discurrere.....

Couplibrium ...

2011-05-11T11:35:00.000-07:00

the car was driving past an eating joint near ulsoor.

it is past nine and the traffic is mild. the driver was enjoying the pressure his feet could assert on the accelerator.

few yards ahead of us, i see a boy and a girl.

the boy held an helmet in his left hand, and his right hand clasped with her left hand. her right hand was holding an short fancy bag. a couple. in their twenties... may be married.. may be still dating..

the boy was two steps into the road, with every intention of crossing the road before the car could cross them, while the girl was reluctant and was looking towards us..

she pulled him back.

the car zoomed past them.. with a very loud and angry honk from my driver mixed with his own yelling.

i kept looking at them through the side view mirror..

the boy had already regained from the pull and was two steps into the road, the girl still hesitant, but willing was allowing him to drag her across the road..

the headlights of next vehicle seemed far enough...

those few moments of couplibrium (an subtle equilibrium attained by two different individuals) between that boy and girl saved them from having to go through an unfortunate event..

User Experience to Listener Experience..

2011-04-20T10:03:00.000-07:00

In the recent times, I have been hearing a lot of emphasis being made towards User Experience in software development. It is mostly rants about how programmers design without paying any attention to the user experience..

On this second day (Apr 20) I happened to attend the talk by Venkat Subramaniam on building an Humane Interface - Aesthetics and Usablity. Of the several good examples he provided to drive home the importance of developing an humane interface, one literally made me jump out of my seat..

It was about how people don't think under pressure and expect certain things to work in a certain way. for example, when a room catches a file.. people run to the door and "push" the door out.. even though the builder might have written "PULL" in bold big letters in front of the door.. As the audience were immersed in the point which he so clearly and interestingly expresses.. he added..

"Only other time when people may run faster towards the door is when there is a bad speaker."

That seemed as if he was pointing at me and me being the person who had just run away from another session because of the speaker. No doubt the person has very good technical knowledge but is terrible at speaking about the technology..

As programmers we have to focus on user (humane) experience.. so does the speaker..

Checking in at the Developer Summit

2011-04-19T08:45:00.000-07:00

I checked in quite early today and am waiting in the Main Hall of the J. N. Tata Auditorium in the IISc Campus, Bangalore. The campus, I must say, has always attracted me with its greenery and it did influence me in registering for the event.

I was pleasantly surprised to have got the confirmation to the event, though I ended up registering quite late. The timing for the event couldn't have been any worse, when it comes to the schedule at work. I tried to finish as many tasks as I could that were due this week from me, to make myself available for this event...

Folks are settling, some with their laptops open, but many skimming through the schedule.

Looking at the GIDS 2011 schedule, there are parallel sessions.

I wish I had Hermione's Time-Turner, but since I don't, I am forced to pick just a bunch from the many interesting and cutting edge topics. After a quick glance, I decided to stick to the ones on software development, windows cloud platform, java, web services, mobile app development.

Today, the first day, the focus is on .NET, which eases my choices..

dried branch..

2011-04-12T06:48:00.000-07:00

i have no use for the tree and i don't have the ability to detach myself..
i wait...watching my color change gradually from green to gray..
i wait...as the tree stops feeding me the water, killing one cell at a time..
i wait...as the sun mercilessly exhausts the last few nutrients left in me..

but there are moments when i feel alive..
when... the chirpy birds relax on my rigid branches..
when...when i become the bridge to the jumping squirrels..
when...the insects begin to scavenge me..

i know eventually i will either burn or become manure...
when i am chopped by a woodcutter.. or an monkey..
but there is hope.. as the seasons change..
from the roots of my stalks that are long gone.. little sprouts emerge...

I say, just use Common Sense.

2011-03-16T08:53:00.000-07:00

"I say, Use Common Sense", stressed the senior citizen, who was waiting like us (me and my partner/spouse) for the Bus. "We talk about development, education. But I say, Just use minimum Common Sense". He was pressing his thumb and index finger to indicate minimum and an dejected frown took shape on the face that has been aging gracefully.. His white military mustache, definitely attention grabbing.. He was wearing an jeans pant and a checks shirt, a black pouch tied to his waist. An NRI, may be, the thought quickly crossed my mind.

He initiated the conversation, as we let an Bus pass by. We were in no particular hurry to be where we were supposed to be. (Our dentist).

I was smiling at the mad rush of the people trying to squeeze in through the center doors of the bus, while the ones who had already boarded were comfortably standing guard, almost making sure no one else can pass through them. Like always, there was some space towards the back of the bus, waiting for takers.

Can't blame those not moving backwards, can we? Especially when we are in the age of moving forward, quickly!

Only the other day, I was in similar bus, filled to the brim. I was almost near the back. And it was Puspak Bus, which should really be taken off the road or made available only for non-crowded routes. Only one person can fit in the pathway. And if there is a person standing, it becomes immensely difficult to cross them, without publicly spooning them.

My stop was nearing and I cursed myself for getting in to this bus. I started walking to the front of the bus (the only door in the bus is in the front). I managed to get past four people, but then got stuck behind a little person( less than 4ft), a girl with a black laptop bag. Her innocent face expressed how terrified she was and it wouldn't be too much of an exageration if i say, she feared that she might be crushed with this giant passengers. A new person in town, unaccustomed to the crowded bus! (A crowded pushpak bus, a category of its own).

I wanted to pass as gently as possible and anyway, my stop was not until the next one. But then I realized, i was being pushed and yelled at. As long as I moved i didn't realize there was another person behind me making his way to the front exit, but the moment i paused, he made himself visible and audible.

There was no choice now but to request the little-new-person to give way. She did what she could, which was to move towards the exit and I followed her as the yelling grew louder. She had to get down to finally let me out and the person behind me. I never saw the male figure that was yelling at me, and had no inclination. I just hoped that little-innocent-looking-girl made it back into the bus.

I walked. I had no inclination to take the bus again just to get down at the next bus stop.

If she did make into the bus, I am sure she was just in the front. The back would remain unclaimed for in crowded buses. So, you see, it is practical to just stay in the front, dangling to the foot board!

Anyway, coming back to the white(grey)-haired-military-mustache-uncle. He also, let the bus pass, and caught me smiling. He smiled at me, immediately, expressing his frustration by touching his hand to the fore-head and making that "ayyo.. " face.

"Three buses. Three buses went one after the other that side". (The opposite side). I did see them as we came to wait at the bus stop. I didn't notice him until he caught me smiling. I nodded in agreement, that indeed three buses went the other side, one after the other.

"The third one was empty." He was mocking. "Can't they space those buses fifteen minutes apart.", He wasn't particularly asking me. He went on, "..and we talk about development.".

"See those traffic police.", he was pointing to the signal a few feet away. "Three of them standing there, and still there is a traffic jam." He was right. Neither I nor my spouse(partner) could add anything more to what he was saying.

"Just the other day, two of them", he was showing his index and middle fingers shaped as V, "left the signal and went for having coffee." He paused to smile or mock with his face. "What is this, I say?". He paused sufficiently long, which prompted me to say..

"They should have gone one at a time."

"See." His expression changed to that of content, when a student finally takes the bait and spits out an expected answer.

"Simple Common Sense. I say, Use Common Sense", he stressed it again. "Thats all is needed."

He went on the mention about corruption, the Thomas debacle of Mr. Singh. The brain drain. And finally came back to : "We talk about development, education. But I say, Just use minimum Common Sense".

Like on the other side, another bus came to the stop within few minutes. This time the white(grey)-haired-military-mustache-uncle managed to get his foot through the door. As the bus moved on, I could see him and his black pouch still dangling through the door..

We only had to wait for couple of minutes, before two buses came to the stop. Both almost empty.

Where is Gujju Curry!

2011-02-24T10:22:00.000-08:00

The past ten minutes were probably the most emotionally charged moments of today and has raised the curiosity and interest of everyone present at the luncheon. And the focus has dramatically shifted from their personal local topics to the missing "Gujju Curry!"

Ten minutes ago, everything was in place. The couple on the reception stage, wearing the costliest dress they every wore. Bearing the weight of the Rose Garland, with a smile and charm that only newly wedded couple can wear. The busiest part of the mid-day reception was over, as many guests had already congratulated them and went home. The last batch of guests were having their lunch..

There were a few guests, who after finishing the lunch were lounging around. The mothers of the bride and groom were entertaining their respective guests. the father of the bride was away with his buddies, while the father of the groom was administering the severs..

The father was paying extra attention to this batch, personally asking the guests if they need anything. The cause for extra attention being bestowed at the Lady who offered her court yard for arranging the reception for the 200 and people. She was loud person, like the typical Land Lady of the South and being the richest in the village and having a personal temple in her court yard have only helped her become more louder.

The family of the groom, who personally, made all the arrangements for the party were lazing around the kitchen, feeling a bit of pride at the job well done. They formed a little group of their own, oblivious to the sudden uproar from the guests at the lunch...

The father of the groom rushed in to the kitchen, his face turned red with anger and walking briskly past the family members, he started to open the lids of various vessels. And he shouted. "Gujju Curry".

By now the family members gather around him and were astonished to see that "Gujju Curry" has not been served.

"Why did you not see this?" He was accusing no one in particular, but it hit the Peddama hard. Since she had taken up the responsibility to oversee the cooking, without no one particularly asking or questioning her interest.

"You expect me to sit here in the kitchen all day". She yelled at him.

Quietly, but maintaining his brisk walk, he rushed on to the dining area and called the chief server back to the kitchen. "See. Here is the Curry.... Take and Serve".

He went back to join the guests, who were now all listening to the Lady. "I knew something was missing." She was saying.

"Yes amma. you are right. they missed to send it here.", he was telling her.

"I called and told you because earlier i saw they were making the curry." She told as a matter of fact. "Anyway, what is the use now, the first two batches never got to eat the curry." She went on. "What is the use of making such nice Gujju Curry with so many cashews, when you can't serve."

The others now started murmuring, but none as loud as her.

The bride and groom, were also finding it amusing to see the attention shift from them to the Lady. The family members.. lost their joy.. and were cursing themself for telling the servers take full responsibility. They were scolding the server who were entering the kitchen to take the items..

"They are not going to forget this. Small town. Small topics". The grooms sister was complaining now. "The focus is all on the Gujju Curry. And dad will act as if we did a blunder for another year."

half red pill....

2010-12-10T07:00:00.000-08:00

the Doctor sat silently, as she continued with her complaints or what i come to now know as the opening remarks.

she was telling him that the food tastes bitter, bitter than bitter gaurd.. she is still having problems with the stools... sleep... knees.. can't walk.. and dizzyness.. can't stand for long time...

"And there are just too many medicines". She rested her case.

As she paused, he said he is going to change a few tablets, and said to her. "It is true, you should not be taking so many medicines, stop all these and take just this one".

"What is this for?" she asked.

"To keep your diabetes in control".

"What about BP?" She asked. "Tension. My life is full of tension. I can't stop it".

He looked at the reports and said, "BP seems to be under control."

"Thats because of that little white tablet I take after breakfast and dinner." She said. "Please give something for the tension, or my head might burst anytime."

OK. Continue the same tablet, but take only when you feel that your BP has increased or you feel dizzy. He was giving me the new prescription, when she said.

"Can you give something for stools? I don't know what happens to all the food I take, I just don't go to stool.. I feel my stomach will burst anytime". I couldn't stop but ponder on the maids complaints about the littered sarees.

"Ok. Let us get some tests done." He added a few more tests to the monthly checkups.

"Doctor, you didn't check my heart. It sometimes beats faster and louder. People in the other room can hear it." (Of course I have never heard it... )

"I think we should get an ECG done". He said looking at me. I nodded.

"And my eyes doctor. I think my number has changed. I can't see properly". She said blinking her eyes, and in her own unique way kept them closed at uneven places. It almost seemed like one eye was badly troubling her than the other.

"When was the last eye check up done?" he was asking. An year ago, i said.

"Sleep. Doctor sleep. That is most important. I don't get sleep. First do something about that, then may be everything else will fall in place". She was telling him. (What about all that snoring?) "I don't sleep till 2 am and then i get up before 4am. I know the time because, whenever i get up, i press the button on the phone to see the time.". (what about those days when I see you still sleeping till 9am).

"Till I was talking the red pill. I was getting the sleep properly. But it is stopped now because, it may affect the kidneys. But without those tablets, I can't sleep."

He looked at the old prescription and at me asked me "what red pill?".

I took a piece of paper and wrote down the name and gave it to him.

"This?" he asked.

"That seemed to help her. But I am not sure if I can continue giving that." I said..

"Let us continue that for some more days". I could already feel her eyes boring at me as if she knew that doctor would agree to her taking red pills.

After a while we walked out of the clinic, and i folded the paper in which i had written the name of the red pill and threw into the dustbin. The name on that was "Digene".

full circle - old age

2010-11-30T10:38:00.000-08:00

i have heard that as we age, we become like a child. but rarely, have i seen some one aged whose behavior would resemble that of a child. that is, until now. my grand mother seems to age many times in her mind than her body.

and many a times, it is hard to see past that old wrinkled body and connect with the child that manifests itself. and the glimpses of being a grown up every now and then surely makes it hard.

i have heard a lot of stories from her younger days, when she might have been my age now, many a times in the past. and many many times. her stories telling was exactly like playing a record, and sometimes i used to ask her to tell that incident or this and she would gladly oblige. i no longer listen to those stories and they don't fascinate me any more..

but where can she now go to bring new stories, other than what she hears over the phone from her grand child in another city. she pretty much repeats her phone conversation with her, even if it is just about the lunch or the dinner the grand child had.

there are times, when she tells me things that i have told to my cousin, and which my cousin told her. after listening, i would just say .. i know. and she also seems to imply that "yes, i know you know. but you did not tell me. learn from your cousin, she confides in me.". i just keep looking at her..... as she walks back in her room, having made her point.

well, there are days, when the cousin doesn't call (hardly any, but still). she walks up to me as i am watching tv, after serving her dinner. she shows me the tablet that she is holding, the same tablet that she has to take every night for diabetes and asks me,

"should i take an half or a full?". i keep quiet..

"i am just taking your advice." she says..

after considering for a while, based on her recent sugar reports.. i would say "half".

