Nat Geo

Read National Geographic all day yesterday .. I lend this from a nearby library . Unlike the usual libraries, this one lends the latest magazines ( and books ) for 2 days, for a "fee" of Rs.10/- per magazine. ( that comes to around a quarter dollar ) ... to read ! and the older issues come for half this price !

http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0505/index.html ( this is the May 05 online edition .. almost as good as the paper based edition ....but never as good. )

Did you know that the US govt tried to deliver to Cuba a box full of cigars soaked with botulinum ( a lethal biological poison ) during the 60s to kill him ? (him = Fidel Castro ...)

Did you know that India is a country with 80% of its population as Hindus .. ( India's population is a billion+ and growing steady ), with a sikh ( not sick ;-) ) Prime minister , a muslim president and with a Christian leader for the ruling party ?? ( can it be more politically secular ?? )

Living the Brdige way !

In the last few couple of days .. I read more than I had read in the last month . Read Bridget Jones Diary ( yet another time ) and towards the end of the book she writes "silently spending the weekends reading books and listening to classical music ... " . Mine was almost like that just for the 'subtle' difference that I took a trip yet another time to pondicherry ! Visited Auroville yet again and ate from the same beach side hotel yet again ! ... ( sometimes I wonder i used to like to ask myself "When was the last time I did something for the first time ??" - ad from Malaysian airlines . )

Started to read this rather interesting thing called Google Hacks and Iam pretty interested in that already ! I generally dont read tech books that rampant. But I felt this was quite interesting and try-it-out kind .

Thought for the day

Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the usual way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody thinks of complaining.
— Jef Raskin, interviewed in Doctor Dobb's Journal

pretty interesting huh ? ..well ... why dont we complain .. and rather just restart ??

Back to a sense of hollow-meaninglessness

All my work at office is done . I got the necessary appreciation and it is all over with it .. now it feels like .. All-is-done-we-dont-need-you-anymore kind of feeling. The better side is I get a lot of time to read. And Iam reading two books at a time . I switch between them when I feel like ..

• Time quake - Kurt Vonnegut
• All I really need to know I learned in Kindergarten - Robert Fulghum

Both are good in their own ways . I like the insight in Fulghum and the language in Vonnegut ( Haven't you heard about the email hoax with Vonnegut's MIT commencement speech ( sunscreen speech ) for the class of '97 ?? )

Thought for the day :

Do one thing every day that scares you. (.. from Kurt's hoaxed commencement speech at MIT )

A Random Review of Music and the Lyrics 'behind'

Miss Sarajevo ! and The hands that built America - U2

Taking you slowly to the move, raising you to the mood and the rising tempo makes you go higher and then just carefully dropping you high up there .. just to let you float back to ground like a little orphan feather coming from an unknown bird . Slowly as you approach ground you realise you have been falling ... and the end is near ... but you still want to glide.. Alas its all over a little too fast.

Where the Streets have no name . - U2

The seemingly "endless-monotonous" guitar at the very end makes you spin around in circles

Hello - Stevie Wonder ( "Infact here's just another Ordinary day .... I just called to say I love you" )

You probably wont have a reason to call up the one you love ... but still when you call .. and talk.. it goes on for hours ... and you end up talking nothing !!

.......... to be continued someother time

I lost myself in the summer rain.

What more could be the signs of a beautiful day ?

• Finishing the 15 day-stretch of work early in the morning ( 0430 ) and going to sleep with a happy feeling.
• It rains after almost 9 months .
• standing out in the open and just watching it rain... and patiently waiting for it to subside ( and all the way enjoying it ) .. so that i can start to office ..
• Singing while riding bike on the way to office.
• Absolute feeling of refreshed enthusiasm and the false feeling of a different world in the office.
• Having coffee with someone whom I knew for the first time . ( known for three years )
• joining the people who are standing outside the office .. just to watch it rain and talking to them.
  
