Musings of an enlightened techie

Faith versus commercialization

2006-09-14T02:59:00.000-07:00

Almost every other weekend, one of my team members pays a visit to Tirupati, and come Monday, the prasadam which he or she gets becomes much sought after in office. I have always been fascinated by Tirupati and have always longed to pay a visit to Tirupati, just to get a glimpse of the glory of Lord Venkateshwara.

According to Wikipedia (and my south-Indian colleagues, of course!), the Tirupati Devasthanam is one of the busiest religious centres in the world, and the second-richest, after the Vatican. Tens of thousands of pilgrims visit Tirupati everyday, and the number seems to be growing day by day. The annual collection ("income") of the temple, it seems, runs into billions of rupees.

I have always pondered over what makes Tirupati one of the most frequented sacred places in southern India. Tirumala and Tirupati, no doubt, have a rich cultural heritage and religious history, not to mention the exotic natural beauty and picturesque surroundings. But recent times have seen Tirupati getting "commercialized" to such an extent that it makes one wonder whether it is really the faith in The Lord or the hype surrounding Tirupati that makes hordes of devotees flock to this temple town.

I am not particularly comfortable with the idea of an "entry fee" just to get a glimpse of The Lord. Even then, you get The Lord's darshan for only a few minutes, and sometimes more, if you are fortunate (the average darshan time is one and a half minutes, they say). My friends say it is possible to prolong the darshan, by making an "offering" to the temple staff...

I strongly believe that The Lord resides everywhere; even if one does visit Him, he or she should have complete freedom to be with Him for as long as he or she desires. But then, that is not always feasible (and possible) in a temple which boasts of thousands of devotees visiting every hour.

Devotees make their offerings in kind, and mostly gold and silver jewellery. As the name itself suggests, offerings are made with faith and devotion. But recently, such offerings have become a symbol of prestige and social status: the more you offer, the more devout you are. Such things do nothing more than add to the commercialization, by encouraging a "wealth-offering competition" between devotees, if it can be called that way. Devotees should compete in faith, not in terms of the value of offerings made to Him.

Before anyone gets mad, I have nothing against true faith and offerings made in full devotion... What I find disturbing is the commercialization of God and the artificiality and the hype surrounding it that is rearing its ugly head of late...

Oh, a bit of trivia to end (courtesy Wikipedia, for those of you who are too lazy to click on links): Tonsuring, the sacrifice of hair, which is performed at Tirupati as a symbol of devotion, is responsible for making India the largest exporter of hair in the world! ;-)

A "management" job: Is it worth it?

2006-09-04T00:03:00.000-07:00

One dilemma that graduate engineers often face when they think of higher education is whether they should go for a post-graduation in management (Master of Business Administration: "MBA") or technology (Master of Technology: "MTech", as it is called in India, or Master of Science: "MS").

I have seen many of my friends go through this "trauma". Although I feel this decision is a matter of each one's personal preferences, I would like to share my thoughts, something which has been going on in my mind for quite a long time now.

In India, traditionally, "white-collar" jobs have always been seen with a sense of respect not normally associated with "blue-collar" people (who, needless to say, were always the "butt of ridicule"). This has not changed much in recent times. Even today, people generally tend to view managers as mystic beings who possess divine powers...

Given the industry scenario in India, it is a well-known fact that management jobs pay you much more than technical jobs. What seems to attract young people to management is primarily these lucrative offers. And then there is always that dream of making it big one day, and management jobs, with their fat salaries, give you the chance of doing that early on in life (as in "I'm just 23 and I already own a Honda City!"). This goes down well with today's youth, who are forever in search of that perfect recipe for "instant success".

The thing that bothers me is that technically brilliant people, who have a great chance of contributing to technology, opt for a career in administration and management, because their parents want them to "rule", or simply because all they care for is money. This step is simply not right, and moreover, it does not do any justice to their technical skill-sets.

If we are to transform India into a technological hub, what we require is technically focused people, who are passionate to work in the field of research and development, who desire to work on cutting-edge technologies... Getting into high-end management jobs and "brain-drain"ing your skills isn't going to help much.

Of course, one may argue that India is already making a mark in the global IT industry; the likes of TCS, Infosys and Wipro are already rubbing shoulders with IT giants like IBM and Accenture. But what we need to understand is that all these Indian companies are into services. A service-based business model ensures steady revenue flows and industry sustenance, but it does little in terms of value addition in the long term.

