Free Speech For The Dumb

My God V/S your God

2007-02-22T00:01:00.000-08:00

Some times I wonder, why is that in hindu mythology, there is absolutely no references to other places in the world, e.g china, USA. Like wise, greek mythology doesnt talk about india. So is it that these places had different gods? My question is that, according to hindu mythology, why does all forms of re-incarnation of god occurred in India and surrounding reasons. I might buy the fact that people at that time did not have knowledge of other places but still all mighty god must have the knowledge about the world.
Rather than agreeing on the multi god concept, I feel the theist would rather agree on the different explanation of the same god, pretty much like the childhood story of elephant and the blind men. So if it is indeed that ways, why the hell do we fight so much about my god and your god? Why is that a temple is more important than a mosque or church?

Ancient Vishnu idol found in Russian town

2007-01-17T08:14:00.000-08:00

Recently I got a forward stating that a Vishnu Idol was found in some town in Russia, see
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Ancient_Vishnu_idol_found_in_Russia/articleshow/1046928.cms

This actually made me think if we should consider stating our claim over russia as well on this ground? After all this was the supposed reason for whole Ayodhya-Babari Masjid chaos, for which so many people died, so many lost their family and some gained political powers, well RSS, Shiv Sena, BJP any one game for this?

Reservation

2006-10-21T00:43:00.000-07:00

Is reservation really a problem which is created now by political parties? Many of us would really say a loud yes, but think again, what is reservation in true senses? I would say that reservation really started way long back than any of us would even remember. Remember original Indian society, where there were just four classes of people and they were classified by the profession they chose. Then some times down the line, professions were inherited, after then, no dacoit ever became a valmiki, because they were never born in a Brahmin family. Even our epics some how glorified this concepts, remember mahabharatha where karna was denied teachings because he was a son of a chariot driver, and then like a bollywood twist, he turns out to be the first son of kunti, in the same epic a “bhil” (possibly a tribe) guy named eklavya was denied military education for the same reasons, some how the professions, and the whole life of a person was always decided even before he opens his eyes for the first time. Forgive my sexist language, but I don’t want to even talk about the plight of women.

What was it that prompted the people to choose this structure of society over the earlier structure? I would say that it was simple economics; the Brahmins wanted a monopoly over all the religious things, while the fighters or kshatriya wanted a monopoly over rulings. In simple words, it was just the lust for power, and they wanted the power to be passed on into their family only. Ever since that time, Sanskrit was only restricted to the Brahmins, the military education was restricted to a certain section of society, after that time, a farmer always remained farmer, and cobbler always remain cobbler.

If we actually look back and wonder what exactly has this kind of a society has given us. It has actually killed what we call our culture, how many of us can actually recite a Sanskrit sloka, they would be a few which can be possibly counted on fingers, and all the while we all knew that our Vedas which are so full of information, were written in Sanskrit, so we are actually loosing all that information. The same happened with our music, music was restricted to gharanas and patronized through kings and dynasties, why don’t we hear stories that farmers used to sing raga malhar when they wanted rains, rather than praying to the rain god, that is because farmers never were even allowed to learn music, it was not even for the common people ears, it was passed through dynasties and from father to son, it was never documented, possibly they feared that once they documented the methodologies, any one can learn that and they would then loose the monopoly, and now we have a situation that there are no takers for classical music and they blame the current generation for loosing touch with their roots. I feel that would be a pretty hypocritical stand of these people. Recently I was watching the news about ramalila in varanasi, where still only the decendants of a certain lineage are allowed to play gods in the ramalila play and some how the person was proudly stating this fact. Isn’t that a form a reservation? And if it is then who is to blame for this kind of discrimination?

Tag 55 / Animal

2005-10-21T22:27:00.000-07:00

g"I love you, I like when you are around, I want to have you, the way I want, when ever I want"

"I love you too, and I will always be yours", She said and then he hugged her tight.

"ouch! you are hurting me!"

Yes, he was an animal, yet more humane than human.

Games People Play

2005-10-01T02:50:00.000-07:00

In my college time, I used to see people playing all sorts of games, the most interesting of them being the ones where people make a fool of themselves. Yes! I am talking about dumb charade. This particular games has been the most popular amongst the young generation. I have seen people guessing movie names, both english and hindi to some personalities. What ever the cause be, the essense of the game is to make a person stand in front of the audience and let him make a fool of himself or herself while the other people enjoy, and these people would resort to any level of stupidity to get their team guess the right answer. In one such incident, one of the guys was repeatedly pointing his figers to his ass, which was not very funny with all the girls giggling around. Little did any one realise that, he was trying to get us guess, "Ashiqui", one of those mushy mushy bollywood movies, where "ass" was the first part of the word. This game is not only one of its kinds, there are other games, like "whats the good word", "whose line is it" and stuffs like that, c'mon who the hell remembers the total vocabulary, I cant even go beyond the bare essentials of the english language, how can you expect me to guess, the regular GRE words, as I call it. Just imagine if doctors would have to play these games for the latin name of the "Flora and Fauna" (I dont know what that word means, and dont ask me any thing about it, If I would have known any better, I would have been a doctor). How would they make some one guess "Medula Oblangata". (Nice word, huh?). Damn! some day I am gonna make these people sit and play with all these words and then see how they do? Mean while I am trying to get my vocabulary better, so as I can use the words like "Mystic Opulence" and "Gastric Flatulence" successfully, so as I would be regarded as one the knowledgable person, actually speaking english with the words which would make others look for a dictionary or just smile, the way I do when I dont understand any word, and make it appear that I have actually understood every word that the guy/gal has said, to the extent that I can actually write a post about it, it is the first sign that makes the other feel that you are a NRI. I mean what good is a NRI, who uses words which every one knows. So the trick of being or atleast appearing a NRI, is to look in dictionary for the heaviest and most nonsense word and use them frequently obviously along with a pause, usually filled by "yo Man". So Friends, Romans and Countrymen, as julius Ceaser once said "Rome was not built in a day", but then again why would julius ceaser say that? anyways, in either case I dont care who said what, basically I just wanted to add a reference to some one great, just to end my post.

