Me, Myself & I

Why?

2006-09-20T15:49:00.000+05:30

Why do some people run away from what/whom they love most? Why do somepeople just keep turning away? Why are some people afraid to see things as they are? Why do some people hide behind the facade of "some people"?

History...

2006-09-19T23:53:00.000+05:30

Everyone passes through a phase in life where (s)he feels that history is repeating itself in some way. Everyone feels at some point in life an urge to change the past. But the third dimension of history is always fiction. May be we think what we want ourselves to think - associating certain things with the past which might not have been what they have been. May be I am afraid to put down my thoughts, lest the future might show me the past the way it had been.

Dead, and loving it!

2006-09-19T23:49:00.000+05:30

If this is to be believed, I'm living on borrowed time.

Jats did it!

2006-06-15T13:48:00.000+05:30

Finally I made it (fists clenched, a victory yell). 4 years after dreaming the dream, I am ready to live it now. If haven't guessed what I am talking about, I am going to IIM-A. It has been a long journey upto here and the road gets a bit steeper now. But who is complaining.

Update (18th July): Well..steeper was an understatement.. i should have said.. on the highway to hell!!

Sense prevails

2006-02-10T12:48:00.000+05:30

Finally, good sense prevails and our network guys have removed the block from the blogger site. Hope to resume blogging soon after taking care of just a few things. Keep watching the space.

Bhindi

2005-12-30T11:37:00.000+05:30

Well, I am not trying to sell vegetables here. Bhindi is the way Hindi is spoken in Bambaiyaa eeshtyle.

Check out the Mumbai Dictionary.

Bole to, ekdum Jhakas!

Testing testing..

2005-12-30T11:17:00.000+05:30

Sorry for not being able to blog for so long. The login page for blogger has been blocked in my office. And it has taken me a long time to figure out an alternative. Silly me. I have now changed the settings and posting through email. I hope that this works out.

Blocked out?

2005-11-11T14:17:00.000+05:30

Are you behind a firewall that blocks out access to your favourite mail sites? Here is a gateway for you:

Yahoo: click
Gmail: click

Hope these work out for you.

Business of Outsourcing

2005-10-24T17:55:00.000+05:30

Infosys chairman N.R. Narayana Murthy on the Outsourcing backlash:

Let me explain that to you — when I get up in the morning I use my LG refrigerator, a South Korean product. You know we had our own refrigerator industry but it could not compete with these MNCs so it closed down, and jobs were lost. Then I drink a Coke or a Pepsi — we had our own soft drink industry but they closed down and jobs were lost. Then I use my Toyota — we had our own car industry, not very good but still, and it too had to close down and again jobs were lost. Then I come to my office and I use my Toshiba laptop or my Dell desktop — we too had our computer industry but it could not compete with the global giants and they had to close down — so you see again we lost jobs.

Now, I could take two views, the first view is we must keep these MNCs away as they cause loss of jobs — probably five million jobs. The second view is these MNCs have enhanced competition in India, they have enhanced customer satisfaction, as a result, 200 or 300 million Indians have benefited. I would like to believe that a paradigm which has benefited 300 million Indians is much better than not having that.

Nice stuff. Read the full interview here.

IIPM update

2005-10-14T11:18:00.000+05:30

Some fine pieces of investigative blogging here, here, here and here. It seems that it is an international collusion for perpetrating fraud. More on this later in the day. Check this space for updates.

Update1: Like father like son. Excellent work there in unearthing Papa C's educational qualifications. As an aside, Papa C stood from an obsure town called Balasore which happens to be yours truly's hometown! Something about German education system. Amond Paranjpe dissects the legal notice.

Update2: More from Thalassa_Mikra. And some more on Papa C. Superb stuff!

Update3: Bussinessworld had IIPM on it this time. (requires free registration).

Update4: Feature in Outlook. From Stravinsky's Sizzlin' Shack.

I want a legal notice too

2005-10-13T18:43:00.000+05:30

Late to throw my hat into the ring. Nevertheless, better late than never.
The story so far: Sometime ago Rashmi and JAM magazine had done an expose on IIPM. Gaurav Sabnis, a popular blogger, linked to her article and was served a legal notice via e-mail. Some days later Varna, another bogger, received a similar legal notice. Gaurav has subsequently resigned from his job so that his employer isn't dragged into the controversy. Meanwhile the entire blogging community has risen in support of Rashmi and Gaurav.

The IIPM guys have gone a bit too far this time. Not only do they have the nerve to advertise such blatant lies about themselves, but also they have the cheek to threaten to silence whoever writes against them. Wonder where the head of the legal cell of IIPM got his degrees from. Is it IIPM just like it's patron in chief Arindam C? Folks you are welcome to serve me a notice too.

The fact is that fracas has resulted in a lot of negative publicity for the institue. The people who will suffer most are the students of IIPM. If being taken in by this fraudulent institute was not enough, many now face what little prospect that they had of getting a decent job, given the PR machinary of IIPM, slipping out of thier hands.

I stand by Gaurav and Rashmi and all who are with them against these foul mouthed rascals who have left their comments on Rashmi's blog and sprang up blogs overnight. Hats off to you folks for standing by your principles.

Sonia for Peace!

2005-10-04T10:33:00.000+05:30

*ROFLMAO*

Wedding proposal modern style

2005-10-03T17:38:00.000+05:30

Barry wanted a special and original wedding proposal. Guess what did he do? Follow this link to find out! Hmm.. Ingenious way of proposing.

Hat tip: Shiv

Just did it!

2005-08-03T17:03:00.000+05:30

Adidas buys out Reebok and is closing in on Nike. Brand wars is about to enter a new phase. And now, Impossible is nothing. Find more wars here: 1, 2, and 3.

In India, i-flex solutions, meanwhile, will have a lot of its stock picked up by Oracle Corp. This is the second major acquisition by Oracle in recent times after it picked up Peoplesoft sometime back. M&A is in full swing this season.

Bored with Google?

2005-07-27T11:36:00.000+05:30

Try personalised search with Logogle!! You can make your own Google logo and search with it too!

TCS bags Cricket job

2005-07-15T19:46:00.000+05:30

TCS, it seems, has bagged the job for providing technical assitance to the Indian cricket team. The professionals from TCS are conducting a two day closed room session. Thinking tools eh? I would sure like to work on this project for TCS. Anyone in TCS reading? I am recruitable.

Love Triangle

2005-07-15T19:42:00.000+05:30

Heroine-Hero-Underworld. Seems like another Bollywood potboiler. But this time the hero is siding with the baddies. Nice. No?

P0rn Police

2005-07-09T09:53:00.000+05:30

I was at the Pune station just about to board a train for Hyderabad. I was standing in the queue of ICICI bank ATM (a pretty long one at that). I was talking on my cell phone (Nokia 3230) when somebody tapped on my shoulder. I was surprised to find that it was a policeman. I asked him what it was. It turned out that he wanted to inspect my phone for p0rn content! Fortunately I had none and let him satisfy himself. Why would I keep anything on my cell (1/4 gb memory when I had a 40gb hard disk at the office! Only if he had checked my cell for unregistered software and warez the result would have been quite different.

But the point is, why is the police so keen on cleansing the cell phones of p0rn content? Is it because of some new MMS doing rounds? We will soon find out.

My first skirmish with police turned out to be a non event. But one advice for the policemen if they are reading this. If you are really keen on cleaning the society, there are far more serious crimes to be controlled first. Channelise your energies there.

Update: Hmm.. May be because of this.

Future shock

2005-07-04T19:46:00.000+05:30

Even as the NASA celebrated the 4th of July with a display of spectacular fireworks in space, it is being sued by a Russian astrologer who claims that the US space agency's bombardment of the Temple 1 comet will upset her horoscope!

Yet another instance of human beings foiling astrology! For the first, read my post Deep Impact (is the similarity in the name of the article and the project just a coincidence?).

Big Paheli

2005-06-28T19:58:00.000+05:30

Spoiler Warning: Plot and/or ending details follow

Watched the movie 'Paheli' over the weekend. It's kind of a fairytale story and if one doesn't think about the film logically and sleeps through the narrative-breaking songs, it can be quite interesting at times. As let out during the promos, SRK plays two roles, one as the hubby of chubby Rani (let us call him Shah) and another a bhoot smitten by Rani (let us call him Rukh). Shah goes away for business the day after his wedding for five long years and Rukh takes the opportunity to take his place. It so happens that our bhoot is an ichadhari bhoot. It can take any physical shape. So it enters the Shah household as Shah and Rani is delighted. But our dear bhoot is a moral bhoot. He tells her that he is not her real hubby and that if she wants, he would go away. But our chubby does not want to be alone for 5 long years and asks Rukh to stay. And they indulge in a bit of fun. The movie unfolds. Rukh even impregnates chubby and as she is about to deliver their kid (one paheli is whether the kid is human or bhoot or half human), Shah returns. Confusion happens. People decide to take both of them to the raja to find out who the real Shah is. They meet a ingenious shepherd on the way who puts both of them to three tests. The final one being the age old formula of trapping the bhoot in a cask. Everyone is happy save Rani. She has fallen in love with the bhoot. Application Suhaag raat is reloaded with Shah being the parameter (In fact there are no less then three suhaag raats. One is the real one where Rani learns of her hubby's impending departure, second is when Rukh returns as Shah, and the third is when the real Shah returns). Rani tells Shah that she knew that the guy she was living with was in fact Rukh and she had consented to their relationship with the full knowledge of his identity. Surprise Surprise. There is a twist in the tale. The bhoot has somehow escaped from the cask and entered Shah's body. So now its really Shah's body and Rukh's bhoot. So now everyone is happy including Rani. But the paheli is, how did Rukh escape the cask? And the even bigger paheli is, if the bhoot could enter Shah's body, why didn't he enter it when he saw Shah for the first time? If he had, he would have saved everyone so much trouble (including us watching the movie, there wouldn't have been the movie afterall).

