And Another Thing....

Sorry for the Title Rip off H2G2... I just love referring to the series... :P

In this blog.. I just wanted to tell a story...

Once there was a God. The One! The Supreme Being...

God felt bored and lonely. So God thought of creating something. Being the supreme one with all those powers it was very easy. So the next day He created the Universe. Soon enough he got bored with the static matter. So he thought of creating life. And so he created the plants and the trees. And with lot of interest he watched them grow, flower, bear fruits and die. But the cycle being static in itself. He soon got bored of it. Then he came up with the idea of movement and he created life that could move. The animals. It was refreshing as the new creatures could move according to their will. And with amazement God watched all of them. But he had no one to share the amazement with. Soon he got lonely coz he did not have anyone to talk to. He tried talking to himself taking sides. But still because both the sides were connected internally it wasn't like talking to a separate being. It was unlike sharing with complete stranger.
So he decided to break the physical connection. And He divided himself into two. Thus were created Adam and Eve. They enjoyed the feeling of sharing and enjoyed each other's company.
But soon enough Eve being the superior half started craving for the joy she felt when she created life. Adam couldnt help it. And because both of them were equal parts of God he had to share a part of himself with Eve to create a new life. And thus the life cycle of a human being was started. And continuing the life cycle we stand today, each human containing six-millionth part God.
I submit to your analysis the story.

Considerations based on some sayings and Holy Books:
1. God created Adam and Eve. No one knows where God is since then.
2. Females have always been given a higher importance in society. And it's them who primarily know the joy of creation of life. Just like Eve knew the joy of finding the Apple.
3. God is within us.
4. To find God start from looking within urself.
5. United we stand. As more and more pieces of God come together(think similarly) for a cause they approach God in power. Prayer may just be a way of using that power.
6. Wedding is a heavenly joining of soul (because it brings together two pieces of God)
7. The larger the population the lesser is the imprint of God. His presence being overshadowed by His absence. (Remember Light and Dark from my previous post)

I have lots others but I like 7. Any guesses... Well that was the total number of days God took to decide and split Himself up... :P

Disclaimer: Everything in the story above should be considered fictitious and any resemblance to any person or God should be considered as an implied coincidence. :)

Duality is Truth?? or Truth, Duality...

Dual.. a word that means two... also meaning fight.. challenge..
Truth.. What is Truth? Is truth what the fact says that it is. Or is truth what really happens. This takes me to a bigger question that comes right out of "The Matrix". What is real?

I'm still not sure what ending I want to give to this blog. But I just wanted to pen down my thoughts. Ok.. rather keyboard down my thoughts. :P

The word "Not" describes most of the things in life. Either you do something.. or you do "Not".
Darkness is nothing but "Not" of Light. It's a relative term. It's the absence of something.
Similarly Cold is absence of heat. It is relative too. -10 degrees sounds cold. But relative to -30 degrees it's warmer or hotter...
Same goes everywhere. In fact it's in the nature. Duality is all around us. Either you are the predator or you are the prey. Either you evolve or you are extinct. There are two genders. Male and Female. There's Life and there's an absence of it. Either something is or it is not. This is a very basic truth.

As I observe the world more and more I can see the concept of duality everywhere. Being a software engineer, the world these days appears to me as a huge concatenated if.. then.. else.. condition. The "if" part has the choice... "then" has the events that would unfold if you accept the choice and "else" has the events that would happen if you choose not to.

And these choices define how someone's life is going to be. Yet I see that there's a hidden element of probability. Of possibility. Of uncertainty. Of the unknown. Unknown again is simply an absence of knowledge. (which results in my derivation of my life funda of the unquenchable thirst for knowledge) The less the unknown... The more you know about the effect of the choice you make. Which is why people like to discuss things before choosing. They want to see things before buying. Find out about other person before marriage. Find out about someone before dealing with them. All to limit the unknown. And yet I find that the unknown is the most powerful element in the equation of life. Look at the universe. The absence is much larger the presence of things. There's more empty space than matter. There's more cold than heat. There's more darkness than light. So where's the duality you ask. Everywhere. Even in the truth. Either something is true or it is not(False). Yet duality in itself has no other. Do not think of singularity. Singularity is because something that is unlike it is present. Multiplicity.. Yes that exists but not as a dual to duality. Multiplicity is just a large grouping of duality.

