life, universe and everything

Hello, Sad World

2011-10-17T19:30:00.004+05:30

Without Dennis Ritchie, you wouldn't be reading this.

When Steve Jobs died, there was a huge outcry, and that was very moving and justified. But Dennis M Ritchie had a bigger effect on the world. Last week, Dennis Ritchie, Father of C and Co-Developer of Unix, died. And it is a sad, sad event - his life must be celebrated!

The Internet essentially runs on Unix, and much of the software that you come across is written in C and its descendents such as C++ and Java. It is likely that any software that you are using to read this page - and a host of softwares that enable you to read this (operating system on your computer or mobile, the internet serverou us ysed to access this) has Dennis Ritchie's thumbprint on it.

He didn't just change the world, he made the world - or rather, said "Hello" to it.

From my point of view, 3 important things happened in 1978 - 1) Star Wars picked up in US Box Office as #1, 2) K&R wrote "The C Programming Language" and 3) I was born.

(other notable mentions: Bee Gees' "Saturday Night Fever" album goes #1, "Jesus Christ Superstar" closes at after 96 performances, Zaire revises constitution, "Annie Hall" wins best picture).

I am no programming wizard, but reading this book for the first time and working through it, remains a cherished experience. Kernighan and Ritchie, is a computer science masterpiece, I believe that it still remains prescribed text when teaching programming! (as it should be)

Thank you K&R for making the world.

I found some good quotes from fans at slashdot who are missing dmr -

"He gave us more than a few pointers"

"Goodbye world"

"I C now what he was saying"

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish

2011-10-07T17:17:00.008+05:30

Commencement address delivered by Steve Jobs, on June 12, 2005 to Stanford University graduates. I love reading this.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Janis, Jimi, Kurt, Jim . . . Amy?

2011-07-31T00:39:00.000+05:30

With her death at age 27, Amy Winehouse joined a list of rock stars who passed away at that age - Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, and Kurt Cobain.

Sobers on comparing batsmen across eras

2011-04-16T01:16:00.001+05:30

"The conditions in which Bradman, Compton and myself played were quite different. We played under uncovered wickets, we played under six bouncers an over, we played under beamers that were not called no-balls, we played under conditions when the field was set by players not rules like today, where you have only two men behind square.

We had teams those days who used to bowl 72 overs a day in what you called slow down tactics so players didn't get a chance to score that many runs. The fast bowlers then used to bowl with backfoot rule, where their front foot used to land two or three feet ahead of the bowling crease and you deliver off the front foot not the back foot, which meant they delivered from more close to you than it is now.

We didn't have helmets, we didn't have chest guards, no arm guards. So when you make comparisons, people must look at how they compare, because these are facts."

Truth About What Motivates Us

2010-09-27T14:24:00.002+05:30

There is mismatch between what science knows and what business does. When I heard Daniel H. Pink say this (repeatedly) - it not just resonated deeply with me, but it infuriated me to miss such an obvious truth till date!

In his book, Drive (and a highly recommended TED talk) Dan Pink demonstrates that while the old-fashioned carrot-and-stick approach worked successfully in the 20th century, it's precisely the wrong way to motivate people for today's challenges. In Drive, he reveals the three elements of true motivation:

Autonomy- the desire to direct our own lives
Mastery- the urge to get better and better at something that matters
Purpose- the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves

Reading the book just confirm the HUGE mismatch between what science knows and what business does.

The Five Essential Elements of Wellbeing

2010-09-27T14:06:00.001+05:30

For more than 50 years, Gallup scientists have been exploring the demands of a life well-lived. More recently, in partnership with leading economists, psychologists, and other acclaimed scientists, Gallup has uncovered the common elements of wellbeing that transcend countries and cultures. This research revealed the universal elements of wellbeing that differentiate a thriving life from one spent suffering. They represent five broad categories that are essential to most people:

Career Wellbeing: how you occupy your time -- or simply liking what you do every day
Social Wellbeing: having strong relationships and love in your life
Financial Wellbeing: effectively managing your economic life
Physical Wellbeing: having good health and enough energy to get things done on a daily basis
Community Wellbeing: the sense of engagement you have with the area where you live

What am I listening to?