If you have watched the movie and spotted any other unanswered paheli, do jump in. It's an open house here.

Formula Zero

2005-06-21T17:55:00.000+05:30

With a farce of a race taking place this Sunday, the FIA has lost more ground than they had covered in the period of some years. Seven out of the ten teams refused to race citing safety issues.

The Michelin teams, flexing their muscles on the basis of being the majority, refused to race unless a chicane was erected prior to the turn 13. They were ready to start the race on the grid behind the Bridgestone teams and were reportedly even ready to forgo any points.

The FIA didn't relent and gave the teams various other alternatives which they refused. It would have been really unfair, to erect a chicane, forcing the teams with Bridgestone tyres, who had come prepared for the race, to slow down as much as the teams whose equipment was lacking. The teams could have imposed a self restriction on the speed limit at the critical part of the track or avoided that turn by going into the pit lane every lap. I quote a piece from the Formula 1 official site:

Formula 1 is a sporting contest. It must operate to clear rules. These cannot be negotiated each time a competitor brings the wrong equipment to a race.
...
The Michelin teams' lack of speed through the turn 13 would have been a direct result of inferior equipment as often happens in Formula 1.

Which I agree with and believe to be completely true as opposed to Mansell. You bring inferior equipment and then refuse to agree to do anything about it. And also want the teams who have brought proper equipment to compromise. Take a hike guys.

The FIA intends to bring about a list of charges against the Michelin teams.

Big Brother

2005-06-17T17:01:00.000+05:30

The government has finally decided to ban [snip] on screen for movies released after October. First it was reported that the I&B Ministry had written to the Health Minister that such a ban was difficult to impose. Then some activities happened behind the scenes and a compromise reached. It was decided to impose the ban with retrospective effect. So the old films have been sparred and so has been a lot of effort to screen them.

Now the next logical thing to do is to ban [snip] from appearing in books too. Will not the kids of the next generation who grow up not knowing what [snip] is, having never seen it on screen (sic), have an urge to try for it when they read books where [snip] is glorified? The next level in censorship is not too far away.

Another statement made by the I&B Minister almost simultaneously was regarding why Indian editions of foreign newspapers are not allowed in India. According to Mr. Reddy, the Indian newspapers will not be in a position to withstand the competition. So he uses his anal(-)ytical reasoning to keep us having what the newspapers such as the Slimes dish out. In short he decides what we read.

Big Brother taking shape?

Update: The government has finally decided to allow foreign newspapers to print facsimile editions in the country!

Farewell

2005-06-17T14:57:00.000+05:30

I had stated earlier that one of my teammates is leaving his job. Today was his last day. So we went on a small team lunch today. The bill was of course borne by the guy who was leaving. Beers (and colas for the non alcoholic ones like me) were drunk. Dead animals were eaten. Photos were clicked. Fun was had.

For those who are inclined towards not eating dead animals for religious causes, here is a nice piece.

Aussies on the mat

2005-06-16T16:45:00.000+05:30

Remember when the Aussies came to India in 1998, they were put on the back foot very early by the Mumbai Ranji team? And in the very first test match, Sachin took the winds out of their sail. Do we see the same thing happening this time in England? After two consecutive loses, Aussies will now be vary of England, and if the Poms can beat them in their first encounter, it may well happen that they will be on their way to a great Ashes victory. Only time will tell how bad the Aussies have been affected by the early set back. Whatever be the end result, we will see a great series ahead, Aussies trying to redeem their pride and the English trying to cash in on the early advantage.

Price Wars

2005-06-14T19:20:00.000+05:30

It seems that I am in a war mood, with most of my recent posts having something to do with "wars". First it was the Sardar Wars, then Spoof wars and now Price wars. But I am generally a very peace loving person. With my friend Binay giving me a run for my blog, I better pull up my socks and get to serious blogging. Well, time to get back to the topic.

In Maharashtra, there seems to be a mini price war between cellular operators Idea and AirTel. Sort of a small noncoperative Game Theory. So when Idea prices local calls to Idea at 75p and other calls at Rs. 1.75, AirTel goes ahead and introduces an offer where calls to any mobile in India will be cahrged at Re 1! When AirTel makes incoming calls when a subscriber goes to Mumbai free, can Idea, which does not have a network in Mumbai be left far behind? They tie up with BPL to provide the same service to their customers.

And while all these happens, its the customers that benefit.

Spoof wars

2005-06-09T19:45:00.000+05:30

That is what is taking place between Apple and Microsoft right now. Source. At a recent conference, Steve Jobs, demonstrating a countdown clock "widget" for the Mac, Jobs typed in the word Longhorn and the date 12/31/2006 (a couple months after Longhorn is expected to be on the market).

On the other hand, Microsoft did a spoof report on Apple collaboratingwith Toyota to create an iPod/Prius hybrid called the "hy-pod". Interesting!

Apple is also planning to ship its next OS X operating system, to be known as Leopard, at the end of 2006 or in early 2007. This is really in contrast to Apple's earlier nomenclature policy of using the names of apple types.

A detailed post on Microsoft sometime later.

Dull work can kill

2005-06-07T19:46:00.000+05:30

If you feel that your work is dull, you have a higher risk of suffering from a Heart Attack, say a research team from University of London College. What this means, is that more than half of the world's adult working population fall into the category of people who are doing unexciting job hence more prone to Heart Attack. Now since this discovery has been made, these people will have the option to either continue with the dull boring work and be exposed to a higher risk of heart diseases or kill their boss if he/she gives them dull work and go to the gallows or if nothing else works, leave work and die of hunger. This brings us to a conclusion that no matter what one does, one will suffer from the same fate - death. What a startling discovery!

King Rifle

2005-06-06T17:48:00.000+05:30

Rafael "rifle" Nadal has been crowned the new "King" of clay. And boy did he deserve it. He has been on a roll all season (on clay) being on the verge of beating Roger Federer the last time they met. But this time he was not to be denied. And having done that, he has joined Federer atop the ATP rankings. Playing some breathtaking Tennis over the last fortnight, Nadal, who was clearly the pre-tournament favourite, lived up to his reputation.

Lets hope that the Tennis' latest sensation doesn't join the select group of "Clay Court specialists" and gives Federer and guys a run for their money for a long long time.

Vamos Nadal, vamos!

Gone with the smoke

2005-06-02T19:34:00.000+05:30

Now we cannot see Rajni making the cigarette flip, and the next time one sees "Deep Throat" on the screen wielding a cig, identifying him will become even more difficult as the cig will be blurred. But do not be afraid, the government has not banned smoking as such. It's just that one cannot show smoking on screen. The esteemed Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss feels that youngsters are influenced to smoke when they see their role models, actors in most cases, smoking.

Our good minister, if he is so concerned about our health, doesn't go and ban smoking altogether. How can he. It can effect the economy of the country in a major way. He can never ban smoking in reality. So he goes ahead and does the next best thing. Bans it virtually, from television screens. Isn't that a great solution? Every one is happy. The tobacco industry and the government. There are only some few disgruntled actors. But who cares about these people anyway.

Wrong. Cinema is more a reflection of society than the other way round. There are some critical questions which our Minister is not prepared to answer. Is smoking more dangerous than most other violent crimes the filmmakers glorify? Wouldn't a youngster be influenced when he sees his dad smoking more than somebody on screen smoking? Then why not go ahead and prevent the dad from smoking? It is another thing that every man has the right to choose and if he chose to risk his/her life a little, the decision is his/hers. If the governments doesn't want to curb people's freedom to smoke but still don't want youngsters to take up the habit, why doesn't it ban selling cigarettes to kids? Again, this may work in a exactly opposite way, as forbidden fruits may seem sweet to kids.

But even as this ban takes place in India, cigarette companies are going ahead with their research on how to hook up more women on smoking.

Another piece of news that caught my fancy was about some new research linking trust to the hormone oxyticin. Spray someone with oxytocin and he/she will trust you with all his money and life. In oxytocin, we trust. Spray along.

Deep Impact

2005-05-31T19:00:00.000+05:30

I was neck deep in some impact analysis here. Hence the forced break from blogging. There were hundreds of programs to be checked to see if there would be any changes required in them in only a week's time. But me and another senior guy here have broken the back of the analysis (and ours too). Hopefully life and blogging will return to normalcy now.

Not having been a believer of Ass-trology, this piece here has made me stifle laughter. These guys will not stop at anything to gain some publicity. Whether his prediction comes right or not (there is afterall a 50-50 chance mathematically, since Sachin's career will either end or will not end this year), the asstrologer will surely have a few high profile clients. One of the funnier bits reported in the article was:

"I used to predict a lot on the outcome of cricket matches but after some of the predictions went wrong, mainly because of match fixing, I now refuse to predict on cricket matches," said Chowdhry, who correctly predicted India's 2-1 win in the Test series in Pakistan last year.

Wonder how Chowdhry mian, the gifted asstrolger as he is, failed to predict and nab the fixers. Matchfixing surely has a deeper impact than thought of initially!

Revenge of the Sikh

2005-05-24T11:43:00.000+05:30

Looking at the hullabaloo the movie 'Jo Bole So Nihal' has generated on either side, the producer would be well advised to change the name of the movie to something which could take advantage of the success of the final 'Star Wars' saga.

The publicity campaign would be thus:

Sardar Wars: Episode II - Revenge of the Sikh
No if, No but - only Phat
Blasting soon at a theatre near you!

ps - I did not intend it as an insult to anyone's relegious sentiments, but if any Surd is hurt, please don't blast my blog.