Coming back to the main topic, nevertheless, a skilled management workforce is necessary for large organizations, who have to maintain high standards of efficiency and see to it that resources are being properly utilized. In that sense, administration and management can be considered to be quite a challenging job... And moreover, if you start off with a non-management job, in the long term, there is always a push towards management; you are expected to don managerial responsibilities as you progress upwards in the organizational hierarchy.

However, for a techie like me, the more away I am from management tasks, the better...

Chain letters and mails...

2006-08-23T23:44:00.000-07:00

Long long time ago, the preferred (and cheapest) method of communication used to be postcards (these cards, which had for years gone through a colorful evolution process in India, are almost "extinct" now). One thing I distinctly remember about postcards was something which I now know as chain letters.

I remember, in those days, once in a while we used to get a postcard asking us to make 20 copies of itself and send them to 20 people within a week. The card used to be dotted with names of gods and goddesses. It also almost invariably cited incidents of people who benefited by doing so, albeit with warnings of dire consequences (aka "bad luck for the rest of your life") if the recipient failed to oblige.

Back then, I used to find it really funny... I never could figure out how, by just duplicating copies of postcards, anyone can get to stand benefited (except the postal department, of course). Forget the "superstition" part of it... Doing the exercise of copying postcards and sending them to your "well-wishers" was real fun!!!

Chain letters are back with a vengeance, only in a new techno-avatar. They have now taken the form of e-mails... Their confluence is called chain mail, for obvious reasons... For a decent explanation of the types of chain mails, read this! :))

You have to admit: people make really good and clever use of technology, especially in India. The ever-prevailing confusion between superstition and faith ensures that such gimmicks tick. Add to it the fact that there are (still) a large number of people willing to spend their time and money on such frivolous matters.

One thing going strong in favor of chain mails is the electronic nature of e-mail, which makes it very easy to duplicate them. The sender has the convenience of the Forward button and the recipients have the convenience of the Trash and Delete buttons. Can it get more polished than this? ;-)

Advanced programming?

2006-07-13T00:21:00.000-07:00

You may wonder why my blog posts are drifting towards the technical side... You see, I cannot help it! All these days, I was caught up in social and philosophical ideologies so much that I was beginning to forget my techie roots. Actually, this blog was not supposed to be a medium for my tech musings, but I do hope my "technical revival" won't hurt, at least for the moment...

Most programmers (I safely assume) start their programming course with an introduction to the C programming language. C, as a language, is short and concise, and is known for its bag-load of tips-n-tricks, quirks and pitfalls, as any programmer should tell you. In fact, many people (notably educationists) argue that a first-hand course in programming should be in a scripting language (such as Python) and not in C. However, that is another story altogether :^)

I remember back in college, for our annual technical symposium (called "Bits 'n Bytes"), we used to have a programming contest called "Confusy", which was about writing the most horribly confusing program you could... No wonder people used to prefer C!

A common misconception in my computing (a.k.a. engineering) fraternity is what people call advanced programming. Most people think that advanced programming is when you make generous use of cryptic features provided by the programming language at hand.

Programmers generally have a tendency to prove their mettle and superiority over other fellow programmers. Their philosophy is quite simple: for you to be doing advanced programming, you should make your programs intimidating, overly confusing and incomprehensible to everyone else. If people cannot understand your programs, they think of you as a programming guru.

Actually, I don't think so...

To me, advanced programming is a different thing altogether. In fact, advanced programming is more about programming design than programming implementation. It is about expressing your ideas and abstractions in the most clear and concise manner; it is about clean design; when your design is flawless, it shows in the code...

People who are in two minds can read The Art of Unix programming by Eric Raymond for a decent explanation of how this concept cam to be one of the central themes of the Unix philosophy (see the sidebar of my blog for the link).

As Leonardo da Vinci has well said: "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication". Advanced programming should be all about simplicity. It should strive to unravel mysteries from the code, rather than weaving mysteries into it. In fact, good programming, in many cases, decomposes complex programming constructs into a sequence of simpler constructs.

Please understand that I am not against learning the so-called "advanced" features of any language. Notions of what constitutes "advanced" features vary from person to person, and indeed, from language to language. With reference to C, it may be C's rich operator set or the low-level programming features provided by C (not to mention pointers). These are not advanced features per se; they merely provide you the flexibility to express your abstractions in a more powerful way...