2010-09-26T09:33:00.004+05:30

Discover by Daft Punk

(Highly recommended)

Time management

2010-09-23T21:44:00.003+05:30

In a recent interview published in InformationWeek, Google's Peter Norvig said something that stuck with me:

"People get out of balance when they see their value as being able to respond quickly. If I see myself as a machine for answering email, then my work life would never stop because my email never stops. If instead I see my value as separating the important from the unimportant and making good decisions on the important, then I can go home at a reasonable hour, spend time with my family, ignore my email and phone messages all weekend long, and make sure that when I return to work, I am in the right mood to make the good decisions."

Also I wanted to share a link :

Email management: http://inboxzero.com/articles/

Time management: http://www.43folders.com

Airtel takes 45 days to execute do not disturb SMS

2010-08-22T04:01:00.003+05:30

If you want to stop the promotional calls and hello tune calls from Airtel and Vodafone, you can SMS START DND to 1909 to stop these unwanted calls.

You can also do this from the Airtel and Vodafone websites.

Once you complete this procedure, you will get a message on your mobile (atleast on Airtel) saying that these annoying calls should stop "within 45 days from now!". These state-of-the-art companies with their sophisticated telecom and IT infrastructure! - it takes them 45 seconds to enroll a new customer, give her a shiny new SIM card, produce a new phone out of thin air, send a joke and predict her plan according to her zodiac. These companies can do all this within 45 seconds of you just thinking in your brain that you need a new number! .. Even before the thought in your brain .. "I want a new numb..." is finished, someone from Airtel is sure to ring the bell and whip out a SIM card! Then that Airtel person vanishes into a cloud of dust!

These companies take 45 days... 45 days! to stop sending you SMSes. I mean, firstly how complicated is it to stop something. Ummm... uhhhh... just press the stop button! Don't send the damn promotion... it takes less than 1 second... there! I didn't climb the Mount Everest! It took me less than 1 second to NOT climb the Mount Everest!!! And these companies take 45 days! In this day and age! ... Even a new passport under the urgent scheme can be done in 3 days! Come on Airtel and Vodafone, please stop scamming us!

I need to stop venting and go and not do something very stressful!

Joke

2010-08-07T16:37:00.000+05:30

For your amusement I have a joke in "C"

#include

#define SIX 1 + 5

#define NINE 8 + 1

int main(void)

{

printf( "The meaning of life: %d\n", SIX * NINE );

return 0;

}

Will you be a cynic, or will you be a builder?

2010-08-07T11:38:00.003+05:30

Just saw Jeff Bezos' commencement speech he gave to the graduates of Princeton University. The theme of his speech was - "We are What We Choose". He believes that we are the author of the story of our lives, and that life is scripted by the distinct choices that we make. Seems like Jeff is more in control of his destiny than the rest of us are! However, what he says about choices really resonates with my spirit. A small excerpt:

"How will you use your gifts? What choices will you make?

Will inertia be your guide, or will you follow your passions?

Will you follow dogma, or will you be original?

Will you choose a life of ease, or a life of service and adventure?

Will you wilt under criticism, or will you follow your convictions?

Will you bluff it out when you're wrong, or will you apologize?

Will you guard your heart against rejection, or will you act when you fall in love?

Will you play it safe, or will you be a little bit swashbuckling?

When it's tough, will you give up, or will you be relentless?

Will you be a cynic, or will you be a builder?

Will you be clever at the expense of others, or will you be kind?

I will hazard a prediction. When you are 80 years old, and in a quiet moment of reflection narrating for only yourself the most personal version of your life story, the telling that will be most compact and meaningful will be the series of choices you have made. In the end, we are our choices. Build yourself a great story. "

Will you be clever or will you be kind? I love that.

Going through this list, I can't help recall all the moments in my life when I made wrong choices. There were times when destiny had no role to play in the events, it was just me - standing at a fork. And in those moments, against better judgement, I distinctly remember taking the wrong path.