The making of champions

2005-05-20T16:22:00.000+05:30

The race for India's new coach had all the elements of a potboiler. There were people announcing their candidature, people pulling out and people dropping in at the very last minutes. Even the day of the interview was full of drama. Time delays, exceeding time limitations, braking down of laptops, break for some of the interviewers to meet the PM, leaked questions, everything. Our dear Jimmy Amarnath came to the interview with an Indian flag on his clothes and used the word "Bharat" multiple times in his presentation. I suppose he was trying to show that his USP is being an Indian and his only claim to the job was that he is an Indian. Then there was Desmond Haynes who dropped in at the last moment to be interviewed before Tom Moody who was touted as being the Indian players' choice.

At last Greg Chappel is all set to take over as the coach of the Indian team. It shouldn't come as a surprise because he was the frontrunner for the job. Some people believe that being from India is the most important quality required of the coach. I disagree with such people. Jimmy and Sandy may have been great cricketers and great coaches, I wouldn't comment on that, but in my opinion, none of the other applicants had the credentials that would match Chappel's.

What our team is lacking is the right attitude and proper planning. It is upto Greg Chappel now to instill a new spirit in the team and make world beaters out of them.

Finally, we have proved that we truely are not afraid to outsource some critial jobs in our country to outsiders.

Replicating Robots

2005-05-18T19:50:00.000+05:30

A research team of Cornwell University has come up a new robot which replicates itself: a robot that reproduces. The robot preforms no other task except replicating itself. These robots are made up of a series of modular cubes called "molecubes" each containing the program of replication. One can read the entire article here. The site also contains a video of the replication process which can be downloaded.

Now before you get any ideas to the kind of reproduction (and the video), let me tell you that the process is entirely asexual. The robot entirely depends upon the supply of additional modules from the experimenters. The robot just adds the extra modules to itself one after the other and somewhere down the line spilts into two equal sized robots. Good enough for a start, the experiment demonstrates that mechanical self-reproduction is possible. Researchers are of the opinion that such robots can be used for work in space or in hazarous environments.
[Link via email from Nikhil]

Beware of scammers!!

2005-05-16T19:07:00.000+05:30

What I am going to type down below is a really story of how a friend of mine was duped. So read this to the end and be careful of such people I will describe now.

Some days ago while I was having lunch in my office cafeteria, I got a call on my cell. The caller said that he was my college senior and he was in Mumbai. His pocket had been picked and he had no money to return to Bangalore. He just had his ICICI debit card from his old salary account and wanted me to help him. He said that he had got my number from the college alumni website. Since he was in Mumbai, I gave him the phone number of a couple of my friends from college there and asked him to call them. I told him that they may be able to locate some of his batchmates from TCS there who would help him.

When I came down to my desk after lunch, I had a vague feeling that something was wrong. I checked out our alumni listing and found no name which he had given me. I then asked one of my friends in Bangalore if he knew any of our alumnus by that name. When he refused, I was certain that this guy was some kind of a "head hunter" who was looking for contacts in Mumbai. So I called one of my friends whose number I had given and told him the details. He said that if he got a call, he would see. But I made a mistake. I did not inform the second guy whose phone number I had given. That guy got a call from Mr. Senior who pleaded for help. Now this guy is real soft at heart, though he pretends to be otherwise, and transferred a thousand bucks into the account the caller provided. The caller in turn gave his e-mail id and phone number to my friend. Both of them turned out to be fake! My friend has been duped of a thousand bucks.

It seems to me that this is some new kind of a scam with a novel modus operandi. I'd suggest all people reading this to be very careful and not be taken in by such unscrupulous people calling. Spread the word and help preventing other people from being cheated.

Paraskevidekatriaphobia

2005-05-13T17:08:00.000+05:30

Paraskevidekatriaphobia, ah, the fear of Friday the 13th. Check out the link to the Wikipedia site - it contains the origins, effects and lists its occurances for the next 15 yrs. Even "How stuff works" has a section called How Friday the 13th works. In my 24 year old life, even I have had a bad experience on Friday the 13th. Around 10 or so years ago, on this very day there was a burglary at my house when none of us was home. Considering that I have had innumerable bad experiences throughout my life, the density of bad experiences on Friday the 13th is pretty low. Hence I can conclude that I have very less to fear of this day. And besides fridays are cool at the workplace because one can feel the weekend arriving.

Anyways, the biggest horror for me this Friday the 13th has been that DDLJ completes 500 weeks in the Minerva Theatre. Seems like the movie has inspired some real life love stories too! Yashraj films is planning to release the movie in muliplexes all over the country to celebrate the occasion. I often wonder how people can watch the same movie again and again. It's a different case if the movie is say Andaz Apna Apna, as Gaurav points out. But DDLJ - no comments. As I have said before, democracy it is, and everyone is entitled to their own choice.

Update: Looks like my blog has crossed the 1000th hit mark today. Not a bad Friday the 13th at all!!

Diseased world

2005-05-11T19:29:00.000+05:30

It seems that the world is hit by a plethora of diseases. A lot of people have been struck by Polio in Yemen which was thought to be free of polio. Meanwhile Meningitis is wrecking havoc in north India.

At the same time people continue to die of another disease, one which has probably been the cause of most deaths in the human civilisation - human violence. Kashmir and Iraq and Afghanistan all seem to be in the grip of violence. If it is bombs in Baghdad and Srinagar, in Jalalabad it's the rioters who rule the roost.

As I scan through Google news, the best news I can see is Yahoo unveiling music service. If this is the state of world affairs, the less the said, the better it would be.

NRIs and other stuff

2005-05-10T19:01:00.000+05:30

I got an interesting link from one of my colleagues called the Confessions of an NRI. What it revealved was a part of NRI life which I never even thought would be true.

Another interesting thing happened today. I saw an article about Security holes in the Firefox browser and turnrd off my javascripts. When a started to write this post, the blogger page behave indifferently and all the advanced edit features were disabled. It took me a couple of minutes to realise the cause.

I am fed up of writting such crappy posts just for the sake of writing. But the work I have nowadays seldom leaves me time to do anything else. Today I had to go through a list to programs and fill up an excel sheet about the impact due to some changes. There is another PL here who has been insistent in taking my services for God knows what for half a day. He has been asking my PM and another guy in my team whom I am working with, to let me do his work. May be he needs some help in researching something from the web and preparing a presentation. Looks like my research skills and aesthetics has a few fans here. But he has been told that my services can't be lent for sometime! And even as my current work is not over, my boss has told me that we will look at some migration stuff tomorrow. God help me in the coming days.

Uncle-o-phobia

2005-05-09T17:45:00.000+05:30

There is a new phobia I have developed. That of being called "Uncle". Well, I don't know whether I have reached an age at which I deserve to be called an "Uncle" by the kids. May be the fact that I work to earn my living makes kids call me "Uncle", because a couple of years back I was used to be called "bhaiya" (brother).

Whatever the reason I don't look, much less feel, like "Uncle". God how does it sound - "Uncle". It was only yesterday that my landlady's grand daughter (she has come down for the summer vacations) called out "Uncle" behind my back. I was oblivious to the fact that she was calling me! What do I expect her to call me when I myself call her grandmom as "Aunty"!!

Much more difficult are my encounters with my married colleagues. I often forget how to address their wives and have caught myself at times calling them "Aunty" much to their repugnance. Christ, I still feel like a kid at heart.

Blind work

2005-05-06T20:16:00.000+05:30

I have been very busy since I returned from home in "analysing" some programs and data at my workplace. I actually have absolutely no idea what I have been doing. One of my senior teammates has resigned and this guy wants me to take over his work. So I have been getting gyaan (Knowledge Transfer) from him and also working with him on a production ticket he has got. There was some problem with the application with one of the users six months ago and they were not able to replicate the problem ever since. But they hit paydirt last friday. And we have been going through tons of data (protection logs, i.e., before and after images of the database files) just to look for some connection. Today during lunch I told the other guy that there was something in the data I did not understand and asked him to look at it. And in the afternoon one thing led to the other and we now believe that we may have put our finger on the type of process causing the error. We will have to talk to the user on Monday to see if we are right.
But the point is that through this exercise, I have learnt to project any data within sight with a lot of gas about with I have no idea with a lot of certainty. I know that no one reading this would understand a single word. Thats exactly the problem I had been facing!

Big Blue to cut jobs

2005-05-05T19:03:00.000+05:30

It seems that IBM is set to meet its earnings targets through cost cutting rather than revenue growth. They have announced that they are going to cut upto 4 % of their work force amounting to over 10000 jobs. The elephant is shedding some weight. May be the dancing has taken its toll.

Contrast this with the scenario in the Indian IT sector. All the major software firms have upped their intake. Even the global firms based in India have upped their ante as far as recruitment in India is concerned. Its a different thing though that a large number of people recruited by the Indian firms dont have much work to do and they warm the bench. No one knows till when the love story will continue. I shudder to think of the day when the bubble will burst in India. Something of the sort that happened around 2000-2001. But now the sun is shining. And as long as it does, let me make some hay!

Power shortage

2005-05-03T13:34:00.000+05:30

Due to the acute shortage of power in the state, there have been frequent power cuts all over the state of Maharashtra for the last 2-3 months. These power cuts were further increased last week to 4 hrs a day in Pune. Now the power failures have taken a political turn with Shiv Sainiks bashing up the MSEB officials in Pune. Condemnations has been pouring in from all quarters.

Though I don't agree with the means adopted by Shiv Sena (I too believe that violence is the last resort of only the incompetent), I feel that it was the state government which is to blame to the current crisis. When they knew that the state is not producing as much electricity as it needs and its coffers don't have enough money to buy power from elsewhere, what was the sense in providing free power to the farmers? I came across a nice article, which says why free power is not free. The writer puts in persuasive arguments to prove that free power to farmers harms us in more ways than one.