"Quate Est Demonstratum"

Dont worry, insipte of this word appearing like the name of a gastro-intestinal disease, it is probably roman, latin or french which means some thing interesting, it is usually written in short form QED, where we meant, "Quite Easily Done".

economics of religion

2005-09-20T02:49:00.000-07:00

This is a mail conversation which had not been edited, So I apologise if any matter expressed offends your sentiments.

Since time immemorial has mankind been perplexed by
the existance of God... and an eternal quest to be
united with Him/Her/Whatever... without understanding
what God really is...
God is no mortal... has no form... is within all of
us... and controls what we do...
It is inherent human nature to find causalities of
failure unto some heavenly power beyond his control...
this way he saves himself from the disgrace(?) of
accepting defeat to himself and others... again, if he
does too well, he fears not being able to repeat it...
hence, the need for God to explain it... keep the
expectation down... feel no pressure...etc...etc...
So is that all that God is... projection of what we
cannot explain about our actions...something within us
(who guides us to success, shows us the right path,
etc.) and at times will test our belief(how well can
you use the excuse) in Him/Her by blaming your
failures on Him/Her...
So... then... why would those who believe they make
their own destiny believe in Him... this is where
society/religion/family/church/and all other similar
form of stupid systems step in...right from the
beginning one learns about the all powerful mighty
God... one dare not speak ill of him... for if you
cross Him/Her... you will be royally fingered... Ok! I
say... if this God character is so benevolent et all
why such egotism... why bother about people who do not
have FAITH... to HELL with them... but again!... this
God character is the one who earns bread for all these
hypocrites who pass on His lessons to us...
Now!... so why the need for so many religion...
different from each other... some with faces... some
with names... some with no form and some between us...
the answer my friends is ECONOMICS!... well thats
right... its Economics... let me explain... why are
there so many toothpastes in the market... is is that
one is better than another one... and if each has
something really good in it then why not put all the
goods together and let the people avail of the
services of the best that there can be... well!...
that's because they are all the same... but if we
somehow make people believe that they are different,
then people will not hop around between them generally
and so the DEMAND CURVE BECOMES LESS ELASTIC... and it
is easir to extort more from public... in this
occaison in the name of religion...
So does that all mean that there is no God... I differ
... so why do I not deny His existence... coz' as I
said...God is just what you believe Him to be... Guy
or, a Gal - White or, Black - All Powerful or
non-existent - One who screws you at time or, who
always watches over you...He is all yours and only
yours... Your God is not my God, not someone else's
God... so please IN THE NAME OF YOUR GOD... don't
differentiate between one another in name of
God/Religion/Caste/Creed ... all of us are Homos
(Sapien of course!!)... let that be the religion, the
Faith, our belief... help him who needs it... for a
good deed always comes back to you...
LET THERE BE LIGHT

***********************************************************

Whenever you do some thing great, there is GOD to share your limelight, and whenever you screw up, GOD is there to make you realize that its your sins coming back to you, in materialistic forms, the very basic of which is condemned by most of the religion. They said, Adam and Eve, were the first humans to walk on earth, they made love, created human race, most of the story ends there, ofcourse there is a prologue to it, including eve eating the apple which gave birth to gravity, anyways, why doesnt some one talks about adam and eves kids, who were screwing amongst themselves, with the great responsibility of creating human race. This story of adam and eve has its own versions in different religions. In Hinduism, it was MANU who saved world by picking up one couple of each species, and then the sons and daughters of MANU screwed happily. :) In nutshell the concepts of religion are so loopholed that it would even make a sieve ashamed. The religion gives you a story which is beyond doubts.

At this point I would like to propose a theory which I heard long time back about the fifth leg of donkey. I hereby claim that there is a fifth leg of a donkey, but cant be seen with naked eyes because you lesser mortals have done so much of sin in your life that you cant see it. To see the fifth leg of a donkey, you have to have a pure soul and clear mind free of any material interest, Since I have fulfilled the criteria, I can see it. If you are really interested and desperate enough, I can give you the way, You have to climb the highest mountain and stay there naked on one leg and with other leg in air, just like a dog would do near a pole, stay like that for 10 years, remember your other leg which is in air should be pointing 12 degree and 34 seconds North north east, else you would screw it up all. Now after doing it all, if at all you manage to cleanse your soul enough, you will see it. (ofcourse not up there idiot! you dont get donkeys high up there). Come down, by this time you would be frustrated and embarrased enough not to admit that you wasted 10 years of your life achieving nothing, so you would start preaching that there is a fifth leg of a donkey. And for all you non-believers you are children of demons, who should be boycotted from the society, burnt up alive.