As someone whose life has, in some small measure, experienced vicissitudes of valiant successes and disastrous failures, cavalier triumphs and hopeless adversity, gifts of joy and unimaginable grief - the choices we make, like the ones laid out above, are the forks that will guide, build and define your life's story.

Build yourself a great story.

Five

2010-07-29T15:09:00.003+05:30

This august has 5 Sundays, 5 Mondays & 5 Tuesdays. All in 1 month. It happens once in 800 years. And Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar just scored his 5th double ton.

Its also been 5 years for me since life-changing events in my life took place. A lot has happened in the last 5 months!!

..Celebrate the magic of 5!

What am I listening to?

2010-07-02T18:02:00.002+05:30

Kings of Leon - Only By The Night

Stand out track: "Use Somebody" - Awesome song.

Best of 2010

2010-06-20T17:53:00.006+05:30

Well, I have been waiting to write this for the past 6 months. So what that we are halfway into 2010, and 2009 is now almost a faded memory. I say, all the more reason to remember 2009. Well, whatever, lets just get to it.

So, ladies and gentlemen. The best movies of 2009:

1. Star Trek

2. UP

3. The Blind Side

4. Moon

5. Julie and Julia

6. It's complicated

7. The Hurt Locker

8. The Hangover

9. Precious

10. Invictus

11. The Messenger

12. Inglourious Basterds

13. District 9

14. Taken

15. Up in the Air

16. G.I. Joe Rise of The Cobra

17. In The Loop

18. An Education

19. Watchmen

20. Knowing

21. The Taking of Pelham 123

22. Angels & Demons

23. In The Loop

24. State Of Play

25. The invention of lying

26. 500 Days of Summer

27. The Informant

28. The Men Who Stare At Goats

29. Crazy Heart

30. Ninja Assassin

There are a few honourable mentions, like "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans", "Peter and Vandy", "The Fantastic Mr. Fox", and "Whip It".

Best Bollywood movies last year,

1. 3 Idiots

2. Love Aaj Kal

3. Kaminey

4. Wake Up Sid

5. Dev D

Overall, it was a very sorry state of affairs for Hindi movies. Movies like "Blue" even made me walk out of the theater! I have never walked out of a theater. Even when I saw "Lal Badshah" in Benaras. But "Blue"... ;lsaj;fd... sorry, I fainted on my laptop trying to remember "Blue".

Disclaimer: I am sure there were some awesome movies made in India (in other languages) - but I missed them.

Lets talk music. There is plenty of stuff I heard last year. I won't talk about singles - just albums.

1. Kid Cudi - Man on the moon.

2. David Guetta - One Love

3. Led Zeppelin - How the west was won

4. Notorious B.I.G. - Ready to die

5. Coldplay - Viva la Vida

Best TV series. Well, I don't watch TV. But if I did, I know that I would be watching Dexter and House M.D. Well, thats exactly what I downloaded - Dexter and House. And let me tell you, my very small, albeit faithful audience - Season 6 of House M.D. is the best yet! Simply superb!

Dexter was really intriguing and addictive, as always.

Ok. Happy new year everyone! Looking forward to 2010!

:-) he he

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish

2010-06-17T23:00:00.000+05:30

Talking about a revolution

2010-05-30T22:03:00.005+05:30

On
December 1, 1862
Abraham Lincoln stood in front of the Congress and asked the following:

It is not "can any of us imagine better?" but, "can we all do better?"
The country was at war. Slavery and colonization were big issues. Lincoln was proposing what we could call today an "innovative plan" for action. What he said at the time is truly remarkable...and it moved me immensely. What Lincoln went onto say was the following:
"
The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise -- with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country."
When I heard this, I was struck by what it really means. What it takes to think anew? To act innovatively? To think differently?

First, "we must rise WITH the occasion", not "to the occasion" -- brilliantly said.

Second, "we must disenthrall ourselves" - To disenthrall is to "free oneself from a controlling force or influence". What Lincoln is saying is that to be truly
innovative, one must free oneself from the tyranny of common sense -- get rid of prejudices we have acquired over time -- and only then, hopefully then, we can truly think differently.
I hope all of us can learn how to face challenges in life from Abe Lincoln.