But the more startling fact is that with this decision of the ruling government to provide free electricity to the farmers, they have started to move towards a society which puts need above ability. If you are needy, the government will provide for you at the cost of who is able. What justification is there for the power cuts in Vidharba region which produces almost 60% of the power in the state? That some farmers in the state need electricity and cannot afford it? What justification is there for power cuts in the industrial regions of other cities? That some farmers in the state cannot afford power and the industries can afford an alternative source at their own expense? The power hungry politicians, just to get a few more votes in the election, are doing more harm to the society in the longer run by providing free power to the 'needy'.

If need be the basis of allocation, I need to study in IIM Ahmedabad. Mr. Chief Minister are you listening?

I m back

2005-05-02T17:46:00.000+05:30

Refreshed and recharged. Those wouldd be the two words, if anyone asked me how I feel after a 10 day break. I couldn't blog in the last week or so. I tried to go to a cafe and browse in my home town, but the connection bandwidth was so low that I decided not to browse again during my stay. Hence was cut off from the tech world. The best part about being at my place is that the small town it is, the air is still pure and the late evening/night walks I used to have were very invigorating. The first thing that struck me when I set my foot in Pune late yesterday night was the pollution here. I had adjusted to it, but when I returned after a break, it was too much. Even at 12 o' clock in the night, there was smoke in the air and my eyes burned on my way back home in an auto. My system has already readjusted to the pollution levels and I feel again at home.

As I write this piece, I got a very sad news. One of the guys who was working here in Pune with me had been transferred to Bhubaneswar sometime back. He passed away on Saturday of cerebral malaria. He was diagonsed with having malaria, so his parents took him to his home town in Berhampur where there is a medical college. When he went there for a checkup, the doctors were on strike. He was planning to go to Vizag for treatment when one of the local doctors advised against it. When he lost consciousness on Saturday, his family decided to take him to Vizag immediately. He passed away on the way. I don't want to comment on the medical facilities in the country. Incidents such as this speak for themselves: an educated man such as him living in a state capital passes away in such a way. Entire medical college on strike! And we call ourselves a developing country.

Homeward Bound

2005-04-21T12:58:00.000+05:30

I am going home today, after a period of 7 months or so. To say the least, I am very excited. I'll stay at home for 6 days. I am not sure of my blogging activities from home. I used to have a computer at home, but I don't think that my parents use the internet, and so there might not be any internet connection at home. I live in a town where the internet cafes still charge exhorbitant rates for insanely slow internet connection. I may blog in sporadic burts, but about that I am not sure. Normal blogging will resume after I return on 1st May. My only concern right now is my tummy which has been giving me trouble for the last 2 days. I hope nothing untowardly happens and my stomach holds good for the 40 hr train journey.

Ineptitude and greatness

2005-04-20T14:58:00.000+05:30

At the cost of sounding like a facist, I'd say that people actually don't know what they want. Its actually a few who tell them what they want and process it for them. People are happy for some time to be actually guided by this few (whom Ayn Rand would call the motors who run the world). And there are others who don't know what to do. Those who immediately come to mind are the HR managers of the company I am working in.

Six Sigma, CMM, PCMM and a plethora of those arconyms later, what stands out is their exemplary ineptitude. Now they have come up with a new form of harrassment. They call it background check. Agreed that it is a necessity because some people nowadays rely on forged documents to get into a company which is unearthed at a very late stage (if at all). So, now not only have they made the BG check mandatory (even for current employees), they have also made sure that its a real pain in the arse. One gets a new mail everyday as to what new documents one has to fill up and send to different people, only to get a new mail the next day that the documents need not have been sent where they were sent and the correct person to who they are supposed to be sent is also mentioned. Confusion rules roost.

Coming back to the real men, though it may not have been written as a tribute to the "producers" of the world, Stephen Spender's poem "I think Continually..", makes me think of them whenever I read the poem. What I find most fascinating about the poem is the last two lines of the middle stanza. We usually allow the world to finally get to us, but those who are truly great hold out. After the imagery weaved in the first stanza, the middle stanza goes on to state that..

What is precious is never to forget
The essential delight of the blood drawn from ageless springs
Breaking through rocks in worlds before our earth.
Never to deny its pleasure in the morning simple light
Nor its grave evening demand for love.
Never to allow gradually the traffic to smother
With noise and fog the flowering of the spirit.

The poet then moves over to an entirely different level as he pays tribute to those "born of the sun" and ends in a flourish..

Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest fields
See how these names are feted by the waving grass
And by the streamers of white cloud
And whispers of wind in the listening sky.
The names of those who in their lives fought for life
Who wore at their hearts the fire's center.
Born of the sun they traveled a short while towards the sun,
And left the vivid air signed with their honor.

I strive for greatness...

Malvani Cuisine

2005-04-19T15:22:00.000+05:30

Had my first tryst with Malvani food today in a food fest at the office cafeteria. Malvani cuisine, like Malvani Konkani, is a variation of the Karwari and Goan cuisines peppered with associations with the Gaud Saraswat Brahmin community. The menu ranged from Komdi (chicken, for the uninitiated) wada to prawn curry and the normal food with some unpronounceable names (not their fault of course). It also included 2-3 liquids in different colours. They don't seem to have any veggie curry item 'cos the liquids had nothing but coconut and ground groundnuts. Every Malvani-Karwari-Goan or Saraswat meal is rounded off with a delicately fragrant, carmine coloured brew, the Solkadhi. This is made from Kokum, the dried peel of the luscious red fruit, Ratamba or Garcinia, which the Portuguese brought into India along with chilies and potatoes from the land of the Incas and Aztecs. This brew was also present and I felt that it smelt like some flower, rose may be. I cannot say whether the food was good or bad because I don't know how it should be. But it did not suit my palate. Still it was worth a try.

Cardinal Choice

2005-04-18T16:19:00.000+05:30

The papal elections are supposed to start today with the cardinals to be locked in the Sistine Chapel. NDTV has a nice article on the election process. I had read about the Papal elections, just a few days before the death of the Pope in "Angels and Demons". Dan Brown's description was very interesting and tells of a couple of technicalities also. At any rate the book is a good fiction read especially for conspiracy theory buffs.
Talking of books, I finished reading Gandhi's autobiography last week and had planned to blog my thoughts about it but somehow was not able to do it last week. Now that post has to wait as I will be going on a leave towards the end of the week.

Same story, contradictory reports

2005-04-18T15:29:00.000+05:30

Was reading the TOI today. There was a piece on the front page which said that Sanjay Dutt had got into a brawl in a bar. I read it. It said..

Actor Sanjay Dutt was involved in a brawl at the Enigma discotheque at JW Marriott Hotel, Juhu, late on Saturday night. Sanjay, according to a source, was with actor Salman Khan and making the most of the weekend.
Apparently, on one occasion, Salman teased him, following which Sanjay, who already had a few drinks, entered into an argument with him.A few youths, who were dancing at the disco along with their girlfriends, took pictures of the actors on their camera phones.
While Salman left the place, Sanjay got wild with the youths who were shooting him on their mobile phones and started hitting and abusing them. He said they had no business clicking his snaps. A few glasses were broken in the process. All these happened around 1 am.
While the brawl was on, a corporator of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) from Thane, Pratap Sarnaik, walked into the disco with his friends. “When I saw Sanjay in action, I intervened. I identified myself and told him that his behaviour was unbecoming of the son of a Union minister (Sunil Dutt of the Congress). At this, Sanjay abused the Congress. I asked him to behave himself. Meanwhile, bouncers at the disco stepped in and escorted Sanjay out of the disco. They did not rough him but politely led him out of the place,” Sarnaik told TOI on Sunday.
Sanjay was unavailable for comment, but his personal assistant Kalim confirmed that the actor was at the disco on Saturday night. But he said “you have got a wrong version of the episode. Somebody is distorting the facts.”
He declined to state what the “facts” were. JW Marriott spokesperson pleaded ignorance about the incident. The disco is closed on Sundays and the manager was not available for comment. Nobody has lodged a complaint with the police.

I thought "lets check out if the other newspapers put the "facts" differently". I subsequently read the Indian Express and then Mid day. The Indian Express says..

Actor Sanjay Dutt pushed around a fan who, with a friend, insisted on taking cellphone photos of the star in the parking area of Juhu’s J.W. Marriot hotel, eyewitnesses said. No injuries were reported and no police complaint was filed by either Dutt or the man who was attacked.
There were many eyewitnesses but Dutt — known for his hot temper — denied any brawl. "Nothing like that ever happened," he said. The hotel also denied the incident.
The incident happened around 2 am. Dutt had dropped by at the Marriot’s nightclub, Enigma, to meet Salman Khan, who was with the people working on Marigold, Khan’s Hollywood project.
After spending 15 minutes with Khan, Dutt was about to leave for home when two men, "corporate types", in the words of one eyewitness, insisted on taking photos with their cellphone cameras. The men even asked Dutt to pose with his Landcruiser.
Dutt, a few drinks down, refused. "But these men went on trying to take photos, so Sanjay started beating one of them and flung his cellphone," an eyewitness said. Dutt then drove away.

The Mid Day also corroborated the Indian Express more or less. The article can be found here. What I dont understand is how can two newspapers report the same thing differently. May be they spoke to different people. May be they got their stories from clashing parties. Whatever, I don't care for either party.

Haircut

2005-04-15T18:31:00.000+05:30

I had once written about a show on DD with amazing graphics. It can be read here. The producers were intent on making a thriller but what has come about is a comedy of sorts. Where else but on this show would one find "dollars" being spelled as "dolers" and "colonel" as "cornel"? One would want to watch it again and again just to find out how bad it could get. Catch it on DD every thursday night at 10 and judge for yourself. But remember to watch with a pinch of salt.

Its good bye time for my long hair tomorrow. I had bet my hair on India winning today's match. And Afridi was in no mood to spare my hair. So it back to short hair from tomorrow.

Mad(e) for cricket

2005-04-14T15:02:00.000+05:30

If you are wondering why I am going hammer and tongs on cricket at this moment, then go ahead and read this.