Now just think, If I could really sell this story, I would have my own donkey religion. :)

1000 hits

2005-08-12T12:10:00.000-07:00

Finally, I made it. I never thought that my blog would survive this long, now my blog is 1000+ hits and 7 months old.. and come to think I have managed to make people read all the crap which I write.. Thanks you all..

Filthy Rich

2005-08-09T07:33:00.000-07:00

Right from childhood, I wanted to be "Filthy Rich" , it took me some time to realise that it was a long path, but I was determined to do it, after a long struggle, I have managed to clear the first step, now I am "Filthy", all thats remains is to get rich.. Any suggestions??

Normal is boring

2005-07-31T21:30:00.000-07:00

With work pressure mounting, work hours getting longer, it started to get the best of me. I had to break out, and what better way to relax than doing some thing which I enjoy most, i.e. Biking. This sunday, I went to Nandi-Hills for the nth time, it was overall a very refreshing experience. It was nice to be back on the roads again, as though they have been missing me and waiting for me, always, The sounds of engines roaring, burning rubber, it was like .. (okay, now I am going overboard). Yeah! some times I hold myself guilty of taking undue pleasure out of otherwise normal, mundane things, and I try to paint it artistically, just to justify myself(I do realise that I am pretty bad at it, though).

But then thats what life is all about, Life has given every one with an empty sheet and a box of crayons, and every one draws flowers, only some people paint it black and white, while others try to accomodate as many colours as they can in the same flower. Now which one would you call, interesting, well here again its the way you percieve. If you have decided to paint your life black and white and you are waiting for some one to fill colours, aint gonna happen!! Its your sheet, and you have to paint it.. if you choose to be normal and copy the paints of every one else, you will always be normal, however if you choose to paint different, it could either be great or it could be a failure, but its always going to be exiting.. As I always use some ones words "Normal is Boring" .

Break Up

2005-07-20T10:58:00.000-07:00

"Men marry women, expecting they wont change, but they do!",
"Women marry men, expecting them to change, but they dont".

There are a very few rare ones who dared to fall in love and havent got the taste of a breakup. The reason I am writing all this is definetely not because I have undergone a break up now, its just that at this point of life, I think I can dare to look back and analyze what happened, without arousing those hurts and words which were exchanged. In nutshell, as they say, I have matured, and learnt for those experiences.
Unlike falling in love, break up is always mysterious, There are a lots of unanswered question which keeps haunting the other party for ever, for example I still couldnt figure out what went wrong in my last few relationships. There are a lots and lots of unanswered questions which were never asked and never answered.
Breakups are never nice, no matter how hard you try to not hurt the other person.There are always harsh words exchanged and people hurt each other. Some times I wonder what is so wrong about the other person which you couldnt have seen earlier, before getting into a relation.
Now that I look back and think how it would be to face the same person again, fotunately, I was lucky enough not to be around the same person for long. On a second thought, I think I have already seen the worst of her, so what ever happens, is going to be good..
Some time I think I am going to look around for all those females who had ever been in my life, and see how they are doing without me.. (Do I remind you of some creepy old scary movie :)

But the fact still remains the same, you would never be able to know, how would it have been, had you two not broken up?

I am back

2005-07-18T04:01:00.000-07:00

I am back! needless to say that I was pretty busy, I thought my brief life as a blogger was over, but the greed of free speech and thought of so many great people I met through blogging was too much to resist, hence here I am..
Anyway, since I dont have much to write, I will bore you with one of my incidences which happened some days back. I had a module release and just on the eve of the day of release, I made some changes to my code, against the general principal of "Dont fix it till its broken" , and then it happened, my whole application started falling apart as if some one blew through a house of cards. It took me whole 6 hours to set it right, and the worst part of it, I cant even blame some one for it. :)
This is definitely not the first sign of stupidity i have ever shown, once in my last company, I had access to clients server and I had to update a patch and run it. Too bad! it was 5 in evening , it was a friday and I had friends waiting for me at a pub, I ran a script without realising it was a months old version, and got out of there, my freedom was not destined to last even an hour when the onsite guy called me and told me what happened. I had to return from half way and I was there cursing myself till 4 in morning .
Some times, we all play stupid and pay for it. In a way it is good, it keeps your balance, and just the moment you think you are great and you can do any thing you wish, some thing like this happens and pulls you down to ground. Thats the way life is!!!

Wicked Game

2005-05-25T08:02:00.000-07:00

The world was on fire and no one could save me but you.
It's strange what desire will make foolish people do.
I never dreamed that I'd meet somebody like you.
And I never dreamed that I knew somebody like you.

No, I don't want to fall in love. (This world is only gonna break your heart)
No, I don't want to fall in love. (This world is only gonna break your heart)
With you. With you. (This world is only gonna break your heart)

What a wicked game to play, to make me feel this way.
What a wicked thing to do, to let me dream of you.
What a wicked thing to say, you never felt this way.
What a wicked thing to do, to make me dream of you and,

I want to fall in love. (This world is only gonna break your heart)
No, I want to fall in love. (This world is only gonna break your heart)
With you.