"no. i think i will take full. what if sugar increases while i am asleep."

at that point, i have tried to logically reason out which has never worked. she would finally say as she walks away. "i will take full. btw, make sure to check on me every now and then. i may have passed away and sleeping."

the very first time, i had heard her say that, i got infuriated. "why are you talking like that?" i demanded.

for which she had an well prepared answer. "i am not afraid of death. but i only have one wish. i want to see your cousin married. once she is married i will be peaceful."

when the same conversation repeated, i realized it is futile to make her stop mentioning death. and i have become indifferent towards her affinity towards d - statements.

and then, there are these episodes of her stopping me from going out of the house because she can't be alone in the house anymore. she starts crying. literally. if i say that it will be fine. a new can of rantings opens up about how she is being ignored and no one cares whether she is alive or d.

of course. it is true. can't leave her alone any more, especially in an locked apartment, where she can't find help from neighbors. sometimes i wonder about if she doesn't feel like a bird caged inside all the time. she has spent most of her like staying out doors and socializing (more like gossiping) with the village folks....

she is the(one of) reason i exist. and she is at a stage where i am the(one of) the reason she exists.

crossing over..

2010-11-03T11:10:00.000-07:00

a picture conveys a thousand words, or so the saying goes. indeed!

it was one such image that caught my attention today, and to describe it in words here, almost seems like contradicting what i have just stated. but alas, it was an image that i couldn't capture in camera, neither do i have the skill to sketch from memory what i glimpsed only for a few seconds..

the auto just took a turn towards the DRDO gate, and was going to add to the traffic that was piling before taking the right turn to bagmane tech park. as it was about to close in the gap between itself and the cars and bikes in front like an mid sized pebble being dropped into a jar of boulders and small sand...

then i saw...

a girl. no smile. wearing a chudidhar. holding a plastic file against her chest. stepping down onto the road and stepping back. glancing at the tall IT buildings across the road...

was she a fresher? was she searching for a job? i am sure she will get a job. i did. i was just like her a decade ago.. but does she know? "It is ok", if she can't make through today interview.

she walked a little further on the road before crossing..

transforming instances..

2010-10-15T19:43:00.000-07:00

there comes a instant, always does, when one comes as close as one can come to facing death. and the fact that they survive it, only makes it an near-death or what i would call an transforming instance.

this instance, is not an intellectual but a physiological moment. where intellect completely converges to an single thought of - "it is time". these moments are characterized by utter helplessness and hopelessness of both body and mind at the same time...

do you know what i am talking about? have you ever been in an accident? or an mugging attack? or were almost drowned in sea or a pond?

may be not that extreme, but there are also instances of you being late diagnosed with a disease, at a very late stage..

and there is that moment of loosing a loved one for death.....

the transformation happens in the moments that follow. for some they would stick for the rest of the life, for some the are only faint glimpses of resolutions that were never kept..

well, mom is just going through one such phases.. and her moment came when she was cleaning the dirt on the electric switch board.. a shock that shot her a few feet that has shook her entire system..

truth and belief

2010-10-01T09:58:00.001-07:00

truth and belief transform into each other at the absence of facts.

yesterdays truth can become todays belief : take the instance of neil armstrong. there have been videos of him setting the foot on moon. there is a media coverage of the event. my teachers have taught me so. yet, it is just a belief for me that a person has landed on moon. i can never prove it myself.

yesterday belief can become todays truth : if one third is acceptable. you could take the historic verdict of acknowledging the belief as being true in the court of law. of course, a case in point is the belief of some individual that earth revolved around the sun and not the other way around.

of course a belief can certainly be ruled out as false..

for instance the belief that making leeches suck the blood out of a patient will cure him of the disease..

many a facts these days are based on the evidence of science and its branches, and run the risk of proclaiming something as true or false just like religion. i must say though, that it would make it extremely hard to go against what is thought to be truth by science..

from todays news papers, there exists a planet like earth, some 20 light years away....

food.

2010-09-28T10:47:00.000-07:00

people were being cramped into the mini van. the same mini van, a couple of hours ago would have carried employees who sparsely filled it. the crowd rarely conversed, even though all those it carried were destined to spend the next few hours, the better part of their day, under the same roof.

i was also on my way to work and instead of the mini van that carried my co-workers, i boarded this cramped mini van. one could argue that i am promoting an illegal businesses, since the drivers of this mini van aren't authorized to take passengers when they are on duty. but given the scarce buses that come our way, these offer an alternate to the scary auto rides.

there are people getting in and getting out, along this long stretch of outer ring road from BEL circle to the Tin Factory. there are people from different states of financial status. there are those who are going to college, some visiting families with their children or the elderly, some who are working at the software tech park, but mostly it is those that work as daily laborers.

in the past few months i have travelled, i noticed that these laborers typically travel in groups. they don't fret at missing the ride, nor do they mind the cramped vans. they cheer, yell, make them self very comfortable, where comfort is impossible.

today, i witnessed two college girls also get into the bus.

one who had a very pleasant smile which she directed towards the three ladies sharing a one and half seater (saying it two seater would be insulting the average build person). i only could see the back of the three ladies who were all dressed in the saris and were on their way to construction work or some such work that demanded hard labor.

as they got down the bus, the girl with the pretty smile, smiled and took their seat. her friend on the other hand was exhibiting deep disgust and clearly dismayed at sharing the ride with those ladies. her nose twitched, making her pretty face transform into an repulsive mask as the ladies passed through the door, barely brushing against her black sweater sleeves. i was stuck by the contrast..

there was another set of laborers boarding in.. an middle aged man got in and made it into the crowd, while his older companion barely made inside the door. the driver yelled to close the door. the door did not close, but the old man let out of a soft cry, barely audible. the guy at the window seat pushed the door out, that diverted the attention to the door..

the old man's hand was stuck at the door and he was recuperating from the pain..

his younger companion, yelled at him for not making inside sooner and quickly switched to inquiring about the hand. the old man looked at his hand, swayed it a few times and said. it is fine. his other hand carried a bag.

the younger man said, keep the bag down.

"No, we can't keep the food at our feet", said the old man with conviction.

the younger one was quiet..

"Food is what drives us to work. We have to respect food. Isn't it?" the old man was asking no one in particular.

The man near the window seat who, moments ago relieved the old man of the pain, took the bag from the old man and told, "i will give you the seat at next stop."

the old man went on to speak with proverbs that only my grand mother sometimes says, but neither my parents or I will ever be able to repeat.

Food. Indeed is what we are striving for. But the respect that the old man was giving to his food, isn't the same respect that i am giving to the food that i eat.

i am more civilized or educated. i analyze my food. i plan my food. i measure the intake of my food.

but do i respect my food?

ordinary life..

2010-09-04T20:30:00.000-07:00

when life, by its virtue is extra ordinary, how does it become ordinary?

And yet, on several occasions I have had to listen many of my closest call them self ordinary. and interestingly the same people have judged lives of others as being ordinary or extra ordinary.

the moment, they make they grade the lives of others, they tend to associate theirs or would like theirs to be associated with the highest grade. they are overcome by the desire to lead the extra-ordinary life they have created in their minds.. alas, they never look back to see, those who judge them as leading an extra-ordinary life..

what is a life worth calling extra-ordinary for you?

- a life, that is looked up to by a nation
- a life, that has come become the source of other lives
- a life, that has the best money has to offer
- a life, that has gone into the realms of consciousness

and what about an 'ordinary' life, like that of a tree or an bird that is concerned with Being? an 'ordinary' life that observes without judgment..

friend

2010-05-13T21:52:00.001-07:00

it was raining heavily, pouring down, a welcome respite from the heat of the past week. Huddled under the small over-crowded bus stand, i was waiting for the rain to let up so i could walk back from work, when suddenly, out of nowhere, she came walking towards me, and then as if she was talking to an old friend, she inquired "When did you move here?"

her face was familiar, but i couldn't recollect anything more and hoping to know more, i answered "it has been a while", assuming she was talking about my shift back to india last year. i paused, hoping she would say something more to refresh my memory.

she was quiet, examining and making a mental note of something. i asked her back, "how have you been?" to break the silence.

"i am holding up, after all that has happened.", she stated with an sigh of relief, showing no further inclination of adding anything more as to what has happened. i kept gazing at her, but my silence seemed to assure her that i was aware of what happened.

at length, she added - "thanks for asking".

the rain stopped, abruptly. just like the way it had started. i excused myself and started walking towards home. after taking a few more steps, i turned back to look at her, she was looking my way. her eyes were saying more than she told. she seemed to be sure of knowing me and my chance meeting seemed to relieve her momentarily of some deep sadness. i let her be, and i brushed aside the thought of going back and apologizing for not recognizing and explaining her, may be she mistook me for someone else.

i went home, finished my chores and i still had her image on my mind. may be i should have asked for her name, may be her number. why was her face familiar. i looked through the names on my phone, so see if i could relate any name to her face. couldn't. that night i changed my status on face book to say, "met a strange women under strange circumstances".

since, i have been stopping at the bus stop for a few minutes on the way back home, hoping to meet her again.

it has been years now. i changed jobs, have married and moved away from that area. the memory of the face has faded away, but the look in those eyes has remained.

eventually, i did figure out how i knew her.

the revelation came, when i was going through my some oldest posts on facebook. she was one of the many randomly added friends though the friend finder. she had posted interesting comments on my pictures and notes. all she had in her profile was one of her childhood photograph. in those initial days, we exchanged a bunch of mails, more than one a day. eventually it came down to once a year on birthdays and new years. she had sent me her wedding invitation, to which i replied congratulations. and eventually a mail lay there after a couple of years, about her bad divorce. i did not respond to that mail.

her profile, has been unused for a while. the status still showed married.

Greed and Compassion

2010-04-28T10:22:00.000-07:00

May be greed is too strong a word, but it is greed that drives the auto(cab) driver to tamper with his meter and make that extra buck. Isn't it?

Of course, the meter can't be tampered to extort an exorbitant amount. After all it is mostly the 'smart' engineers and students that hire the 3-wheeled autos. (Well, if not most, the majority).

I happened to hire one such driver today, to take me to my office.

I have taken the same route many times before, all those times I missed the morning office arranged commute or when my guy isn't around to drive me to work. (Yeah yeah, i know i have to learn driving, not trouble my guy or spend money on auto, but driving through bangalore traffic sounds horrifying.)

Now, having taken the same route many many times, and being alone in the cab. I sported reading a book or playing a game on the mobile, but that was too straining for the eyes. So I just sit idle. Idle mind is devils workshop. So when I sit idle in the auto, i start gazing out and the meter mostly. The constant ticking of that mechanical meter or the blinking electronic meter is very distracting. Anyway, I have developed a system in this idle mind that can approximate the amount to various interim points before I reach office.

Today's driver failed the honesty test under my mind's idle scrutiny. Verified it at each interim point and established the fact beyond doubt. But I kept my finding to myself, after having resolved that if it reaches beyond 130 (120 being the max i have given so far) I will tell him that his meter runs faster.

And then it happened...

We were at the cox town signal, the traffic halted, the horns were thundering(honking is too mild a word to describe the bangalore traffic honk)... the eight, four and three wheelers had occupied the road, with the two wheelers squeezing in every little place that was left, even taking over the footpath.

There was still footpath, if you searched for it very carefully.. and on that footpath, was an young guy, his legs mutilated from the knees below, trying move into the traffic with his hands and crutches...

It seemed very strain full, pausing by tightly resting his elbows on the middle of the crutches and spreading his palms.. It would have been easier if he had just made himself comfortable at some corner, with a bowl or a cloth spread infront of him, with a few coins scattered on it. But, I guess the standards of begging have taken a new level. He was attempting the most painful task. And he was being offered coins.

One lady, who was on a two wheeler, took out a coin and since her hands failed to reach the guy, threw a coin towards him. the coin went rolling, until it settled between the wheels of a bike. The biker carefully readjusted the wheels so that he made way for the crippled guy to take the coin..

the guy started easing the grip on one crutch and placed it down. then he slowly brought the other crutch down and kept it down. he pushed his thighs forward, by one swing between his hands and dropped himself down on his buttocks. he let his torso down on the ground and stretched his hands to reach out for that coin..

he pocketed it....

After few moments of painful ordeal, he regained his position on the crutches.. and was moving on to the next vehicle. The red turned to green and everyone started to move. And the poor guy tried to hurry out of the way of the maddening traffic...

Just then, my driver, the greedy auto driver took out a coin and threw towards him... May be he was holding it for his turn to hand it over, but it was late now..

The flying coin, startled me and added a new facet to the greedy auto driver. While I was too numbed at the sight and he acted on the sight...

Was he more compassionate than I? the man who tampered the meter to extort money from the passengers is more compassionate than I. At that moment, my resolve went bust. I decided I will give him the money as per his meter.

My thoughts for the rest of the commute revolved around compassion instead of greed. What might have triggered his compassion? Was it pity? Was it the fear that it might have been him? Was he empathizing or sympathizing? Are people making a business out of compassion? a beggar economy?

I reached office. The meter showed 130 dot. I gave him 130 dot.

possessiveness...

2010-02-24T08:23:00.000-08:00

the devils of possessiveness haunt me,
the craving to own your gestures,
the gestures, that take me to the pinnacle
also shun me into an dark deviled abyss..

the smile that melts my heart, also pierces
when unto others, you flaunt it unscrupulously,
the dreamy looks to which i succumb, also scourge
when you bestow the looks eagerly unto others...

the intimate gestures that make me feel special,
like the holding of hands, the warm hug,
like that concern for my burdens, urge for my safety
drop me downright to an mere ordinary,
when unto others, you produce them
with ghastly promiscuity, and similar sincerity...

Yet, when you say those three words,
i gather myself back into your arms,
it still is the only place, that alone
can comfort me, and make the devils disappear..

in your embrace at the end of the day,
when you come to me with your soul and body,
you make me realize,
love is beyond outward gestures..

forget it... really? how?

2010-02-03T07:24:00.000-08:00

"Forget it", the person said with a composed calm.. (it may as well have been said in different ways, but it would have been the same words - forget it, "it" being some memory that is either not to be discussed or remembered hence forth)

"Forget it".. is a cure that is prescribed by friends and family and sometimes the person inflicting the wound.

But how do I actually forget "it"?

If "it" was an accidental tripping on his feet, i may not remember it again. If it was a slip of tongue or a sentence misread, i may not remember it again. Not remembering is as good as forgetting..