Since early childhood I have been attracted to this game. My earliest memories have been the ones associted with cricket. I fondly remember the 1983 World Cup going on and I (all of 2 years) sitting on the dinning table, with my mom churning the curd while listening to the commentary on the radio, and as soon as their was some noise I would excitedly ask "Who won, India or Bharat?"

I used to play cricket in the lawn in front of our house. It was a huge ground for a kid and I have had the best times playing on it every afternoon. I was not a particularly great player, but my fielding used to be fantastic. I would dive around and pull off unimaginable catches (I still remember most of them) to the surprise of the batsmen. Partly due to this fact, when our team was facing the absence of a wicket keeper, I had to don the big gloves (literally, 'cos at that time I used to keep bare handed due to the lack of keeping gloves in the team). I have suffered some injuries as well. The index fingers of both my hands have subsequently become skewed. Even the bridge of my nose is twisted, the result of being hit by the bat while fielding close in.

After the 10th board exams, we used to play a match almost every alternative day. This continued till one of my very good friends and teammate had sunstroke. Even during my 11th and 12th classes, we continued to play both official as well as unofficial matches. Our matches used to be between 15 and 20 overs long. I used to be so absorbed in the game that I used to forget everything else and unlike a lot of other people the part I loved most was being on the field. I have played very little after my illness (jaundice and measles) in 2000-01 but have still keenly followed the game.

Another incident I remember relating to the World Cup was in 1996. I had performed not too well in the exams. When my class teacher asked me the reason, I bluntly said that World Cup was on. She retorted that even if it was, it was the same for others as well and they still managed to study. But my dear madam, though cricket was there for everyone, everyone was not mad for cricket! I just love this game.

Ganguly bowled out?

2005-04-13T19:50:00.000+05:30

At this point of time, Saurav Ganguly's suspension may well be a blessing in disguise for the Indian team this series. Not only was he awefully out of form, his poor run with the bat was also starting to affect his captaincy.

Ganguly is a man who everyone loves to hate. But his contribution to the Indian cricket has been immense, both as a player and as a captain. Having scored around 15000 runs in international cricket and being the nemesis of opposition bowlers, he even matched Sachin Tendulkar stroke for stroke at one point of time in their opening partnerships. And that is no mean feat. As a captain, he has brought together a lot of youngsters and a fresh lease of life into the team. His penchant for backing for the players he has faith on (like Yuvi and Bhajji) is well known. He has also not shied away from returning the barbs of the opposing captains (Steve Waugh, for instance) when most other Indian captains of the past have been known to cower. What I liked most about him was his fearlessness in all aspects of the game.

His situation is similar to the one which Mark Taylor faced at the fag end of his career. He was bold enough to drop himself from the One Day team in the interest of the side, which Ganguly found hard to do. Eventually Taylor came up with a great triple century which helped him bow with a bang, something which might not happen for Ganguly.

Whether he is given another last chance or not is a different thing, but one wouldn't have liked the Ganguly-Wright partnership, which has brought so much change in the way Indians approach their game, to end in such a sad manner. Only time will tell whether it is the end of Ganguly's love story with the Indian team.

A Case for Sachin

2005-04-12T19:48:00.000+05:30

Before I move on to cricket a brief overview of the afternoon. We had the PCMM result dissemination for our Pune location and we had gone to the Le Meridian at 3. It was not surprising to find that the Pune location of our company has been rated at PCMM 5. Our chairman was in the video-con and it was good listening to him. Sounded like a good chap. We then had a nice little 'Hight Tea' and snacks (too good). We walked away with mugs engraved with the company logo as souvenirs.

Now coming back to the match. I missed the second half of it except for the last over. I was disappointed with the result. And more so with the India captain when I took a look at the scoreboard. Sehwag who had conceded just four runs in his only over was not given another over. Nehra who was badly hammered was entrusted with the ball towards the end. He even conceded some runs to Sami. With the pitch playing a bit slow, I would have expected Sachin or Sehwag to do the bowling. Sachin eventually bowled a good last over but it was too late and it is very difficult to deny three runs to a batsman to Inzi's calibre. Well, I am no expert, but that was my 2 p on the situation.

Talking of Sachin, he once more showed his master class in the morning. I don't think that he was out of form, it was just that he was not spending time in the middle. Today he stayed there and came up with a beauty. I am fed up with this criticism of Sachin based on half baked wisdom. I think that those who are after his skin have very little cricketing knowledge and have not been following cricket. The period they say he has been out of form(that is the last 30 ODIs), has seen him score at an average of around 43 in ODIs. When you compare this against his career average of 45, it is a bit on the lower side but it is still better than most good batsman in the world. The Sachin-bashers club also argue that he has not won enough matches for India and that he plays for personal landmarks. I believe that matches are not won by getting out, but rather by staying at the wicket and scoring runs. Sachin may not have stayed at the crease till the last run was scored (show me an opening batsman in the ODI who has stayed there till the end when a huge total was required to win) but his contribution to the team has been outstanding. It is not fair comparing batsmen who bat at different positions. A batsman like Dravid or Inzi come in at no 4 or below and they can stay till the end, but it is very difficult for an opening batsman to bat for 50 overs. And another important fact is that whenever Sachin has batted well, the batsmen around him have contributed little to the total (leave the past and let's concentrate on last year, are we forgetting the 141 at Rawalpindi or the Asia Cup Final?). The fact is that throughout his career he has had little support. I have seem him countless times being the lone battler for the team.

As far as commitment to the team cause is concerned. I feel that there are few players with his level of commitment. He has always given more than 100% be it batting, bowling or fielding. Few players run around and cover the boundaries with his energy. Few players come and take the field after scoring centuries when batting first in energy sapping conditions. And few players are ready to bowl whenever the captain asks them to (that the captain doesn't give it to him is a different matter altogether) and come up with crucial wickets. There have been very few selfless cricketers like Sachin and it hurts me a lot when I hear people taking potshots at him. In fact, very few players will survive if they have to shoulder the responsibility and expectation that Sachin carries on his shoulders.

Summing it up, there has never been a player like Sachin (this is not emotional, but there are record books to justify this). The greatest compliment that could be given to him is in the cricinfo player page and I reproduce it here... "But the finest compliment must be that bookmakers would not fix the odds – or a game – until Tendulkar was out."

Bottom line: Sachin rules.

Circus Quizzing

2005-04-11T15:27:00.000+05:30

Yesterday night, I had my first skirmish with circus quizzing. The occasion was the Brand Equity Finals by Derek O' Brien. I was in Mumbai for the weekend, oblivious of the fact that there was a final going to happen on the Sunday evening. I came to know when I got a call from a friend (Nishith) who was also in Mumbai. I was not much interested in going, but then I had nothing better to do in the evening and decided to go. There was a newspaper clipping in the TOI which one had to exchange at Planet M to get 2 passes. Me and my quiz partner for the last couple of quizzes, Sovan, smart as we are, went without the passes.
When we reached the MMRDA grounds, there was a long queue and we realised that we needed to have passes to get in. With no Planet M nearby, our hopes of getting in seemed bleak. We were on the verge of panic. Somehow serendipity came to our rescue again. In comes a guy who asks us to which gate to go to. We tell him and say that we are looking for passes. This dude has one extra pass and he solves half our problem. And somehow we ask other people and jugaad (hindi slang for arrange) another pass as well, and find ourselves inside the enclosure.
Then the circus began. First we had a performance by some guy called Jaggi D (or whtever his name is, Punju guy whose song is a part of Rishi Rich project) which was absolutely rubbish. He even came in a tricolour jacket. These pseudo Indians who are born and live outside the country think that they can better connect with Indians wy dressing in such a manner.
Then there were two semi finals of 4 rounds each. At the end of these semifinals there was yet another performace by Raghav. While it was slightly better than the previous performance, it was nothing to write home about. Ah and then the final. It lasted just 6 rounds or so and Citibank, Chennai turned out to be eventual winners defeating the favourites (on the basis of the semifinal performance) SBI, Mumbai by a whisker. The Mumbai team rocked the semifinal but were a bit slow off the blocks in the final. As the last buzzer round began, they were at the third position 25 points adrift of Citibank. With 2 questions to go, they had come within 5 points of the leaders. Citibank held their nerves to answer the last question and win the quiz.
The quality of the questions was not great. Too much glitter and glamour (in the form of a Swiss girl by the name of Nicole, or was it Karol?) instead of good old hardcore quizzing. Derek came up with some wisecracks now and then to entertain the crowd. It was all too filmi like all Time events. I'd put it as a more popular (representing or appealing to or adapted for the benefit of the people at large) quiz than the one which would appeal to a quiz buff. What was most disappointing was that it was all to short, and had too less content. It was over as soon as it began, a bit of an anti-climax.

Worky - No time to blog

2005-04-11T13:52:00.000+05:30

Last week was very hectic and I din't find time to blog properly. Since the delivery has been made and appreciated, its time to get back to blogging with a vengeance.
I'll of course write about my experiences of watching the Brand Equity Quiz Finals but before that, some filmi stuff (hey Derek din't inspire me into this).
Trust Salman Khan and his brothers to come up with movies which have stupid titles. First it was 'I, Proud to be an Indian' and now it is 'Lucky - No time for love'. I have personally not watched the movie (the title makes me want to watch it and find out how bad it is) but the trailers which I have seen are repulsive. A couple of guys who have watched it have advised me not to follow my curiosity and not waste time and money on this. Have to wait to find out if I can resist the title.
Another of those nice titled movies I am not looking forward to is Sunny Deol's 'Jo Bole Sonihal'. His movies, more often than not, get on my nerves with their excessive hamming and too much action. I don't know how people managed to like Gadar, for I found it extremely irksome. But this is a democracy and I can't comment much on other people's likings.
Take the Pepsi's new commercial, for instance. The bubbly one. Though the tune is good, I absolutely detest the ad. Well, it comes in the wake of Indira Nooyi saying that she has never seen a bad Pepsi commercial come out of India. I don't know if she had seen this ad when she made the comment. And if she had seen it and liked it, then democracy it is and everyone is entitled to his/her opinion.