The world was on fire and no one could save me but you.
It's strange what desire will make foolish people do.
I never dreamed that I'd love somebody like you.
And I never dreamed that I'd lose somebody like you no,

No, I want to fall in love. (This world is only gonna break your heart)
No, I want to fall in love. (This world is only gonna break your heart)
With you. (This world is only gonna break your heart)
With you. (This world is only gonna break your heart)
No, I... (This world is only gonna break your heart)
(This world is only gonna break your heart)

Nobody loves no one.

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

I cant stop humming this song for a long time.. It has been going around in my head..
Is there a reason??

2005-05-08T21:22:00.000-07:00

just back from hyderabad, feeling too lazy to write any thing new.. so here it is...

Some Cool Quotes

If you're too lazy to start anything, you may get a reputation for patience.

I'm on a seafood diet. Every time I see food, I eat it.

I talk to myself because I like dealing with a better class of people

Never try to drown your troubles... especially if she can swim.

Smile, it makes people wonder what you're thinking.

Don't be so open-minded your brains fall out.

A bus station is where a bus stops.
A train station is where a train stops.
On my desk I have a work station.

By the time a man realizes that his father was usually right, he has a son who thinks he's usually wrong.

Teachers are those who help us in resolving problems
which, without them, we wouldn't have.

There are two theories to arguing with women.
Neither one works.

Marriages are made in heaven. But so again, are thunder and lightning

Girls are like internet domain names... the ones I like are already taken.

Quit smoking! Take air pollution straight.

Finally 21 and Legally Able to Do Everything I've Been Doing since 15.

Success is relative- the more success , the more relatives .

There are three sides to every argument: your side,my side and the right side.

An expert is someone who takes a subject you understand and makes it sound confusing.

Never argue with a fool. People might not know the difference.

When you're right, no one remembers. When you're wrong, no one forgets.

Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.

Experience is what a comb gives you after you lose your hair.

They say hard work never killed anyone, but why take the chance.

Where there's a will there are five hundred relatives.

Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.

man who survived a surgery

2005-04-18T05:49:00.000-07:00

This time I went back home with a desire to spend some quality time with my parents, catching up with my long left childhood. Some times I think the best part of about meeting your parents is that, you can pick up your childhood right where you left it, cuz for them, you never seems to grow any older.
Alas! It didnt work out the way I planned, destiny in yet another effort to make me realise its existence, made some other plans for me. I had to undergo an operation(surgery) to get my appendix removed, it was the first time, life put me on bed(wasnt much of a bed though, if you can call OT bed), and have some one with scissor in his hands to cut me apart(literally I mean). I thought about it a lot before the day of surgery, and I though when they laid me on OT bed, my whole life would flash before my eyes, because of the fear of death, but here this close moment of me and my life was invaded by the media, for they installed a TV in OT and it was India-Pakistan match going on. Some people say that when you come in close contact with death, it changes your whole perspective about the world. I was wishing for the same, may be I could figure out, if there was a heaven or hell out there, but nothing of that sort happened. By the time my I came back to my senses, it was all over, Sahwag was out and India were 2 wickets down, the news of which knocked me unconscious again.
After suffering two more days with drip irrigation system feeding my body with all sorts of fluids, I made it back home on third with a lousy feeling of missing an intergral part of my body (okay! I agree, appendix is not so integral), but whatever, after all this is my blog..
Now I am a man who survived a surgery.. I am proud of myself..

home sweet home

2005-04-07T23:59:00.000-07:00

Hey All,
After a really hectic fortnight, with all the releases. bug fixes, having a CNN moment (read it some where in some book, CNN moment is one where you are going live and your application crashes, much like what happened to Bill Gates), I am through with all this. I am packing by bag and for the next one week, I am off to home sweet home. Back to the sleepy town, which doesnt seems to grow any older, its still the same as it was when I was 3 yrs old. Tomorrow I am going to chennai in morning, obviously to enjoy the cool climate of chennai (pun intended), catching a jet airways flight to Calcutta (I prefer it that way, if you want you can call it, Kolkata ).. From there I would take a train which I have used for more than 5 yrs to my home. In this duration, I might drop by at kgp..
kgp!! that reminds me..
my company might be going back to my college for campus interviews. I am trying my best to go along with them..
I am very sorry for not posting because of work and now I am not keeping my promise (dont worry, the person for whom it is intended, knows...)
I assure you that, there will be a post very soon, as soon as I come back to bangalore.
till then
Ciao
Aloha

Rojgar mela

2005-04-01T22:31:00.000-08:00

There is a "Rojgar Mela" (as I call it) going on in my office, every day we have some loads of people coming down for interviews. My HR manager asked me other day to take an inteview for some candidate, an offer which I declined. Some how, it feels kind of weird to be an interviewer when I was myself interviewed some times back. So far, I have never interviewed any one, the whole idea that my descision is going to decide the persons career, freaks me out. Some how, I can never convince my self that I can be always fair and unbiased. Not that, I am baised or some thing, but some one is going to pay heavily (May be, may not be) if I make a mistake.
Some how, I dont want to be in a deciding position when my descision affects some one else.
Probably thats why I can never become a good manager, but I guess, so far thats the way it is going to be.

Holi In Office

2005-03-24T04:56:00.000-08:00

Holi In Office

What Do You Do for Money Honey?