Well this actually takes me to a new thread. Computer world is not so unlike the real world. Or rather the world we live in. The basic logics behind any program consist of the if.. then.. else conditions just like the life. Deja Vu is like the repeat twice. A few people liking the same things is like a for loop with the a random function in it. And so on... I think I would rather dedicate another entry sometime on this... For now I would rather choose "Not" to continue on this. :)

Musings of a Frustrated Soul

Since a couple of weeks I've been in Chennai... and no wonder that I've been thinking a lot. Before coming here one of my friend gave me an advice about the office.. rather a warning:
"Dude!! the office stinks like shit in rainy season. Take Care...."
I asked him: "But it won't be raining right now na... ??"
"Ya!! It won't be raining. So it'll stink like a dustbin..."
Reason: the office I'm going to is right opposite the dumpyard of Chennai. And it's alongside a marsh.
But once you are in the office there's nothing like it. You have an almost food court inside the office complete with Spencer's, LandMark, a couple of juice stalls, Barista, a couple of other coffee stalls, an ice cream stall, two biryani centers, a shop each for north-Indian, andhra and Chinese food and all this apart from the normal office canteen. And from the windows of a few top floors you can have an awesome view of the marsh which more looks like a lake. And did I mention that this marsh is also a bird-watching area. And by bird-watching I meant literal bird-watching.
Anyways, enough about my office. Now about where I stay. When I say Sastri Nagar not many would identify it to be in Chennai... It doesn't sound south-like.... But here I am, in Sastri Nagar... one of the posh areas of Chennai... and 1 km away from Elliot's beach.. where, as another friend pointed out, most of the people in Tamil Film Industry dwell.
So last weekend, on the suggestion of this friend I went to Elliot's Beach. It was way past sunset. And I was in no mood to spend more than 10 mins on the beach. Coz I've already seen lots of beaches in Mumbai too. So I walked from my house to the beach. I was about a couple of hundred metres away from the beach and yet I could hear the sea. And pretty soon the beach too came in view. It seemed no different from the ones in Mumbai. Similar stalls lined the road. Selling tea/coffee, and chaat-papdi. Not to forget the bhel-puris in typical Mumbai style except that when u neared a stall no one called out to you to sell something and when you heard it was not the smooth Marathi that sounds a little like Hindi but some language which feels as if someone is hitting you with words. Once a Telugu friend told me what they called Tamil in Telugu. I don't remember the word exactly but he told me the meaning and I do remember that: "It meant harmful for ears or not very good to hear" So about the beach yes... Through the sparse distribution of stalls I went towards the sound of sea. Slowly the sound of sea grew... and the sound of stalls dimmed out.... And there I was... a cool sea breeze flowing around me.... Drenched in the noise of waves... Looking out at the waves again... in wonderment... as I've always have... And the beach suddenly was nothing like that of Mumbai... The waves were bigger.... Made more noise and crashed on the beach somehow... unlike Mumbai.... I've always wondered on how the waves crash onto the beach and return only to come recharged with new energy... as if to test the boundaries of sea..... As if to expand the boundaries... And there I stood thinking along those line again... Transfixed by the oncoming waves.... And looking onto the moonlit sea. Have I ever told you... a moonlit sea looks much better than a sunrise or sunset time sea... U can see just a few waves at night... lit by the moon... U have to stare hard enough to see how a wave forms.... and all ur concentration is on that single wave. I stood there for around half an hour... thinking how I am getting late for dinner. Then I remembered I had spotted a Domino's near the beach and I gave up the thought of returning soon. I went in Domino's ordered a pizza with coke and sat there waiting. For some reason I've never come to find out how Domino's serves you within half an hour when you are ordering from home but when you are sitting at an outlet it takes them more than half an hour. Anyways... after around an hour I left Domino's and went back to the beach. Once again thinking that this time I would just gaze once and leave... But call it my love of sea or whatever that it wasn't another half an hour that I could leave.
The next three days.. I was down with fever..... But that's another story....
For now I leave you with a question: Can a person be frustrated and happy at the same time for the same thing?