Unconquered

2010-01-26T19:53:00.003+05:30

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

If ever there has been a poem that 'speaks to me' and cuts through my soul - its the one written above.

Look up Hannah, Look up.

2009-12-22T18:58:00.001+05:30

Imagine a time, when the talkies had just come out, threatening to make Chaplin's world of silent films obsolete; Imagine a time when great evil was on the rise, threatening peace and liberty of every man. Charlie Chaplin dared to satirize Nazism and Adolf Hitler. In that movie, the Tramp finally spoke! Its the first time in history we all heard Charlie Chaplin, and this is what he had to say...

I'm sorry, but I don't want to be an Emperor - that's not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone, if possible -- Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another; human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there's room for everyone and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone.

The way of life can be free and beautiful.

But we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men's souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.

The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.

To those who can hear me I say, "Do not despair." The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass and dictators die; and the power they took from the people will return to the people and so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

Soldiers, don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you, enslave you, who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel; who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don't hate; only the unloved hate, the unloved and the unnatural.

Soldiers: Don't fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written, "the kingdom of God is within man" -- not one man, nor a group of men, but in all men, in you, you the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.

Then, in the name of democracy, let us use that power! Let us all unite!! Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give you the future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie! They do not fulfill their promise; they never will. Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people!! Now, let us fight to fulfill that promise!! Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness.

In the name of democracy, let us all unite!!!

Hannah, can you hear me? Wherever you are, look up, Hannah. The clouds are lifting. The sun is breaking through. We are coming out of the darkness into the light. We are coming into a new world, a kindlier world, where men will rise above their hate, their greed and brutality.

Look up, Hannah. The soul of man has been given wings, and at last he is beginning to fly. He is flying into the rainbow -- into the light of hope, into the future, the glorious future that belongs to you, to me, and to all of us. Look up, Hannah. Look up.

God

2009-11-15T14:33:00.005+05:30

Everywhere I look - TV, print, or radio - the media's fresh obsession is "20 years of Sachin Tendulkar". The Indian media is supremely cunning at creating national obsessions that fade away in a couple of days - not because the core issue fades away - but just like a young fragile mind of an immature child with severe attention-deficit disorder - the media's attention just moves away! (remember swine flu?) And with this, they try to sway, albeit with uncomfortable inertia, the interest of the nation.

Anyway, Sachin has been great, wonderful, exemplary...and all other superlatives! for as long as I can remember - no change in status quo - in short, HE WAS and IS A GOD - ever since he gripped my attention as a 16 year old.

So, although I don't share the sudden euphoria (or so called celebrations) about his mountain of achievements, but I thought this would be good time to share my personal feelings about him.

All I have to share are these rock-solid memories:

1. People, place and time regularly came to a stop when he got going. He brought life to a tranquil standstill.

2. There have been countless times when I just lost interest in the match after he got out.

3. Feeling the purest form of indescribable joy while watching him smother bowling attacks...no other sight in the world can compare to watching him in full flow. (Its a travesty to his achievements to single out examples, but maaaaan! that six against Shoaib in world cup semi-final! HEEE HA HA HA -- Joy!)

4. A gut-wrenching feeling for a split second, each time he gets out - even today! Most of the times the feeling pattern exactly mirrors the "stages of grief" described by psychologists - the only difference is that I go through the whole pattern in a split second. Here is the pattern, in order:
a. Shock and Denial
b. Pain
c. Anger
d. Depression and reflection
e. Reconcilliation with oneself
f. Acceptance

By the time he has made his walk back to the pavilion, I have gone through a.b.c.d.e.f - and this happens each time! A smile is wiped off my face in a split-second, each time he gets out.

5. He just doesn’t face just the skill of the bowler, or the strategies of a team planning to get him out, instead he faces the nervous anxiety of an entire country each time he walks out for India! I can't imagine the pressure he must feel. Just the thought paralyzes me. Instead, he entralls the whole country over and over again!