The changing face of computer science

2006-07-12T01:47:00.000-07:00

People seem to have different ideas about computer science. To some, it is all about algorithms and data structures, while others swear by operating systems and networking. For me, computer science is more of formalizing abstractions through research and analysis. It is (or rather, should be) a healthy mix of various disciplines that have to do with computing.

I was recently going through the essay The Art of Unix Programming by Eric Raymond. The history of Unix, described in vivid detail by Eric, makes fascinating reading. Also worth reading is the origins and history of the hacker culture which grew hand-in-hand with the Unix culture.

A point worth pondering over is the relatively dismal state of computer science research in today's world. Traditionally, computer science has been nurtured in academia; the best of radical ideas and groundbreaking technologies in the computing arena have been bred in universities and technology institutes. Computing concepts in industry that seem so obvious today have evolved through years of dedicated and focussed research in the likes of MIT and Carnegie-Mellon.

It is quite true that computer industry (commercialization, in other words) is the dominant face of the computer science phenomenon today. But that should not be a lame excuse for the stagnation in computer science research. And as almost everyone knows, long-term intellectual stagnation is not good for society.

For the most part, we ourselves are to blame. Salaries for computer professionals are growing more lucrative day by day, and the demand is also there. People freshly out of college think of getting high-pay jobs and settling down into the rhythm of their professional life. After all, who wants to keep "withering" in academics?

B R O A D B A N D in Goa

2006-07-06T05:30:00.000-07:00

Broadband has finally made inroads in Goa, making its presence felt in supposedly rural and semi-urban areas. From the dismal days of DoT (Department of Telecommunications) to Sancharnet's long-standing dialup plans, Internet connectivity in Goa seems to have got a face lift, thanks to Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL)!

People seem to be going for BSNL over other private players in the broadband arena, like Sify, Tata Indicom, AirTel and Reliance. At least, that's what the situation seems to be here in Bangalore. I'm not sure how much of a presence these private players have in Goa...

A few days back, there was a lot of discussion on the ILUG-Goa mailing list regarding ADSL broadband configuration in GNU/Linux. Those folks also seem to be quite fascinated by the Huawei modem that BSNL offers as a part of their package! :-)

Back to blogging (again)

2006-06-26T01:55:00.000-07:00

After another long break, I'm back!!! Me had gone to Goa for the weekend, and the reason was to enjoy the Goan monsoons... Thankfully, the rains made their presence felt; at the same time, giving me enough time to hang out with friends :-)

One of my friends from Pune had come down to Goa the same weekend. We had a great, fun-filled time on Sunday: a scrumptious Konkani lunch, which included visvonn (kingfish) and soongtaan (prawns), followed by huge cone sundaes at Baskin Robbins. Have a look!

The evening was spent paying visits to the north Goan beaches of Morjim, Arambol and Mandrem. I got the chance to try my first hand at real-life photography (after what I call "creative experiments") with my digicam. See below...

We had a new roomie day before yesterday: one of our batchmates, fondly called "Bhatto". He's done his MBA from the Goa Institute of Management, and is presently working in ICICI Bank here in Bangalore. Looks like we finally have our own in-house investment expert ;-)

My obsession with autobiographies

2006-06-13T06:39:00.000-07:00

Everyone asks me why I like reading autobiographies. It's not that I have any objections to that... I like reading autobiographies! No more questions, please...

The first autobiography that I read was Wings of Fire by Dr A P J Abdul Kalam. It was a gift from my cousin brother on my birthday (many years back, maybe when I was in higher secondary; I don't exactly remember). I must admit it has left a lasting impression on my life. In fact, I liked it so much that I also read its Marathi translation, aptly titled Agnipankh.

I have recently started reading The Google Story by David Vise and Mark Malseed. It's not an autobiography (and I cannot explain why it happens to find a place here). From the reviews, it looks like an absorbing book till its very end. I have heard that it does a fantastic job of plotting the meteoric rise of Google from "being nowhere to being everywhere" ;-)

Last month, I finished reading Just for Fun by Linus Torvalds, father of the Linux operating system kernel. Since Linus, Linux and Just for Fun have found a mention in many of my previous posts, I won't bother you with all the gory stuff (see, not even the links are there!). Just for the record, Linux happens to be the largest collaborative project in the world. Three cheers for Linux!!!

