confession of a guilty non-vegge..!

the place i am presently living is near a meat shop (there a also a 'desi daaru ka theka' but doesn't matter here..) many times i hear the shrieking of what sounds like a duck. and for some time i was wondering, who would keep ducks here. then realised they are not ducks, but thats how chicken sound when begging for their lives.

i, a pseudo bengali,am hard core non veggie. i relish it more then any other food, and frankly, for me food doesn't taste like food without it. although can and have lived without it, meals seem like 'should i eat today' instead of 'whats in dinner today??'

for sometime (three years i guess) i left it, before that i would always defend and defend passionately. but someone very significant n influential who i value, reasoned as to how hypocrite i was being, loving animals on one side, keeping two dogs, and still eating non veg.

frankly, i don't think its hypocrisy, human kind has been hunting for ever, pain is felt by every being, the food chain and all other systems would simple collapse if we do not have hunters.

but then in Bhopal i saw how chicken were halal, n how fishes used to wriggle n struggle till their last breath. i was pained by what i saw, but also am very practical in life, know pain is sometimes necessary.

had an epiphany which made me loose.

humans are not hunters anymore, they are breeders who kill. we actually rear all sorts of animals just to kill them. imagine living only to be killed.

only fishing is still hunting.

but all this are just words. over the last year, i have become a devout non veggie, and so today eat n live with a guilt. but am sadly weak willed to live, i can't give up the sin.

went to a office party last time, where one of my colleague revealed that he had secretly started eating mean. asked for a reason of starting it after 6 years, he said that during one session of introspecting why he was not having much fun in life, he realised it was because of not eating mean.

and i swear, its quite true. once u have tasted mean, other food tastes like umm.. 'ghaas phus'

take care.

Carrot n Stick

how many of us praise or criticise often?? well we do criticise often, but praise rarely. criticism comes easier because its easier to see whats wrong, we are more attuned to the negative. it also makes us feel better, knowing that some..' else has a fault that we don't, makes us feel superior, feel better about ourselves. it is very selfish because frankly we are feeding on some..' else ego to raise ours. we degrade some..' to feel better about ourselves.
well if ur thinking 'i do praise a lot of some..' a lot of the time' well praise also is mostly very selfish. its many times done to simply make someone feel better about us, many times done as a favour. many times as a barter, since i praised someone, i should get it back as well.

its maybe one of the reasons neither do we praise people a lot, nor do we constructively criticise. what we do is help ourselves through these mediums, instead of trying to help some..' else. our praise/criticism should be more of a feedback then a selfish act, and from what i have seen feedbacks are not only asked for but also appreciated a lot.
They also make some..' feel better, even if its a negative feedback, since now atleast they have something to improve. And a praise, even on mundane things makes u feel better, sometimes can make your day. it acknowledges something some..' might have put effort in doing, and criticism pushes some..' to do something.

also praise the process even if the goal has not been accomplished to the fullest. because that praise will make the some..' to go ahead and try again, and better them selves.

I believe well thought out praise/criticism is even rarer. most of what does come out is on the spur, without giving thought to or trying to understand the basis of it. we might say to someone handwriting is poor, without understanding why, and whether there can be something done to make it better. criticism should always be followed by advice, else it is just to make someone feel worse, knowingly or unknowingly.

A senior once said, don't point out a problem if u don't have a hint of a solution first. or you know that a solution can be found.

i hope people criticise/praise more, and why even categorise it, just give more feedbacks, let some..' know what you think of what they are doing... you can start by leaving a comment to this post..!!!

take care n enjoy!!

The original Sony Walkman

Looks better then most of the models available today!!!

there is a script..

which life follows, its amazing how one thing leads to another. yesterday for the first time i felt that it was meant to be, i was meant to be gloomy, i was meant to pick myself up, make an effort to come out of my gloom, meant to be walking on the pavement when the accident happened, meant to be a bengali, meant to be there...

also many times if i have made an effort to change things, some force helps me out. if you just make the effort to change ur present conditions, its amazing how things work out. just a strong enough will is required, u should want it bad, and should take the first step, it works out.

like in that indiana jones movie, where ford cannot see the invisible bridge, he still takes the first step, he takes the plunge, not knowing whats coming... and he lives on.

well always take the plunge, you will float, u might not live, but ur body surely will float!!! atleast u had the thrill of the plunge...

take care.

tragiComic

a new word (for me)!! i didn't come up with it, but was used in TOI twice in the same issue in two different articles, by different authors, and i was wondering what is probability of that happening!!?!!