I am happy that I lived at a time when I got to see him play for my country. I am deeply thankful and touch his feet for giving me so many moments of pure joy.

Whether a flute should belong to a child who can play it, a child who has no other toys, or the child who made it

2009-11-13T01:06:00.002+05:30

Apparently, if you know the answer to this conundrum (in the title) you could frame the idea of justice in society. I wanted to read Amartya Sen's "Idea of Justice" for a while. So a few days ago, I read portions of it at a book store. I must say that its pretty hollow, or maybe I just didn't get it. In my opinion, the example he puts forth to make his argument is a good one, but he fails to solve it and leaves justice as an unresolved dilemma.

I also don't understand his point about public reasoning, and democracy! doesn't a benign dictator offer greater justice than an indecisive corrupt or even evil democracy?

Anyway, I dropped the idea of reading this book.

Instead, I am quite thrilled these days reading "The God Delusion" by British biologist Richard Dawkins. After hearing him speak at TED conference, I became a fan! And I must say, that the book is pretty good - and really well written!

I take this from wikipedia, since I can't summarize the book better: Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that belief in a personal god qualifies as a delusion, which he defines as a persistent false belief held in the face of strong contradictory evidence. He is sympathetic to Robert Pirsig's observation in Lila that "when one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion."
[My friends would know that Robert Pirsig is very close to me and the role of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance in my life! :-)]

The reason I love the book is also because it is dedicated to Douglas Noel Adams - one of my favourite authors, and whose untimely death still rankles me. DNA once said, "Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" - that kinda says what this book is about.

Such a fascinating book! It makes me feel so intelligent also! he he! :-)

Please read more about it here

What am I listening to?

2009-11-13T00:58:00.004+05:30

3 Fantastic albums!!

Kid Cudi's Man on the Moon: The End of Day. Standout tracks: Day n' nite, Pursuit of Happiness, Soundtrack 2 my life. I am sooooo addicted to Day n' nite and pursuit of happiness!

Jay Z's The Blueprint 3. Standout track: Empire State of Mind (feat. Alicia keys)

David Guetta's One Love: Standout track: Sexy B!@$ch (feat. Akon)

Photography competition winner...lucky me!

2009-10-26T01:31:00.003+05:30

This pic recently won at a small-time photography competition. Hope you guys like it!! Cheers!!

Good morale booster this is! :-)

What am I listening to?

2009-10-26T01:23:00.004+05:30

Awesome shit!

Standout tracks: The way I are, Oh Timbaland, Bounce, Come around, The way I are, The way I are (I know! its that good)

Love aaj kal!! Fall in love with love

2009-08-05T01:50:00.002+05:30

If u haven't seen love aaj kal, rectify this situation immediately. And that's all I have to say about that.

R.I.P. Michael Jackson - Ma ma se ma ma sa ma ma coo sa

2009-06-28T16:37:00.010+05:30

There are several scenes in the tableau of my childhood that are truly indelible. Michael Jackson was an integral part of those childhood scenes. Just like my parents, my house, my friends, and the times I was living in (i.e. 1980s and 90s) - he was just there - everywhere.

I have moved on since then - or so I thought. I have listened and loved a lot of music since the 1980s and 90s - but hearing about MJs demise made me stop and think. Over the past two days, there have been a flood of scenes and a vast collage of memories that flashed through my mind. His songs have been playing in my head - from "Don't stop Till You Get Enough" to "Keep the faith"

I want to share 10 Michael Jackson images/memories that are intricately linked to my childhood. Things I will never forget:
1) Image of his fans crying, literally weeping. I never understood why they did that, but it is an image fixated in my mind - girls with outstretched arms, tears flowing down and shouting "Michael!!" I don't think that in my lifetime I would ever witness an artist forming such an emotional bond with his fans that each time they saw him perform they were moved to tears.

2) My first ever English audio cassette. My dad bought it for me. I was a 9 year old kid growing up in my hometown (Kota, Rajasthan) - the cassette was "BAD" - I used to hear it over and over on our National Panasonic stereo. The year was 1987. The memories are 'Ah so sweet!'.