My Take - Movie - Raavan

Since the last weekend, when this movie got released, almost everyone who's in touch with me and had watched the movie said that it was not good. Everyone almost in unison agreed that there was nothing in the movie except the cinematography. And that the movie was an almost copy of Ramayana. Almost, because during climax, the movie differs, a little, from the Epic.

The concept of the movie is, actually, picked up from Ramayana. If I would have to present the story in a couple of lines it would be that Ravana kidnaps Ram's wife Sita but couldn't kill her. Ram finds Hanuman and with his help finds Sita and kills Ravana. Sounds pretty boring and a bad guy - good guy story that we've seen so many times?? But there you are mistaken. Ravana, here, is shown to be a Robin Hood.. and the Ram we are talking about.. Oh!! he's not a divine being.. he too has his flaws. So who's the hero of the movie.. Hmm.. Viewer sympathies go with Ravana.. And the Sita here.. too seems to be impressed by this Ravana...

I would say that the movie is a new take about the epic we know as Ramayana. It's just another perspective at it after greying out the characters of both Ram and Ravana. Just another perspective after deglorifying a part of the epic. After making the characters real.
If u look at it as a standalone movie the story may seem almost nothing. But, I guess, the director gave it the name Raavan, for a reason. So that, it is to be seen in connection with the great epic. So that it is clear that this is his perspective of the great epic deglorified.

The beautiful Kerala and Konkan backdrops simply look gorgeous. The acting in the movie too is pretty good.. apart from Aishwarya... who seems as if she has forgotten how to look real...
Earlier I had heard a few people terming the acting of Abhishek as pathetic.. as if he was acting like a madman... But my perspective again is a li'l different... A lot of times it is told that he has 10 heads.. In one scene I remember, it's actually shown that inside his head a lot of thoughts rang but he listened to one and spoke out only that one.. That I think is the reason why he's shown as a madman... A lot of thoughts ringing inside his head...

To be honest, I liked the movie because it slightly represents a concept, a theory, that I have been thinking for long. Because it made me think along those lines again. I'll put the theory in a separate blog entry. But about this movie.. I simply say that this is at least a one time watch but leave the religious taboos at home and think What If this was what actually happened. What If, Raavan, was not all wrong.. What If Ram was not all correct... I just ask you to think What If??

My take - Movie - Rajneeti

Just came back after watching the Hindi flick Rajneeti. The word if translated in English means "politics" which was the central theme of the movie. My take on this is: One of the most awaited movies of 2010 summer turns out to be a no go...

I was waiting for this movie. Yet now that I've seen it.. I'm disappointed. Everyone around me is liking it so much that they are giving an almost perfect rating to the movie. But is it worth?? I let you decide. Here are a few questions and reasons why I think it a failure:

1. Weak Story: The story line seemed to be concocted only to connect the political moves and twists present. But somehow the quantity of twists was so much that story was never developed. U'll see the examples below.

2. Loose ends: The story seemed to suffer with too many twists. To give time to all those twists, it seems, a lot of other masterstrokes that were started were not followed up till the end. egs:

i. The movie was all about elections... right?? There were two major seats since starting which were under contest: Madhopur and AazadNagar. Nana Patekar, in one political masterstroke, to remove Ajay Devgan from contention, announced that Ajay Devgan's father would be contesting elections from AazadNagar when he clearly knows that Ajay Devgan wants to contest the elections from there. This was some idea!!! What happens then? AH!! No idea... The party splits and still no idea. Infact the movie ends and still no idea. Did Ajay Devgan contest elections. If so, from what seat. No data.
ii. The other seat. Madhopur. Ranbir Kapoor, in his very first political observation says, that if Manoj Vajpayee wants to contest elections from Madhopur, the party can easily create situations that he loses. But in the end I'm not clear whether he lost because of vote count or because of his death. Also Ranbir Kapoor's observation is never heard of again in the movie.

