Thoughts of my alter ego

All That She Hoped For..

2010-08-02T03:34:00.005+05:30

She sat there by the window, not knowing what to do. Life, as she knew, had ended. The last piece of hope she had within her just vanished into thin air. She’d never expected this. It was like tearing apart a soul that had already been tormented a lot. She never could’ve stood against that. But she should. She did.

All she wanted was some love. Someone who could know her thoughts even before she said. But what she got was the opposite. No one seemed to stand by her. The whole world seemed to turn onto her for something she did not do. And, she’s just a girl.

God. Even though I’m not self-righteous, I do believe in The Almighty. The Powerful One. How else would you explain all that is happening around us in synch? I just have one question for You. Its not something new. It’s a question which has been addressed to You for ages. “Why is it that you keep testing some people more than the others? Why can’t You just leave them alone for sometime, or rather, be with them for sometime? Can’t You give it a break?!”

She was alone when she was in college. She had no one to share her lunch with. No one was with her during her commutes to home and college. She had to suffer a lot. She was left alone, because she was a good person.

No one was ever nice to her. Everyone took advantage of her goodness. Still, she’d say nothing. She was glad to help anyone and everyone. She’d give whatever’s left of her to get a true friend. But no one seemed to care about her feelings. Nobody felt her feelings. She sometimes even imagined that she could die and no one would notice. She was lost.

If only I could help her. If only I could console her. If only I could bring her back to life. Tell her that everything’s going to be alright. That there was nothing to worry about. If only I could hug her when she needed one. If only I could stand by her, holding her arms when she felt sad and lonely. If only she knew me.

"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."

Happy Friendship Day.

iShuffle!

2010-03-27T17:08:00.017+05:30

I was listening to some music from my Ericsson last day, and I was intrigued by its shuffle algorithm. It seemed to play some songs of the same genre before moving on to another. In short, producing a good mood to the listener. That’s when I thought about what my idea of a good shuffle algorithm would be. That’s how this post was born.

Here are some rules I made up for making a good shuffle algorithm. Any mobile companies or music player companies, if by any chance happen to see this post, please credit me accordingly. :P

The Rules

1. If the playlist consists of only songs which are among the most played list, then it doesn’t really matter which order you shuffle it. But to please the listener, play according to the frequency of each song played, starting from the most played. Also, make it a point to mix up genres every two or three songs.

2. If the playlist consists of songs never played or rarely played by the user, then genre’s the most important criterion. Try mixin’ up a few soft ones followed by one or two hard rock songs, back to a melody and rock again. Again, a reference to the most played statistics may help to decide which genre to play the most.

3. If the playlist’s a mix of both, then give preference to the newer ones. And then, play the familiar ones in between them, giving the listener a good effect. If done so, the listener gets to listen to new ones and also does not feel bad listening to songs which he doesn’t know for a long time. Personally, I prefer songs which I know the lyrics. So.. :-) Here also, genre must be taken into consideration. Just as above.

4. Since genre’s an important criterion in this algorithm, it might be difficult for the player if the genre’s not entered in the tag of the song. So, if the player wants to be a step ahead, it can use the internet connection to connect to its server to find out the genre of the songs being played. In this age, where internet connection is far-flung, it wont be a problem at all.

That’s it, I guess. This is what I had in mind when I was engrossed in my music. If anyone wants to add any more points, feel free to do so at the comments section. I’ll add them here. :-)

P.S. Whatever you try to do, it always depends on the listener's mood. So this aint a foolproof method, and I'm not responsible for any damage caused. :D

You Know You Grew Up in India in the 90s When..

2010-03-13T23:12:00.006+05:30

As usual, I was reading through my mails when I came across this one. When I read it, I found myself smiling when I read each and ever line. Thought I'd share it on my blog. I did not create this list, and I give credits to whoever compiled this amazing list. I'm not saying much cuz the list itself is pretty long. Have a read!

You Know You Grew Up in India in the 90s when:

1) You know the words to ‘In-pin-safety-pin’ and ‘akkad-bakkad’ by heart

2) Cricket is almost a religion for you, and you idolize at least one

of Kapil Dev/Rahul Dravid/Sachin Tendulkar/Saurav Ganguly

3) You have read at least some Chacha Chaudhary or Tinkle comics

4) You’ve watched Shaktimaan on TV at least once in your life. And you

can immediately recognize the character when you see him.

5) You have some ‘NRI’ relatives.

6) You couldn’t wait for it to be December so you could have the

Toblerone chocolates your NRI relatives brought you

7) You watched Cartoon Network, and then the late night movies on TNT

that came after Cartoon Network ended.

8) You watched corny dubbed versions of Small Wonder, Silver Spoon,

and I Dream of Jeanie

9) You were THRILLED when McDonald’s opened in your neighborhood (or

even eight kilometers away)

10) Your first burgers were at Wimpy’s or Nirula’s.