2005-03-08T07:33:00.000-08:00

Money = Sqrt(Evil); "Money is the root of all evils"

Girls = Money*Time;

Money = Time;

Girls = Sqrt(Evil)*Sqrt(Evil);

Girls = Evil;

Old Joke,

My point here is that why Money is root of all evils?? This concept is so deep rooted in our society that even earning lots of money is considered bad. I remember, when ever some kid says, he wants to earn lots and lots of money when he grows up. This kid, probably wants to earn lots of money, so that he can buy all the candies he wants, but our elders say, he is probably gonna land up as a smuggler. This notion is probably inspired by some 80's-90's bollywood movies where the guy chooses smuggling for getting rich.
Why is being poor is always related to being honest, being virtuous, being moral?
"Hum Garib hai to kya? hamare paas bhi ijjat hai!!!!"
"Ek garib ke paas sirf uski ijjat hoti hai.." .. etc, etc
Again all typical bollywood dialogue.

Now lets consider if money is root of all evil, why make money at all... but no, money is necessary, but lots of money is bad.. because if you have lots of it, you would start doing bad things.. okay! now how much is much?

Some times, I really get lost in this self contradicting concepts of society... If you want to be an engineer, its okay, but if you want to be a business man, no- no...

What I am talking about may not be true for every one, but I have seen the same story happening again and again in a normal middle class family, pretty much like the repeat telecast of "Kahani Ghar Ghar ki" or for that matter different episodes, the story hardly moves any where.... (I guess I would soon come up with a post about these soap operas of Ekta Kapoor)..

Why doesnt this society realises that making money is perfectly okay, its the mean which are good or bad, and for that we have innumerous laws, infact so many laws that no one has ever been able to learn them all, thats why lawyers always practice, they are never perfect.. :)
Why does this society has to play the role of judge and jury?

Pics

2005-03-01T23:40:00.000-08:00

Pics uploaded, check out the images section..
Some thing wrong with my doodle-board?? :((

Silent Valley

2005-02-28T21:26:00.000-08:00

Let me update you with yet another trekking trip to a place called "Silent Valley". This place is a protected forest, This time I ganged up with some serious trekkers from a adventure club called "Mars Adventures", the gang consisted of 7 people incuding me, Kamesh (the trekking guide and adventure guru), John, Devki (john's wife) , Vikram (John's and Devki's son), Kala and Girish. It was amazing to see John and Devki, who would be close to my parents in age, get into adventure trekking.
Anyways, we started of to "Silent Valley" on friday late night, after a very uncomfortable ride in Sumo through the night, we reached, Anekatti(the village near Silent Valley) in morning 10:30. Since no one of us had ever been to Silent Valley before, the place turned out to be a disaster inspite of natures beauty. The officials there were under the impression that "trekking" is sitting in a jeep and having a ride in wilds. They had never heard of some one walking in wilds, just like that.Even after much hassles, we could get the permit to trek or camp in the jungle, to make the matter worse we had to be accompanied by a stupid guide of theirs who was there just to insure that we dont roam around in the jungle and we dont litter. We got totally frustrated by the behaviour of the officials and came back out of silent valley.
Now we had the problem of finding a camp site, luckily one of the locals came forward and offered us his wooden cottage, which he made himself for us to stay. within half an hour, we cleaned up the place, lit a camp fire, made a small kitchen and were already started with the dinner preparation. Right across the road was a hill, which was supposed to be kerala's highest peak, which looked very very tempting. By the night we were unanimous that we were going to attempt to climb that mountain next day.
In morning we got hold of a local guide and started off on trek, for the first time I was trekking with more than 25Kgs on my back, which was a painful experience. By noon we ran out of water and went looking for water source, we found a place where there was water seeping from the rocks, and we did what the tribals do, we took a bamboo and held it against the water seeping, that way we filled up more than 9 litres of water and started back on to the summit. As we were closing to summit the path became more and more treacherous, at quite a few places we had to use a sickle to cut our way through the bamboo jungle, and at other places we had to walk on slopes on which a foot slip could have sent you tumbling down the mountains for about 100 to 200 fts. By 1:30 we were at the summit, and trust me, to me it felt I have conquered Mt everest, for no non-local has ever went to that peak. The view from the peak was breathtaking, with hills all around and a valley in between those hills with a small river flowing through it was like a national geographic channel's documentary.
We had our snacks at the peak and headed down, way down was much fun, the same path which was so difficult because of the slippery slopes was a cake walk while coming down, me, vikram and Kala started our skiing on the slippery slope much to dislike of john and kamesh. We did fell on our bottoms at more than few places but it was a fun which I was not ready to miss. By evening we were near the river and we spent much of time till sunset, playing in the water. After that we were back to base camp, cooked our dinner on camp fire (I forgot to mention here, that I was assigned the responsibility of campfire, I was termed "the fire boy"), We started back to bangalore to be back in the mundane routine, smoke filled traffic jams and concrete jungle.
I am eagerly waiting for the next trek with "Mars adventure". Till then this trek would be the most memorable trek of my life.

2005-02-21T21:36:00.000-08:00

Recently I saw an ad in TV, probably some airlines ad, but what was striking, was the caption, which made me think.. The caption for the ad says "When was the last time, when you did some thing for the first time?"...
Some how, I feel that life has become so mundane that we are afraid of trying out some thing new, to the extent where I have seen people not wanting to even try new stuffs on hotel menu. Every one some how is getting into the "tried and tested" ways of life, we want a review on every thing, right from movies, travel places, tv serials to food..
We have come a long way since humans lived in caves, and all along this time we have become more and more dependent on these comforts provided by science.
Some how, I guess I was a little bit left behind in this race of evolution, for I still retain some nomadic tendencies, which I and most of people like me :) refer as adventure....
So I pose this question to you all,
"When was the last time, you did some thing for the first time?"