but it always happens, when ur thinking of something or you see somthing new, out of the blue, it starts appearing more n more. Happens to me quite often. recently for the first time heard about Royal Bank of Scotland, before the ABN takeover bid, and heard about it at the weirdest of places, my roomies love interest works there, and then read about it in some vague news article, and since then its been all over the place with the take over bid.

even dates have an unusal habit of re-appearing, 14th Nov is one such date. this day became significant around 7 years ago for me, and now there are atleast 13 people that i know who were born on this date!! and that inludes my dog jeanie!!

i wonder why, maybe we start paying special attention to the new thing, or when we hear, see or observe it again, when we come across it again it regiesters more prominently, since its been in our head. but i don't think thats the only reason. i guess we also attract it, when we want to hear about someting, know about something really bad, it comes to us.

its the entire energy funda a friend told me about and i have started really believing in it. manisfestation, more about that later.

and i guess that the reason it doesn't happen to everything, because we come across so many new things, new dates, new names, its only the one we really pay attention to, are in some way attached to whcih reappear. don't ask how i am attached to RBS, i might be taking it over after it takes over ABN..

for now let me just think about scarlette johansson (spellcheck..) alot, maybel i'll someday run into her. yea right, works only on repetitions!!!

PS, the word is beautiful isin't, how many times have we seen tragiComic situations in our lives, and believe me it can only happen to oneself, if happening to someone else its moslty more Comic then tragiC.

Thats why i don't run too much!! :-)

tech...mapped out..

we use so many devices to help us remember all sorts of stuff, to organise stuff like keep our accounts, remember occassions etc. But all these need us to input the information first for us to retrieve it afterwards. which is almost always tiresome. we have come a long way in making it easier, from writing to paper, we not have mobile phones with voice recognition. but still it is tiresome. for any memo u have to take out the gadget, say out the command and so many other steps.
imagine a system in which a gadget was driectly pluggedin to our brains. so every time we think of a something to save we simply preceded it with a command, like SAVE - "meeting tommorow" - and then commit it to memeory by maybe blinking our eyes twice or something of that sort. would make life so much easier,
well systems already existin in which the brain impulses can be felt by external mechanisms and can also be used to control such mechanisms.
Even more powerful would be if we could organise our brain. we could have a foldersystem mapped out in our brains. we could have a search capabilites and achiving facilities.
well we have it all, we just don't know how to use it, how to organise it.
maybe someday we will learn!!

bangalored..

have been here three weeks, and already loving the city. have seen a lot of metros, each city is characterised by it own culture, some u like some u hate. i like bangalore. i know people who have been here will say whats new!!!
was here long time back, n fell in love even then, always was a dream to come here, live here, experience the life.
the city seems so much more balanced, a great mix of the old and the modern, cosmo and the orthodox, stink n fresh,
the cemetries, the trees lining up the roads, the pavements on which u can walk for hours and distances without realising, the udupis and the coffees, the crowded stinking buses n the posh but suprisingly cheap city volvos, the fact that every third shop is a liquor shop, the abundance of non veg eatries, 85% of times it rains only between 4PM and 4Am, and that it is always unexpected, the fact that people here actually try out clothes u see in fashion mags, the abundance of skirts, the complicated flyovers, the surprising absence of cyber cafes and internet telephone whatever in the cyber city of the country, the fact that most probably the guy next to u makes more then u, how can i forget the juice shops, grape juice for 8 bucks!!, the ease with which u can find a place to stay, and u'd expect to a croweded city, but there is so much space here, u can be alone if u want.
and so much more still to explore...
i still don't know if this city has the heart, which bombay has, the heart which faces everything and stands up straight,
i wanna see what calcutta is like, was reading that street hawkers offer tired walkers their stools to sit on, in the sweetest of languages bengali. a city which has its own lingo, whcih i think bangalore lacks, or maybe have been here for a very short time.
lets see what NY is like...
take care.

smoked..

smoked after a long time today, its been going on for last many years, on and off, have to smoke once to know how much i hate it, and still everytime feel like a second...always

i decided at a very early stage in m life that i won't be smoking, had seen my dad smoke for 25 plus years, try to give up and loose the battle many times. had boasted about my resolve not to succumb, and was kind of proud of it, but hell...

smoking or any addiction drives u when there is nothing else. it maybe makes up for the absence of any worthwhile goals, have been addicted to coffee, to loud music, to coding, smoking is no different. its give u an instant kick, fires up ur head, its intoxicating, it gives an energy which maybe only true love can. the only diff is being in love doesn't kil, well ideally..