I am yet to read the story of another collaborative co-operative movement, the largest of its kind. This one is called I too had a dream, and it is the autobiography of Dr Verghese Kurien, "India's milkman" (as he is fondly called), the "architect of Operation Flood" and the "father of the White Revolution". He is the one behind Amul, now a household name all over India...

I plan to read The Google Story and I too had a dream in parallel (pipelining, as one of my friends puts it!). That's it for the moment... Let's see which interesting autobiography comes my way next... Don't worry, I'll keep you posted on that!

Fun @ Onsite

2006-06-12T20:57:00.000-07:00

The term onsite (being or working in your client location, overseas) is something like heaven to IT professionals. Many engineers and managers nourish the dream of going onsite at some point in their professional life. Those who have been there speak volumes about it, to the poor people who have never been given an onsite opportunity.

One of my friends, Savio, is in UK on a long-term onsite opportunity for a firm called Caritor. Once in a while, we receive a mail from him on our college batch mailing list. In the mail, he explains in luscious detail his fun experiences (outside office, of course!) and how he is enjoying himself. He has been to most of Europe on his frequent outings. Last weekend, he had the privilege of watching the British Grand Prix at the Silverstone Circuit. He's an F1 fan to the core... Boy, must have he been blessed! ;-)

Last weekend, I had gone to meet one of my friends who has just returned from Germany. He has recently joined SAP, and was in Germany for almost a month for training (which, strictly speaking, is not onsite). We feasted on the wonderful chocolates which he had got for us (I admit I didn't have dinner that day!) while he was narrating his experiences. He's got a T-Shirt as a World Cup 2006 memoir, which he was wearing that day....

Most of my batchmates and office colleagues seem to be talking about visas these days... "H1", "L1" are hot buzzwords.

Looks like the onsite craze is surely catching on....

Movies of late...

2006-06-08T05:21:00.000-07:00

A few days back, I happened to see Fanaa, a Yash Raj movie, produced by Aditya Chopra and directed by Kunal Kohli. The film starrs "perfectionist" Aamir Khan and "spontaneous" Kajol (Devgan). Incidentally, this is their first film as the lead pair.

The movie had built a lot of expectations, mainly because of the Aamir-Kajol cast. This film also happens to be Jatin-Lalit's last movie as a music composer pair (it seems they have parted ways). The film also attracted a lot of attention (its screening was banned in Gujarat) over Aamir's open support for the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA).

If you ask me, the movie didn't quite live up to the expectations... Music by Jatin-Lalit was also a damper, leaving aside the melodious two: "Hona Hai Tujh Mein Fanaa" and "Mere Haath Mein".

The much-awaited movie The Da Vinci Code was released on the same day as Fanaa, and seems to be attracting crowds all over the world (that is, in places where it is not banned!). Directed by Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou, the movie promises to be the perfect complement to Dan Brown's thriller fiction bestseller by the same name. Am yet to watch it, though, so I cannot comment...

Mahesh Bhatt seems to be producing a lot of movies these days... Almost all his films have "serial kisser" Emraan Hashmi as one of the lead roles, and a film starring him will almost certainly never be complete without one or more of his (infamous) smooching scenes!

One thing I feel after watching his latest production Gangster is that his movie itself is getting much more stronger than the message behind the movie. What I mean to say is -- the aesthetic beauty in his movies is fast disappearing; the sex-and-violence-aspect of his films has become sort of glaring... From renderings like Arth, I must say he has come a long way! ;-)

OK then... Me signing off now!

Marriages are made in heaven: Part I

2006-06-08T01:36:00.000-07:00

As most of you may be knowing, it's marriage season! Four of my teammates from my previous project team have got married this year, and many are on the lookout for prospective brides. In fact, one of my friends is headed to his native place this weekend for "match-fixing" ;-)

Our current project's team lead got married today. The upanayanam was in the wee hours of the morning, somewhere around 5:30 am, followed by the muhurtham (the main ceremony) at around 8:00 am, followed by the breakfast and (a rather heavy, but scrumptious) lunch in the afternoon. The nischithartham (engagement) was yesterday afternoon, followed by lunch, and a reception and dinner buffet yesterday night. Doesn't that sound like a perfect wedding? You bet it is! :-)

I was witness to a curious and rather unusual custom (if we can call it that!) today afternoon... The bride's relatives and the groom's relatives were breaking papads over one another's heads! Go figure...