• and ... calling your best friend just to tell that its wonderful seeing the rain after a long time . ( I hear from the other end .. that its unbelievable ( but wonderful ) to see it raining !! )

Water and Rain ... I know how much it means to the people here .. And staying here for 3 years .. I have started to share their feeling.

Less-than-a-Million dollar Baby !

My brother told me to watch that movie .. when ever my brother suggests a movie .. I bet its worth it ! .. he suggested My Life as a Dog, Pulp Fiction, Dog Day Afternoon and Shawshank Redemption. and now ...the Million dollar baby .. Somehow I just could not fully appreciate it .. though partly I got into the swing of it . It was much hyped for me . Maybe its the company that matters.

Peter Pan .. and Finding Neverland

Sometimes life "offers" too much to worry that you feel like flying out of your window into the neverland and spending sometime with all the dwarfs , fairies and the little men ... This land is much better .. you sometimes feel a lot happier there and tend to believe that you belong there more than you belong to the real world.

Watched this wonderful movie .. Finding Neverland ... excellantly made, touching and cathartic. And later in the day ... I went to landmark and bought Barrie's Peter Pan.

The question remains .... Have I found my Neverland ??

Just a confession that I was lonely

Yesterday I went to a socialising pub with my colleague where you could play pool and listen to a live band and ofcourse have some costly drinks ( after a loooong time ) . ( Yesterday some Filipino band was entertaining the crowd with two good looking ladies who incidentally sang well too ;-) It was called the "The Lounge - Your cue to unwind" ) . .. and the three odd hours we spent there were mostly spent in silence.
They played good music - the Righteous brother's Unchained Melodies ( one of my all time favourites ) and some Eagles and some Bob Marley . The crowd was mostly foreign except for some local interventions ;-)

Spent the Sunday afternoon and almost whole of evening writing down the incidents that affected my life. It almost made a 20-sheet-document ;-) and then when someone called me and asked what I was doing .. I told I was writing my autobiography ;-) That was a very different reply than what he would have ever imagined to hear.

Quote de jour :

When so many are lonely as seem to be lonely, it would be inexcusably selfish to be lonely alone.
- Tennessee Williams

Seems to match with the present state of my mind ... so I thought I would think about it and let you all think about this too ;-)

HBR , Office politics and Spelling Bee

A long entry ( very unlikely of me ) to compensate for the many days of absence ..

For the past three days I was immersed in the spectacular world of magazines mostly biz .. ( HBR , Economists et al ) . And i found this issue of the Harvard Business Review to be good .. actually fantastic !.. I usually donot read HBR. It talked about office politics and personal management and how to cope with change and a few advices from the top . And there was a work sheet on keeping your priorities and setting time, money and energy to your commitments ! ...wonderful .

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Today morning I watched this documentary called Spellbound ( the story on 8 self driven kids in the 1999 National Spelling bee contest ) The documentary is excellently made with excellant background score ! .
1. Sometimes wonder if their parents are pushing them a little too much .. Else i think that these are really talented kids who by now are in some top notch Ivy Leagues or doing their majors in Microbiology or Economics or Nanotechnology .

2. Another particularly interesting thing is the percentage of Indian kids who make it to the finals every year !! ( India as in Asian Indian. The ones with the dots on their forehead ... not the feather :-) ) The 1999 spelling bee champion ( in this documentary is an Indian .. sorry for the plot-spoil .. but there are many indians in the finals ;-) ) First generation Indians in America are particularly known for their hard work and determination ! ( out of the last 6 years .. 3 spelling bee champions are of Indian origin )

3. Kids become scared of loosing . They tend to develop anxiety and fear towards loosing . Their parents fail to understand that loosing is a part of life ... Listen to this ...
" Akshay, an eighth-grader who attends Mountain Ridge Middle School in Colorado Springs fainted during Round 6. But the boy quickly stood up and correctly spelled "alopecoid," which means like a fox. Akshay received a standing ovation from the audience ! " ( from the 2003 Annual Spelling bee contest )

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Quote de jour !