Weekend

2005-02-21T02:25:00.000-08:00

Keeping my tradition of running away from bangalore on week ends, this week end, I and KP along with some of his friends went to a place called "Ranganathittu" , this place is some 10Kms before Mysore on Bangalore-Mysore highway. Its a bird sanctuary with lots of migratory birds, I never thought that, of all people I would become a bird watcher, but it was fun, especially while boating in a lake full of crocs. Dont trust me? check out the snaps..
Infact, I didnt update with the trip which I did the week before, last week end I went to KushalNagar along with Sid.
I have absolutely no idea where I am going next week, So people you are free to give suggestion and if any one want to accompany me, they are most welcome..

Nostalgia

2005-02-17T22:37:00.000-08:00

Today I finally checked out Saurabhs pic collection of Kgp. I dont know whats there in those pics or about that place which always makes me cry. When I was browsing through the pics, all the while I was explaining the places and importance of those places in my life to my colleagues. Probably they think I am crazy or over sensitive. Some time even I feel so, I mean every one of us had been to college and most of us would have even stayed in hostels, then why in the world we (we means here, people from my college) feel so much attached to our college, the buildings, the people? Every time, we have a party and every time one of us gets drunk, invariably the topic of kgp comes up and then every one of us gets lost on our own thoughts about the place.
Why am I (or should I say we), the way we are??

2005-02-17T03:24:00.000-08:00

Me pretty busy with my work, which very much includes Documentation and other bothers as described by rhea. Will be posting some thing as soon as I get some time off. Well the latest news about me would be that, I am going to spend my weekend in bangalore after a long long time..

:)

Metallica Rocks

2005-02-10T22:56:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, got yet another CD box of metallica "Live Shit ......" contains 3 audio CDs and 2 DVDs of shows in Mexico, San Diego. Was watching the same till late night, it was crazy.. only thing was that the CD was recorded in 90-91 when most of the albums by metallica , I like , was not released.. The show was pre "Load(1996)".

In yet another incidence, I went to Bose showroom in Forum (Bangalore) and they showed me a demo for their home theatre system, fell in love with it. Sadly, the thing costed Rs 2,45,000.
I hope some day, I would have enough money that I could link the above two incidence, I mean listen to metallica on Bose home theatre system and get a sound proof room, cuz my land lord otherwise would kill me for this.

Gosh! Saurabh, I hate you!!

well for most of the people above comment is totally unrelated, so let me tell you, Saurabh recently came down to bangalore and all the while he had been telling me about the different rock shows he has attended so far, and that my friend is hitting a guy where it hurts most, the worse part, he knows that pretty well.

KemmanGundi Trek

2005-02-07T00:03:00.000-08:00

This week end was the most happening week end after a long long time, We had a team outing planned from friday and saturday. Since we were the ones planning the trip we planned it to be an adventure trip rather than a normal team outing at some stupid resort. We initially planned for a stay in Bisle Ghats but due to some problems we later shifted to Kemmangundi, and this was without informing the team, most of them realised that we have shifted the place one day after we reached there. :)
Day 1:
We reached Kemmangundi at 6:30 in morning, after some freshing up we started for a treck to Z point at 9:30. The road to Z point was fabulous, the sight of the greenery and the mountains were so exiting, probably I could never do justice to the nature by my writing about the place. We found a small water fall in the way to Z point and we just dragged every one in the fall for a quick shower. After a short trek we reached Z point. Z point had a great view of the western ghats, after spending some time at Z point and after a brief photo session by the team, we trekked back to base camp, which was a horticultural dept's guest house.
Afternoon turned out to be even more exiting than the morning trek, we planned a rappling event for every one from 40 Fts. Rappling is basically climbing down a wall using ropes, pretty much James Bond style, initially every one had the impression that this was some thing only a stunt man or our very own Mr India (read Sunny Deol) could do. Initially a few people fell down but there was always a safety rope which held them from having a free fall down the cliff. It was a very pleasent surprise for me, when I did the whole climbing perfectly, considering the fact that I never rappled before in my life. It was a superb feeling to climb down a vertical wall using just ropes. There were some people including all females who were so scared that they were not even ready to hold the rope, and after the event these very people queued up for a next go at rappling. By the time we were through with every one, it was pretty dark and we had a long way to go. The road was some thing like a couple of hundred steps, may be even thousands of steps, on a stone stairs from the point where we were rappling, and going down those steps without light was a experience which I have never seen before. They say that courage and companionship comes when you face a danger. It was suprising to see the normal people displaying signs of heroism (by heroism I dont mean any thing Akshay Kumar or Sunny Deol does), One guy volunteered to walk in front and asked us to walk behind him and if he fell down or tripped, we were to know that there was a step. This guy was no leader, he was as simple and as daring as we all are (I personally dont count myself in the daring persons list). Finally we reached base camp and lit a small camp fire, where every one surrounded the fire and we were playing dumb charade.

