What an idea sirji!

Pursuing our dreams

Movies as a means for mass communication, I think, was never as strong or more impactful as it is these days. Am just back from the last show of 3 Idiots, it is a simple movie with a simple very predictable story, right to the end with no surprises. Yet, it makes a strong point and drives it strongly, it almost rubs it in; it talks about how Indian families stress on taking a main stream course like an Engineer or a Doctor and ignores the likes and dislikes of an individual. How our education system stresses on getting the highest marks, on running a race and not on the importance of learning nor on pursuing our dreams.

I am guilty of this same sin, and somewhere most of us are, but we need to wake up and realize our dreams and enable the dreams of others who we can help. I dont know how one finds the true love or how does one help someone else to find his or her true love. I dont know how a parent will find what the kid truly wants to do. But I am sure that I wont ask someone else to fulfill my dreams. I dont think anyone should.

Letting go of the burden

Sometime back I was talking with CK about how carrying a burden stops us from seeing the beauty of life. We all do things that we don't want to do, we aren't proud of doing and we feel bad about them. Sometimes we just don't forgive ourselves, I remembered this very good story about an old monk and a young monk. They were walking through a forest when they came to a river bank and saw a beautiful young woman standing at the edge of the bank and was afraid to cross the river.

The old monk, seeing that she needed help offered to help by carrying her across the river on his back. She accepted the offer and thanked him for helping her cross the river.

The 2 monks continued on their journey, but the young monk was shocked and disturbed at having seen his older companion break his vow of not touching a female so nonchalantly. Finally, after 3 hours of walking and thinking, he could contain himself no longer and he burst out in anger, "Why did you break your vow? Why did you let her beauty tempt you?"

The older monk remained silent for several steps and then said, "It is you who should tell me what it is like to carry such a beautiful young woman. You see I put her down 3 hours ago at the river, but you are still carrying her."

It is a simple story, but sometimes we forget simple things and we carry too much load on our back. Let go off the load and we will be a happier person

Mail Notification

One of the problems of using Unix based OS is that it becomes damn difficult to check office mails. Outlook still doesnt have an equivalent on Linux. Neither Thunderbird nor Evolution support Exchange 2007. I am left with using Outlook Webaccess that sucks. I have been living with this for almost a year now hoping that Thunderbird or Evolution will support Exchange 2007 sooner than later but to no avail.

So, this weekend I wrote this small Mail notifier that checks my Outlook & GMail account and pops up a notifier when there is a new mail. I find it extremely useful. Hope you find it too.

http://code.google.com/p/newmail-notify/

Socialism for Dummies!

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before but had once failed an entire class.

That class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor
and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on
socialism. All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same
grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B.

The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.

As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had
studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.

The second test average was a D! No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.

The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that
socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the
effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.

Could not be any simpler than that.

Perspectives

Recently I read a post from a dear one, which talked about how he was ill-treated by life and how he learnt a few of his most important lessons the hard way. We all learn our lessons, life is a tough teacher, every baby falls and hurts itself only to learn how to run (a marathon!). We are betrayed by our trusted friends to learn how to judge a person a better and not to learn never to trust again. Love fails, we loose the most precious, and learn how to value them before they are lost, for loss is inevitable.

Sometime back I was talking to a friend, and we happened to talk about the movie Crash. I rate it amongst the top 5 movies I have seen; this friend says, "Yes, this is the movie where everyone is screwed by each other"; I was amazed, this very same movie, I remember as the movie where everyone in the end attains salvation, where justice is meted out to everyone. There is realization and forgiveness. There is this particular mini story where, to console his daughter when she was scared, he wraps her with an invisible scarf that has protected him from all the dangers and which his mom gave him and she should hand over to her daughter when she is five. Few days later, this guy is at gunpoint outside his house, by someone who wants to take revenge. The girl comes running to protect her dad - the man shoots - the girl clings on to her dad - the man who had shot realizes his mistake - the girl holds tight, says, "Daddy, my scarf will protect you!" - nobody dies, but in that moment everybody realize their mistakes. Everybody, somewhere in some crude way sees justice and salvation.