I hope some day "breaking papads over one's head" (or another's head, for that matter!) gets its rightful place in the Oxford Dictionary... Meanwhile, you can take a crash course on papads here.

Come to think of it, if someone were to take snaps of the "event" and send them to Lijjat, they would have stopped the production of papads forever. On second thought, though, they could do with a publicity campaign. Ohhh... How I wish I had my digicam! :-S

If you have noticed, my post is named "marriages are made in heaven: Part I". That means there is still more to come on marriages, especially Indian marriages (I am currently doing a survey on the same). Stay tuned for some interesting findings and observations!

Back to blogging

2006-06-04T23:05:00.000-07:00

A few days of silence, and I'm back!!! Not even a week has gone by, and I'm already getting a lot of mails asking me why I have not published even a single post all these days... Oh well, my first wave of popularity ;-)

The reason I couldn't find time for my blogs was that I had a full 3-day training session on VxWorks for my next project...

Last Friday, we had a "kick-off" (read: team dinner, for the team members who are still there) for my previous project. You may ask, a kick-off for my previous project? My answer: this is the other kind of "kick" (not as in kick-off; kick as in kick butt). I have clicked some snaps of the dinner meeting with my new digital camera, which I will upload to Flickr soon...

Looks like my next project work is going to move into full throttle soon... If you are an avid blog reader (and my fan at that), you may witness intolerable delays on my part to publish my blog posts on time. Inconvenience caused, if any, is sincerely regretted :-)

My new digital camera

2006-05-28T23:17:00.000-07:00

Finally, after days of research, I got a new digital camera last weekend. It's a Sony Cybershot DSC-W5 (check out the specs and a review).

Hope to put up "My Experiments with Digital Photography" on Flickr soon. Stay tuned!!!

Technology tantrums

2006-05-25T05:46:00.000-07:00

Here is an interesting piece of debate, or rather, exchange of thoughts, that took place between me and my friend over mail today. Although there was no formal topic of discussion, it all started over a chain mail on the 11th birthday of Java, leading to the following conversation:

Him:

How long do you think one can keep performing acrobatic stunts with technology to feed one's ego and still remain happy about it?
Yesterday it was C, C++, Linux. Now it is Java, embedded Linux. Tomorrow it could be AI and then something else.
When do you think you can be content?
When will this stop?

Don't you think business, society is where the technology should reside?
Don't you thing technology should grow with the world's needs?
Don't you think it shouldn't happen the other way round?
Don't you think it happens both ways?
Ain't it a vicious circle?

Will this stop?
Can you answer me?

Me:

I don't know exactly what you are trying to say...
Are you pointing out that technology is so overwhelming that we cannot digest everything?
Are you trying to say that technology is controlling us rather than we controlling it?
Are you saying that you are not able to keep pace with technology?

I feel one's obsession with technology has got to do with having fun rather than satisfying one's ego. It is up to each individual to decide whether he or she wants to embrace a technology or trash it for good... Dissent in the society is good; it leads to evolution, in Darwin's sense, survival of the fittest... The same holds good in the case of technology. This should never stop, if society is to progress...

It is society that evolves technology, not the other way round... Society evolves due to differences... If you are not content with something and don't like how it works, you change it. For the better...

I feel tempted to mention what Linus writes in his autobiography "Just for Fun": everything goes through a cycle of being purely for survival, then it becomes something of a social thing, and then it becomes just entertainment. I like his way of thinking. If you get your hands on his book, just read the preface "The Meaning of Life" and the end note "The Meaning of Life II".

Believe me, it's worth it...

An Orkut life...

2006-05-23T23:07:00.000-07:00

For the uninitiated, Orkut is an online social networking site that enables you to connect with existing friends, make new ones, stay in touch and find like-minded people who share your interests. It is owned by Google, and boasts of 16,000,000+ members worldwide.

When one of my friends sent me an Orkut friend request (or an invite, in typical "Googlese") a few months back, I was quite skeptical. Nevertheless, I decide to take the plunge and see for myself what the fuss was all about.

I must admit I wasn't disappointed.

For people who are new to social networking, it is quite overwhelming at first. Some technophobics even prefer to socialize the traditional way (evening get-togethers, for example) rather than take to Orkutting, as it is called.