Liberated

2005-04-09T10:07:00.000+05:30

I am liberated at last. Successfully completed the testing of the programs I had coded. I had run into some rough weather yesterday with the testing and had to be here till late. I returned home quite late yesterday and found that I had only a packet of Maggi noodles to eat. After devouring it in no time I was still famished and could have easily eaten another packet. I made it up to my tummy by having a double breakfast in the morning. Even today morning I had to run a background task which abended (jargon for abnormal termination or ending) and had to go through the entire code of that task and a couple of other programs it was calling to pinpoint and eliminate it. I was aprehensive, as yesterday the background task code was making no sense to me. But today, when I needed it, it unraveled with ease. Seredipity my dear blog. Again to my rescue.

Enough of self panegyrics, now back to normal blogging. With the work now over, I can have a nice relaxed weekend in Mumbai. One of my teammates has returned from UK and he will be joining office on Monay, that is, if he feels like it. I hope he brings lots of chocolates for us to devour.
Came across a couple of nice pieces on Amit's blog. Find them here and here.

I hope we win tomorrow and take an unassailable lead in the series. It would be more fun if we wrap it up before the last match as the General is supposed to come to Delhi to watch it and it would be great if he is watching a dead rubber.

Update1: When I was trying to post this, the server was down and I couldn't upload it. It was salvaged using the blogger's recover the post facility.

Update2: Got a nice mail of appreciation from the client for the work I had done last week.

It never rains

2005-04-07T22:46:00.000+05:30

When I was in school, I came across a proverb which I found hard to understand. It was "It never rains, but pours". Today I grasp its full import as I sit in the office at this unearthly hour.

As I have said before, I am shadowing for my PL, and there is a delivery tomorrow. While he enjoys life with his wife and kids at home, I sit here alone clearing up the shit, that too without food.

It has been a difficult day. The link has been down and I have had other interruptions from my PM asking me to help him. This help has been ranging from JPEG to PowerPoint to Excel to Word. I have realised that PMs have very less work to do apart from preparing stupid presentations and exploiting people like me.

And on top of that my PL keeps on reminding me that we have to finish up by today. Its a different thing that it will take most of tomorrow to finish.

Well, thats professional life. Got to take such days in the stride and move on.

Career Choice

2005-04-06T15:20:00.000+05:30

My cousin is at that juncture of his life where he needs to make a career choice. He has just appeared his 10th examinations. Now the onus is on him to decide what stream he wants to go into. He wants to become an animator. But he does not know how to be one. Nor does anyone in the near family. He is good at drawing and is of a creative bend of mind. He is rather confused whether an engineering degree will help him or not. I think that its a cruel choice to make at 16. But now this can't be avoided.
If anyone reading this has any idea on how he should go about, please comment here and leave your mail id. I'll get in touch with you.

Who is this Dhoni?

2005-04-05T17:48:00.000+05:30

In the morning when I was having my breakfast in the office cafeteria, the TV was on and Dhoni was in full flow. One guy came in and asked who was batting with Sehwag. I told him it was Dhoni. He asked, "Who is this Dhoni?"
And when I told him that he is our new keeper and an explosive batsman, he gave me a dumb look.
After today's breathtaking knock, I hope everyone knows who Dhoni is.
I had seen him once representing India A in Nairobi. He seemed to me be a man who carried a swagger with him when he was batting. He was literally toying with the bowling, hitting massive sixes over the extra cover boundary, irrespective of whether it was a spinner or a medium pacer bowling to him. He was in a complete belligerent mood. I think he even got a century. Since then I have kept an eye on his domestic performances and have noticed that whenever he scores, he scores big and that too at a terrific rate. Hope this century is not just a flash in the pan and he will continue to impress.

Moving away from cricket, my dull life at the office has suddenly sprung to life, at least for a week. Some work has come up (I am shadowing for someone) and I am enjoying it for a change.

Update: The network people at my office have blocked sports sites. They say that they have installed websense. But I thoroughly enjoy my cricket coverage using my Mozilla Firefox browser! Seems that they have taken only half measures.

Phone Calls

2005-04-04T18:05:00.000+05:30

A very interesting thing happened this Saturday, rather an interesting phone call. Sometime in the evening I got a call on my cell from an unknown number. Thus went the conversation (C-Caller, Me-Me, my thoghts in parenthesis, background info in braces):
C - "Is this Mehul?" (a female caller - implies call centre people - credit card - oh no! - too tired to talk - will be outright rude)
Me - "Yup"
C - "This is S******" {the name of the caller blanked out to protect privacy} (can't be the same girl who studied with me.. been close to 2 years since we talked.. can't be she.. its not even my birthday.. besides, the voice sounds different.. there are a lot of girls with that name.. sure is some credit card girl)
Me - {dryly}"O.K."
pause
C - "So how are you?" (hey whats with these call centre gals? they are getting personal. is she call centre at all? oh shit. this is the gal who was in college with me)
Me - "I am fine what about you?" (eeks.. another foot in the mouth.. u did it again jats)

I will leave the conversation at that so that what was discussed remains privileged information between the caller and the called ;o).
The purpose of this, was to show that the prevalence of the call centre calls is so much that we often think that even personal calls from people we have not heard in a long time are from call centres and start being rude over the phone. Its time that such invasion on privacy by the telemarketing people is stopped.

April Fool jokes

2005-04-01T17:56:00.000+05:30

My boss played a nice little April fool joke on me. As soon as he came in, he told me that Ganguly had been replaced by Sehwag as the captain for the forthcoming oneday series. I was frantically trying to search for confirmation when I realised that it could be an April Fool's joke.
Anyways, a nice article by Harsha Bhogle here.
Report which was recently made public says that intelligence about Iraq was "dead wrong". Find it here.

Paper Jam

2005-04-01T11:47:00.000+05:30

We have a funny little printer at the office. Whenever you try to print on the other side of the paper, the printer zaps and we get a paper jam.
Today I went to get the photocopy of my degree cert done. And, believe it or not, when I tried to get the reverse photocopied on the same page, I got the same freaking message.. Remove Paper Jam!!

Games kids play

2005-03-31T14:54:00.000+05:30

Yesterday I was returning from work in the bus. There was a pretty over-energetic kid sitting in the seat in front of me and we got into playing a game. Lets call it hide and seek of the eyes. First you look at the kid and the kid will smile. Then the kid will look away. You too look away. The kid will then cast a furtive glance at you and you have to catch the kid doing that and he/she will squeal in delight or will give you a sweet smile. Then you repeat the steps and keep on doing it. I don't know what is with kids and this game but I have played this game with kids very often and learnt that kids just love this game.
Another interesting incident I remember having with a kid was when I visited my maternal aunt's place in Mumbai last month. This kid (my maternal aunt's husband's brother's son's daughter, phew!) ran away from me. She was not even prepared to come near me. Then I went down and got some small toy cars for her. She was not even prepared to come and take them. She sneaked in surreptitiously when I was not looking and took the cars. Then I went into the room in which she was playing and I was most welcome there. She showed all her toys and the picture books she used to learn alphabet and numbers from, asking me the names of the animals and fruits depicted there. Indeed, kids learn to be bribed at a very young age!
Last week I was again in Mumbai and one of my cousins, who is appearing his 10th board exams, was down with fever. He had to go for his blood test. He is the youngest in the family in our generation and behaves like a perennial kid, though he is quite bright. Now, he mortally dreads pricks. We somehow managed to get him to the pathology and give his sample. And guess what we had to do? Very simple. We just had to buy him a cap and floaters.

Covers and Copies

2005-03-30T14:45:00.000+05:30

An interesting observation that I have made over the years is the way people cover their books. We had this thing in school whereby we had to cover all books and copies in brown paper bought from the school stationary shop. But after I passed out of my school, I noticed this habit of people. First it used to be the newspapers. Depending on the education level and the parental preference in newspaper language, either in english or in the local language. Always a double layer. The page was first folded and then used as a cover. Remember, at that time we did not have those jazzy colour specials in newspapers. Then our town and the newspaper industry began to progress and we started having the special weeklies with lot of colour on glossy paper. People were instantly hooked and the local newspapers gave way to glossy sheets.
Whatever college I went to, I saw this covering streak in the people around me. Whether normal newsprint or glossy paper, it was necessary that all books be covered. No matter what. It was the thumbrule. No matter the effort put in by the publishers to make the cover design. Nontheless the book had to be covered. It was supposed to protect the book for a long long time.

Another habit we have with respect to books is we copy them here, there, everywhere. No need to buy the book if somebody else has it. Just make a copy. It's far cheaper. Whats the harm in that? Everyone does that. Even teachers encourage it. The copyright law for us seems to be nonexistant and people feel that making a copy of a book is their birthright.
I remember one similar incident about which I had a conversation with a friend. This guy is doing his masters in the UK. One prof guy had gone to his university to see the labs and the facilities so that such course could be introduced in India. All he asked the profs there was the list of books and lecture notes/materials, this inspite of being warned by my friend that lecture notes are a big copyright issue there.
Here in our country there are no such issues. Lecture notes themselves are copied from books in most cases. And we have the liberty to distribute the notes freely..

Me and my project

2005-03-29T18:34:00.000+05:30

There are currently three people offshore in my project: my Project Manager, my Project Leader and me! Another guy here is on leave for a couple of weeks and a couple of them are returning from client side in a couple of weeks.
But as long as it lasts, I am enjoying the only Team Member in the team tag!!