3) Then there were music videos. And the Dance! Phew! I don't know how to put a sentence together to explain how it felt when I saw him perform. It was in 1991, on TV, for the first time. I was mesmerized. The music videos were, umm...shall we say different. I know that today we would call them innovative, story-based, concept-based etc., but in the 90s, as a kid, I only knew that my jaw-dropped to the floor when I saw them. The special effects blew my mind at the time - esp. Thriller, Remember the time, Black or White.

4) Having a different favourite song each time I listened to an MJ album in the 90s. I distinctly remember that each time I heard Bad, Thriller or Dangerous, I found a new "best song" in the album. This hasn't happened with me with other albums.
Initially, I was convinced that "Beat it" was my favourite, but later after more listenings of Thriller I was convinced that "P.Y.T." was a masterpiece. Likewise while listening to "Bad", I had my "Speed Demon" days, "Liberian Girl" days, a "Man in the Mirror" phase, "The Way You Make Me Feel" phase and finally a "Dirty Diana" craze. Similiarly I went from "Remember the Time" and "Jam" being my favourites in Dangerous to "Who is it?" culminating with "In the closet".
Very few albums have had this effect on me. Probably, "Graceland" by Paul Simon, "Vault" by Def Leppard, "Royal Albert Hall: Bootleg series Vol 4" by Bob Dylan are some exceptions. But even they are not on the scale of Michael Jackson. MJs music had a profound effect.

5) Playing the "Moonwalker" game on my best friend's SEGA console. I still remember the first time all the bad guys break into 'the-anti-gravity-smooth-criminal-tilt' - it was jaw-dropping.

6) My best friend giving me VHS tapes of MJ videos for me to watch on weekends. I still remember that his music videos were treated like "Collector's items" by VCR owners in Indonesia. My friends and I would discuss intricate details from his music videos - we wondered about how they did some of the things e.g. the floor lighting in "Bille Jean", the face morphs in "Black or White", the black panther morph in the same song, the tilt in "Smooth Criminal", Slash's performance in "Give in to me", Micheal Jordan's antics in "Jam", the Who's Who in "Liberian Girl" etc. etc.

7) Watching Oprah (and recording it on VHS) interview Micheal Jackson. It was the first interview that I saw of his - actually the first time I heard him speak!

8) Testing other's music systems with MJ songs. Whenever any 'uncle' in Indonesia would buy a good sound system (Ofcourse, yours truly was invited to fix it) I remember carrying a "Dangerous" CD with me always to test the sound. Likewise, for portable CD-players and walkmen - unless the sound of the motorbike at the beginning of "Speed Demon" didn't give a dizzying stereo effect (entering one ear and coming out of the other ear) - I didn't consider the quality to be great. MJ's music was the benchmark for testing sound systems.

9) There was his poster in my room as a kid (See image on the left). I don't recollect how I got it or who got it for me. But it was there!!

10) Finally, I just wanted to share two videos which capture what it really means to be an "Entertainer". You cannot help but get entertained when you see him perform. What magic!
There is this amazing performance with a gospel choir. You need to see the whole thing till the end. Then you can catch a short glimpse here of how he really entertained a live audience.

I hope we remember MJ for who he really was - an unparalleled, once-in-a-lifetime, musical genius who moved and entertained millions with his music. Keep the faith!

Success

2009-05-20T00:20:00.005+05:30

Webster defines success as "the attainment of wealth, favor, or eminence".

For the most part, when I hear others talking about success - there are two views that I hear most often. When asked, "What do you think is success?", people talk in grandiose terms, where success for them includes having a balanced work-life, being happy etc. etc. Then, I also hear people citing other successful people in this world. Here, I often get examples that fall squarely into the Webster definition - i.e. people who have attained wealth, power and/or fame. So these are the two views that are prevalent.

As in my previous post, where I explore happiness, success has many definitions floating around Or, as a very dear friend of mine says profoundly, "To each his own".

In that spirit, I like the definition by John Wooden, and decide to follow it in my life: Success is peace of mind attained only through self-satisfaction at knowing that you made the effort to do the best in life for which you are capable of.