"We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting
something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have." – Frederick Koenig

This was sent to me by one of my colleagues I sometimes wonder how much it holds true . When I sent this quote to one of my other friends, she told me it was not happiness it was contentment that Koenig really wanted to say .. ( a day after that .. after "hours of contemplation" she said that probably it really IS Happiness !

Life without purpose !

"I do not fear it (death ) because I attribute little value to a life without a purpose. And if I should have to sacrifice my life to attain its goal, I'll do so willingly. "

Netanyahu, Jonathan (At age 17)

This quote was from an article called the Entebbe Diary that I 'found' on the net . Jonathan was killed in the operation .. ( It was about the hijacking of the Air France airbus by the PLO and grounded at Entebbe, Uganda during the rule of Idi Amin )

This somehow ( along with other readings ) changed my views of the Israelis and the PLO . As a child at high school I used to support the PLO and Arafat and hate the Israelis .. but now after years of thinking and reading and meeting a few Jews, ( my client was Jew who had Finnish roots , she used to tell how her father had a pro-Jewish-elitist feeling ) I have slowly started to change my point of view.

Yesterday I spent time just reading new things and I somehow cultured a respect for Jonathan Netenyahu ( the second-in-command?? of Operation ThunderBolt .. later renamed Operation Jonathan ) and also towards the IDF ( Israel Defence Forces) I later came to know he was the brother of Benjamin Netanyahu ( ex PM of Israel ) ..

And the quote reflected on me slowly down the day .. Do I have a purpose in life ?? What do I want to make out of this life ??

Faux Pas

As I was just exploring some new words in French on the net ... I came across this common terminology to represent violation of unwritten social rules , ... Faux Pas ( pronounced Foh-pau or foh-paus ) ... A good example for this ...

In Russia Giving somebody an even number of flowers is Faux Pas !!. This should only be done in funerals. ;-) pretty strange huh ???

I was thinking what are the Faux Pas in India ? May be these are a few that i noticed ...

1. Touching women ;-) especially married .. unless she is related to you .

2. Walking in a house with your shoes on !

3. Coming for a marriage function without gifts . ( i think this is global )

I cant think of more ... ( Is it because of our extreme social openness or my inability to recall the last time i was civilized ?? )

Musings over a perfect cup of coffee

Yesterday I met my friend whom I had not met/talked to for almost a year. I asked her out for a coffee and talked almost like 2 hours over a cup of coffee ( yeah A cup of coffee . She was not the caffeine kinda person' ) in a place called the Barrista ( at T-nagar ) ( a more crazier version of Starbucks merged with a funky designer studio ) where the coffee is costly and the cake is three times costlier !

I remember meeting her first on chat ... and then took the relationship to the next level by calling her ... and then meeting her ... the talks were mostly intellectually stimatinig ... and probably I 'managed' to infuse a little of me personality into a willing victim ! Now Iam happy that I have helped her get a better vision on the intricacies of life on this planet.

And then ... when looking back at the coffee place , I could not but quote the line from "You've Got Mail " ...

"JOE: The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, etc. So people who don't know what the hell they're doing or who on earth they are can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee but an absolutely defining sense of self: Tall! Decaf! Cappuccino! "

The only thing is ..here they price it exorbitantly high just to make the cream of the society ( or atleast those who want to be ) come here, loaf their time in endless purposes and walk away in so called 'newly-gained-self respect' and feeling as if this was a coffee worth its price , where as down the other side of the road , you could get a much better coffee a tenth of its cost and you dont have to wait for it more than 40 seconds.

Definitely the people dont come here for the coffee .. the coffee comes to them ;-)

A hitchhakers guide to who Iam

For anyone who 'accidently' or .. out of curiosity .. or out of reasons unknown to anyone .. happen to come across this entry of mine .. this should in a nut shell provide you with all the essentials of who Iam ...