Conversations with I

2005-03-29T13:50:00.000+05:30

Another of those conversations which I had last week (the first conversation of the series can be found here)..
I was thinking why do I read newspapers. Good journalism seems to be dead. Apart from a few brilliant pieces here and there, what has remained is sheer sensationalism and tabloid culture. Who is to blame for this sorry state of affairs? The media should shoulder a huge part of the blame. But partly the blame should fall on the public at large. After all the target audience wants it and the media caters to it. What have we come down to in the name of progress. Silly sting operations? Judging the morality of others? Taking cheap shots? The latest example of taking cheap shots is send hate mail to Saurav Ganguly by TOI. Whats up with these guys? Can we please concentrate on creating better pieces of journalistic literature than raking up false controversy and hullabaloo?

The great Indian card trick

2005-03-28T17:17:00.000+05:30

Well, we did it again. Collapsing like a pack of cards. The Domino effect. Whatever you call it. It is with great agony that I have watched the famed Indian batting line up crumble under pressure time and again. Instead of playing their natural game, they go into a shell and lose their wickets to pretty ordinary deliveries. Such is my frustration that I don't have words to express it. Here was a series to be won and what do we do. We go all out and try to lose it to the best of our abilities. What is bygone is bygone and I don't look forward to the one day series.
Coming to other things, this holi was a sort of pilgrimage for me. Went to Shirdi, Shani Shinganapur and Nashik with six other friends. The trip was interesting. We planned to start at around eight on Friday and ended up starting at eleven. Reached Shirdi in the wee hours of Saturday and missed the morning aarti by a whisker. Watched it on the CCTV though, while standing in the queue for darshan. The best part was the cave temple in Panchvati and the Hundred Huts just outside Nashik.
It ended with me being coloured by the three monkeys who went with us. I shall have my revenge, in this world or the other. I don't need to administer myself an oath, 'cos "my word is as good as a promise!"

Grandma Science

2005-03-24T11:01:00.000+05:30

According to Hindusim, time is measured in 'Kalpas' which is made up of 'yugas'. Here is the list of the various yugas and their time frame:

1 Krita Yuga     = 17,28,000 years (4 times Kali yuga)
1 Treta Yuga     = 12,96,000 years (3 times Kali yuga)
1 Dvapara Yuga   =  8,64,000 years (2 times kali yuga)
1 Kali Yuga      =  4,32,000 years
Total duration of four yugas  = 43,20,000 years = 1 Mahayuga
1 Mahayuga = sum total of 4 yugas
2000 Mahayugas = 1 Kalpa = 8,64,00,00,000 years
1 Kalpa = 1 day and night for god of creation, Brahma

Currently, nearly 1.95 billion years have elapsed in this Kalpa.

One thousand Mahayugas form one day of Brahma, i.e., 4.32 billion years. A similar expanse of time will make His one night.

According to modern science, a day has 24 hours which are made up of 60 minutes and each minute has 60 seconds.

1 day = 24*60*60 seconds = 86,400 seconds

Now,
1 Brahma day = 8,64,00,00,000 years
86,400 Brahma secs = 8,64,00,00,000 years
1 Brahma sec = 8,64,00,00,000/86,400 years = 1000 years

So a second in Brahma's day = 1000 years on earth.

Now, din't my grandma tell me that when I was a kid!!

23rd March..

2005-03-23T17:33:00.000+05:30

Today is a very significant day in the history of India. Three great sons of the soil laid down their lives on this day in 1931. These martyrs were Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru. Let their souls rest in peace with the knowledge that the cause for which they sacrificed their lives has been achieved. Jai Hind.
On a less significant note, this blog turned exactly one month old today. Happy Monthiversery.

Conversations with Myself

2005-03-23T10:28:00.000+05:30

Oh yes, finally I decided to document some of these. That too in the morning. The mainframe link seems to be down and the connectivity is slow. So nothing else to do.
I was wondering why I don't like to make my birthday public except to a few people who are close to me. The origin of this practice goes back in time, so back that its origins are lost in the mists of time. Lets pierce the mists with Myself.
Myself studied in a small Convent school in a small town in a small state in the eastern part of the country. We had this assembly thing every morning where all classes used to stand in queues and we used to say the prayer before class (there was one after class too, and not to mention wishing the teachers as they came and went in a sing song voice), sing the National Anthem (one of the few good things we did) and take the pledge (India is my country and all Indians are my brothers and sisters (and we are all incestuous) .. so it went).
Like every school, we had our own traditions and customs. Like the birthday custom. Birthday boys and girls used to be special. They could shed their school uniforms for a day and come in "colour dress". During the assembly they used to come up on stage and everyone would break into the customised Happy Birthday song. Then he/she would offer chocolates to the principal. Well, that's not all. The birthday boy/girl would, during the day, not only distribute chocolates among his/her classmates, but also go round all the classes in the school and offer chocolates to all the teachers.
Myself went through this ritual once, don't exactly remember when, but it was sometime in the late 80's. And found it very embarrassing and to add to it, Myself had this terrible stage fright. How Myself got it is a different story in itself and will be the topic of another post. The ritual since then has been toned down and I remember that the "stage show" was done away with. But somehow the earlier memories remained with me and I avoided letting people know about my birthday lest I again had to be paraded on stage.
These memories have come to haunt me once again. In my office I have another of those rituals, just like every other office. The birthday man/woman is special. He/she has to inform everyone through a mail that he/she has got some sweets on account of his/her birthday and that they are requested to come and have them. And then the wishers start pouring in.

Air Conditioners

2005-03-22T17:22:00.000+05:30

Lesson of the day: ACs cause the cerebral fluids to freeze or at least slow down, if the temperatures aren't too low. That is why they offer free tea and coffee here. Realised this in the afternoon when I had to go through an old program to figure it out. My brain seemed a bit heavy and stuck up until I unfroze the fluids with a cup of steaming tea.

How Soon Hath Time

2005-03-20T14:58:00.000+05:30

How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,
Stolen on his wing my three and twentieth year!

Yes, I turn 24! Twenty three years of my life gone. All so soon.

My hasting days fly on with full career,
But my late spring no bud or blossom shew’th.

Twenty three is a special number for me. It was not only my roll number at college, but also the number with which the great Michael Jordan is associated. I hoped to achieve greatness in my twenty third year. But it was not to be. May be I was not ready.

Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth,
That I to manhood am arrived so near,
And inward ripeness doth much less appear,
That some more timely-happy spirits endu’th.

The twenty fourth birthday is a truly memorable one, like the years that have passed. With India getting a victory in the Kolkata Test, even more memorable. Have been alone at home for the last couple of days, its all me, myself and I. Having these little conversations with myself ( and I of course). Will post my conversations sometime, may be in a day or two.

May be what I have been trying to achieve will come this year may be it will not, but I am sure, I gonna be twenty three till I die.

SACK BUCKNOR

2005-03-18T16:30:00.000+05:30

Steve Bucknor is the biggest A$$HOLE in the world. People who agree please comment.

I never thought..

2005-03-18T11:50:00.000+05:30

I never thought that I'll watch this movie. But yesterday night I did watch it. Socha Na Tha. And I don't regret that I did.
It's a cute movie, a comedy of confusions. The hero loves a Christian girl but can't tell that to the girl or his family. His father insists on marriage. He goes to see the girl and tells her about his love and they decide to say no to marriage. But the catch is that the girl's sister sees them wishing each other luck and thinks that they are holding hands and assumes that they will marry. But when the boy refuses, what ensues is a mafia type clash between the families. All these is hilarious. Then the guy asks the girl to come to Goa with his group and see if his girlfriend loves him. More fun. After they return, he proposes to his girlfriend and to her father. Everything is set.
But our hero here is confused. He doesn't know whom he loves, his girlfriend or Ayesha (Takia). Finally he goes to her place and proclaims his love for her and on returning finds that is father has come round after a bit of cajoling by his sister-in-law (the other Ayesha, Jhulka) and his girlfriend's family is at his place.
More confusion follows and eventually he runs away to find that the herione's family have setup another guy for her and comes back home later. Then there is another twist in the tale. No, I'll not reveal it here. If you want to know, better watch the movie.
With its tounge-in-cheek dialouges, the movie raises a lot of laughs, specially in the first half. Both the hero and the herione are good, the good thing is that both have michief in their eyes which suits their characters.
On the whole, an enjoyable movie, eventhough the script gets a bit stupid at times.

Sachin scales peak 10K

2005-03-16T16:40:00.000+05:30

Phew.. what a relief it must have been for Sachin. It was apparent by the way he played after reaching the landmark regaining his silken touch. He has now equalled the record for the fastest 10,000 in Test cricket in terms of innings by equalling the record created by yet another genious of contemporary cricket, Brian Lara. Meanwhile, Pak has struck back with 3 quick wickets, and with the Great Wall of India felled just before stumps, the match is evenly balanced.
Coming to other things, experienced the first earthquake of my life on Monday. I dint know that there was an earthquake on till much later when I read it on net! But I heard from other people in the office that it was there for a considerable period of time. What an opportunity missed to personally experience a mild natural calamity! Well, after being through the super cyclone, most of the nature's furies would now look mild.
Workwise, I successfully negotiated the PCMM questionnaire for which I had to appear yesterday. I commented on 80% of the questions in the test, the HR guy filled some of the ones I had left out! It was more of a farce than anything else. First they missed my name and when I reminded them they put me at a different location. So much for rewarding proactivity!