There is really nothing more anyone can do...and more importantly, only this [doing your best] is under your control. There are many other things that are not under your control. This is the same theme ('control') we explored earlier while talking about happiness. When you get terribly involved with things over which you have no control, it adversely affects things over which you have control. This has been a great learning for me, and I try to practice it.

The another very important aspect of this definition of success is that nobody else can really judge it from the outside. Its you, and only you, who would feel successful - or not.

I also really like what John Wooden says about Character and Reputation. He says reputation is what you are perceived to be and character is who you really are.

Having a great character is so much more important than having a good reputation in this world.

A verse which beautifully reveals my definition of success.
At God's footstool, to confess,
A poor soul knelt and bowed his head.
"I failed," he cried. The master said,
"Thou didst thy best. That is success."

What am I listening to?

2009-05-18T20:35:00.004+05:30

Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends

Standout tracks - "Strawberry Swing", "Viva la Vida", "Life in Technicolor"

Wolfram Alpha went online today

2009-05-17T00:11:00.003+05:30

http://www.wolframalpha.com/index.html

Read the Newsweek story if you want to learn more about this cool new search engine.

Socha Na Tha (सोचा न था)

2009-05-16T00:26:00.004+05:30

When there are no romantic strings attached, and two people do not have to impress each other, love prospers.

Socha na tha means I had never imagined.

It happens to be one of my favorite hindi movie (out of many favorites!)...probably because of its tag line...sab raazi the, phir bhi woh bhaag gaye (everyone was agreeing, still they ran away!).

Well, Imtiaz Ali made an excellent start to his career as a director and writer. Kudos boss!
Ayesha Takia...what can I say about her! She is truly a unique beauty in Bollywood (See her in "Dor" if you don't believe me).
Abhay Deol's debut movie...and boy! by the time he ends his career, he will leave a truly diverse and remarkable body of work (See Manorama: Six feet under, Dev D, Aahista Aahista, Ek Chalis Ki Last Local etc.. to understand what I mean).

A rare constellation of great talent. Perfect casting. Great songs. Awesome story (well, for me anyway!). Me likey.

Once you have learned how to speak, what will you say?

2009-05-06T05:09:00.002+05:30

You will become known for doing what you do. This may sound obvious, but it is a useful thing to realize. Many people seem to think they must endure a "rite of passage" which, once passed, will allow them to do the kind of work they want to do. Then they end up disappointed that this day never comes. Find a way to do the work you want to do, even if it means working nights and weekends. Once you've done a handful of excellent things in a given way, you will become known as the person who does excellent things in that given way. And that's the person you want to be, because then people will hire you to be that person.

The personal is powerful. Trust your own experience. It’s the only thing that’s really yours, and that’s really unique. Putting yourself in your work can be powerful.

Do your own thing. If you imitate, you’ll only ever be a bad example of the thing you’re trying to imitate. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t incorporate elements of other people’s work. As Picasso said: “Bad artists copy; great artists steal.” What he meant is that it can be OK to steal an idea from somewhere else, as long as you steal the idea and do something new with it, make it your own, and move on. If you copy it outright you’ll only get stuck in the past.

Once you have learned how to speak, what will you say? This is really the central question. If I can leave you with one idea, this would be it.

- Jonathan Harris, 2008
New York

Using computer science to explore human emotion

2009-05-06T03:16:00.003+05:30

The most amazing art project that I have ever seen. PLEASE CHECK IT OUT.

Its called We Feel Fine.

This project has been harvesting human feelings from a large number of weblogs. Every few minutes, the system searches the world's newly posted blog entries for occurrences of the phrases "I feel" and "I am feeling". When it finds such a phrase, it records the full sentence, and identifies the "feeling" expressed in that sentence (e.g. sad, happy, depressed, etc.).

The result is a database of several million human feelings, increasing by 15,000 - 20,000 new feelings per day.

The feelings can be searched and sorted across a number of demographic slices, offering responses to specific questions like: Do women feel fat more often than men? Does rainy weather affect how we feel? What are the most representative feelings of female New Yorkers in their 20s? What do people feel right now in Baghdad? What were people feeling on Valentine's Day? Which are the happiest cities in the world? The saddest? And so on.