Looking around me, Orkut (not to mention others like Hi5 and Friendster) does seem to have taken today's generation by storm. E-mails and chatting are boring; scrapping is a lot fancier. Online social communities are more appealing than traditional groups. Testimonials is another "admired" feature; people even go to the extent of bribing to earn testimonials... If you want to know what this jargon is all about, join Orkut and find out!

Of course, not without controversies...

Most socialists agree that Orkut's use as a social tool is indeed complex. Leaving aside the social aspects, there have been cases of bogus profiles on Orkut. People create multiple profiles, sometimes running into hundreds, just for the heck of it. This leads to sort of an identity crisis. And then there is the perennial problem of flooding and spamming (read more). Another thing which is of concern is the rise of hate communities (read more), launching scathing personal attacks against individuals as well as their target groups. This has led to a large number of users terminating their Orkut accounts in protest.

If you take a walk in our office library's browsing section, more often than not you find the youngster crowd busy Orkutting. Nevertheless, the growing popularity and strength of Orkut can be gauged by the fact that it is now restricted in my office :-(

I could say Orkut has achieved something of a cult status... A world of its own, isn't it? :-)

The "girlfriend" concept

2006-05-22T02:28:00.000-07:00

It's time to put down something which has been going on in my mind for many days... Something more social... Ummm... Something about a concept known as girlfriend. (In case you're not familiar with the term, read what Wikipedia has to say about it!) I am going to talk from the perspective of a non-committed bachelor (non-committed spinsters could replace the term girlfriend with boyfriend; read its "treatment" by Wikipedia).

Before you proceed further, here's a disclaimer: These are purely my own thoughts, and I am not trying to preach or force my thinking on you. I'm not making any personal remarks against anyone (so if you disapprove, please don't take this as a personal offense or insult). Any humor is intentional.

As far as my Bollywood knowledge goes, we have been accustomed to know the basic needs of survival as "roti, kapda aur makaan" (translated from Hindi, this means food, clothing and shelter), but now it seems to have become "roti, kapda, makaan aur girlfriend"... Okay, that was a bad joke, simply put here 'cause I couldn't find anything more humorous ;-)

What may be the motivations for having a girlfriend? I don't have a perfect answer for that (never had a girlfriend, you see; "experienced" people may give a better answer). But I would, nevertheless, like to explore some possibilities.

The first thing that comes to my mind is the emotional needs of loving and being loved. This is generally for noble beings (like me) with self-proclaimed "love-is-a-way-of-life" philosophy . Some people may recollect a modest version: "Love is not the heart of life, it is a part of life". (Because love is such an involved topic, we'll discuss about it some other time.)

For some folks, a girlfriend is someone whom you can confide in, someone who can be your constant companion, in the sad and glad times. This is a milder form of the above need (I could say that, I believe). This stresses more on the friendship part of it than the romantic part... Anyways, I believe there is a thin line between love and friendship, and it is purely up to the individual to decide as to how he or she views it (in other words, romantic love as opposed to Platonic love or friendship).

Then there is always that physical need... I always find that I generally don't have to elaborate on that. People are intelligent and smart enough to know what I'm trying to say. Hope you get this one ;-)

Those, I believe, are some of the valid reasons for having a girlfriend. Before I begin what I'd like to say next, I would like to point out the observations ("The Meaning of Life") made by Linus Torvalds in his autobiography Just for Fun (a review coming soon!). The motivating factors for anything (related to human needs), he argues, are survival, social order and entertainment, in that order (not necessarily). The reason I mention it here should become clear as you read on. Just spend some time to think on this, and then proceed...

In recent times, however, having a girlfriend has become something of a "fashion", or more appropriately, dikhaawa (show-off, translated from Hindi). When you are seen around with a girlfriend, you instantly become a hit in your friend circle. You become more social, your "social status" goes up. A person without a girlfriend tends to be viewed as something of a recluse (or sanyasi, in common language). Having a girlfriend, then, becomes a prestige issue for some, particularly, people who are finicky about their social status...

On the lighter side, though, commonly associated with the "girlfriend" concept is forwarded jokes (a term every IT professional identifies himself or herself with; click here to know the story about why we forward jokes!). I remember reading (and forwarding) several such jokes:

Differences between north-Indian and south-Indian girlfriends
Characteristics of a Maharashtrian girlfriend
Girlfriend naslyaache faayade (translated from Marathi, this means benefits of not having a girlfriend)

Believe me, I have nothing against the people who live the "love-can-conquer-all" philosophy. I disapprove (and sometimes, resent) people who wish (or want) to have girlfriends "just for timepass", as they call it (I have had discussions with them on this, mind you!).