its a choice u make, u know its not good, u can feel it in ur head, in ur heart, in ur shrot breath (spelling please..), in every step u take, but its a choice u make. without an addiction life seems dull, so u take up something which harms u, but atleast jitna jeeto ho woh to interestingly jeeta ho.

i remember the movie a beautiful mind, russell crowe's character gets ideas only when he is off the medication, but it also causes him harm, screws up his personal life, n life in general. knows that there won't be a future, but on meds there is no present. he chooses his future, maybe because there is something to live for, what if there is nothing worth living for, there is no future, then i choose to live for the present. live now!!!

anyone who criticises smoking, if its a known choice then let it be. like the right to take ur life, of course there is no coming back from there,

don't smoke because othere are, because its cool, smoke for a worthwhile reason, not to fit in, but if it adds to u in some way,

weird but sometimes it does..

take care.

eYtinct..

yup, men are gonna be extinct in another, well don't worry, another many mnay years for that to happen, but yea, someday women are gonna rule.

first the Y was getting weaker, now they don't need the weaker Y at all, women can get by it, just need to preserve some stem cells. i am sure soon they will be digging graves to get bones out to extract some DNA which can be converted into the tadpoles.

have always known that women are far better then men at most things. they can handle more complexity, look at any women around u, handles work, home which in turn is a super set for husband/bf, parents, children, relatives, friends, grocery shopping etc etc. they are beautiful negotiators, good managers, are getting pretty good at decision making as well, are better power players then men, especially when dealing with men. they know how to have fun, are more creative, imaginative, and also don't sit on their asses all the time. believe in action.
they are more mature at the same age, have had many more critical experiences, have seen more life, and have understood more of it as well.

so why men?? well because i am still to see women who sees the future, who can make huge corporations work. who can stratigise, who sees the big picture. women are more into detail, i have seen very few able to look at the macro side of things, who can dream what can be!! who can be visionaries. and frankly visionaries are people who take the world forward, with a women in charge, u will have a more perfect world, but it will be the same old world. Life will be mundane, boring, stuck in time.

men are nothing in front of women, but for the fact that they can dream big, bigger then imagination permits sometimes. women can never create war just for ambition, men can!!!

and yea exceptions exist always, although they might not be the rule in this case.

take care.

have been here a week now, n frankly spend most of my time around the caffe!! its huge, serves great food, n has a TV which mostly has CNN or BBC (sometimes the cricket channel if lucky).
everyone including the contingent n service staff dine together, no restictions as to who can come n who cannot, so even people who take our plates for cleaning eat with us. this goes quite against the elitist image the company has. n frankly was so happy about it but soon noticed..
my piont is, till the mantality changes, till that feeling from inside changes, there will always be a divide. even thoug policy allows everyone to sit together, mostly the service staff sits at the far end of the caffeteria. what can be done to change that, simply putting policies can't help, may be if some of the top guys would make an effort.
Same with the status women are given, although about that next time.
take care

can blog from office!!

what a joy, i can blog from office, everything else which can possibly entertain me is blocked, but hey, i can blog!!!

the namesake!!

of all the moives, i saw this one with my parents, n thank god i did. if u can survive this movie n not come out feeling guilty, u have been a good son (am not mentioning daughters, they mostly are good) if u haven't its time to make changes.

the reason why gogol left maxine was a pt of discussion. seemed gogol misunderstood what max could do for him, underestimated her commitment n love for him, he only saw what he wanted to see, was too overwhelmed by the changes taking place in his life to see what was actually going on. doesn't this happen to us so often, we just remember the scences, never understand the story. day to day life n events masks the quality of life. thrills don't make us happy.
its amazing if two people could travel so much together that there is nothing more left to see. what a journey, n what a relationship.

many people who know me consider me a psuedo bengali, a namesake, so am not the right person to comment about the authenticity of the bengali culture, but i did actually see on of my bengali prof uncle in irfan khan's character. n tabu, her expresions, were so bengali.

am reading the book abhi, lets see how tht turns out.

i realised sometime back what parents are, hope everyone does. we give so much to people who have just come into our life, forgetting parents who have been there for ever!!!

thanks to u i realised it.

later...

take care

bloggin'

what is bloggin has been written about by many people, n i have nothing new to add to it, except for a couple of links.
It started as a place for people, who were net savvy at that time, to share what they found on the net with others. this was way back in 98, when many active net surfers (and many here is actually miniscule compared to today) used their blogs to comment on new happenings on the net, and share it with others. this was way before web 2.0, was actually web 0.something time.
From their it moved on to people maintaining personal diaries, and as of today as marketing tools to sell one self.