If "it" was a traumatic experience, like being mugged in the early hours of the night on a deserted road, or being cheated of a huge some of money.. it would be hard to forget it.. but the effect of such visible inflictions of pain reduces over time, when the loss is regained in terms of strength or health or money..

But what if "it" had resulted in a breach of trust, from a mere derogatory comment or a lie or accusation made with or without intended pun, anger, malice or ignorance... something that has made a deeper impact and has been registered at various levels in the brain... so deep that it starts to override some of the good memories.. that have been recorded in the past...something that manifests at different times in different levels and different layers of consciousness...

Can Time heal such memories which are forced to be remembered via every day incidents like facing the person or hearing the name in different contexts?

Of course the Time, that passes without happy memories to override the effects of such intangible mental trauma doesn't count..

But as time passes, life is full of opportunities and one can hope that something will happen that will diminish the effects..

Only time can answer if hope will turn into reality..... and until then...

"forget it"!

how long .... ?

2010-02-01T04:24:00.000-08:00

it is usually a simple question, which demands an simple number as answer..

think again.. ok.. it is a simple question with simple answer when the "how long" question is being tossed by professionals trying to help like doctors, lawyers, mechanics etc., but when the question is from an acquaintance or sometimes from an unagreeable friend it is sometimes better to be evasive...

why evade the question? behind the visible simplicity of the answer being a mere number... the number is also fatalistically or blissfully factual in nature... and in deciphering this blatant simple number, the casual conversationalist is applying years and layers of cultural connotations... and making general conclusions about something on which he/she specifically has no hold of the matter....

so.. what might such questions be....

"how long have you been without job?".. the number-response would conjure different conclusions on part of the person answering this question, some being fatalistically wrong like.. may be he is incompetent, while the person may have just taken a break to pursue some higher dreams...

"how long have you been in love?".. the longer the duration seems to convey an lasting relationship which is heartening to hear but which doesn't at all consider the kind of relationship the people are involved in, while the smaller number evokes doubt if the couple is really in love...

"how long have you lived abroad?"... the longer it had been, it seems it sounds ridiculous for someone to have come back to live in India, no matter what the reasons for return might be..

"how long have you worked on this project?"... the longer number translating into being an expert...

"how long have you known each other?" ... when answered in weeks or months, it seems like you really don't know each other.. and when it years it means you know each other very well.. which might not be the case at all!

agreed, such extreme conclusions are not totally baseless....

but when you know the response-number is not going to convey the right message, it is ok to evade the question with "long enough"....

what kind of "how long..?" questions did you face which made you hesitate before answering?

twenty rupees well spent..

2010-01-14T07:51:00.000-08:00

there are few things that are more gratifying than others, and when these things happen without pre-plan the gratification is many fold...

one such thing happened today..

i was walking down a few blocks to home from a printo store, which could have been covered in auto for fourty bucks or in a bus for less than ten bucks... but i preferred walk...

it wasn't until i almost reached within half-a-mile of home, when an elderly man stopped me and started speaking in Tamil. he must be almost 70 or a little older and his wife in her late 60s....

"ganesha koval enga?" ["where is ganesha temple?"] he stopped me to seek directions.

"hmmmmm...." i was looking at him, searching for the words to respond to him in Tamil. I wanted to tell him, i saw an ayyappa while coming, but i don't remember seeing a ganesha temple..

"ganesha koval.. illa... munna ayyapa koval..." [ganesha temple, no, forward ayyappa temple]and i pointed my finger in the direction from which i came.. i am not sure if my tamil sounds as bad as the translated english, but he seemed to understand what i told him..

"punjab national bank kitta", he said.

i remember seeing that bank, but i was not able to place it..

"indian overseas bank".. he added.

i don't remember having ever seen iob, but punjab ... yes..it was ahead of me... i pointed my finger in the direction in which they came and said, "punjab national bank"

he was quite... i was wondering if i was pointing him in the right direction for pnb.

(ofcourse in retrospect, i think may be i could have just said "gothilla" [don't know in kannada] and walked past them. they would have stopped someone else who might know the direction to the temple..)

i remembered then, between his being quite and my wondering that there were some temples beyond where i thought punjab national bank was, but i wasn't sure if they were ganesha temples..

"ange chinna koyal erraku" [there small temple is there], i said..

the old man was still quite.. may be he was wondering how he could have missed the pnb, since they came from that direction..

"vallagade iddhe na, road mele iddhe na", the old lady was asking in kannada. [is it inside or on the road?]

"vulla kuncham", [inside little], i responded in tamil..

the old lady told me.. that must be it, they went to that temple which was not on the main road, few months ago but have forgotten the way.. i said, i was going in that direction and i can take them there.. the temples where pretty close to my home, and wish i had gone in to meet the god within..

they started following me.. i slowed my pace, but was a step ahead of them..

i started thinking, what if none of those temples were of ganesha.. besides, i am yet to explore all the roads in this area and i could really be misleading them..

i stopped and glanced at the elderly couple following me.. now a few steps behind, the old lady was supporting the old man as he put his steps. the old man had trouble walking, one leg was shorter than the other.. or rather it seemed like one leg was always straight, he was just dragging it.. while the other leg folded at the knee as he moved.. as they got near, i could see some wounds on his legs.. mostly because of age i guess...

i wanted to stop someone and ask.. but then... most that walk around this area are the college students, who are not Bangaloreans.. would they know? may be the shop keeper...

just then, i saw an auto with no passengers, i stopped him.... asked him if he knew the temple.. he was blank.. i told him near that bus stop, that seemed to trigger something in him.. he said..

"yes.. twenty rupees.." he said..

"ok". i said and with my hands singled the old couple to board the auto.. the man was saying something in tamil and i think he meant, he would walk...

we settled in, and the auto started.. and with in the next moment at the next signal was the punjab national bank, i showed him that..

the old man, now remembered the way, "enge left edakanu nenekere" [i think we should take left here]. this was not where i had imagined to take them, the temples i had in mind were further down after another signal... so i asked the auto guy, if he knew about a temple near this signal...

the auto guy asked "msr nagar alli na" [[kannada]is it in msr nagar?]..

i repeated to the old man "msr nagar ..." [i was not getting the tamil word for "in"]..

the auto guy came to my rescue and he repeated the question to old man in tamil. and the old man replied saying it is the temple where there are nine planet gods.. the old lady was saying 'take us to any temple'

(ah! nine planet gods, and it occurred to me that they wanted to do the pooja because of the solar eclipse.. )

the auto guy, took that left as the old man thought, and within few yards was a turn to left again..

the old man now recognized the route, he said.. i think we are taking this left turn..

the auto, instead took the second left turn.. and was going straight... the old man said, it is at the end i think...

he was right. there was The temple..

gave twenty rupees to the auto guy..

they asked if i would come into the temple, i said no...

i inquired about their comfort level in going back.. they said they know.

before going in, the old man held my hand and said "rumba nandri" [many thanks]

i was searching for translation of 'you are welcome', but settled for "parvailla" [it is ok..] the look in his eyes was all that i needed, it was a blessing that could not be got inside the temple..

and i walked home.... with that smile and with a light heart....

i was just thinking about you...

2010-01-13T09:18:00.001-08:00

"i was just thinking about you", i said as i answered the phone.

"yeah rite", he said, implicating me of a lie.

"no, really", i insisted.

"whatever", he ignored my truth, and moved on to converse other things..

does this sound familiar to you?

is this just a co-incidence or what some might call 'telepathy'?

of course it doesn't work, if i start wishing, a certain someone should call me right now.. but then, may be telepathy can't be force proved, like the way god can't be made to do miracles..

is it really co-incidence? what are your theories?

i have one of my own.

for each person, the mind keeps a timer and as soon as that goes off.. i start to think of calling them... i might call them too.. or just reset the timer... similarly that person also has a timer for me.. based on the mutual interest in the bonding.. the timers can match each other or vary vastly..

if what i said just went over the head, don't bother.. after all, co-incidences are to be experienced with aw! not analyzed... or may be they should be analyzed....

an unofficial holiday..

2009-12-30T21:18:00.000-08:00

once in a blue moon (which incidentally is today or tomorrow depending on which side of the earth you are on), there are few scattered souls that haunt dead office building (like the one i am in).. dead from the regular hustle-bustle, constant movement of people and someone giggling relentlessly at a no-joker....

it is new years eve, and all those bold people who thought would make it to the office at all odds, have sent mails of sudden leave.. and those that have depended on their arrival to office, are stranded to pass time through other means.. work is not one of them...

the sounds.... that are usually heard today are those of the fans blowing, the printers screeching..... and phone beeping.. (it is mine!)

----------------

this thought has to wait. i have just made plans with friends for lunch and like others, am deserting the office too...

walk and walk...

2009-12-30T05:21:00.000-08:00

yes, abhishek bachan in his new idea ad should be saying walk and walk, instead of walk and talk..

or may be it is just me, setting out on long walks... an habit that formed at childhood or may be it is hereditary at least on the moms side.. who had to walk 3 miles in the morning to the milk diary, 5 miles one way to school every day.. and occasionally around 10 miles to go to a church convention. my mom stopped walking once we moved to bellary, but her sister who still works in the farms definitely walks at least 10 miles a day.. i wouldn't be shocked if one day she comes walking to bangalore from raichur.

i have kind of had a notorious reputation for long walks and people from college and school still think twice to come with me. i guess, naveen was the only one who attempted to walk for the second time. after that night in hyderabad where i took him from himayat nagar to rtc cross roads to tankband and back... he agreed to try it again in bangalore.. mg road to hsr layout i would argue isn't that far, but it was sufficient for him to never walk with me again...

anyway, for some reason, only few walks stick to memory..

the walk that i took from my village primary school. i only studied till 4th there, so it must be before i was 10.. i had to leave school in the afternoon, may be because of the unpaid fee (which was usually the case in those days). and the bullock cart that took us to school wouldn't make the trip home just for me. anyway i decided to walk that day, instead of waiting for the evening trip... it was an familiar route home and made it without any problem.. but it did shock everyone at home. i wonder if they still think that someone dropped me and i was telling them i walked. however, i don't remember my legs hurting that night.. they should have isn't it?

the walk that i took from the bellary medical college to home on the railway tracks, after seeing the results of my entrance exam. horrific results, that had not prospects, only to learn that i had the hall ticket number wrong.

the walk that i took on my first day to work in holmdel, new jersey going around in loops, heading the directions of a shop keeper in seven eleven. he was very sure that if i go straight from route 35, i will reach Bell offices (lucent as it was called, and alcatel-lucent later, and right now that building has been shut down). the walk uphill and downhill, with those beautiful holmdel mansions. (as much as i blamed that guy for misguiding me, if it were not for that guy, i would have missed out on the most beautiful sights. i kept going back to that stretch of houses whenever i had time.. and did last december as well...).

the walk today... from c.v.raman nagar to bel road. unmantling tangled thoughts, seeing them through. once done, observing the people, the few people that were walking and even fewer vehicles because of the vishnuvardhan's death. it wasn't very long, before my mind started to focus on one thing, the want of rest legs.. it is amazing how the mind only sees what it wants. all i could see were different forms on which i could rest for a while... the broken compound wall, an stone slab near an tiles quary, an inverted flower pot as i passed by a nursery, the seat at an deserted bustop, the trunk of a tree.. just to name a few...

the walks, always have led me to the destination.. be it either home, office or peace of mind..

seeing her off

2009-12-01T19:35:00.000-08:00

like always, she was early. this time by a couple of hours. the train was at 10.30. she wanted to leave the house by 8.30.

"It is ok ma, we will make it in time". I tried to delay...

"No. Let us go, we may get stuck in traffic". she said.

It is true, there is every chance of getting stuck in traffic and at several junctions. The most frustrating of the junctions however, is the one right before the entrance to the railway station. getting down and walking would be a wise decision, but it hard to execute with a 50+ mom and a heavy luggage to carry. the prospect of rushing for the train at the last minute, (which has happened in the past) convinced me to get out of the house at 8.30

If i haven't mentioned it earlier, it is 8.30pm.

The next hurdle would be a to catch an auto rickshaw. It is one of such times where i miss having my own car, but well, it has not yet gotten so worse that i can't manage. it is not worse, but it is hard to convince an auto driver to take us to the railways station (it is just plain hard to convince a a.driver to take us to desired destination period. time of the day doesn't matter.).

they need an incentive, beyond what ticks on the meter. i generally avoid if i can, but at times like this.. i will settle for their bargain of "20Rs extra".

the ride typically is filled with conversation (or more like reminders) about where to find what in her absence. (yes, i am 'seeing her off' at the station and i will have to manage without her for a week.) the reminders dwell into the locking the door, turning the gas off, eating food on time (heavily stressed topic), and since this is around 1st.. the reminders also included how to pay the bills for paper, medicines, grocery..

to divert her attention, i would try and maneuver the conversations towards the idiosyncrasies of her close kin. all i had to do would be to pick a random name from a list of her many relatives and ask how are they.. it never fails, there is always some story from that relative who would have called her few days ago to tell her about an erratic behavior of his/her son/daughter or some neighbor or better yet.. their maid.

at some point she would have ended the story and i would have stopped nodding.. and in that gap of few minutes, i would inadvertently drift into smsing someone on the phone.. that leads her to ask some intruding questions to extract further information about the recipient of the sms.. i would hardly have anything more to offer than say.. "he/she is fine". thats that.

--

we reached the station before 9:15, early by any standards. it was 70Rs (71.50 to be exact).. and i handed him 100Rs. Waited for him to return 10Rs. If it were my sister, not sure how she does it, but.. her purse would have conjured exactly 91.50 for the driver. (it is easier these days to give exact change with the meters rolling 50 paise per unit, instead of the once 20 paise..)

the driver searched all his pockets, but all he could see or i could see was a bundle of papers and visiting cards.. a couple of 100 notes. (he had no wallet, or atleast he didn't show it out). when he gave up searching through the papers for the green paper (well it is not really green paper in India, but has different colors), he put his hand on the crack above the rear view mirror and pulled out an rolled up reddish color note. he unrolled it and gave it to me. it was 20rs. I gave it back to him and said "Thank you".

I picked up the heavy bag that mom packed and started walking towards the platform. "I have change", she said. "It is ok mom, he is a good guy. He tried to pay us back by his lucky note". She didn't say anything further, i assumed she agreed.

