less singular exchanges. To see how India fares in these dynamics, for this discussion Wiki Leaks and its influence will not be taken into consideration.

The United States policies visibly signal a deep distribution of security and resource hotspots. The other countries prefer not coming into the limelight as much. North Korea is emerging as a nuclear powerhouse. Here, Third World still exists but India along with Brazil and Japan is being pitted as valuable asset because of our rapid growth, technological capacities & agricultural base among other things. A permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council will obviously give us a huge international role to play and diplomatic talks with many more nations shall ensue to their as well as our benefit but there’s also a belief that we might shy away from critical responsibilities, a rather lack of confidence considering the nation’s internal politics, corruption and frequency of terror attacks. But then, India can potentially be a pioneer in negotiation of agreements involving more nations than two, especially is UNSC seat is allotted.

Now, India needs a balance sheet of what it really requires and what it has to offer. Depending on that, any call for cooperation between three to four nations can be sought. Fuel and equipment are two very major concerns. Therefore, Iran is a possible associate required and may have to be balanced with role-play in Afghanistan, along with Russia or Japan for the latter garnished with the existent educational exchange. The talks between Russia, India and China, on the other hand, the three gigantic pieces of geography are on but aren’t really yielding major outcomes because of the sheer population they represent. What we also need apart from fuel and equipments is heavy and accurate intelligence so that our security forces can be preventive. Indo-US collaboration in combating terrorism was a very enthusiastic start and requires maintenance. Banking on the strengths, food (or our agricultural capacity as more than a billion of the world population is threatened by starvation), export materials, technical skills, coastline advantage, Bollywood in passing cultural exchange etc can all be put on the platter with segregation.

As a subcontinent in ourselves at the excuse of stating the obvious, we also need to very quickly and absolutely remove stark jeopardizing elements like internal political drama, state level conflicts and insurgents, corruption and lack of action, acute wastage of resources, efforts and money, heavy technological reforms in how we combat natural catastrophes, environmental concerns and manage our space presence for our own benefit and well, cleanliness. Also, our efforts in providing relief aid to nations suffering from natural/unnatural catastrophes need to be pushed through as much as our engineering skills and involve more Indian nationals to make it a long term fingerlock

Quietus, thy name is ‘Privacy’.

2010-12-16T21:16:00.000+05:30

My article written for Youth Ki Awaaz reposted here:

http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2010/12/concept-of-privacy-needs-rebirth/

Once upon a time walls had ears too. Now they require an ENT surgery. Privacy is a dying word, a remembrance of times when there was a cloud for one to be under. When existent was a distributed life you experienced alone, monologue existed and keenly watching your neighbours’ window looking for aunty-gossip was the only possible breach usually requiring binoculars. Where you were or going that moment or how beautiful the sunset was etched the memory of moderately paced times that didn’t remain with harsh realities of ‘Twitpic’ and Flickr. Also, you couldn’t shout out so easily to the world your thoughts of news, religion, philosophy, sports, people etc. and record certain things that wouldn’t be spared space for in your neurons. See in these examples how the homo sapien sapien became the solitude starved human:

Scene 1: It’s been 30 minutes and your teen aged daughter has her room shut. You knock assuming you were the kid’s go-to-folk. She opens after a while. When asked what she was doing, she replies, “Ah. Nothing, Mom! You want to watch TV?” Hands over the remote, puts back her full volume headphones and pops out the chat window facing the computer against you. Little do you know she ‘Liked’ a Facebook page that reads, ‘I am not hiding anything. I just like the door shut!’ Stranger to you, isn’t she? Golly Wolly!

Scene 2: What is the biggest problem the new age job seekers and credit card holders face alike? Answer: Random people calling them US time and/or spamming mailboxes asking whether they’d purchased Jantu Lal’s car insurance or Moti Bhai’s mutual funds or better still, gave a purchase order for a customized Honda Accord! Source of contact details: Jobs/bank websites. Well, you needed both the job & the account didn’t you?

Scene 3: You’re intently working on your office computer basking in the glory of text mushrooming on your screen every 9^th microsecond. In the back of your head you feel someone’s watching you. You turn around in a start (and an adrenalin rush). Sincere Self: meet the colleague’s I-know-what-you-do-on-Gtalk face. You hate that colleague now. You were with a client. In any case, where do you knock in a cubicle?

Personal space is non-existent. The more we connect ourselves to the world, the more a village we make of our globe, the need for distancing ourselves increases.

A serious stark contrast: Necessitation of right to privacy being the issue in question, Mr. Ratan Tata asked for a bar on the leaks of tapped telephonic conversations that allegedly link hundreds of crores worth of lobbying in relation to the 2G spectrum licensing scam, following the publication by magazines apparently without authorization.

Question in passing: What would you do if your phone conversations were released on web like this?