11) A visit to Pizza Hut used to mean a special treat

12) You have seen Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and Hum Aapke Hain Kaun at least

5 times each

13) You still remember the theme song to Hum Paanch.

14) You have played hours upon hour of Pukdam-pakdai, oonch-neech,

kho-kho, ‘Doctor, doctor, help us!’, ‘Lock and key’

15) You have played ‘Uma Joshi’ more times than you can remember.

16) Dog ‘in’ the bone was your favorite co-ed game.

17) Much of your free time in school was spent playing UNO.

18) You collected trump cards of wrestlers, cricketers, and airplanes,

and did not quite understand why your younger siblings were obsessed

with Pokemon and the other Japanese trends that followed.

19) Your summer vacations were often synonymous with visiting your grandparents

20) Your parents, at some point, told you ‘Dark Room’ was a bad game

to play. But you still loved playing it.

21) Bole mere lips, I love uncle Chips!

22) You know the song ‘Made in India’ by Alisha Chinoi

23) You have seen many many many episodes of ‘Antakshri’ on Zee TV and

know the only thing constant in the show is Anu Kapoor.

24) Amy evenings have been spent watching little kids gyrate vulgarly

on Boogie Woogie on Sony.

25) You were the coolest thing in class if you had a computer in your

house while it was still the 90s.

26) You learnt LOGO in school!

27) You couldn’t wait to start 4th/6th standard so you could start

writing with PENS instead of with pencils!

28) You often use terms and phrases like ‘kutti’, ‘abba’, ‘same to

you, back to you, with no returns’, and ‘shame shame, puppy shame, all

the donkeys know your name.’

29) You most probably saw Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge at the cinema

at least once. You also fantasized about singing songs in mustard

fields as in the movie.

30) You have seen David Dhawan and Govinda movies and laughed at them.

31) You have said ‘haw’ or ‘haw ji ki pwji’ when you saw people

kissing in English movies

31) You have seen Titanic at least 12 times.

32) You thought seeing English movies and speaking English made you

the coolest thing ever.

33) You remember the Orissa cyclone, even though you didn’t know what

a cyclone was.