3. Copying??: Was it only me or did other people too saw hints of other movies. More than four times did I see GodFather in this movie. Of Course being a Hindi movie there was a slight difference that was added. But still people. Where the hell is your creativity. Is this what you call creativeness?? egs:

i. The most recognized is the Car Bomb which goes off killing Michael Corleone's wife in Italy. Here it's Ranbir Kapoor's love interest and of course to show some originality they throw in Arjun Rampal too. It's almost the same otherwise. The security guard is running off alerting Arjun Rampal.. just like in the novel.
ii. Remember the death of Sonny Corleone on the causeway. It's a little different here. Because, our little local spoiled Sonny(Manoj Vajpayee) has a friend in Ajay Devgan. Otherwise. He gets a call. Leaves the house alone. With few people(here Ajay) behind him. And then we find out that it was a setup. An ambush. Sounds similar??
iii. Remember the death of Carlo Rizzi, the husband of Connie Corleone. Oh!! He was family. So you confirm that he had a hand in killing Michael's father and Michael kills him. Do I need to say any more than "BabuLal"?? And please. don't bother with the minor differences. Those are what you call Hindi film adaptation.
iv. In one of the last chapters Kay Adams finds Michael Corleone in a posture that simply suggests his superiority. Here, the ignorant Sara, wanders into the room to find Ranbir Kapoor in a similar position with Babulal.
v. When Babulal wakes up with blood over him and someone with a slit throat next to him I'm reminded of the famous dramatic scene of the horsehead in the bed of Jack Woltz. Motive in both the cases: Persuasion.

4. No Subtlety: Again, not sure, if it was only me or others too saw this. Everytime a political move is shown the explanation follows. Or sometimes there's so much buildup that you actually know what's going to happen. egs:

i. Ajay Devgan tells Manoj Vajpayee that they'll change the face on Party poster. Next scene is Ranbir Kapoor leaving for US and his father finding some time to drop him to airport. And as soon as Ranbir Kapoor leaves, he gets a call from someone we already know is with Ajay Devgan. So what happens next. Of Course!! A murder!! Perfect logic. Why making it so obvious since five minutes before it actually happens??
ii. The copied scenes from Godfather were pretty obvious.
iii. The buildup to Karan(Ajay) vs Arjun(Ranbir) fight when Krishna(Nana) tells Arjun to shoot Karan even when he's not armed. Does it not smell like Mahabharata too??

5. Oh!! And while writing the blog it dawned on me. It's a modern day Mahabharata. Is it not??
The helpless king of Hastinapur(the one who is down on bed with paralysis) watches as his son Duryodhana(Manoj Vajpayee) tries to take control. Duryodhana conveniently finds his Karn(Ajay) who infact is the son of their sarathi(driver). Karn demolishes Pandavas. But is finally killed by Arjun(Ranbir) who is being advised by Krishna(Nana). And of course!! Kunti(Ranbir's mother) tries to convince Karn to switch sides but he doesn't because of his friendship and loyalty to Duryodhana. Infact even the way Karn was found on the banks of a river is copied here too.

I think I should sleep now. I can go on and on about the weaknesses in the story, because there was no dearth. And this includes acting too. Kat: I never expected acting from her. Ranbir's mother: never convincing. Manoj Vajpayee: Mostly drunk. And for some reasons he thought that keeping his eyebrows way up would show his attitude.
Ah! I almost started again... Nyways... Gud Night...

Forty - Two!!!!