And of course, people may argue that my frustration (of being single, or rather, non-committed) is driving me to write all this, but I assure you, this is not the case :-)

"Solitude is my choice, not an obligation..."

My parents as my role models

2006-05-21T21:42:00.000-07:00

I have recently started reading Ignited Minds: Unleashing the Power Within India by Dr A P J Abdul Kalam. It is the third book by him, after Wings of Fire: An Autobiography and India 2020: A Vision for the New Millennium. It is a highly motivating and inspirational book for anyone wanting to gain a deeper perspective into how we can all work towards a better, more prosperous and developed India.

One of the themes in the book that struck me was the importance of parents and elementary school teachers as role models for a growing-up child. Kalam's vivid descriptions took me down the memory lane into my own childhood. Many of you will remember the message about Mahatma Gandhi that used to be aired on Doordarshan: "The greatness of this man was his simplicity... Let us try and discover the Gandhi in ourselves". In a sense, I saw my father as the one I wanted to be like; I have always admired his simplicity and his ability to look at things unbiased, without taking sides in any way. From him, I have learnt how you can be open to new ideas, cultures and thoughts, without forgetting your roots. Here, I am reminded of a quote by Gandhiji: "You must open the windows of your mind, but you must not be swept off your feet by the breeze".

Coming to my mother, she is one of the most wonderful and the most important persons in my life (sure, as any "Mamma's boy" will say!). One of the most important qualities which I have imbibed from her is discipline. Discipline has brought an order in my life, one that makes my management tasks at my workplace much easier. Another valuable lesson I have learnt from her is adherence to ethics and moral values. This has helped me a lot in taking a clear stand in many difficult situations. In fact, these are the things I value the most, much more than any material possessions (not in that hardcore philosophical sense!).

Okay, I think I've talked enough... Time to move on :-)

Of Bangalore rains and traffic chaos

2006-05-18T21:17:00.000-07:00

Yesterday evening turned out to be a one to remember... One of our teammates, who is leaving for Chennai, gave us a treat in Ponnusamy, a Chettinaad-style restaurant in the heart of Koramangala... That, after we were totally drenched by the heavy rains that poured in, while we were on our way to the restaurant. We happily tucked in mutton pepper fry, chicken masala, fish fingers, egg fried rice and Hyderabadi biryani, nevertheless :-)

One thing I always wonder is why no one (including us!) in Bangalore bothers to carry umbrellas, even though they know it may rain heavily (complete with thunder and lightning) in the evening (it is convectional rainfall, I am told)... Almost always accompanying the rains is the traffic chaos that ensue, leading to hours of frustration for the techie crowd (I can safely generalize, I hope) heading home. This is on the roads... Add to it the muddy pavements, where it becomes a tight-rope walk challenge even for the most adventurous....

In a city where you have traffic coming towards you from all sides, I wonder if Lord Brahma (with his four heads!) himself will safely make his way home (if he doesn't take the aerial route, that is). Forget the traffic stuff on roads, even we pedestrians are not spared! Two-wheelers (almost always) take to the pavement as if it is meant for them to try their rallying skills... If you try to complain, they glare back at you as if you have committed a sin.

Anyways, I'm not complaining... These days, I'm working on another article which I hope to bring out next week or so. Till then, au revoir!

Something about addictions...

2006-05-17T06:29:00.000-07:00

I think every moral human being has to have an addiction in his (or her, now that everyone's talking) life, otherwise the purpose of you being on earth just isn't justified... Being a silent contributor to the current IT boom, you can bet one of my addictions will have something to do with it ("it" as in Information Technology, pun intended). I am not called a "hardcore Linux geek" for nothing :-)

Don't ask, what is "Linux"? Think of a cute, chubby penguin... And find it out for yourself here.

The other addiction is something far removed from IT (no pun here!): music. Someone has made an observation that all Linux geeks are rock fans, but I haven't named by blog "RadicalEthos" just because I couldn't find anything more obnoxious... I go "gaga" over Kishore Kumar, who I feel is one of the most talented singers Bollywood has ever produced (no doubts about that!). So if you meet any Linux nerd out on the streets humming away to a Kishore Kumar melody, don't forget: "Howdy, fella?"