its a platform to express anything that comes in your head, any thought, how ever insignificant, it can be put here. u can sell or rather market your self on this platform.
its both the boon and the bane of bloggin, for every single interesting blog that you find, u have to go through a hundred which donot interest u. but those hundred atleast increase your spectrum of thought.

the problem with marketing urself online is that its not assured that when will you be discovered, and if you will be at all. with blogs running in millions, differentiating urself is difficult.

i believe, be it a student or a professional, blogging empowers everyone. anyone can write about anything, can comment, can praise, can disparage anything. it might not lead to action, u have blogged about something doesn't mean you have been heard either, but atleast you have documented your thoughts someplace, with hopes of them being discovered someday.

this is a great platform to share yours and discover peoples experiences. because of the pace of life, of the amount of complexity today, its difficult to share experiences in a the usual manner, over a cup of coffee, in a restaurant. bloggin means you can sit wherever u want, whenever u want and share whatever u want. ur free to contact anyone without the social obligation attached to it.

what else, well since this will be read by many in SCIT, i would like to know why to access web 2.0, we have to got to lab 0.59?? why can't we have the latest browsers??

enjoy n take care

there is a large percentage of acceptance of mediocrity

How do you look at changes in Indian films, say music, over the years?
Things will change with changing times. The language has changed — there is brevity in everything. Keeping that in mind, everything gets changed — earlier there were beautiful lyrics and music which you could sit back and savour. Now people don’t have time. That makes the difference.
But, there is a large percentage of acceptance of mediocrity. That is very dangerous. What is not mediocre is very small and comes in the bracket of “elitist”. Can we ever do what is small, not because it is elitist but because of a need to rise above mediocrity.
Maybe it is because we have been subjugated for long by foreign powers so there is a sense of fear in what we do. So remaining mediocre is playing safe. There is this sense of “itna hi karte hain”. There is a great need to rise above mediocrity. I feel India is at the right spot to do this. That is where your (Times of India’s India Poised) campaign hits the right note for everyone. This is the time to fly. That’s why I chose that location (Mumbai’s Bandra-Worli Sealink) for your film — it’s modern and it symbolizes the message.
I just feel very strongly about it.

Amitabh Bachchan in Times of India, Jan 29th, 07.

Salaam e salaam e ishk

sheer brilliance...in parts though.
although not an original concept, it was a purely indianised version of Love Actually, but indianised is in no way derog anymore for indina movies. It felt like a foreign film, the treatment, the cinematography, effects, and still all the stories were plausibly indian. if indian films keep on improving at this rate, i will not have to compare them again n again with foreign movies.
Acting was good, Govinda shows his brilliance, the foreign chick n the rest were good, not great. Everyone praises Salman, but its easy to do the kind of roles he does. its the same old thing. n who is the Anil Kapoor ki crush chick?? looked pretty although her character was kindof confused. she is shown sad but then is potrayed by priyanka chopra as a b**** using guys!! or does it go deeper.

the best of the 5 stories was ofcourse Govinda and the phirang chick, althought can't call any of the five the worst. Fail to understand why sohail khan n khallas girl were there, although they too made most of the tiny little roles that they had. i guess they were there because according to the hindi movie formula there has to be some comedy, and it takes real guts to go beyond the formula. also Love actually had six stories.

the directore could have made a perfect pic, but the problem with perfection is it takes time. there were many moments or rather gaps in the movie where the director didn't know what to do, or rather had not got the idea, the vision for that part, and i guess becuase of time factor, put in what was not really mediocre, but also not up to standards of the movie. still it was far better then most other movies, it got quite close.

well whatever it was, i took my parents to the movie on their anni, and so it did make a perfect gift, except the haddi (me)!!!

still in inertia

just realised something else about intertia, because of intertia life becomes simple and easily understood. u can project or assume the future because of inertia.
realised it while driving my activa, the first thing i do after taking a blind turn, is take a note of everything new on the road, regiester the position or state of everything. a dog standing on the other side, a little girl playing ball, a slow moving scooterist. once i have done that, regiestered everything, my head in its sub conscious projects their movements or state for the next so many seconds till i take note of it again. and it goes to another thought.
if there states were to change suddenly, then that would require reflex actions on my part. a sudden bump in the road needs my attention, and my mind coming back to consciousness.
if inertia is not there, if i have to assume that the state will change every moment, then my mind will always be processing whats on the road, without leaving any space for other thoughts to come and get processed.

expectations

love is supreme only when expectations are zero. unconditional love. it doenot vary with time, on how the loved behaves. its there always.
realised this looking at jimmy, got locked out of the house with my two dogs, was waiting for dad to come back. and thinking.
jimmy is the one creature who i have loved unconditionaly, and he knows it. and today i realised its because i don't expect anything out of him, i don't expect because i know he is not capable of giving anything. so noting great on my part but...
have seen this with someone else as well, as long as i didn't have any expectations, what ever she did, i showered her with my love. as soon as i started to see her differently and started expecting, it changed.
having no expectations also protects you from hurt, and keeps you eternally happy. try it, its a beautiful state of mind!!!