Day 2:
Day 2 had even more of adventure in store than day 1, which we came to realise later, day 1 was just a warm up for day 2 . we were to start on a 9 Kms of adventure trekking (believe me, this the first time I came to know that adventure trekking was different from normal trekking ). The road started with some 1/2 Kms of steep slope. It didnt looked much difficult to start with, but then my PM started gaining speed, to the point where he was almost running, by the time we got to him, he fell and was rolling down the slope. Fortunately he was okay, and got off with just some bruises. We went ahead and after trekking on long jeep tracks, we decided to cut short and start on a even steeper slope than earlier. With the earlier accident fresh on our minds, every one was as coutious as possible, to the point where a female actually refused to get down :) . The end of the track was a water fall called "Hebbe Falls", the very sight of this fall and the beauty of the water falling from such a height made us forget all the tireness and pain. Without asking any one every one jumped into water, the water was chilling but then who cares, the water was so refreshing that we were really sad when the instructor asked us to get out of water and head back for base camp. By this time most of the people were so exhausted that they were not in a position to trek back 9 Kms, so a few of us started trekking back while others came by jeep. Finally we managed to reach base camp by 3:00 and after a full meal including delicious chicken preparation by some local lady, we boarded the bus back to bangalore. The bus ride back to bangalore was very much uneventful, largely because every one was totally exhausted and sleeping. We reached bangalore by 11:30 PM and thus ended the best office trip I ever had in my working life.

If you really want to be my friend

2005-01-31T20:33:00.000-08:00

This is a poem I tapoed from some where in 3rd year or may be 4th year.. Dont even remember.. but it still in the nicest poem i have ever came across.

If you really want to be my friend,
let me live it up like I used to do.
If you really want to understand me,
there's some giving up we got to do.

I know everybody wants to be your man;
I dont want to tie you up, go ahead, you are free;
and I never want to scar you with my brand,
we could live it up, just as you and me.

If you really want to understand a man;
let him ogg the lead some times, set him free.
If you really, really want to be my friend,
give the look of love, not jealousy.

I know you think that life is a thriller,
you play the vamp, I play the killer,
now baby, whats the use of fighting?
by the last reel we will be crying, crying, crying.

you know, I really, really want to be your friend.
but just a little faith is all we need.
I dont want no dog eat dog world for you and me.
get your nails out, stop bleeding me..........

I really want to understand you,
I really want to be your man.
because understanding is something everybody needs.
I really want to be your friend.

shivasamudram

2005-01-31T01:56:00.000-08:00

On Saturday morning, I started off for yet another bike trip to ShivaSamudram with me and my sister on one bike and Tongia and Apoorva on another. Shivasamudram is a place 130Kms from Bangalore, at that place Cauvery river drops from a height of 75m into a rocky gorge. The view of river and the deafening roar of river is great. We were supposed to start off by 7 in morning but then there are some obvious reasons and some not so obvious reasons for delay. We finally managed to star off by 9:45 in morning, our first stop was at (Do I need to mention it? ) Cafe Cofee day.. we reached shivasamudram at 1:30 or so, sadly the water was not up to level we expected it to be, this made the steep slope open for my rock climbing skills, Some how when ever I see a steep slope or mountain, the sleeping (or should I say dead) geologist inside of me wakes up. So for the sake of my degree, I had to climb down. I went till 10-15 fts from bottom then came all the way up, unfortunately when I was climbing up , I noticed that there was a easier way to climb down and get up that the one which I took. any ways, I managed all the way up and at some where around 4 pm we started back to bangalore, this time we took a different route (via kanakpura) which saved us 1 hrs of journey. The road was pretty good (contrary to what most people told me about that route) , so we were racing our bikes at cool 75-80 km/ph all the way till kanakpura, the road through kanakpura is surrounded with lush green farms and small hillocks all the way. I wanted to stop and try my climbing skill on those hillocks, but I decided, I had enough adventure for the day and more over it was getting a little dark. So we made it in bangalore, the feeling of reaching bangalore was so depressing. The moment we got into bangalore, the city welcomed us with a traffic jam lasting all the way till the turn besides my house.
Thus I completed one more of the to-be-visited-locations in my list. My target is to visit all these places in my to-be-visited-locations by next 2 years, which is a very good amount of time.
I will keep posting the details of my travelogue..
The photographs of the trip are available at fotopic

Bike Trip

2005-01-27T00:11:00.000-08:00

On tuesday I went on yet another bike trip to mysore, it seems like I am getting more and more addicted to these bike trips. Sadly my sense of adventure so far has turned into just biking to places (which most of the case turns out to be mysore). Any ways, originally the plan was to halt at mysore and then start off to KushalNagar next day morning. We (Me and Siddharth) could only start from bangalore some where around 10:30, it was first time for Siddharth to drive his bike around in night (any ways it was first time he took his bike to bangalore), but he was in great enthu to go ahead and drive in night. so we started off from bangalore, and after a stretch of bad roads from bangalore we got much of relief on newly constructed bangalore-mysore highway (its not complete yet but for most of the part traffic has been diverted on the newly constructe part of road). Overall it was fun, driving like mads in middle of night, and overtaking buses at speed of 85 km/ph. we two were the only crazy persons with a bike on that road. we stopped at Cafe Coffee Day on the highway, by now I think this guy at the counter of coffee day would have already recognised me, he actually said a Hi to me, but I am not sure if it was the general professional courtesy or he did recognise me. After a short break at coffee day we again started for mysore and we did finally reach mysore at 3:15 AM.
I wasnt able to keep my eyes open for a minute longer after we reached mysore, so I directly crashed on the bed, and any ways we had to start for KushalNagar next day morning. next thing I know is that Sid is waking me up in morning (not the normal morning, this was my morning) and it was 11:45 AM. we cancelled the trip to KushalNagar and went out, got some food packed along with cold beer(trust me! there is a big difference between cold beer and chilled beer). any way! it was as usual great to have beer in afternoon, after 2 bottles each we once again crashed on bed. Had dinner at one of those dhabas on bangalore road along with quite a few of Sid's friends. Once again today morning, after too much of effort I got out of bed and started back for bangalore on my bike at 7:00 AM , it wasnt exactly a smooth ride but it wasnt as bad as I was hoping for. Finally I reached Bangalore at 11:00 AM (Did I mention, I again stopped over at Coffee Day)..
So that was my little adventure, I am going on another similar adventure this saturday.. will keep updated..