Nationality : Indian ( and occasionally proud of it ;-)

Languages used: English ( mostly ) , Hindi ( a little ) , java and tcl ,someone is teaching me french though these days .. so soon i should be adding a few words in French too .

I dont wear specs though i respect ( i dont know why ) girls who wear them ... they sort of look intelligent .. artificial intelligence ?? ( Maybe iam wrong .. maybe not. .. but so far .. its true )

What do i do when iam not sleeping ? .. I read lots atleast try to ... these days a little bit of fiction ... I love lucid writings .

Whats my dream ? Sometimes i think i should not reveal this .. lest this should not come true.

Usually an introvert .. but at times I fake that iam an outgoing person .. and try my pick up lines on smart girls . Iam cautious with timid girls . Usually they are far reaching and profound.

Best times I had ...

a) when i used to drive for 4 hrs without any destination across Wisconsin-Illioins-Indiana-Michigan ..and back and ofcourse the countryside drive during thanksgiving ( i almost always drive alone ) ... Its like taking drugs .. in the end it does not take you anywhere but the journey is scenic .

b) whenever i get surged to do something .. ( iam tempted almost instantaneously .. though iam not much of a spontaneous person .. )

Knowing people

I talked to a colleague of mine .. and I asked him what he wanted from life ... He said .. I want to do a Phd in Economics ! Wow , i thought , people do have some concrete goals in life .. and that set me thinking again ... What do I want from/ in life ?

I decided to set some new rules in my life .. Get to know people more .. or get to know more people ?? and meet a new person atleast once in a week ! Hmm noble idea ... maybe that would bring me better insight on people and myself .

"The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out and meet it".
Thucydides (471 BC - 400 BC)

Home finally

Reached Home ( finally ) ... though the journey was quite grueling.

Few things I learnt in the past few days

1. In the US , everyone relies ( heavily ) on the System. Its what the computer and the system says thats true. ( the rule book said $200 for extra luggage ... but the system said $129 ) I lost almost an hour there because of the discrepency.

2. Booking a middle row seat ( than an aisle or window ) doenst give you more chance of ending up beside a beautiful girl . The law of averages doesnt guarantee you a seat beside a girl . There will always be people who would end up exchanging their seat so that you will ultimately end up next to an ugly fat smelly chap.

3. Even if your parents say that they need nothing when their son return from abroad, they always expect something . And even an extra luggage full of goodies wont be enough to appease them ( though they seldom admit it .. you have to be good at body language and reading minds .. = tough )

4. Overdependency on the internet can get you stomach ulcer . ( the snailinsh speed of the so called broadband ... can make you nervous. Wait till you breakdown .

Did Harry meet Sally ?

There are some movies ... made to be watched when you are upset and those movies really make you feel good .. make you jump up on your feet and make you talk to yourselves ....

some how ... im just back after jumping on my feet and talking to myself ... Meg Ryan .. .and Billy Crystal .. .When Harry met Sally .... and some how i had that feeling .. that Meg was made for such movies ... only for such movies ... or is it that such movies are made for Meg alone ??

Today, give a stranger one of your smiles. It might be the only sunshine he sees all day . ~Quoted in P.S. I Love You, compiled by H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Much A- blog about nothing ...

This is one of the three blogs I maintain in parallel. The other two have been plagued by comments from people whom I know IRL. Hence ... Iam forced to start something new where I could express my thoughts which, I believe, should stay away from the people, whom I talk to everyday. The one I started with started 5 years ago and mainly fed a not so Indian audience. ( Back then the blogs were not invented ... they were just plain old html journals, powered by automatic scripting engines running on perl or cgi .. )
The second was where I used to write my philosophies on life. Now Iam slowly moving over to a more convenient and one-button-click-world. Its more like switching over from black-and-white text based unix system to 3.1 million color Windows XP ! and somehow I dont loose the multiple joys of switching back and forth my blogs each has a taste, aroma and style of its own . Talk about parallel journalism :-)