Love Files : Related memories

there are so many things u talk about with.., interests that u share. interests that u discover together. and many times, interests which were not so intersting becoming really enjoyable just because u share them with... anyways once u fall out or if it doesn't workout, all these become such a torture. reminding u of times together, and some how unconsciously u kind of start disliking and ultimately hating them.
if u fall out with.. those years also get lost, those memories become painful. but how do u not link memories to a person, with a ... there are no memories!!
stay in it,,,
take care.

40 mins up and not a song, whoaaa!!!!

well what a shock!!! everyone went to see a feel good movie, and why not, everything sounded similar, multi star cast, (almost the same people repeated actually) a standard FLA (four letter accronym) name, new york, high pitched songs, designer clothes. sounded so similar, but it wasn't to be.
the first song came 40 mins into the picture, and i was so surprised.
well nothing new about the movie as such. the subject has been explored before, although more towards infidelity the falling in love, the ending also was not unique.
what was unique was that this was done in a commercial hindi movie and not an arty flick which only the intellectual would see. which basically means the debate became more main stream.
i agree with the review given by masand(cnn-ibn), atleast people are talking, the film makes u sit after the credits are over and think. it takes time for you to decide whether u like the movie or not, you discuss the movie with friends instead of giving one word verdicts.
agreed the execution was not perfect, but atleast a start. and for all those who say that bollywood stands r no where near hollywood, well, its changing, right from kank & haasil which altough great ideas were not executed as well, to hum dil de chuke sanam & omkara, which could compete on an international stage, we are slowly getting there. the good thing is that these movies are not only of great quality but r also commercially viable.
take care

coded!!!

was getting my haircut, an activity i always find very interesting and love to talk about, but will spare u now. some time else. anyways so this guy, barber, took out this new blade to put in the razer. and i was thinking, he always changes the blade when a new custoemer comes, he never keeps it changed, because then the new customer will ask him to change it again even if the barber tells him that the blade is new. that is the level of trust we have now.
anyways that apart, coming back to the blades. lets count the number of packing the blade has.
one is the butter paper, then the simple paper covering. this makes up the basic packing for a blade.
then comes the small thin cardboard box, which has five such blades. then over the box is the plastic covering. wel l this makes sense. maybe the plastic covering is expensive or its not possible to put a plastic film covering on every blade. and the plastic is necessary else rust problems. so thats four layers of covering but two sets.
now five of these cardboard boxes are packed into one bulk box, which in turn, i believe comes in a bigger carton. am not sure but the carton must also have some kind of packing over it.
each of these packings has some kind of marking on it.
so what could be the reasons of such increasing level of packing. a) convinience of handling b) convinience to count and sell c) to sell numbers, even if u wanna buy three blades, u have to buy five, so the company sells more. (which also raises the point of whether companies take undue advantage of this. but again afterwards), what else d) less loss, imagine a truck full of individual blades, aadhi to trasnportation ke samay hi kho jayengi, and no one will come to know, whoes gonna count!!
take care
comments invted
but then again, for all this packing, such a huge amount of material is wasted. also packing again and again, which means more labour utilised, marking each and storing these markings in a database.
instead, if each individual piece could be identified by a machine, then all problems will be solved. well its not an original idea, RFID tags are doing the same. but they cannot be put on each individual blade, too expnsive, too big in size. am sure will find something which is more suitable.

how about coding humans. put some kind of a chip in each living person. each one has a code, and some basic information. or just a code, the basic information can be in a database. how easy will it make everything. anyone anywhere can be recognised. u have an accident, the emergencyservices know who to contact, whats ur blood type, and everythign else.
but then marketers also know which shop u visit, police knows whether ur a regular at beer bars n dance bars, so what about privacy. well depends on who owns the database, and what all information is stored int the database. who can you trust with the database. the goverment (read USA) might use it with the bahana of terrorism or national security. so who can you trust.
well if a system is found out in which this problem can be solved then this can become the most revolutionary idea ever.
ofcourse there is also the question of implementation. a database with 6 billion entries, will require many terabytes, and many many man years to make!!! but the effort will sure be worth it.