The title is just a reference to The HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy's famous quote: Forty - Two is the answer to the ultimate question of the life, the universe and everything.
There's not much relation with H2G2, but while reading a friend's blog I came upon such a question: Why can't life be simpler? And as usual my sleep went out the window and I remembered my lunch time today.
Unlike everyday or rather unlike most of the days when me and my colleagues eat in canteen, we today had gone to Pizza Hut. No occasion, nothing. Just because we felt like. And while sitting there I started strolling down my memory lane. How Pizza Hut was no less than DisneyLand when I was young. Even when I was in college!!!
I still remember a lot of my firsts. My first visit to McDonald's had been to meet a very special friend. My first visit to SubWay had been on a disastrous day when almost nothing went right. And my first visit to Pizza Hut was, here in Mumbai, after I had been on job for more than an year. But today it was nothing special. Pizza Hut is just another restaurant for me where I go and eat whenever I feel like. Pizza Hut, KFC, McD and all the similar chains hold no more special meaning for me. That's because I've become highly habitual of such places. So the joy I used to experience while going to McD in my college days is gone. Such places are no longer a rare commodity for me and so the pleasure I used to get while dining there is thinning.
Now coming back to the question in question(pun intended).... My friend, in her blog, asks... Why is it, that if you are married to someone, and you see the person you loved walking by, your heart flutters. And if I think in the same terms as I described above... that's because that person is a rare commodity.
My friend had also mentioned heart ache in her blog and I, ah yes!!! Me... I have countless things to say about that... But am keeping them for future because love for me is a very "alien" subject....

Wastage is Fun!!! ??? !!!

The other day I was having a shower. Now, a few of my friends who have had the misfortune of sharing a flat with me know how long do I take when I go for a shower instead of just a bath. I would say I spend more time in the shower than a normal girl takes to dress up. OK.. Cancel that... Not that long.. Hmm... Maybe half an hour to 45 minutes... OK.. An hour.. That's it...
But anyways during the shower I remembered a mandatory web based training in my company on ecology or something... I just remember some ISOs... 14001?? I guess... and few other things about the environment. One question in the quiz that followed the training was:
What wastes most water in a normal household:
Flushing Toilets
Washing Clothes
Bathing with a bucketful of water
Taking a 10-minute shower

Now the answer if you don't know is the last one which says that 10 minute shower wastes most water. And this started a long chain of thought... I hear some "as usual"?? Well Whatever!!!
If I fill up a bucket and bathe I don't enjoy as much as I enjoy a shower. I believe most people will agree. But the shower wastes much more water. So is my enjoyment worth wasting a precious resource??
Then the thought chain grew. And I remembered the wonderful event... the wonderful festival of colors... Holi... :) That's once a year... I know... But everyone on that day... wastes water and has fun... :)
Then again.. the festival of lights... Diwali... We waste electricity... we waste money on crackers... which infact are harmful to the environment.... and so on.. But we have fun...
Then again Lohri... Wastage of wood... Fuel...
Making paper airplanes... Paper boats during rainy season.... Wastage of paper....
And again... How many of us actually enjoy long drives... I for one love them... though I don't get many chances.... But that again is a wastage of fuel....
That day... the list seemed endless to me.
And I'm not even touching on wastage of money... :p
We can save all these things... But at the cost of the enjoyment they give to us. So are they actually worth saving?? I guess it's again a matter of perspectives. I for one would rather waste and enjoy and have fun because that's the only thing I find worth living for. :)