As we reached the entrance, "I will go from here" she said. I ignored her like I have been ignoring since evening when she first said, "Put me in an auto, i will manage". Of course she can manage, and she is going to come home from station on her return a week later.. but what better work do i have - have dinner and watch Big Boss or may be start reading PG Woodhouse - Summer Lightening. All that can wait for a day except for the dinner that i will have after returning.

I left her with the luggage near the check-in entrance with the cops, and ventured on to get my platform ticket. It is peak hour, four counters out of which two were closed. There are a number of trains that leave Bangalore between 8.30pm and 11.30pm. It is odd that, some counters should be closed between these hours.

The platform ticket vending machine was displaying in black words on green background- Coin box Full, Try later. I was staring at that with contempt, but that contempt couldn't last long as i watched some people pressing the round little button below the display that had text printed next to it saying ("press here"). surely, they can read because none of them were offering coins to the poor machine, but i guess it is hard to resist the instinct to press, when it is written "press here".

there was a long stagnant queue at both the counters. stagnant, because some smart people beg/request the people standing in front to get their ticket. usually this act is followed by a huge outcry from people behind.. it is a ritual, breaking-the queue, bursting-into-outcry, the-offender-gets-the-ticket. there is always somebody who takes pity on that person breaking the queue in spite of the long queue behind him/her.

i had all the time to wait in queue. but such is the state of mind, that it can't wait if there is an alternate option (however costly). i paid couple of rupees extra and brought the platform ticket from the weight and ticket vending machine. it was a clever idea to extort two rupees from the restless people like me.

i would never, in a million years, go and offer a coin to a slot machine to check my weight. why should i, when i have weighing machine in my bed room. i can step on it as many times as i want (it is a different matter that, it always points between 60 and 65).

and so we entered the station, before 9:30. there wasn't much of a walk, since her train will come onto platform 8 into which the entrance opens and her seat was reserved for the coach that is close to the entrance. here, she reminds me again that it was unnecessary for me to come to station.

there was already a train in the platform, that had to leave before her train - Hampi Express, will arrive. and this was my reason to 'seeing her off'.

there is a chance, though remote, that the information display will change the platform for Hampi Express few minutes before the departure. And it would be to platform 10, which is accessible only via underpass/overpass unless you can cross the tracks. and she, has a trouble climbing stairs. it exhausts her. and it is ironic that we live on a second floor building without lift.

btw, the platform change at last minute - happened once. yes, only once that i know of and indecently it is the only time i had come to see her off 6 years ago.

(will have to continue this some other time. am feeling guilty that i have not yet started my work for today and there is still more to write.. but to close this chapter, i got a call from mom couple of hours back saying she reached safely.)

is feeding food the most important social service?

2009-11-10T22:45:00.000-08:00

recently i was reconnecting with an old friend after a long gap.. a gap, long enough to shock her about the changes i have undergone since we last spoke. a gap, long enough to have molded us strongly into the beings that we have become.

on one such change, pertaining to my lifestyle (details of which, i may dwell into in the future..).. she expressed her deep concern and suggested i rather spend time in social service than spend another second thinking, researching on my (unconventional) lifestyle..

social service.. i think i am already doing it and offered her this... researching and thinking and in the process helping another individual to make a decision and live his or life around my kind of (unconventional) lifestyle.. helping that individual to fit into the larger gambit of social norms and conventions and not get depressed or suicidal by his unconventional norm..

she, appalled.. said: you are helping an individual to continue on your (unconventional) lifestyle.. is it same as providing food for a hungry child.

and with that.. our reconnection paused.

is feeding the hungry, the only kind of social service? isn't helping an individual live better.. and who knows this person might live to feed other hungry people.. or what if the fed child (by my friends social service) lives up to explore the (unconventional) lifestyle?

oh.. i fooled you

2009-04-06T20:14:00.000-07:00

may be not those exact words, but something to that effect remain in my memory from that april 1st, the last april i would spend in the village i was born into. i was ten and the summer vacation had just begun. it was the year of isolation from joint family.. mom and grand mother had a fight over something.. and vowed never to talk to each other.. and grand mother took off to her daughter's home in another town.

it was until last year, i learned the significance of the day. now that i know, i wonder if it is really reasonable to call it a fools day. what if some king or government decides to change the new year form april 1st to jan 1st, what if it makes more sense to start the year at jan 1st (which i don't really know how), is it reasonable to call those who continued to celebrate the new year as they had come to know.. as april fools..

oh.. is it just a coincidence that the southern indians still celebrate the new year around april 1st. or the financial years start for some companies around april?

anyway, i am wondering about all this only now... in that summer when i was 10.. the april fools day had different significance. it was the day to fool everyone i met which typically meant mom, sister, grand mother (who escaped that year) and dad if possible..

of course my mom, was totally into it. the previous years she found ways to fool me in strange ways and eventually would try to help me fool my dad. this year i was old enough.. and i was ready to fool them all and not be fooled...

sister, was an easy target.. being five years younger to me. all i had to do was to tell her there was an spider next to her to startle her. and call her 'april fool'. she could not care more on my comment, she was just glad there was no spider..

mother was hard, but it was also the year where chicken were dying of some strange disease.. and someone i had conjured the idea and went and told mom that one of the chicken is dead. she went to check and .. i was right behind her .. calling 'april fool'. she was mad at me for a minute.. before she playfully howled in her dismissive voice 'get lost'..

(btw.. all our chicken died in the month that followed.. like all the other chicken in the neighborhood)

dad was hard to get.. he was sleeping after a night shift at the factory. which is how i mostly remember him through out my childhood. he was not to be disturbed. i remember him getting mad last year when i woke him up and lied that mom wanted to see him.. he did get up, but was not very happy when i called him 'april fool'

i didn't dare this year, instead i went around to fool the neighbors.. that younger daughter of our landlord, the old woman who lived in the last hut down the road, may be some others.. but i don't remember anyone else now..

what i remember rather clearly is what happened around noon. dad was awake when i got back home. and they (mom and dad) decided they would go and pluck some drum-sticks that grew in the backyard behind the haystack. we kids were not allowed to go behind the haystack.. where the grass grew knee height and the haystack was longer and taller than the house we lived in. the stack would feed two cattle and the calf.. the hay and the cattle were from the landlords.. he had some more cattle at the other renters house.. who also came to get the hay from the one at our house.. however i don't remember it ever reducing in the size..

oh well, i digress. back to the noon.. the whole family along with the landlords younger daughter made a short trip to the drumstick tree.. (i bet she was there to take some drumsticks home, after all the tree belonged to them). it was my first time ever into the grass.. it was scary as we did have a snake come out of it in the past.. which apparently my dad held my the tail, swirled it and hit its head on the ground.. the image that my grand mother later fed me never escaped and the scare for snakes never lost..

as my dad was aiming at the drumsticks with a bamboo stick that was three times longer than him.. and the tree which was tall and thin. it had small leaves and those slender long drumsticks hanging in clusters.. out of reach. the long bamboo stick had a slit at the corner that would clutch the drumstick and a little twist would pluck it..

i told my dad as he was plucking... 'i fooled everyone today'.

it was an accomplishment that demanded praise and when i got none, i told him, 'i din't get fooled'.

'pick that drum stick', he said. as he let the long bamboo stick fall down into the grass. he lifted the bamboo stick back.. to pluck another.. and i went to the place where the tip of the bamboo stick lay moments earlier.

the grass was thick and i couldn't find the drum sticks.

i heard the laughter and turned around. 'oh.. i fooled you'. my dad said...

i guess i argued with him that it was noon and you can only make fools before noon, but that didn't let the landlords younger daughter to spread the news about my being fooled and humiliated just after the bragging to half the neighbhours...

nice to meet you.

2009-03-16T13:40:00.000-07:00

i was finally being introduced to this girl, after having heard about her for a while from a friend of mine. My friend was roommates with this girl, and they weren't very agreeable.. and as it happens my friend would vent it out to me.

so i am finally meeting this girl, who besides being known as a room mate, i had all this prejudiced information about her personality which i must say made me think she was a crazy person.

when meeting for the first time, one usually is conditioned to say "nice to meet you?" and so i did say that, but was i really?

awkward moments followed and silence reigned. i suppose i could have started talking about the job, about her family, but i already know all that, even though this was the first time i was meeting her. may be i should have asked about her boy friend which her family was kept in dark...

my friend, in an attempt to break the silence and avoid any awkward revelations of me my prior knowledge about this stranger, her said to her. "he reads a lot and is interested in philosophy."

while i was still wondering why my friend was quick to mention my interest, instead of may be talking about the weather... that girl said:

"really. i love philosophy. tell me some philosophy"..

not a single word came out of my mouth. i was staring at her, not really seeing her. philosophy? where do we start? do we both have the same understanding of what philosophy means? is it about Aristotle that you want to hear or about Buddha. Is it philosophy or religion that you like? or should I just jump into my current philosophical questions..

"nice to meet you", i said.

i continued (ignoring her puzzled look) "why do we say it is nice to meet you when we don't know whether it is eventually going to be nice or not nice meeting you?"

on that note, we switched to bollywood.

paycheck to paycheck..

2009-03-08T18:52:00.000-07:00

software jobs are high paying and very rarely do we have to live through pay check to pay check.. i.e., if you are not a big spender. however these days we are going through a different check.. from month to month..

the common conversation these days.. instead of "how is your job?"..is "do you still have your job?".

word pickles.

2009-02-24T15:01:00.000-08:00

He (salman rushide) displays a unique style of writing in his Midnight's children, besides being very playful with his words and sentences. His work is not structured like a typical novel - list of characters, a plot/suspense and a climax..

In his view, after all this is a memoir, he describes how he has organized it. Each chapter is a jar of pickle. Has a raw material (character) and he adds the right amount of spices (characteristics) to make them irresistible.

His characters die before they are born, he has no interest in suspense. While each jar focuses on one character, bits and pieces of other characters are added to enhance/enrich taste of the pickle in making, exhibiting different characteristics. After tasking all the jars, one is only left with awe of characters. they are seasoned so well that one can't be judgemental about them and this applies to both the major and minor. There is no good or bad. They are just there!

Content however is common sense. He captures the pulse of South Asian families. (Indian/Pakistan/Bangladesh) across different economic statures and how they are affected by personal and political views of the day. He is exhaustive with the content (without being boring) that it is hard to notice anything missing from the book. (Of course there will be something missing, because it is a fixed edition and he acknowledges and convinces the reader that it is not his fault...)

What exhaustive book, can be complete without asking the basic question...

"Who what am I?". (Thats right, he plays with the words, makes his own sentences.)

Now who can conjure a new answer to that, and yet has anyone answered this question yet? here he goes...

"My answer (he says) : I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all I have been seen done, of everything done-to-me. I am everyone everything whose being-in-the-world affected was affected by mine. I am anything that happens after I've gone which would not have happened if I had not come."

for rent...

2009-02-12T19:42:00.000-08:00

unusual things are becoming very common. what was once a distant news is now in front of me. last month it was the store closing of Linen and Things. I have never been in it, but it is next to the Barnes and Nobles I visit frequently. After watching the sign boards scream that it was the last two days, I went in..

It was all swept out.. except for a row of carpets and rugs and for the first time on sale were the fixtures and furniture that once held everything in their place.

and then it was circuit city.. now here is a store that i go once in a while when i have to buy gifts. i went around the store.. there were discounts.. but couldn't bring myself to buy things that i know i don't have to gift..

and just this weekend, out of sheer chance i happened to go and have lunch at the indian restaurant. and like every other time, i walked towards the filen's basement in the same block. they had store closing signs. it depressed me. where will i get my clothes? after store hopping for a while, i had finally found this store and have been a regular visitor ever since. it was the place of first suit, my first.... a lot of things..

i picked a bunch of things for one last time from the store and walked to the cashier. Instead of the usual greeting "Did you find everything you are looking for?", the lady said .. "You do know that once brought, can't be returned?". I said yes.. (not that i have ever returned anything back to this store).. but that statement made it all real.. that today was my last to the store...

empty stores in the mall.. and fewer cars in the parking lot...

and on my drive to library today (which i hope will not close down), i saw this man placing recyclable bags outside a nameless store... while the lonely FOR RENT sign, was staring through the glass of an emptied store..

party animals

2009-02-07T17:38:00.000-08:00

after midnight, deep into the wee hours
sleepless and yearning for more..
i am driving home.
with reflectance and reluctance

i watch, well beyond my mirrors
walking, chattering and laughing..
i see them..
two legged mostly, but three at times..

party animals, the urban clan
out in the bitter cold,
liquored to keep warm..
engulfed with the desire for coolness..

nocturnal and gay, shady but lively
flirting, feeling and touching...
rationalizing the sense less..
blurring reality, dreams and passion..

--------

after midnight
i watch
party animals
nocturnal and gay

deep into the wee hours
well beyond my mirrors
the urban clan
shady but lively

sleepless and yearning for more..
walking, chattering and laughing..
out in the bitter cold,
flirting, feeling and touching...

i am driving home.
i see them..
liquored to keep warm..
rationalizing the sense less..

with reflectance and reluctance
two legged mostly, but three at times..
engulfed with the desire for coolness..
blurring reality, dreams and passion..

Watching TV in early 90s in india.

2009-02-03T18:04:00.000-08:00

it was 1990 or may be earlier . i was home one summer afternoon or may be it was october, it was defintely a time when we didn't have school.. so it had to be either summer or winter vacation. we had TV, but there were hardly any programs to watch. i hadn't heard of cable at that time, so it was door darshan. couple of hours in the morning, couple of hours at noon and around 5 to 6 hours in the night...

out of those 10 hours in a day only a few hours were devoted to entertainment and i guess just one program for children during noon.

one such afternoon, i watched a small story that got imprinted in my memory.

it was a story of one grand-mother, her grand-child and his friend.

the children were going to a mela (a fair) and excited, all the fun they can have and goodies they can eat.

grand-mother gave each of them a rupee and an small empty bottle. she told them, eat whatever you can buy with that rupee and whenever you eat something, put a sample into the bottle.

two children (very typical number in all stories.. ram and shyam, sita aur gita) to draw a comparison between good and bad habits. anyway.. i was watching very intently not sure what to expect of the bottles..

the grand-child only drinks milk and spends rest of the money on playing, while his friend eats several different goodies and has little money to play. they come home with their bottles filled with the stuff they had consumed.

next day, the friend falls sick. the grand-mother asks to see the bottles.

clearly the sick child's bottle was disgusting and she says, this is all in your stomach. feel better and be careful next time.

musical chairs

2009-01-29T18:47:00.000-08:00

is life like musical chairs?

people dance to the music and when it is off.. go grab and hold on to their scare resources. if holding on to a chair is winning.. then why give it up? why dance? and isn't the fittest/smartest bound to get the chair..

track your spending...