Judge not a book by its cover

I came across this today and I was stunned, touched, shocked and humbled. This is sheer talent that does not always show from the outside. This lady seemed to be one of those who come to the stage for some sadistic pleasure. I couldnt really make a lot of sense of the lyrics, amidst all the shouting, but what I could make was... "I dream a dream"... And yes.. It takes a lot of conviction to stand up for the dream you dream of.

Kudos to BGT for letting such people present before a wide audience.

Conquer Your Weakness

This is a story of one 10-year-old boy who decided to study judo despite the fact that he had lost his left arm in a devastating car accident.

The boy began lessons with an old Japanese judo master. The boy was doing well, so he couldn't understand why, after three months of training, the master had taught him only one move.

"Sensei," the boy finally said, "Shouldn't I be learning more moves?"

"This is the only move you know, but this is the only move you'll ever need to know," the Sensei replied. Not quite understanding, but believing in his teacher, the boy kept training.

Several months later, the Sensei took the boy to his first tournament. Surprising himself, the boy easily won his first two matches. The third match proved to be more difficult, but after some time, his opponent became impatient and charged; the boy deftly used his one move to win the match. Still amazed by his success, the boy was now in the finals.

This time, his opponent was bigger, stronger, and more experienced. For a while, the boy appeared to be overmatched. Concerned that the boy might get hurt, the referee called a time-out. He was about to stop the match when the Sensei intervened. "No," the Sensei insisted, "Let him continue."

Soon after the match resumed, his opponent made a critical mistake: he dropped his guard. Instantly, the boy used his move to pin him. The boy had won the match and the tournament. He was the champion.

On the way home, the boy and Sensei reviewed every move in each and every match. Then the boy summoned the courage to ask what was really on his mind. "Sensei, how did I win the tournament with only one move?"

"You won for two reasons," the Sensei answered. "First, you've almost mastered one of the most difficult throws in all of judo. And second, the only known defence for that move is for your opponent to grab your left arm."

The boy's greatest weakness had become his greatest strength.

Life in a Metro

Anshul, Kishmish & I sweating in the Mumbai local

Few weeks back I was in Mumbai, the second most populous city in the world; I have been to big shining cities, but Mumbai has a charm, its diversity stands out. Much to KM's discord, we travelled in the local train. It was amazing to see the crowd, local workers, students, office goers, they were all there, in an almost figurative harmony, moving towards a common destination. It was pretty hot and by the time we got off at Marine drive, we were all sweaty but the experience was worth the sweat :)

Marine Drive

We walked along the Marine drive in the scorching heat by the Arabian Sea; it was contrast contrasted, the wonderful skyline, spic roads and suddenly a lunch of Pav Bhaaji on a chatai by the beach under a tree at Chaupathi.
It was amusing to see the many many dabbawalaas making their way through the crowds. The fact that they still make their deliveries with a six sigma accuracy (correctness 99.9999% of the time) really sounds like a myth.

We reached The Taj and I was amazed (as usual) to know that I let out a sorrowful moan at the sight of the beautiful Taj being marred by the Terrorist attacks last November.

The city of Mumbai is really full of life and full of contrasts, of intertwined fates of people traveling together in the Mumbai locals. I really fell in love with the city and as we moved back towards the hotel in the evening, I was huming the old tune...

Zaraa haske.. Zaraa bachke... Ye hai mumbai meri jaan...

Of good, bad and technology

We hear the oft repeated cliched, "Everything happens for a good reason" over and over; and sometimes we wonder what good can come out of bad things, what good can come out of killings and misery, most of the time we are left without an answer, but today I came across this EXTREMELY interesting use of almost a massacre for something that might have a ground breaking impact on way things are today.

Ratan Bhardwaj and his colleagues at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, used radiocarbon dating, which is normally employed to establish the age of archaeological or geological remains, to work out the age of heart cells compared to the chronological age of the person from which they were isolated. To do this, the team took advantage of nuclear tests done during the 1950s and 1960s, which led to a sharp increase of radioactive Carbon 14 in the atmosphere. The radioactive material was captured by plants as CO2 and then worked its way up the food chain and into the DNA of the human body. Soon after the tests were stopped, atmospheric C14 levels declined again, leading to a corresponding drop in the C14 concentration in human DNA.