On Monkeys and so called Managers

I've been thinking on this since past few weeks but because of less availability of one kind of subjects namely monkeys in Mumbai I'm yet to arrive on a conclusion. What's the question you ask. Ah! It's a very simple one. One which most of you have asked yourself one way or other.
The question here is: Who has more brains? A monkey or a self styled manager?
If you ask me, I would say it would be a tie. Very closely contested. If you force me to choose one, I would give the monkeys some benefit of doubt.
Here's the breakup of my findings.
Everyone knows monkeys are copycats. Though I'm not sure how cats figure in the story. But I guess it would suffice to say that Monkeys readily imitate others. Managers somehow have a very strong gene which I believe directly descends from the Monkeys. They too love to copy.
In fact sometimes I feel they exceed the monkeys. There's a very well known management fact that almost every manager knows by heart. It is:
A certain airlines saved $40K/year by eliminating 1 olive from their salad.
The idea, you ask me, was brilliant. Most people wont notice that one olive is missing. I think very rare would.
But now comes the sad part. All over the world the managers saw this and started finding things where they can save. Even our own Indian Railways too. Everyone started removing one thing and another to achieve their yearly targets of growth and cost saving. They never thought of the impact. They just saw that the idea was successful for the airlines. Here are a few impacts. I could only see the things which affect me though.
Scenario 1: I travel in Rajdhani from Delhi to Mumbai. Earlier they used to provide two eclairs worth 2Rs. to everyone twice. A total of 4Rs.per head. Since a couple of journeys this has reduced to 1 eclair of local quality which I believe would be worth 50p. So a total expenditure of 1 Rs per head. A saving of 3 Rs. Wow... Seems so good on paper. Now welcome to the reality. How many people would not notice this change. You are reducing the quantity by 50% and the quality too. They don't say much because if you are travelling in Rajdhani in India it's assumed that you have a certain status and won't haggle over a couple of Rs.
Scenario 2: Since past 6 months or so, the administration has stopped keeping paper cups in my office. Paper cups, if you don't know, are a very important commodity in an IT company. They are used for coffee mainly, on which apparently the IT industry runs.
The reason they tell us: "Save Paper. We need to go green"
"Why don't you go for the plastic cups then??", I ask.
"Plastic is not good for environment. We need to go green."
I assume they've never heard of recyclable plastic.
Do you actually believe that the reason is "Go Green" as they say. Oh No!!! You are mistaken. The idea actually followed another idea when the electric shoe shiner was removed from the offices on the pretense of "Go Green"
If you ask me "Go Green" is just an excuse. Both of them are just a couple of Olives in the salad served to employees.
Similar stories are buried in various offices all over the world.
Let's move on to point two: Not understanding what's the limit of something.
Most managers are appointed because a company needs to grow by improving it's processes and by increasing the efficiency. This is the job of managers. But do they understand that everything has a limit. You can improve something up to a limit. After that there may be a need to revamp the process itself. But most managers don't understand this. They want to go on improving the process. And if you can't improve something that's already running fine and is perfectly optimized then it's your shortcoming on creativity. And if you suggest a new solution for an already optimized process, that won't be implemented, because you would be wasting time on something that is already done. What nonsense?? Do they know that a glass can contain only
limited quantity of water. After that either you get a new glass or you empty the existing one. Common sense?? Same is the case with improvements. They can be done till a point. After that you either change the process or start working on any other process. But somehow managers miss this point.
And of course!!! How can I forget. Appeasing the Boss by doing something which isn't productive.
Confidentiality Agreement stops me from saying more on this. But I believe everyone already knows what I would've written here.
Ah!!! I can go on and on, on this topic. But I can never get to the conclusion. Benefit of doubt goes to the Monkeys. What do you think??

This and That!!!

Well... Two totally unrelated topics in my mind today... Actually there are a lot(as usual) but putting down only two... One because it is a hot topic... and the other... hmm... because i want to...
First.. Sachin scored a double century in ODI's today... In process he became the first man on earth to do so in One-Day Internationals... Absolutely true and i'm happy for him... Infact I feel proud that it's Indian who did so... But News Channels once again have started touting him as God and are telling people that he's the first person on earth to do so... And I'm thinking... Why is it so...
Is it so because they dont research history properly... Or is it so because nobody follows Women's Cricket... Or is it that Women's ODIs are not actually counted as ODIs?? Dunno...
Somehow i still remember the couple of paragraphs of the Hindi newspaper when i was a mere 13 year old... But no one else seems to remember... In a very obscure corner of the newspaper it was written that Australian Women had defeated Denmark by a huge margin. The Australian Captain lead from the front scoring a double hundred (229*) off 155 balls... In process Australia became the first country to score a 400+ score in an ODI and an Australian slammed the first double ton in an ODI.. Today no one remembers her... Did anyone actually know that...
Her name is Belinda Clark... and her feat was no less... But when i think about both the feats....
She got a mere mention in one of the two paragraphs in which the news was covered. Sachin, on the other hand, would be on all newspapers' front pages tomorrow... and i'm not sure if even the newspapers would do the homework properly...
Why the difference?? Why the bias??
By the way another important part of the story is that Belinda slammed the double ton in Mumbai, India in a world cup match... still a mere two paragraphs... Sad!!! Somehow I feel sad... Even when I should feel happy because one of my countryman has created a world record...
Whatever!!!
The other topic needs to wait for now...