2009-01-23T18:59:00.000-08:00

Here is what Consumer Reports Feb 2009 issue on Page17 says :

"Track your spending. That exercise helps target spending weaknesses, such as Starbucks and Stolichnaya." and goes on to offer " create you own system or use budgeting software, such as Intuit's Quicken or Microsoft Money."

I tried book, but finally moved to excel and seemed to work fine for now. Hopefully fine, but I would never know unless I see a better one.

What do you use? Do you use any at all?

can using credit cards make it easier to predict spending?

2009-01-22T17:40:00.000-08:00

with more and more people using the credit card (or its twin -- mobile) for transactions, there is a new way of maintaining the records.

many more mere-mortals (unlike were only those ) can now tally their accounts using few simple tools and some spare time, with that online or paper statement.. who wouldn't want to see from that visual tally, the mysterious pits where cash seems to vanish into.. or may be the tally will let people know where to spend and where not to spend...

now what can be done by an individual can also be done on the entire population by some mammoth number cruncher who can get access to all these records.. is it too far into future, before... the crunchers appear that can

predict the spending of the population..

channel the investments into products that population needs...

well, agreed.. that is what is being done.

but isn't the current economy a sign of the failed prediction model? isn't it the feedback into these models that is inaccurate?

with all this talk about user generated information, can't users provide feedback into these models?

doing things manually..

2009-01-14T18:18:00.000-08:00

it is a button. a small button, actually a pair of buttons. one to lock and the other to unlock. it is my car's remote control. as i press the unlock button (or lock, if i am not looking or paying attention to my hand), i look at the rear lights of my car.

i do this every single day, almost every day - when i go to work, right around 5pm. it is winter, even though the days are getting longer, it is pretty dark by the time i get out of the office. shivering under the gloves and the black jacket, carrying the burden on one shoulder of thinkpad 61, mulling over some piece of code that is working or not working...

i have that moment. wonder if that is as long as a moment, a moment is almost considered a second, but that state i am talking about is less than second. a few microseconds..

microseconds between pushing that button and the red rear lights blink. i hold my breath, till i see blinking lights..

it had happened once. the light did not blink. it was winter.. the lights did not blink. the locks did not open automatically.. it was a manual lock too.. i did manage to get in the car..

i had let the headlights on, enough to drain the battery out.. i couldn't start the car!

yes! i called AAA and waited in the car..

yes! i had the phone with me..

can't imagine what i would have done if i had forgotten to charge the mobile or had talked so much that the charge discharged..

i suppose, i would have gone to the nearest pay phone, but then i don't see pay-phones anymore...

i suppose i could stop a passer by and borrow their phone.. (i have lent my phone to someone stranded one time, isn't it what we do.. do onto others what we want done to us..)

any way, AAA came.. after calling to locate my exact location a couple of times and forty five minutes later..

i was happy to start the car, but i would always remember it wasn't a very pleasant experience to wait in the discharged car..

if i were an smart person, i would probably keep an electric jump start in my car, to cover such days.. but i don't and so..

i wait, those micro-seconds every day in anxiety. guarded with a charged phone, AAA card and glad that i have a lock that can manually open the door..

it has been an year since i forgot to turn off the lights, but i haven't forgotten the experience. may be that is why, real experiences are much better to remember than theoretical ones..

introducing political views through fiction..

2009-01-10T12:29:00.001-08:00

Recently a friend mentioned that he likes the works of Mark Twain and is absolutely amazed by his cleverness in incorporating his political views into his works. He recommended I start with Prince and the Pauper. And so I did...

Here are some samples :

The king hears a rumor that his son is mad, and is very distressed. He says to his court:

"He[prince] is mad, but he is my son and England's heir -- and mad or sane, still shall he reign! And hear ye further and proclaim it -- whoso speaketh of this his distemper, worketh against the peace and order of these realms, and shall to the gallows! ...."

let me quote another instance, the prince.. now a pauper is looking for shelter. he walks in to the christ's hospital (the one that is just made for the purpose of helping the homeless). he is insulted and is left to the dogs by the children who have been rescued. walking away..he makes the following note :

"When I am king, they shall not have bread and shelter only," [here one would imagine that he is hurt and is planning to revoke the facility, but the reader is sweetly surprised by what follows] "but also teachings out of books; for a full belly is little worth where the mind is starved, and the heart. I will keep this diligently in my remembrance, that this day's lesson be not lost upon me, and my people suffer therby; for learning softeneth the heart and breedeth gentleness and charity."

keep them small...

2009-01-08T19:44:00.000-08:00

MarketPlace asked Charles Handy, what would be the solution to the banking crisis? And he said..

"Get them smaller".

His view reminds me of "tower of babel". there is a reason why they couldn't build the tower to heaven, but we don't seem to give up. we tend to think that with new technology or innovations we have gotten past the hurdles and .. we can reach the heavens.

of course.. we have reached the heavens.. at least what was once heaven.. only to discover that heaven is further away..

is crashing the only way to know when the limit has been reached?

between alexandar and buddha....

2009-01-07T19:45:00.000-08:00

alexandar and buddha..
both lived in similar times.. but leading two very different lives.
one remembered for war and the other for peace..
one called 'great' and the other 'god'

atheism -- and the big questions?

2009-01-06T18:43:00.000-08:00

one of the good things about religion is that it provides answers to some moral questions.. may be it does go a step further in providing these answers as to specify punishment if the morals are not followed..

what happens in atheism?
is it possible to just depend on the 'common-sense' of humans?
will it be a 'common-sense' then to treat thy neighbor as you want yourself treated?
can the neighbor be considered as 'anyone' regardless of race or nationality?

came across -- richard dawkins who is regarded as 'campaigning atheist'..

i hope to follow his videos and see if some of the above questions can be answered.

new age or meta physical or eastern..

2009-01-04T16:20:00.000-08:00

stopped and took a stroll in strand on the way back to Boston, primarily to buy books by Ken Wilber, but ended up getting more than just that..

I was looking for "New Age" or "Meta Physical" section.. where Barnes/Noble and Borders stacked KW. The attendant told me, they may have stacked him under -- Eastern Religion section. She was right.. as it turns out anything to do with Meditation was cornered as Eastern..

It got me thinking.. is meditation an eastern phenomenon, didn't mayans and egyptians have meditation?

What is "New Age"? Is it just a new word that got created to shed some of the baggage accumulated on the older religions or it is truly a mix of western and eastern religions - a global religion?

So at strand, I found the book "Up From Eden", which promises to wake the reader through the human evolution in the spiritual or trans-personal realm. of course, who else can be a better author on such a subject than one who seems to have tasted both eastern and western practices..

basic pains

2009-01-03T09:39:00.000-08:00

krishna murthi, yosho, ramana maharshi...

ken wilber, eckhart tolle, dalai lama....

these are some names.. who have not been recorded to have struggled for their daily bread... or did they? did they ever experience the common pains..

just because!

2009-01-02T19:18:00.000-08:00

i don't remember how, but i came across the works of Ken Wilber while browsing some books on brain science and spirituality.. it seemed interesting that he focuses on integrating spirituality and science which i feel are connected or could be connected. (it always awes me when i find a book or some recorded media that talks about something that i had independently arrived at.. and it also means that there is so much out there that i dont know yet.... )

today, i picked up KW's "One taste" and randomly read a few pages. the first thing that stuck me was that it is an interesting way to record thoughts as they occur through out the year. there is no specific form (but that itself it a form) to the book and the entries are as random as they can be.

skimming through, i chanced upon the entry where he wrote about a conversation with a friend and the conversation starts with the friend asking the question, which sounded something like "why One is split into many"... i will have to go back and read the exact question but.. KW answers that saying that he will answer it the way it has been answered by folks/sages or whatever you can call them..

the essence of the answer being -- just because.

i was telling about this question to my friend at dinner. now my friend is a good utilitarian..as good as one can be.. so he asked me..

'what is the purpose of asking such a question?'

he had me for a moment. i had never thought about it. and we continued to discuss it...

"such questions" as he put it, "are to be pursued by someone who is a sage or is aspiring to be a sage." we established that the basis of this conclusion is based on the observation from the utilitarian perspective that if one has to be good at something, that one will need to dedicate the better part of his time in pursuit of that something..

Since i am neither a Sage or "not aspiring to be one" (i keep wondering about it though....), "what is my purpose in asking such a question?"

"just because"... "fun".... "pleasure".. any or all of those are the reasons..

it is similar to playing cricket on the streets, not everyone who ever plays cricket will aspire to become a professional cricket player. some people do it "just because"..

touch

2008-12-23T08:08:00.000-08:00

is it just touch, i wonder..
which is felt at the surface..
but stirs something at the core..

the core, that can only
be stirred, by intimacy..
not by superficial touch..

can it then, i wonder..
be the touch or
just the mention of the idea..

the idea, a thought..
which is true and heart felt..
more surreal than the touch..

the touch, i think..
only communicates that true..
thought. warm and pure..

that thought.. i think
then, is the one that stirs..
and yields the warmth..

i am what?

2008-12-18T12:33:00.000-08:00

i stand, at the brink of another year..
many seasons and a million choices after
some stretched as far as i could..
abandoning those i could not..

i cherish, the little visits..
of the friendly bees and butterflies..
animals, for whom i am just a shade..
and for those for whom i am the host..

i am what? knowing and evolving..
from being just a lucky seed..
transforming into an seasoned tree
i now stand rooted.. for what i am..

out of touch...

2008-11-05T04:55:00.001-08:00

am i out of touch with the system around me or am i out of tune from the world's pulse?

first black president.. i hear the jingles of celebrations all around me.. and it shocks me.... it just never occurred to me that, so far, black man was never elected for president.. (besides, i had pictured that Abraham Lincoln was african american, until of course the media told me that obama was the first black presidential nominee..)

chandrayana... much talked about recently.. was another shocker to me. was this really the first time? i never looked at the event through the lens of an patriot.

in a global world.. what does it mean to be a patriot?

in an equal world.. what does it mean to have an black/woman president?

when it rains it pours...

2008-10-19T19:59:00.000-07:00

it is so true.. and i have no idea what the umbrella looks like for the things that are pouring.. now for the things that are pouring...

it is expectations..

some anticipated, planned...

and some unavoidable, unforeseen....

e-reading experience

2008-07-25T08:54:00.000-07:00

Most of the things I read are through the monitor. Be it reading mails, articles, books or even code. Every now and then I take print outs and very rarely I read physical books or magazines...

And yet, reading from book/magazine has been my preferred way of reading. In the last few days, I have found myself print the articles and read it off line..

Some reasons could be:
- being able to touch it
- being able to place it as close or as far from the eyes and hold with different hands or lay it down, just like any toy
- read it while sitting, or just before sleeping or while traveling

the above reasons, i have heard and experienced.. but lately i have started to noticed...

- i can estimate how much time i would need to read a book/article
- i can skip pages/paragraphs and come back to the skipped pages/paragraphs..

May be amazon kindle or the new iPhone can rescue me from printing articles.. but still that mode is expensive..

How do you get your reading done? what do you read most in a day?

death by tools...

2008-07-24T12:46:00.000-07:00

death by power point.. -have you heard it? truly. it is not just power point, but could be through email as well.. or let us say the RSS readers or blogs (duh!)

after a little over 8 years of using email, i found myself wondering (again!) if I have got it right. have i really made it part of my system of tools. yeah yeah.. i remember email being talked about as the time killer.. it is like a wild beast that has to be tamed..

for now i think i have gotten it back in control by :
- simplifying the detailed folder structure into a few simple high level folders..
- instantly deleting the mails that i know (based on the previous experience), i will not read again

something that i am going to try from now on is to push the mails into their respective folders as soon as i can. while the inbox tells that i have tasks to do.

the last one has been the hardest to implement in the past, let me see how it goes this time... (well, anything that is ongoing..... is a pain. most of the times!)

strange affinity ...

2008-07-23T09:28:00.000-07:00

humans, like plants have a strange affinity towards the soil that germinated them..

is it because of that miraculous natural process of growth? it is as if some elements of the soil transform into plant elements that contribute to the growth of the plant in turn becoming an integral part..

when migrated to a new location, plants either flourish or wither away.. it is as if an integration process kicks off between elements ingrained from the parent soil elements with the new soil elements..

like most things in nature, the integration process is either painfully slow or dangerously quick..

how is this related to humans.. you ask?

our people, our place, our culture.. aren't these just like the elements that become part of us as we grow? contributing to the identity or nature of the person.. don't we go through this integration process when we migrate to a different location through work or through marriage...

don't we experience that strange affinity towards our family? friends? culture? that we have left behind? don't we experience that process of integrating the new and old elements...

hmmm.. do we even realize that we have this strange affinity?

sins of our fathers..

2008-07-18T08:02:00.000-07:00

will be passed on to the children, is a curse from God to humans.. as the story of Adam and Eve gets unveiled in Genesis. I had always that that was very unjust on the part of the children. why should the infants be punished for their parent's mistake.. assuming that punishment is a consequence of a prior mistake, which is also the main theme of the religion.

God or no God, heredity and hereditary disease is a fact (at least at this time in history).

And so I seem to carry the sin.. diabetes passed down from generations..

Had my first visit to doctor yesterday with some early signs of weakness and strange sensations... he suspects it is either diabetes or some thyroid malfunction..

Two weeks of wait..before I know the real cause...

Sequels and more sequels..

2008-07-14T15:52:00.000-07:00

There has been Jane Austen in the air, with new books and new plays airing on PBS.. I found myself reading her works. Again! And the more I read, the more it leaves me longing for more.

Lizzy is my favorite, but Emma, the queen of Highbury is almost as interesting as her.

Imagine my surprise when I accidentally found "Later Days At Highbury" by Joan Austen (jane austen's nephew's grand daughter).

Sequels are a necessary evils, they are needed and at the time one only can hope they won't ruin the life of characters. It is interesting how the characters get a life of their own... and it makes perfect sense for them to go on and on.. instead of that 'lived happily ever after'.. How I wish I knew what Frodo is upto on that boat? Is it really possible that Voldemort is gone? Well..