The team measured C14 levels in the heart tissue of twelve deceased patients aged between 19 and 73 at the time of death and found elevated C14 even in those subjects who had been born two decades before the nuclear tests started, indicating that the radioactive carbon must have been incorporated into heart muscle cells long after birth. Similarly, the C14 levels in the hearts of younger patients did not match the year of their birth but rather indicated a younger birthday for the cells.

- MIT Technology Review

It totally amazed me, on multiple counts, foremost, using radioactive dating to find cellular regenaration rate itself sounds absolutely fabulous a concept. But to put to a good use, a nuclear catastrophe, is what amazed me. Hats off to the team and the weirdly fabulous ways that we think.

Next time I hear someone say that everything happens for good, I would surely think twice before neglecting that as a cliche.

A watery weekend

Last weekend AS4 was all enthu to go somewhere, away from work; after a load of confusion on who is going and who is not, MB & I backing out at the last moment, trip was almost cancelled once, when we finally decided to leave Noida and leave for Rishikesh for a white water rafting "expedition" at 3 o clock in the morning.

Six of us, AS4, AS2, RM, T, MB & I started the trip with a late night movie (Excorcism of Emily Rose) at MB's place. With two cars, four drivers and two walky-talkies [MB has these really fancy toys that he plays with >:)] that we used to call each other names from one car to the other. The first stop was at Roorkee, I stopped over at IMG Lab and had a tea at VK sir's home. As was typical of VK sir, he offered us to arrange the insti guest house to stay and take bath.

After a brunch at Rishikesh, we started the white water rafting at 2:30 (delayed by MB's shopping for a capri and a "rafting" shoe!!!). Reaching the spot we realized we had left the camera down-stream and decided to request a friendly looking group of people (Chirag & Group) to take our group snap which they could send us later.

The rafting was wonderful, apart from the "adventurous" cliff jumping which RM & I took turns to scare each other for over 15 mins before we finally took the plunge, I "saved" an Ankita from drowning [yes.. that's me! OK... I just taught her how to float, and I guess it worked.. :)]..
We headed back for Delhi at noon the next day. The idea was to stop for a poori-halwa lunch at Har-ki-paudi, Haridwar. It was a like a total recall for me, from the campus days. We spent almost three hours in the water: floating, swimming and shouting till time would not permit us to linger on longer.
The next stop was @ Dominoes & Nirula's for a dinner in Meerut (where MB lost his cap again.. second time in 8 hours... ), we reached back in Noida at around 12.
We slept at 1 in the morning, five of us huddled in my room,bringing an end to the fabulous weekend, very well spent.

Three cheers to the trip.

How fleet is a glance of mind

How fleet is a glance of the mind! Compared with the speed of its flight, The tempest itself lags behind, And the swift-winged arrows of light.

It is amazing how easily the mind can shut off all the external voices and how easily it can be transported and carried away to a different world.

It was past midnight as I sat in my room infront of my laptop working on some document, I got up to get some water and I realized that the folks next door were playing loud music to celebrate something. As I drank the water I notice that the songs they were playing were the old dance numbers that were ever so hit on the campus - Summer of 69, Saturday Night, Its my life... In a moment I was back in that Thomso night, dancing like there's not a worry in the world, shouting, running from NesT to Hanger... Incredible.. A fleeting memory of the EE gang, IMG gang, those friends KU, GB, PG.. Those were really the best days of my life.. I call KU to know he is working late in the office.. PG to know she is M***I** [Top secret ;)]

Load shedding... Zoom in to present... MS saying that "woh bhi din the... aur aaj bhi din hein" (those were the days... and these are days too [not exactly... but hope u got the sense if u didnt get the original])... and in that moment my mind takes another flight; to the Kungfu master Tortoise Oogway from Kungfu Panda (Must watch if you like animations or action movies)

Oogway: You are too concerned about what was and what will be. There is a saying: yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present.

And yes, today is a present.. to be remembered in the time to come.