34) You remember the Gujarat earthquake very clearly and could

possibly tell everyone EXACTLY what you were doing when the earthquake

occurred (yes, this happened in 2001, January 26, 2001, to be exact --

but this group is about the things that Indian
kids that GREW UP in the 90s remember and identify with).
35) Barbies for girls, and GI Joes for boys were the ultimate status
symbols. You just wanted more more more and more. And how can I forget
Hot Wheels, for both boys and girls? I personally have a collection of
over 200 little Hot Wheels cars.
36) You have worn Osh-Kosh B’gosh and United Colours of Benetton
clothes while growing up. And you thought ‘imported’ clothes were
definitely way better than ‘made in India’ clothes (never mind that a
lot of clothes brought from overseas by NRI relatives were actually
made in India, before ‘Made in China’ started appearing on EVERY
existing thing)
37) You know the words to ‘Posham Paa’, and like it better than
‘Oranges and Lemons’ even though you’d sing the latter to sound cool
(see 32 above).
38) At some point or other, cool was your favourite, and therefore,
most overused word.
39) Captain Planet was your first introduction to environmental consciousness.
40) You have tried to convince people around you to not burst crackers
on Diwali, and then gone straight back home and burst them yourself.
41) You have had endless packets of Parle Gluco G biscuits, and of
Brittania Little Hearts biscuits.
42) You loved licking off the cream from the centre of Bourbon biscuits.
43) There were no Nike, Reebok, Adidas, Puma- Bata and Liberty was the
way to go for your sports shoes.
44) You have probably consumed more Frooti in your lifetime than there
is oil in Iraq.
45) You watched Baywatch on Star World even though (or because) your
parents said you shouldn’t watch it.
46) You bought packets of potato chips for the specific purpose of
collecting Tazoa. And you had Tazos depicting everyone from Confucius
to Daffy Duck to Daffy Duck dressed as Confucius.
47) For the longest time, the Maruti 800, the Premier Padmini, THE
Fiat, and THE Ambassador were the only cars you saw on the road, and
the Contessa was cool because it was bigger.
48) You would literally jump up in excitement if you ever chanced upon
an imported car (Oh my gosh, is that really a MERCEDES?)!
49) You spent a good part of 1998 drooling over the Hyundai Santro and
the Daewoo Matiz , debating which one was better.
50) You used to Fuzen gum. You also chewed Big (big) Babool and/or
Boom Boom Boomer chewing gum. They were bright pink and disgusting
tasting, but you loved them for the temporary tattoos.
51) Talking of temporary tattoos, you sometimes had contests with your
classmates about who had more tattoos on their arm, leg, knee, hand,
forehead, wherever.
52) You thought Mario and Tetris were the coolest things ever
invented, especially if you were a boy.
53) You knew that having the latest Hero or Atlas bicycle would make
you the coolest kid on the block.
54) You can imitate Sushmita Sen’s winning gasp to perfection.
55) You have, at some point of time, worn GAP clothes (real or fake)
like SRK in KKHH.
56) Seemingly senseless acronyms like SRK, DDLJ, KKHH actually make
sense to you.
57) You have at some point debated who was more beautiful- Aishwarya
or Sushmita.
58) If you lived in Delhi, you went bowling at Essex Farms, or
Go-Karting at 32nd Milestone and couldn't think how you could get any
cooler than that.
59) Baskin Robbins ice-cream was THE thing to have!
60) You know what Campa Cola is. And you also knew that Coca Cola was
THE drink.
61) When you would watch WWF keenly every evening/afternoon and really
think that Undertaker had 7 lives and he made an "actual" appearance
in the Akshay Kumar- starrer Khiladiyon ka Khiladi.
62) When all backpacks (or 'schoolbags') and water bottles and tiffin
boxes had strange cartoon characters that were hybrid versions of
seven or eight different characters, and you still bought them,
because a green man wih a water pistol, boots, a jet-pack, Johnny
bravo hair, a rajasthani mustache, gloves, and underwear (long johns)
over his pants, called 'Mr. X' was OBVIOUSLY a status symbol.
63) You remember the Nirma tikia jingle.
64) You remember the Nirma girl.
65) You remember the 'doodh doodh' ad and also the 'roz khao andey' ads.
66) You grew up reading, if you read at all, some or all of Nancy
Drews, Enid Blyton books, Hardy Boys, Babysitters Club, Animorphs,
Goosebumps, Sweet Valley series, Judy Blumes, and Tintin, or Archie
comics. Because naturally, reading foreign authors made you much
cooler than reading Tinkle.
67) Towards the late 90s (1998-99) at least some of us started our
Harry Potter obsessions!
68) You absolutely HAD to go to Essel World if you wnet to Mumbai!
"Essel World mein rahoonga main, ghar nahin nahin jaaonga main!"
69) You watched the Bournvita Quiz contest on TV pretty religiously.
The smarter ones amongst you actually took part in it and had your
entire school and your entire extended families watch you on it!
70) "Jungle jungle baat chali hai, pata chala hai. Chaddi pehen ke
phool khila hai, phool khila!"
71) Maggi 2 Minute Noodles = ultimate snack (and tiffin, lunch, dinner)!
72) If you grew up in the early 90s, you recall the nation's obsession
with Mahabharata on TV
73) In the later 90s, you religiously followed Hip Hip Hooray on Zee.
Maybe Just Mohabbat on Sony too.
74) You eagerly awaited Friendship Day, so you could give friendship
bands to all your friends, and get bands from them in return. Then, of
course, those with the most bands loved to show them off (and on
Rakhi, boys with the most Rakhis loved showing those off too!)

75) This list made you smile.

If you made it all the way down here, then you definitely must have grown up in the 90s! :)

The beginning of a professional degree course..

2008-12-13T01:21:00.000+05:30

This blog is dedicated to all the fortunate souls who could attain what they wished and to those poor souls who couldn’t get what they desired..

Today was one of the best days of my life. And that’s the exact reason why I am here, writing a blog. Today, I realized the real meaning of “series exam”. What I had in mind all these days was that it was ‘just another exam’. But then, when I walked out of the exam hall, with a very special feeling, I realized..you’ve got to have it in you, that very same thing which will help you to get thru hell, if you really wanna get thru them. I realized BCI was not my subject..It was not my future. Though I was having this feeling for a very long time now, I think I can’t do anything about it anymore. The more I think of it, the worse I feel. “Why didn’t I take Mech as my subject?” “Why was I so prepossessed to select something that didn’t even belong to my soul?”

Maybe it was because of the world around me, saying, “The future is in the hands of electronics, son. All good students take EC...”. Then maybe I am not a good student. I am not good at studies. Then arises the question in my mind: “What am I good at?” Maybe playing around with my PC. Maybe riding a bike, doing some stunts. But studies? No, I’ve never been good at that. Then why the hell did I choose EC?

What makes me feel so happy is the thought about the marks I am going to get. I’ve failed just twice in my whole life. Well, I have a strong feeling that the number of failures will increase to ten in just one fateful day. .the day when I will know my future..But the results are far away and I’m praying to God that let it come sooner…

And this is my first ‘series’…

P.S. As Carl Gustav once said, error is just as important a condition of life as truth. So, if you find any errors in the post, pls forgive me. Have a nice day.

If you are reading this, it means that you have reached the end of my first blog. Thank you for reading!