So what, on the other hand? You are known to the world. An open book. How does that make a difference? People at work, home and social circle want to know what you’re up to constantly. You oblige. Anyone from the 1,966,514,815 (World Internet Users Statistics website) internet users could access/edit your profile information and share it with the rest of the world(s). You have nothing to hide. Really, how many times have you seen the word ‘Privacy Policy’ and in a blink of an eye clicked, ‘I Agree’? Are you aware that those documents show exactly what information (yours or the respective companies’) is vulnerable and/or will be protected when in trouble?

Munch on a by-the-way factoid. The Wall Street Journal recently measured what popular websites do to keep track of you. (The ones spitting customized ads on to you). The Journal found that the nation's 50 top websites on average installed 64 pieces of tracking technology onto the computers of visitors, usually with no warning. Some installed more than a hundred. Had you taken a technology peek-a-boo, you’d force yourself out of the Internetwork forever. Conclusively, we know ‘individual’ is a big word.

There has been a 100% rise in cyber crimes in Pune alone this year. With most cases of the nature of IT firms’ extortion in exchange of new passwords (this particular one was in Noida), phishing and obscene post attacks or fake income tax refund requests by foreign hackers leaving the investigators shooting arrows in a dark alley, here’s a heads up.

A company had to roll back its heat sensor based employee monitoring system intended to check waste of resources and marijuana usage in workplace because IR sensors invaded employee privacy. They could be tracked while using the restrooms as well.

The point is : Why we are not taking our own identity, our own space, our organization’s data and every other piece of information associated with us that is directly or indirectly going either online or is accessible to public by other means seriously? Constitutionally defined or not, privacy needs rebirth as a right to every human being.

What’s so private about the Internet, the media and business?

2010-12-13T22:47:00.001+05:30

December the 13^th, 2010 is when the writ petition filed by Tata group chairman Mr. Ratan Tata shall be called upon for hearing in the Supreme Court. A necessitation of right to privacy being the issue in question, Mr. Ratan Tata asked for a bar on the leaks of tapped telephonic conversations made public apparently without authorization, following the publication by magazines.

The conversations were between Mr. Tata and Nira Radia of Vaishnavi Corporate Communications, the PR handlers for the Tata Group, all having taken place in a largely business context, purely in their professional capacities. They can very well be made public under the Right to Information Act. Moreover, the phones were tapped only by government authorization under the Telegraph Act, 1885 after receiving a complaint against Nira Radia, an infamous corporate lobbyist in 2007 for a period of 120 days in 2008 and 60 days during 2009 (as per the response filed by the Ministry of Finance to the writ petition by Tata) with a total of 5815 conversations in the bag involving various bureaucrats, media personnel, politicians and business officials in relation with the grant of 2G spectrum licenses. Keep in mind that Tata is only one, of the many other ends of these phone calls. However, the larger debate that has emerged out of this tangential angle to a more than Rs. 300 crore scam is, "Where does the word ‘privacy’ find its place in Indian Law?". The answer is by definition, nowhere. In concept, it grows as a distinctly essential part of the Right to Life, Article 21.

But let’s face it. Something that’s already out on the Internet (or rather, out in the public) cannot be retracted. In an age where internet privacy settings and data security in BPOs are giving us a headache, everyone is ‘engineering’ in vain what they put up online for their personal benefit; the Aadhar project for personal identification is around; would we not be fooling ourselves to say our information is la privatus per se? We’re probably the verge of presenting our internet presence as proof of our very existence, though it might sound overstated as of now.

Moreover, these conversations did in some sense revealed what kind of lobbying results in this ‘Bend it like Beckham’ game of policies and influencing governments, as is the case with the Barkha Dutt – Nira Radia transcripts. The information contained in the 100 odd conversations of Nira Radia leaked out, are a tip of the iceberg. One can in such events only take remedial steps to stop the spread not curative. The remedial steps may be as follow. Investigate tapes the whodunit way after preventing publication of further telephonic conversations (only because a writ petition to do so was actually filed), classify them as business or personal conversations, analyze the information for scam details and then, if they pertain to what is defined as ‘public interest’, all the tapes may be made public. If they don’t, well, they were essentially telephonic for a reason. All this must happen within a short time frame for again, questions could be raised on transparency of the investigative bodies as well. So it definitely remains the vicious cycle it is.

However in a concomitant track, it is also, the responsibility of Indian public in general to be careful about how they comment on various aspects of such a case and refrain from using words very casually at their expense. For all the conversation leaks concerning Mr. Ratan Tata, Ms. Nira Radia and Mr. A Raja, in a rebellion against the initially silent media, there was a huge Twitter and Facebook outrage on part of the general public. Second to second Twitter updates flooded the given bandwidth. The comments made against the people involved could be termed only a tad bit exaggerated or irresponsible in quite a few cases. A very important reason for that is of course chance of defamation. That one average comment is affected someone’s career and reputation hard earned. It’s only fair that we do our bit well.

Conclusively, as far as generic purely business conversations (a term with rather strict boundaries) are concerned, data may be presented to the public while taking care not to slip out personal detail. That of course, doesn’t mean you get your rival company’s or your ex’s office phone tapped, assuming you hold that power.