How random is random???

2005-01-25T01:06:00.000-08:00

How random is random?
The question in itself sounds very wierd, right? but lets take an example and analyse the randomness of random. what do you consider random? any thing which does not have predicatble result, but according to mathematics, there is always a boundary condition within which we analyse the problem. In computer even random is not at all random, people having knowledge about C language would know that to generate a random number, you have to seed the random number generator. So what? over the time it has been proved that random is not at all random. some events might be random in polynomial(read finite) time but they may not be random at all if you consider sufficiently longer time period. To some people the way stock market moves is sufficiently random, to some the amount of oil productions of a country, yet to some variation of prices of international oil prices, all these are random events. There is a very interesting topic which deals with randomness of randomness in mathematics, called time series analysis. If you feed suffucient large amount of data for this algorithm to work, the alogorithm can find a pattern and predict the future trend with a considerable certainity. I call this "patterns in randomness".
Any ways! By now every one reading this would be wondering, what the hell am I talking about? How does it even matters if random which we thought was random is not random? So let me get straight to point, similar to the above example the nature is fairly random but how random? if you consider a very very large amount of time, say some thing equivalent to the total of man kinds history, would it still be random? I dont think so, if you consider such a large amount of data, you can find out a pattern and you can start predicting things? Does that concept sounds familiar? not yet! now lets say even if you can predict the future based on the pattern you have found, would the people buy such a weird concept? I am very sure quite a few of you would not even agree to what I am saying.. So lets associate it with a few supernatural powers, the sun, the moon, neptune, pluto, radiation, any thing sufficiently weird and convincing.. now sell it off.. The point I am trying to make is that when you combine "patterns in randomness" with peoples faith, what you get is some thing similar to vastu, feng-shui, palmistry, astrology, e.t.c some of them have a little bit of science behind them others dont, which is fairly acceptable cuz they all are trying to get the patterns.
I know by now a lot of readers would happily disagree with me and give a lots of examples about the validity of these "stuffs" as I call it, but lets agree on one thing, I am not doubting the correctness of any of these, I am just trying to get to the basis of these "stuffs". When I was a kid, I once read a story about a palmist telling alexander(was it alexander or some one else? I dont remember) that he can never be able to conquer the whole world, so this chap cuts his palm and gets on with his quest. Why does palmists are able to tell one persons future with fair accuracy while for others they cant. If you want you can prove any fortune teller wrong. If some one tells me I am going to be a doctor and I start preparing for engineering, would the stars stop me from being a engineer.. I dont think so.. So what exactly is happening. Most of us would normally fit into some pattern or the other, but if we go ahead and break out of the pattern, no one can stop one from doing what we want. If on the other hand if you dont have sufficient determination, you would fall in the pattern and the things would hold true. If we let the future decide its own course, there is a very high probability that it would follow a certain pattern, but if you decide your future, it will follow the course you want it to be..
I guess I have made my point very clear.. I know a lot of you would not agree with me, but then this blog was never meant to change you, this is just there for me to express my views, what I am.. This blog is there for you to know me.. I dont wanna change you, cuz I dont wanna change myself..
Nits

Free Speech for the Dumb

2005-01-20T04:45:00.000-08:00

The first time I listened to the song "Free Speech For The Dumb" from Garage Inc by Metallica, I would have never thought that some day I am going to name my blog after this song, but very frankly I could not have found a more suitable name for this. This is the first time I am writing some thing in public, open to all criticism and I do expect to get flamed for my views. So in my understanding the basic idea of all this is free speech for every one and hence "Free Speech For The Dumb". From here on, some innocent and not so innocent people would cross this blog and probably read my views about the world, people and every thing else, some might like it, others would not, they are welcome to express themselves. My apologies to every one, whom I am going to hurt in this process of blogging. So "let the show begin"...........

Free Speech For The Dumb

My God V/S your God

Ancient Vishnu idol found in Russian town

Reservation

Tag 55 / Animal

Games People Play

economics of religion

1000 hits

Filthy Rich

Normal is boring

Break Up

I am back

Wicked Game

man who survived a surgery

home sweet home

Rojgar mela

Holi In Office

What Do You Do for Money Honey?

Pics

Silent Valley

Ads

Weekend

Nostalgia

Metallica Rocks

KemmanGundi Trek

If you really want to be my friend

shivasamudram

Bike Trip

How random is random???

Free Speech for the Dumb