Emma is with a Child and Mr. Woodhouse is no more, is how the Later Days begins..

Can't stop but wonder, why Emma should just have one child while her sister Isabella has seven. I had imagined Emma and Knightley to have more children in their 'lived happily ever after'... but now, I know they didn't...

Would I have rather let the characters live in my mind as I wished them or do I like to be surprised seeing how they lead their lives through other authors? Much can be wished for, but only few can be realized..

I have just closed Later Days and I already wonder about little Henry Knightley now living in Donwell Abbey...

numbness.. the feeling of feeling-less

2008-07-12T14:25:00.000-07:00

this week has been interesting. it started off with some strange sensation in the left leg, something like tingling and numbness.. i blamed it on sleeping in a wrong position, but then.. next day it was in the right leg and the right arm.... and it was fine for a couple of days..

what sent me worrying was when it started in my knees just after my regular afternoon walk. may be i over did the walk, a little.. to celebrate the long pending delivery at work. the knees starting feeling cold as if there was constant perspiration..

and today it is the left arm..

body i thought would mainly complain about pain and itches, but this is something new.. it is no longer just the pains through some outward body attacks..it is something within on which i have absolutely no control. or may be i have, and i just don't know it.

may be it the sign of the dawning age... or may be something else..

update 08/25 : so i did go to the doctor. all the tests came back suggesting i haven't inherited anything yet. he suspects it must be the stress from work.. or some kind of viral infection.

unusual market place..

2008-05-18T22:13:00.000-07:00

the bus just arrived at the kalaisapalya bus stand.. the passengers arriving were still getting down.. there was a mob that was trying to get in and hopefully grab a window seat for the drive to yestwanthpur.. i was one among the mob..

i did get a seat and was observing how quickly the seats were all occupied and the bus was ready to leave the stand now.. but instead the driver was making a reverse..and getting cozy under the bridge.. it didn't occur to me that after a long drive the conductor and driver needed a short break..

nudging the impulse of getting down and catching another connecting bus was easy given the comfort of the window seat of what would be an crowded drive ..

i made myself comfortable in the seat... and thats when it started...

"thandai.. thandai.. thandai...."

a ten year old boy with a pack of pen sized plastic ice bags.. but slightly thicker than the thickest pen.. ".. thandai.. thandai.. cold ice... "

someone behind stretched his palm towards the boy and the boy was now saying.. "undu ruppai... ", handing him an red colored ice bag and took in return an one rupee coin.. (i remembered reading about this in Bangalore Mirror.. but this was my first time seeing it..)

"thandai.. thandai.. " he walked towards the front door of the bus..

"buttani.. buttani.. " another kid was now climbing from the center door of the bus.. holding a metal tray of yellow fried peas.. on one side were a bunch of papers folded into cone shaped packets..

the guy sitting next to me asked to taste one pea.. before he choose to take a two rupee cone.. and as they were settling the business another vendor walked in.. from the middle door..

and this time it was a man in his late twenties or may be early thirties.. clean shaven and i didn't notice any wrinkles except for that coarse husky voice.. he had a bag.. he reached inside and pulled out a folded green.... cloth.. and he unfolded and put on display an nice looking dark green shawl with a golden lining at the edges..

and he started to speak in Kannada.. the first few words that he said which i couldn't grasp but i inferred he was talking about the quality of the material.. and that it costs somewhere between 200 and 300 rupees...

and then he said 20 and 30.. thats a huge bargain i thought.. and i was wondering why no one was buying.. and thats when he started shouting..

"20.. 20.. 20.. " and looking at someone in the front seat he said..

"25.. 25.. evvagaa (now) 25...."

there was a bidding going on..

"evvagaa 40... 40... 40...."

it went up to 65.. and stayed there for a while.. not satisfied the highest bid... he folded the shawl neatly back into the back and walked down the bus.. just as the conductor walked in..

and before the bus left.. there was a different kid now shouting ..

"ice.. ice.. ice"..

and i drifted my attention to the new bus that was just making itself cozy next to me.. and saw a similar pattern..

the mob..

the vendors...

.....

Overtaking vehicles at traffic signals..

2008-05-16T11:29:00.000-07:00

Have you noticed how vehicles at signals try to skip a few vehicles? The size of the vehicle obviously is one factor that provides an option to squeeze and the 'elusive' thought of saving some 'traffic time'..

It doesn't just stop at squeezing ahead, but also trying to occupy a little more space of the oncoming vehicles.. this happens even when there is a divider.. if there is no divider.. it is an welcome sign for a traffic jam..

Of course, I am not talking about those who use the footpath or the fact that oncoming vehicles also follow a similar pattern finally blocking you to cross the road when the traffic signal finally turns green..

So.. let us just stick to the habit of squeezing ahead at the signal..

How is this squeezing any different than breaking the Q of a ticket counter at movie halls or railway reservation counters. Have you dared to break the queue (intentionally or by accident) and have you had the opportunity to confront the thousand intimidating voices of those waiting in Q.... Were you one of those who raised the voice?

Well.. may be we can't shout at those squeezing ahead.. I once saw a vehicle guy fighting with the traffic cop who stopped him from squeezing ahead at silk board junction..

OK.. now really by squeezing is the vehicle saving any time.. May be it does at one signal or at two or if one has mastered the art of squeezing.. at all the signals.

But saving one's traffic time is coming at the cost of all those who are left behind (may be because they can't squeeze for size of their vehicles like BMTC buses or just because they decided to follow the queue..)

How long before the bulky vehicles finally give up on waiting and decide to squeeze ahead? Before we see accidents rise at the traffic signals... may be just a slight push from the heavy vehicle to the invisible two wheeler ahead..

sub-urban dumpsters...

2008-03-22T07:55:00.000-07:00

the spring is officially here, but winter is reluctant to leave.. the morning commute to work today was extremely windy just as the weatherman said, though i didn't feel it from inside the car.. except for that odd activity on the roads... and of course while passing through the sudbury river bridge with trees on either side.. the snow melted, and the river flooding with water..

ah, the river stretch.. my favorite stretch of drive.. also the only stretch where i could go beyond 45.. the rest of the drive is through typical sub-urban residences.. mansions and town houses.. some right on the ground and some raised on mud moulds..

ah, that mansion up on a small mountain top, with a background of tall pine trees and the vast sky.. a sight that looks different with changing sunset times.. under different shades of light.. and sometimes snow painted.. i do wonder if people living in that mansion get to enjoy the view as much as the ones living downhill overlooking the mansion..

hmmm.. and that lone tree in the corn field on newman springs road.. must be hundreds of years old or may be more.. there are shrubs growing under it during spring and withering during winters.. but the tree no longer blooms as it might have once.. it stays there with its majestic disoriented trunk.. the corn come and go, but the trunk remains..

now for that odd activity.... it isn't human.. or may be it is..

it isn't the people on the roads.. the sub-urban roads are generally deserted except for school times and summer jogs or walks.. very rarely i do see some old people in winter geared up in tight jogging wear taking that strain full jogs.. i have assumed they must be diabetic..

the odd activity is the dumpsters.. out in the driveways where they usually await their pickups.. and once they have been cleaned of their unprecious contents they then await to be taken back in..... but on windy day like today.. some of them venture on to the roads.. some just off the road and some as far to the center of the driveway..

the dumpsters that generally go unnoticed, today beg to be taken seriously.. thought crossed my mind as i tiptoed around it in my car.. should i have put it back in its place instead of passing by.. and before i had a follow-up thought i was a few blocks away waiting at a stop sign to turn green.. and i peeked in my rear view to look at the dumpster one more time..

another car was now tiptoeing....

expensive object...

2008-03-04T12:14:00.000-08:00

diamonds..antique art or sculptures.. are the first things that come to my mind.. and i know anything associated with diamonds like say a chain or ring or a wrist watch will be expensive. but then i don't really need any of these jewelery...

and then.. there are bmw or benz car.. or an luxurious home in the sub-urb.. or an apartment with a view in the city. now these are the things that i can experience if i have, but it is ok to not have them..

and then.. it is the clothes or accessories like shoe.. custom designed... unique pieces.. well it is still ok if i don't have them.. i will settle for the best causal fits..

and then.. are electronic items.. like the iphone or a mac book. they are so tempting to have.. just like the highly expensive technical conferences.. things that i can't have and also not ok with not having them..

affordability is a simple concept. i can either have it or not..

but it is weired when i can't have it and i want it.. there is an uneasy feeling that lingers.. if thoughts were electric charges.. there is something with these conflicting charges that produce a very irritating effect..

time disorientation after sleep..

2008-03-01T15:46:00.001-08:00

i woke up from my sleep.. trying to think about what i had just dreamt..

after a few moments of listening to radio and listening the the WGBH announce the time as 6.00pm, i woke up... put on my slippers and made my way towards the toilet room..

switching on the lights.. looking at the snow through the window.. remembering how i had spent the morning shoveling the snow...closed the window drapes..

reached the wash basin, scratched my newly grown beard...
picked up the brush.. and started brushing.....

and as i spit the first mouthful.. it occurred to me..

it is evening. i just woke up from a afternoon nap...

i knew it was evening when i woke up.. i looked through the window.. and heard the time on the radio.. and yet when i was before the mirror.. my hands reached for the brush just like they would .. every morning..

it was totally involuntary....

what just happened? how did i loose my time orientation? it obviously wouldn't have happened if i was awake all the time.. is there a part of brain that tracks body activity with images that it captures from the surroundings?

i wonder.. how people keep up with their shifting working hours..

can we live without a watch?

Are social networks commoditizing humans?

2008-02-25T12:35:00.000-08:00

Peter Traub, the creator of ItSpace ends his piece on NPR by wondering on this aspect of social networks.

While Social Networks are changing the way people interact with each other, are we loosing the personal one-one relationships? How much can we know about a person through a page? How different is a MySpace page of a product, band and a person?

Experience Continuum - of ABC's Lost

2008-02-24T11:21:00.000-08:00

The experience continuum is here.. if you have a TV show that triggers your interest.. you now have the option to explore and experience it beyond the one hour watching and talking about it with friends...

So what is different about ABC's Lost?

For starters, it is on ABC.com - where you can watch all the previously aired episodes 24 7.... (Free!)

It doesn't end there..
- there are communities of Lost.. which are more than just the actor's fan mania.
- games around the concepts of Lost.. which actually make you remember facts of the mystery
- applications like the 'connections' that help you remember the complex web of relations between the characters
- missing scenes, like the deleted scenes on DVD which offer more insight..
- blogs/videos that offer several theories.. beyond just general plot
- a wiki for Lost Transcripts as they are aired.

By far the most fascinating theory and something that I would have never imagined otherwise.. is that of Mirror Matter Moon. Simply amazing theory! This theory questions my perception of Lost Island as a completely paranormal place...

Is Lost based on 1933 novel Lost Horizon by James Hilton

how does crying/moaning heal the pain?

2008-02-19T09:30:00.000-08:00

it is very irritating to hear the sounds of moaning or crying especially when my body is not in pain....

why are we wired to cry or moan when in pain? it sure does feel good after crying or moaning..

it is my tooth ache that has made me wonder about this whole connection between the moaning and pain.. i am not moaning to seek help from others.. i know there is nothing that others can do to ease my pain.. apart from giving a pill or may be taking that unwanted wisdom tooth.. (i hate wisdom tooth!)

i do feel better after moaning.. does that irritating sound really have healing elements or is it just a distraction for the brain from obsessing about pain?

ancient art and the subtle deviations from reality..

2008-01-22T21:34:00.001-08:00

this is one of the greek statues that was discovered accidentally by an diver... or so the Dr Nigel Spivey narrates in How Art Made the World. it is a stunning master piece and it stands to exemplify the fascination of the greeks with the human body and how they brought realism to art.

or have they?

does it really resemble an actual human being? what is it about this sculpture that is so attractive?

Dr Nigel explains that human features differ from this sculpture in such subtle ways that it is hardly noticeable, but those differences make it all the more attractive, majestic and elusive...

flat tire..

2008-01-22T13:27:00.000-08:00

something that i imagined will never happen to my car, just like the way i imagine i will never cease to being able....

'looks like you have a flat tire.', my roommate said as he walked in...

'you got to be kidding!' was my reaction.. but then he never jokes about such things.
after i regained myself from the shock i said.. 'i will call triple A', one stop solution for all car emergencies..

'i can give you a hand if you can't get help from them, and do you know if you have a donut..', he is one of those do-it-yourself guy!

'what?!'

'you know, the spare tire in the trunk', he clarified

'nope, i haven't seen any'. my trunk is filled with some garbage.. old papers and bags..

'did you check underneath the carpet in the trunk?', he wanted to make sure.

'what?!'

'yes, usually there is either a spare tire or a donut that you can use till you get the tire repaired or replaced'

'good heavens!'

he walked with me to the car, showed me the donut. i decided to call triple A in the morning and take it from there. when i called triple A, they asked me if i had a donut or spare tire and thanks to my Roomie, i knew what they were talking about.

the task of replacing sounded so daunting, like supporting the car with that iron stand (not sure what they call hit), someone should lift the car to put it under and adjust the height of that stand.. then use those cross levers to unturn the screws, the pressure that needs to be exerted.. and the picture of having black grease all over my hands..

i waited till they arrived.

in less than ten minutes they replaced the flat tire with the donut. amazing tools they had, a push of a button to unturn and turn the screws. a push of a lever to support the car.... it certainly seemed so simple that if i had the tools i can do it myself next time. all i need to do is know the tools and be able to lift the tire.. from the trunk to the ground and from the ground to the trunk...

looking at them.. i wondered about my job. what kind of tools do i use? how are they helping me do my job better? am i really using any tools?

virtual meeting places .. and need for appearance accessories

2008-01-18T12:27:00.000-08:00

physical meeting places, be it work-place or malls or theaters or clubs, have some social attributes like dress code or fashion or fear of being ridiculed or pressure of making an first impression through appearance or a plain motive of show off .. force us to buy accessories like clothes, shoes, etc.,

now with virtual meeting places like ( chat rooms, social networking sites, second life, on demand/line movies) the need for appearance accessories diminishes..

or with virtual places they take different form like in chat rooms/discussion forums/ second life, you need a cool id or an avatar....

given this trend, is the accessory market showing reduced sales? if not, are virtual meeting places still a fancy of some people who otherwise wouldn't have made it to the physical meeting places?

hmmm.. is the need for appearance accessories driven by social factors or something else?

the bird.. cracking out of the shell..