Oh No! Sachin misses a double record

2005-03-10T17:50:00.000+05:30

Disaster struck for Sachin as he missed out on two records. One of scoring his 35th test century and surpasing Gavaskar and second of being the fastest to 10000 test runs. I don't understand why he takes so much pressure on himself. He was playing so well, middling almost evey ball, and after the dismissal of Sehwag, he surprisingly went into a shell. I have seen this happen too often for him. He should play his natural game without bothering about the landmarks. Anyways, the record is his for the taking and hopefully he will be the highest century maker before the series ends.
The two Pakistani players who have impressed me are Asim Kamal and Danish Kaneria. Kamal is a gutsy cricketer and what impresses me most about him is his fighting spirit. He had impressed me during India's tour of Pakistan last year when coming in to bat with an injury, he din't give his wicket away. Kaneria, on the other hand has been a revelation. He has bowled superbly with great control and nice variation.
More later. Just have been informed that I'll get a brand new P-4. I have to take lots of backups. Since I have a final PCMM session at 6:30, I m a bit short of time. This has made my dull day come alive. I m loving it!!

Khufia Khan

2005-03-09T15:31:00.000+05:30

The new ad of Pepsi is quite interesting in more ways than one. Continuing with its fine tradition with Khans, this time its Saif Ali in the Khufia avtaar (after Aamir and Shah Rukh). Interesting. They have added a new dimension to the scratch card concept with their blue khufia card which reveals its booty only in front of the blue television screen. One not only has to drink Pepsi, but also watch the ad in order to win the booty. Interesting. The story is built in a nice way so as to keep one waiting, wanting and thirsting for more. Yeh pyaas definitely hai badi!
Khatam nahi hua khufie..
Meanwhile, life has slowed down to a stand still. No major work issues. Thankfully the India-Pak series has started at this opportune moment. So its just watching the match in the cafeteria nowadays.

Global Warming and Kyoto Protocol

2005-03-07T14:33:00.000+05:30

Global Warming describes an increase in over time of the average temperature of the Eath's atmosphere and oceans. Use of the term "global warming" generally implies a human influence — the more neutral term climate change is usually used for a change in climate with no presumption as to cause and no characterization of the kind of change involved.
Most climate models predict that the temperatures will increase in the future, however, the precise magnitude of these increases is still uncertain. A range of +1.4°C to +5.8°C for the temperature change between 1990 and 2100 is the estimate. The most common global warming theories attribute temperature increases to increases in the greenhouse effect caused primarily by a human-generated carbon dioxide.
But every theory has its opponents. Same is true for global warming. In the midst of the propaganda generated by the global warming theorists, few people are aware that there are still question marks over the theory. Between 1940 & 1970, the temperatures had gone down though the carbon dioxide levels were increasing. Should this be considered as an anomaly or is there more to it?
I quote an eminent Astrophysicist Sallie Baliunas, in a speech delivered at Hillsdale College on February 5, 2002, "...about 80 percent of the carbon dioxide from human activities was added to the air after 1940. Thus increased carbon dioxide in the air cannot account for the pre-1940 warming trend. That trend had to be largely natural. Then, as the air's carbon dioxide content increased most rapidly, temperatures dropped for nearly 40 years. And it seems that human effects amount at most to about 0.1 degree Celsius per decade -- the maximum increase in warming seen after the 1970s."
Also, as has been pointed out, carbon dioxide levels often increase after warming rather than before. Is this also an anomaly that can be discarded? According to some, there is nothing to panic about the increasing global temperatues because the earth goes through heating and cooling phases from time to time as proved by the Medieval Warm Period (around 1000 AD) and the Little Ice Age(around 1600 AD).
The Kyoto Protocol proposes binding greenhouse gas limits for developed countries, but there are considerable disagreements about the extent to which the Kyoto Protocol will be able to address the issue of greenhouse gases and global warming even if it is successfully implemented. Current estimates predict that even if successfully and completely implemented, the Kyoto Accord will reduce global temperature by between 0.02°C and 0.28°C by the year 2050 - a tiny fraction of the projected increase. Even some of the defenders of this accord agree and view it as a first step with more political than practical importance. Several economic analyses have been made that show that the KP is more expensive than the global warming it avoids.
Another argument is that if the developed countries start curbing carbon emissions by using less carbon-based fuels, it would drive the cost of such fuel down thus making it even more attractive to the developing nations.
Only time will tell whether the Kyoto Protocol is successful or not. Meanwhile, the jury is still out.

Time flies

2005-03-04T18:32:00.000+05:30

How has time flown.. its the weekend again.. barely a week since I started my blog and its already 200+ hits..
An eventful week for Indian sports.. after a fine show in Dubai, Sania's fine roll was halted, hopefully only for the time being.. Harsh Mankad has given India the lead in Davis Cup against China and Amritraj is also leading in his match.. most importantly, Narain tries to make his F1 debut this weekend.. the fun is about to begin..
I was deeply pained by the govt.'s decision not to allow cricketers to use the National Flag.. the flag belongs to the people and everyone should have the right to carry it with pride on their sleeves or helmets (or the blog, as in my case).. the govt.'s arguement.. helmet is kept along with the shoes and other gear and this is a disrespect to the flag.. but no worries even if the govt. does not allow people like us to display the flag (in my case they can deny with the arguement that the the blogspot is a host to blogs of the third kind too ;o)).. we carry the pride in our heart.. proud to be an Indian.. always..

Crib Time

2005-03-03T17:14:00.000+05:30

Appeared for a mock PCMM test today.. had to be at the office by 8.. woke up at 6:30.. can't imagine I did that.. coming back to the test.. it was 36 pages and 225 questions long.. all the questions had a rating and a box where one had to corroborate the rating given.. we were told that it was mandatory to comment for all questions.. what crap.. i slogged for close to 4 hrs.. still could hardly write for 50-60% of the questions.. and my hand, neck and back ached badly.. appeared to me that they were dropping shit on us.. or rather dropping us in shit.. apparently the answers are going to be evaluated and feedback given.. but I don't think that they can figure out my handwriting.. and much less read so many copies.. screwed them nicely in the compensation section.. rest all i gave good feedback.. the final test is on 14th march.. but i wonder how I will return from mumbai and appear.. cos i badly want to participate in the NMIMS quizzes.. and Parnab Mukherjee has a habit of taking the quizzes late into the night.. will cross the bridge when i come to it.. as of now have to go thru some material given by the "organisation"..

Of Sania, Salads and Software industry

2005-03-02T18:15:00.000+05:30

Sania seems to be on a roll.. this goes to prove what self belief can to to somebody. Ever since the Aussie Open, she seems to have gained a lot of confidence and WTA points.. way to go Sania.
Today morning as I was heading towards the office cafe for breakfast, I saw one of the new recruits, who has finished her training and is in "Business Wait" (ah, what has this training done to me.. even I m using jargon), was doing a rangoli on the floor. Poor people.. they join the software industry with a dream of doing hard core programming and they end up doing this. And wait, there is more.. we had a salad decoration contest in the cafeteria in the afternoon.. and belive it or not, there were five participants.. most of them, u guessed it right, new joinees in business wait..
My Project Manager came to my desk before lunch. He was having problems with some image editing for a PPT and was reluctant to ask me to do it as I have often shown umbrage in doing such work. He asked me how to go about it. I decided to climb down from by earlier stance a bit.. and made the bit a byte.. and took the images for myself. And guess what did I manage to achieve in the afternoon.. editing 2 pics.. So much for efficiency!

On Training

2005-03-01T20:31:00.000+05:30

Truck load of SHIT. They use such jargons and name such tools that makes u feel that u were sleeping on work all the time..

Monday morning blues

2005-03-01T14:59:00.000+05:30

I am back after a long weekend, extended by a day by my not turning up for office yesterday. But sometimes a man has to do what a man has to do. What I missed most was the coverage of the budgets on the net, I couldn't make it up by watching on the tele. Of what snippets I have read and heard so far, it seems to me that I may have to pay fewer taxes this-next year. That comes as a bit of relief, but since I have not read the entire budget, will refrain from passing any judgement on it. Will read the entire thing later. Have some training today at the office. Company going for PCMM Ass-essment. But the worst part is that will have to appear a mock test on Thursday at 8 in the morning. That definitely sucks. Normally I am well ensconced in my bed at that time. If this schedule is not changed, will have to alter mine. Too bad. Good thing is that Sania is on a roll.. just heard that she defeated someone ranked 34 in the Dubai Open. And to add, I sent a goodluck message to apna Narain this Sunday. Was moving around a shopping mall, when these guys in yellow t-shirts turn up asking me if I want to send some message to him. Jumped at the opportunity. Anand also held by Kasporav. Ahh.. time for the training. more later..

Weekend Ahoy.!

2005-02-25T17:10:00.000+05:30

Finally.. the weekend is back.. after a week full of no work.. its very tiring sitting thru the week and doing nothing.. except reading blogs.. it just gets to u.. what else.. hmm.. yes.. the Indian Idol.. yes.. coming to a close after 4 months of tough competition.. with all its ups, downs and all the drama.. which enthralled the audiences.. augurs well for the finalists and the channel.. for the first time since KBC has a show held the people captivated on such a scale.. everyone has their own personal fav to win.. but guess what.. i know who will win.. yes.. mark my word.. its going to be AS..

Up and running..

2005-02-24T16:12:00.000+05:30

Now that the site is up with only a few issues to be ironed out, its time i let people know about the place..
At last some relief for cricket fans like me.. armed with the interim order from the Madras High Court, Doordarshan will now be able to telecast the Indo-Pak series live.. it reminds me of the high drama before every major sports tourney.. the tantrums of ESPN-Star.. the lastest being the Champions League.. no sooner had the event begun, that the feed of the channels at my place vanished.. hope things work out soon.. before the return leg of matches.. ah.. speaking of Doordarshan.. my thoughts wander to the host of mindless soaps they telecast (and i m made to watch with dinner) now-a-nights.. i cant figure out whether to laugh or to pull my hair in despair.. is it that i've been fed with an overdose of Hollywood films or that the mind-boggling graphics DD uses is an outcome of the latest technological advancement of apes??

The First Post!!

2005-02-23T19:20:00.000+05:30

Hmm.. interesting.. my first post on the blog.. lets keep it simple.. the site needs more work.. will see what i can do tomorrow..