2008-01-17T17:20:00.000-08:00

the crack in the shell..was it serendipity, or my pecking..
shall i peck it more? and let the light come through?
or stay in here.. for as long as i can..

i hear something through the crack..
why does it sound like my own voice?
am i not alone then? should i break out of the shell?

being out is different.. like in a new world..
hmmm.. more shells around here..
should i break them? or should i not?

i see them cracking, one after the other..
are they coming out because they heard me?
or would they break out even otherwise?

wondering, i wander.. and years have passed..
i peck once in a while on the hard shells..
but mostly they crack out anyway..

finding the center....

2008-01-17T12:24:00.000-08:00

hmmm.. does it make a difference to find what is at the center..

like finding that sun is at the center (don't hear any debates on it these days.. )

or say that evolution is at the center, though it is still a theory? or is it? don't we have a lot of new findings being built on top of this center.. what happens if it just becomes a theory, what will happen to all those that is built on top of it..

like when sun moved to center instead of earth?

quick search - what do you mean?

2008-01-16T08:38:00.000-08:00

once upon a time there was a concept called 'research', along came 'google' and we now have 'quick search'....

i came across this sentence in wikipedia discussion page:

I would gladly cede this argument in the face of evidence that such a product existed, but a quick search for such research did not reveal any.

does 'quick search' mean that - i don't have time to do extensive research, and go through all the search engines, but i satisfied with the first page results of google. however if you know or can do a extensive research, that is ok, because i just did 'quick search'?

hmmm.. how many quick searches do we do on the web?

for a book..
for an electronic item..
for the car..

for a job..
for an engineer..
for the soulmate..

sins of our fathers ... and heredity!

2008-01-13T14:12:00.000-08:00

Hmmm.. one of the concepts that bible talks about is the sins of fathers being passed on to children and from then to their children for generations to come..

as a child, i had a tough time with this concept. it just didn't make sense that i would be punished for the sins of my father. of course as a child i was told by my grand mother and the priests that smoking and watching ramayana on tv was a sin.. my father indulged in this sin and so will i be punished?

present day.. with the understanding of hereditary diseases and of the economic classes of a family. the concept makes complete sense...

stories.. when and why were they told?

2008-01-11T16:27:00.000-08:00

stories, were they invented to communicate or amuse?

how did the first fiction come to be told, was it just mans inherit ability to exaggerate or did the first story teller spin the lie as a fiction?

are stories a controlled version of dreams? or do we dream because we hear to stories?

a part of my car has a problem and i feel the pain..

2008-01-11T15:48:00.000-08:00

a long time ago, when i was still a non-driver i asked my friend.. how does he drive? isn't it complex to coordinate.. he told me that the car because like a body part and just like you move your hands and legs, you start moving the steering wheel..

it is true, the car has become a part of me. just like i know where to keep my next step while walking, i know how to drive the car.. but i am experiencing something beyond this co-ordination.

when i sprain my leg or burn my hand or not take my coffee it hurts and i can feel the pain in my brain or mind.. a strange sound is coming from my car and my mechanic told me that the engine of my car is rusting and i know it will die anytime now. and that hurts in my mind.

and like i find a cure for my physical pains, i seek to cure the pain caused by my car..

and i start to wonder, am i really alone and independent? just because i don't see an physical attachment between me and the world, it doesn't mean i am not connected.

it is through the experiences of my mind both joy and sorrow that i know i am connected to the rest of the world..

pay it forward... The movie..

2008-01-10T08:09:00.000-08:00

There is something mysterious about the sentence 'pay it forward'.. it is totally different way to describe an altruistic act..

The moment there is a mention of 'pay', there has got to be something that is being 'paid for'.. In this concept, one is paying for an 'altruistic' act by performing three more altruistic acts...

Of course it is based on the assumption that, there is an altruistic instinct in humans, which somehow has taken a low priority in the list of things one is obliged or assumed or forced to do in the current system of things.

Interestingly one of the high-priority things of the current system is to 'Pay Back' for the service received. Not 'paying back' has an huge burden to bear like being socio-economically labeled rude or black listed..

Indeed the burden of not being is so huge that one tends to 'pay back' for an 'altruistic' act.. An altruistic act doesn't in essence look for anything back.. but if one wants to pay back.. why not demand three more altruistic acts..

But hey, the current system also encourages 'bargain deals', which are valued by how little one pays back for a reasonably expensive thing.. And if performing the next three altruistic acts is optional, then why not treat it like a bargain....

And probably thats why we need movies or books or foundations to remind us of the altruism....

Is mind somewhere between stone or sponge?

2008-01-09T18:49:00.000-08:00

a stone when i stop or can't perceive something and a sponge when i can soak up everything that is presented.. but those are just extremes. i wonder if it is possible to soak up everything that is presented by a person, book, or any other information source..

i for india and patriotism?

2008-01-08T17:51:00.000-08:00

I for India, is documentary on an UK immigrated family, which is balancing the act between the living UK lifestyle and the guilt of having left the family behind.. the story takes an interesting turn when the child of this immigrated family decides to go and explore her career in Australia....

anyways, one of the remarks which the Immigrated Doctor makes is to tell the people watching the movie that -- "he is no less patriot than any indian living in india".

what makes a person indian?

Now that i have been away for a while from India, I have had to face the question myself - "Are you still an Indian?" or some would strongly remark - "Don't forget you are an Indian."

Aren't the current culture's mixing? Where does one draw the line?

Is patriotism is an expression that we are carrying over from the days of independence?

Doesn't partiotism in itself while unifying the people of a nation also divide nations?

pretty rose.. poor rose..

2008-01-04T12:58:00.000-08:00

Strolling in the New Eden was the Mans Family,
the Man, Woman and their Boy and Girl
"That rose is pretty... very very pretty"
Said the little girl jumping up and down..
"Yes, my dear. God made it so..just as he made you"
The mummy says stroking the girls curly hair..
"Its beauty is to attract the bees, not sure if God created it.."
The daddy wonders.. tapping it with the stick in his hand..
"Dearest, wish you did not say such things before kids"
Said the Mummy with her silent appalled stare..
"Here.. dear Sister take the rose"
Slipping through the parents unspoken conversations,
the brother plucked the rose.. the poor rose!

the lake house... could it have been any different?

2008-01-02T11:56:00.000-08:00

the movie stuck with me since last night and i am having a hard time figuring out what it is.. that is making it hard to let it go..

it has to be the characters, not just kate and alex but everyone else like simon, morgan, jake, the restaurant, the house, the tree, the book and the mail box.

what makes them so lively? may be it is being able to relate to them.. or may be something else.. to find out, i started reading the 114 or so comments at the iimdb. the ratings couldn't be more diverse, but ratings don't tell much unless there is a connection with the person rating..

a pattern emerged out of the raters. most who liked the movie seemed to like it because they could relate to the characters, either through personal experiences or may be what they have observed.. and those who did not like the movie were either pissed off that this was not an original movie or that it had elements of implausible fantasy.

could the characters have been woven together any differently? if the characters where the colors, could the painting have been any different? why can't movies be redone, keeping the same characters but a different story.. a different painting with the same colors?

In the name of love and loss...

2007-12-31T19:28:00.000-08:00

This book.. flipping its pages to the air.. in the desert.. is a manifestation of how humans deal with their emotions. It is a scene from one of the recent movies, trying to express the situation where the man wants to dedicate his book to his dead lover.. so he comes to her burial place, signs the book and throws it into the air.. (it has been years since she was buried and the exact location of her burial is unknown..)

Love is mysterious.. of course!, but it seems to have some thing in common with most of the other 'materialistic' things.. say like jewelry or money or food. Is it blasphemy to compare love and money?

But don't you see, like money love is something that a man possesses and has to be spent. Do you want to spend it on someone who is dead or someone alive? Why does man mourn the loss of someone, while he could instead share his love with someone else?

Have we come to expect that man should mourn the loss?

objects that people always carry... phones?

2007-12-30T19:21:00.000-08:00

Joao Rodrigues, a Jesuit missionary (also called 'the interpreter') in Japan during late 15th century, noted the following about the daily life of Japanese.

'.. People who have business matters and other things which they wish to remember write them down on their fans. They are always carrying these fans about in their hands, opening them, shutting them and looking at them. Nobody would go out into the street without one.'

There is a striking similarity between these fans and the current day phones.. as the objects that people carry in their hands, opening them, shutting them (in case of flip phones) and looking at them....

I did notice that Da Vinci carried a pocket notebook with him at all times...

[picture and the above quote captured from the PBS Video - Japan, Memoirs of a Secret Empire]

Science and Religion

2007-12-30T10:41:00.000-08:00

The Man From Earth...

The perfect setting for a debate about science and religion, belief and faith. An fireplace sitting, with Green Jack Daniels among a bunch of college professors (biologist, psychologist, archaeologist, historian, theologist, ...) along with a student..

There is a mention of Star Trek as a way of trying to get the dose of sanity. Why startrek, why not star wars? or even say desperate housewives..

The answer. Jerome Bixby. The Man from earth was his last screenplay, the work that spanned three decades (1967 to 1998) [quoting from wikipedia..].

The truth is simple, but how to communicate it through the complex layers that we have built around ourself? What is truth? It is something that matches our belief system? Did the teachings of Jesus really have an element of Buddhism?
Is the conflict between science and religion? or is it the scientists and the priests? or is it the conflict of beliefs? why do we hold beliefs so dear to us?

two states of human existence

2007-12-27T13:51:00.000-08:00

it is probably not very simplistic to say that my life is a constant fluctuation between two states - a state of discovery and a state of experience.

as a kid - finding a toy and playing with the toy
as a student - discovery games, subjects i like and play and study
as a adult - what am i discovering and what am i experiencing?

nirvana - alone or with followers?

2007-12-25T15:30:00.000-08:00

what are the types of nirvana?

is it a self realization process? or is it a collective process? can the person who attains self-nirvana like say sage/guru keep it to self? what is that urge that makes him reach out for other people.. though not actively pursuing followers... ???

type of companies - for profit, for non-profit, for non-loss?

2007-12-25T14:38:00.000-08:00

Check out the podcast of Muhammad Yunus - Building Social Business Ventures at
http://sic.conversationsnetwork.org/series/ashoka.html

He begins his talk with an analogy of the bonsai tree. take the best seed from a tall forest tree and place it in a tray. it will grow into tiny. nothing wrong with the tree or the seed... but the base.. flower pot.

can the assumption that poor people will always be there in any nation.. be challenged? how is it that money comes to only those who have money?

beginning and end?

2007-12-23T06:10:00.000-08:00

Copying Beethoven is a fictional illustration of the last years of Beethoven, one that tries to put together the publicly know facts about Beethoven and introduces a questionable character Anna Holtz. She is fictional, but is probably a theory that is based on Beethoven's letters to the "Immortal Beloved".

There is a profound philosophical moment pictured as a conversation between Beethoven and Anna.

Anna asks "I don't understand, where does the movement end.."

Beethoven responds.. "It doesn't end, it flows. You have to stop thinking in terms of beginning and ending. ... It is a living thing. Like clouds taking shape or tides shifting"

Doesn't matter if Beethoven really spoke those words or if this was a brainchild of Stephen Rivele and Christopher Wilkinson, but i am left to wonder and ponder..

How did I come to think of in terms of beginning and ending? Is it because of my understanding of birth and death? Is there anything really like a beginning and ending?

If every ending is a new beginning.. isn't it flowing.. growing..

reincarnation ?

2007-12-18T13:17:00.000-08:00

is the concept that life takes several incarnations just a myth?

let me take the latest information from human genome project that says that humans have genetically encoded traits in our genes that get exhibited on being exposed to proper stimuli (of course they are probably talking about human emotions). and we still are not clear on how our ideas/creativity takes shape.. (even after analyzing einstiens brain. i heard in one of the general psychology lectures from UC berkley that einsteins brain is really being studied).

but most of the creative ideas (in art and engineering) that we get are from 'nature'... does this mean.. we share something in common with nature and as life travels through various forms, the things that plants, animals do is built into our genes?

is this the bases of reincarnation in different forms?

technology as means of survival?

2007-12-18T12:30:00.000-08:00

can technology allow humans to do what they are good at and at the same time provide a means for their survival?

'technology' however isn't just about the cutting-edge or the latest in computers but any product of 'human intelligence' in all its forms.

for example, video games is a technology. how can it be seen as a means of survival? how can it be seen as something beyond just a pass time for kids?

nature and nanotechnology?

2007-12-18T11:21:00.000-08:00

science is a way of understanding the nature.. and an attempt to tune it to meet the human needs.. (what are human needs? survival? )

anyways.. found this video that makes it easy to understand the applications of nanotechnology and draws the parallels between nature and technology..

the visualization is very clear and communicates complex information in a simple way..

bees and our fruits..

2007-12-18T10:35:00.000-08:00

some interesting notes from this video.. why is it important to have a mix of crops instead of one single crop in the field? how does having crops flowering in different seasons help bees to stay in the area..

Ant community..

2007-12-16T14:23:00.000-08:00

Discovery, aired 'Ant Wars' last night.. a 60 minute program on the African driver ant.

The soldier and worker ants are blind, but they can travel miles and miles across swamps in search of new nests.. Their engineering skills in building nests, hunting and traveling are extra-ordinary.. they make 'live' ant bridges and 'live' ant structures to host their young ones. There is a strange dependency between the physiologically different members of the community, like the soldiers (bigger ant).. with their strong bodies and jaws can kill the prey but can't eat them, while the workers (smaller ants) spoon feed the soldiers....

they practically feed on all possible pests and insects around their nests...and they do it with such brutality... it was scary to watch them do it..

in the program, they waged war on the termite community and lost it.. termites seemed to win the war because of their 'fort', another fete of natural engineering. the ants seem to suffer from claustrophobia as they enter the tiny compartments of the fort to fight termites. they retreated in the movie....

ants succeed in almost all open field battles.. they won over crab, which i thought was impossible (after all crab is many times bigger and it has a hard shell) but nothing seems to stand against ant community....

why ants wage wars? the program concludes by saying that through their wars, they help forests grow by killing the pests that feed on the leaves..

do they know that they are helping the forests grow?

hmm.... is all their intelligence for survival? why can't they feed on leaves which seemed to be available in abundance in forests? is it acceptable to eat leaves that don't pose any difficulty?

do they know that their strength is their numbers? is that why they let the queen breed to glory and males breed to death.. the soldiers and workers struggle and fight to feed the new larva?

what happens to the ants that grow old and die? are they left behind?

Google Knol --- Can it be used to record history?

2007-12-15T18:14:00.000-08:00

I am fascinated by history, the kings, the artists, the commoners, their life.. and my primary source has been books and it still is, but it has become next to impossible to read the 'all' the books (yeah! talk about information tsunami), world encyclopedias offer good reference, but can't carry them around (kindle? well expensive for now..), so i find myself depending on dvds and wikipedia(still skeptical.. but i am referring to them.)

wish Stanford's dynamic reference work included history as well.... which is close to the scholarly work on web that i have come across..

hmm.. now google's knol seems like an interesting idea.

will knol be able to solve the general problem that historical archives suffer from? the problem of becoming out dated.. and being subjective?

the fate of astrology?

2007-12-13T15:23:00.000-08:00

hmmmm. this incident or memory is one of those memories which never go away or may be it is because my grand mother kept reminding me and everyone else about this incident... long after we left that hut and that village..

i went to visit my aunt for summer vacation with my grandmother. i was 5 or 6 years old. my aunt lived in the last cluster of houses in the village and behind these houses were irrigation fields as long as you can see. rice, cotton or some times sunflower..

my aunt taught me about the sun flower and that it always looks towards the sun. i would make it a point to go watch the sun flowers in the morning and evening.. and she was right..

it was like any other day and without much toys, most of my days followed a similar schedule and i was never bored of it. i think i got back watching the sun flowers, where there was a visitor.. an astrologer with a parrot.. he said something to attract attention of my granny and my aunt lost in some conversation.. and my aunt called him.

she wanted him to tell my future.. and grandmother was pressing against the idea.. i bet she would have said.. 'we are christians and we should not believe in astrology..'. my grand mother over the years, taught me about a lot of things i was not supposed to do because i was a christian.... some i refused to follow, she doesn't know though.. or may be she does..

of course i wanted the astrologer to come near us, and i wanted to get close to the parrot and i guess my aunt was just amused by fun things that astrologers usually tell.

he spread out a bunch of cards in front of the parrot cage and opened its doors. the parrot.. making those "klecch, kleech" sound.. moving its beak up and down came out of the cage.. i don't remember if it was tied at the leg, but it certainly din't make an attempt to run away. it walked to the cards.. touched a few with its beak and pulled one of them a little forward..

the astrologer was praising or singing, well.. he never stopped speaking.. and then he telling things from the card.. i remember random words .. and they included.. good job... get rich... foreign country... drive a car.....

granny at some point, finally thought this was after all not a sin and prompted my aunt to ask if i will take her in the car when i grow up.. the astrologer i think said no.. to that.. but he mentioned i will take my 'wife' or something like that because granny and aunt burst into laughter..

the thoughts of flying in airplane.. the only way to go to foreign land was amusing.. and later i watched my aunt give the astrologer a few rupees..

the rest of the day.. is blanked out..

i don't remember if i asked my aunt if she really believed in the astrologer? will i really fly and drive car? i guess i din't want to hear 'no' for an answer or may be i just liked the thought and never really asked..

but over years.. as he said.. i got a good job and i did flew in air plane..

my granny never ceased to claim that she always knew i would.. as she always tells me (and others) 'the astrologer told us long back that you will fly..', and sometimes she has another version where she tells me that my 'aunt dreamed that i was flying in an air plane..'. oh yes, the visions of future through dreams are very common in her christian view. she makes it a point to remind me that, the day i was born, god told her in prayers that "i will be fruit bearing tree". she has similar phrases for my sister and cousin..

of course i grew up wondering why god didn't speak to me after listening to her so many times. she would tell me, pray and god will talk to you.. well.. the story of my grandmother and her visions is for another day.. so coming back to the astrologer..

so did that astrologer with a parrot he really know my fate (if i can use such a word)? is there a life long map drawn on my name? it is beyond my grasp to comprehend that a parrot can pick up the card that had my life's story.. was it just a co-incidence..

so is astrology an invention to amuse self and others? write a few random (or not so random) words on cards that approximately define the distinct moments of a person's life. it is hard to accept it was just for amusement.. because there are stories of astrology sprinkled all over hindu mythology and some families still believe in matching the gothras (birth start/suns or whatever they call it) before the wedding.

if i were to believe and which i do now, there are no co-incidences in the 'whole' picture, then there has to be a reason behind the long history of astrology.

what is the philosophy behind astrology? is it something that we can just forget as an outdated system of prediction or should we instead see what parts of it have become outdated and try to upgrade the system..

yeah yeah.. working with software influences how i think..

a plausible theory could be that the ancient sages or people with knowledge or people who were keen observers of social behavior saw the patterns of how people evolved.. and what might have shaped their life.... build an mathematical (or whatever mechanism they were capable of) model around this analysis..

after all they were good at numbers.. and in some strange way knew that there were nine planets.. or was sun and moon part of the astrologer's planets?

maps/mobiles in movies..

2007-12-11T20:23:00.000-08:00

A Good Year - is 'another' movie.. that is based on the theme finding the love of life is important than making money.. well.. keep aside the emotional and life morals of the movie.. there are several other interesting aspects to this movie.

the movie revolves around ethnically diverse characters.. british lawyer, french lover, american child and indian assistant..

some scenes were truely interesting like max skinner losing his way in france (despite having GPS thats speaking in french..), asking for directions from his indian assistant jammida in london. she is at a coffee shop and helps him out by checking the maps on the phone...

others interesting things i noticed in the movie..

american tourist couple asking for a diet platter in an french restaurant.

of course the movie begins with an portrayal of how people make easy money in stock market and eventually can get caught up... is it really true that stock brokers get hired and fired very quickly? the movie seems to suggest that taking an holiday after fifteen years of working as a stock broker can cost you a job. the assistant seems to have come to terms with such job dynamics.. and is prepared to leave the job anytime and take any other job.. that is available.

to get to finer points.. there is mention of a book - death in venice. the book seemed to have a life of its own, it is the book that max .. the kid is reading when he fist meets his french neighbor and eventually never finishes reading it entirely.. uncle henry suggest that the ending isn't surprising.. and it is the same book that christe is reading.. it is the book that later carries the secret letter from henry to christe through max...

origin of ideas

2007-12-11T13:48:00.000-08:00

Heard on NPR weekend edition - interview of Irwin Winkler by Scott Simon

Scott Simon asked how does Irwin get ideas for new movies and Irwin Winkler responded

i could wake up screaming or i could wake up and say - why don't i do a file about american revolution, no body has ever done a good one. why don't i do one. sure enough. i did one and it wasn't any good.

this is much like the software world. the ideas are simple and grand. as they become products they become complex and average. it is not to say that simple and grand ideas can't be realized, it just that they are 'hard'.

Amazon's Kindle - fox and the grapes

2007-12-11T12:15:00.000-08:00

Kindle -- just the right widget i need to improve my productivity. i read multiple books at the same time and it will be great to carry all the books with me.

can i afford to buy it? no. they are quite expensive. the initial cost and the service cost to use them.

have i thought through all the possible ways to afford it? kind of....

am i sure? hmmm.. i don't know.

well.. do i really need it?

Amazon's Kindle is the latest instance... where I found myself in the state of jumping fox. the answer to the question .. how do i answer this question without getting into the state of denial of the need? or in other words how can i not become the fox that said.. the grapes are sour?

for what it is worth, it is possible that, that particular bunch of grapes were sour, or something the fox might have not liked that much. but highly unlikely, fox would have liked the grapes.. but just couldn't reach them.

what could the fox have done instead?

- walk away....
- wait till some thing else will trigger them to drop....
- find something else to eat....

ear phones -- voices in the head

2007-12-11T10:50:00.000-08:00

i am listening to Paul Hilfinger's programming course from iTunes U.

there was something unique and different about listening to this course online and i think it has to do with listening to the course through ear phones. typically, i am used to listening by catching the waves from outside..

but through ear phones, it feels like the voice is coming from within my head. it is creepy.

can words provide perspective?

2007-12-10T07:16:00.001-08:00

i noticed an interesting pattern in the words related to humans (or words that affect humans)...

pain, anger, success, money, failure, food, health, disease, cure, house, shelter, clothes, sex, pleasure, desire, want, need, politics, hypocrites, love, hate, friends, parents, children, family, relatives, neighbors, career, car, speed, light, language, thought, civilization, philosophy, science, maths, architecture, computers, snow, rain,man,women,wife,....

ok.. that was just a sample list.. it is literally endless..

now when i talk about these words, i am referring to how the words relate to human consciousness. for example.. money is not rupees or dollars, but a concept that was invented to measure the value of a commodity.

now the list of words at any point is not complete, we learn new words every day and some words i may never learn in my lifetime.. so i am going to refer to these unknown words as 'black-words' (similar to the black-hole concept).

if we take a closer look at these words.. we can associate with each word a certain 'origin-age'. an approximate time that marked the discovery of such a word. for example.. 'computers' came into existence after 'civilization' which came after 'hunger'.

btw.. time and god seem to share awful lot in common. and it reminds me of the mahabarth tv serial i used to watch as a kid, in which "kaal" was narrating the story . may be i will get to explore more on this if 'time' permits....

so.. we can arrange the words with the earliest origin-age in the center. these basic words then give rise to the next level of words like 'hunger' results in 'pain', 'need'... which in turn result in 'food'. the existence of 'hunger' and 'pain' tells something about 'life' and 'death'. similarly the satisfaction of 'hunger' or the cure of 'pain' tells something about 'heaven' and 'hell'.

where do the 'black-words' fit in.. as you play closer attention to the pattern, we find that words are built on top of each other.. and there was some thing that was before 'pain' or 'hunger' -- which is now a 'black-word'. similarly how did someone make a connection between 'hunger' and 'food', did they just randomly start eating everything they found? or may be it is not so random.. so that space is filled with 'black-words'. what sections of the model are black is subjective and keeps changes as we uncover new information..

well.. so.. how can these relationships help provide perspective?

it is like tuning to the right tv channel (for example fox news or cnn news or which news paper do you want to read? fox and cnn get the information from the same source.. for example a national republican debate, but each offer different perspectives based on their models.)

so there is a model or a pattern of words based on how they have originated and there is another model about these words within our mind.. we can sense ourself using this model.. even if we don't realize it exists..

think about the question 'what is the most important thing in life?' how do we answer such a question? i would speculate it is based on the model of the words that we have in our mind and we will pick what we think is in the center of this model, for some it is love and for some it is money and for some it is life or may be it is success..

so we could attempt to get our model closer to the 'origin-age' model.. well.. unfortunately, we are loosing much of the information that is required to build the origin-age model.. and there are a lot of 'black-words' and i guess i will spend the rest of my life figuring out if i have tuned to the that model... or may be not..

is there any other model that relates the words to each other?

layout and number of objects....

2007-12-10T07:14:00.001-08:00

this is side-tracking a little bit, but when i came across this photograph at orkut, i was surprised at the effect it was having on my perceiving senses..

Classification of Music Sites

2007-12-10T07:12:00.002-08:00

the block diagram below is an attempt to visualize how music artists and listeners can find each other and to see how social networking sites fit into this mediation model.

As a listener the sites that fall into the category of players, search engines, radio and organizers are most useful to me. Social networking is probably the next thing, but it is more important to those users who turn from listers to music DJs.. who have a taste that others can come to depend on.. But then.. these mediators move up into the radio category.

Do friends really care for what their contacts are listening to or do they try to find their own music? Isn't music something of a personal pleasure? Is the power of sites like YouTube in sharing videos between friends or providing a platform where users can create quality channels?

Producer, Consumer and Mediator model

2007-12-10T07:12:00.001-08:00

It is all about making the connection between the producer and the consumer. Each of us in the earliest times were either the producer or consumer based on the context. But soon, there was a need for a new role of the mediator. A mediator in essence is someone who has knowledge of more than one producer and can be a critic of the product. The producers and consumers can benefit from the knowledge of the mediator. If music is the context, the DJs, radio hosts can be considered as the mediators and to a degree the advertisers.

This is basic structure of consumption. But with the explosion of information and the technology, there is an explosion of producers, mediators and consumer tastes. Making that right connection is becoming harder and harder or there is a need for making that connection much more quicker.

The mediators who were once people, is now being replaced by the Internet (the knowledge of the people.. of course). The search engines and social networking sites. The consumers are becoming the new mediators.

presenting technical information....

2007-12-10T07:10:00.001-08:00

Patrick Sweeney in his webinar on security assessment, used an intuitive way of presenting technical information to a non-technical person. He used the analogy of what happened at the battle of troy to indicate how malicious data can be packaged..

Evolution of Solutions..

2007-12-10T07:08:00.001-08:00

This concept diagram is an attempt to simply and understand the process of how new solutions get created and kind of opportunities in store for web applications.

The solution cloud is only going to get bigger and bigger and as internet is gaining popularity as the medium of solution storage.. there is scope for numerous new applications.. and an opportunity to make the existing solutions more effective.

for instance, the discovery process will become more and more difficult to handle. Search engines alone can't do the trick. If an analogy be taken.. search engines are like calculators to the computation world. they make things easier to begin with but we need high-end computers.

after going through the painful process of discovery in this age of speed and information overload, there comes the process of experiencing what has been found. there is a need for a personalized experience model. one size doesn't fit all.. and it is certainly doesn't seem practical for the creators to provide the solution in different sizes, rather.. provide tools to customize.

How can information have negative effects?

2007-12-10T07:05:00.000-08:00

Francis Heylighen's 1999 paper on Change and Information Overload: negative effects is more true and a must read today. He presents a very clear picture on how change (or i take it as a new piece of information) can affect us if not properly tapped.

The latest gadgets and innovative web applications (call it 2.0 or 3.0) certainly strike us with awe and wonder. If that awe and wonder is not quickly turned into some kind of experience and use, we will be following the path to the 3 f's.

natural well created by shifting of tectonic plates

2007-12-07T16:41:00.001-08:00

An experience of a life time. I probably may never be able to visit this place, but thanks to npr -- pri's the world broadcast, and photos I can enjoy natures amazing beauty at its best.

This beauty is Sotano del Barro.. located in central mexican state - Queretaro.