I think the concept is just mind-boggling. Sometimes I forget that I did a Masters in computer science and that I could be doing this stuff as well :-)

Support the Rajasthan Royals

2009-05-05T19:08:00.005+05:30

Please support the Rajasthan Royals led by the "King of Spin" - Shane Warne!! and mascot-ed (not sure if there is a word) by the gorgeous Shilpa Shetty!!

I can't wait for them to win the 2009 edition as well.

Use cricinfo.com widgets to keep track on your google page or go to the IPL 2009 tournament homepage to follow all the scores and analysis

I am totally addicted for the past 20 days :-)

"Spirit of India" photography competition

2009-05-05T18:18:00.004+05:30

A picture I took in Agra recently won - well, not "won", but was "amongst the winners" at a photography competition. All thanks to my incredibly generous friend, who was kind enough to post it to the competition. I haven't won anything for my photography ever, so it was a great morale booster.

Here is the picture (on the left) - which is now becoming a "Spirit of India" poster.

Hope you like it.

You can follow my friend's blog here.

Find Satoshi

2009-05-05T18:01:00.002+05:30

"Six degrees of separation refers to the idea that human beings are connected through relationships with at most six other people."

Is it possible to locate a man given only his photograph and first name? A UK-based game company is testing the theory of six degrees of separation. They have given us a photograph of a man, a name, and the Japanese characters that translate to "Find me". Someone, somewhere, knows Satoshi. If you want to help spread the word and track down this person! Or truly test the Internet's power then Find Satoshi.

"I" Tunes - The tunes of your life

2009-05-05T17:27:00.003+05:30

On the day I was born in 1978 - Bee Gees' "Night Fever" was the #1 song in the world. Well, on the US Billboard actually. On the day my sister was born - (Just Like) Starting Over by John Lennon was the #1 song.

So, what was the #1 most popular song on the day you were born? Has this question ever kept you up at night?

If yes, then today is your lucky day. On this site you can find out.

Other #1 songs in of my life based on milestone dates in my life - this includes days when I moved overseas, my first crush, seeing love of my life for first time...etc. etc.

We Belong Together By Mariah Carey
Baby Got Back By Sir Mix-a-Lot
Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It) By Beyoncé
How You Remind Me By Nickelback
The Sign By Ace of Base

Its amazing how I am finding the songs that I love!! Is there any interconnection between milestones in my life, songs that I love and the U.S. Billboard #1? Pretty cool, eh?

Have fun building your list.

Clouds by Don't Panic

2009-04-30T00:32:00.003+05:30

Paradox of choice and delusions of control

2009-04-29T16:35:00.007+05:30

I was watching Barry Schwartz speak recently on the paradox of choice. Of the 20-odd minutes he was presenting, one line from his talk struck me - "you really want to get your decision damn right, if it is for all eternity".

He was talking about how "more choices" paralyzes people into inaction and was citing some research done on retirement fund savings at Vanguard. Anyway, I do believe in the paradox of choice. Is the world really becoming a better place by having more choices? Cars, cellphones, monthly internet plans, Heck! even getting a simple sandwich is tough - Blue cheese , Ranch or Italian? Wheat, white or rye? There is an explosion of choices available to all humans today.

Are we better off?

An important question, however, this is not the question that I am interested in or even going to attempt to answer. That's for learned psychologists and economists to worry about. I would like to explore things we DON'T choose in our lives.

I feel that knowing this is crucially important as well - and yet, there is very little discussion on this. Apart from few proverbial chestnuts like, 'we don't choose our friends' etc. there is little explicit discussion on things that we don't or can't choose - and especially regarding things that matter. In someway, I feel that unearthing the things that we don't choose would be liberating and hence might hold the key to happiness.

Someone once told me that there are three things that profoundly affect all of our lives. The 3 things are:
1. Which family we are born into?
2. Who do we spend our lives with? or Who is the love of our life?
3. What our kids do when they grow up? or How our kids lead their lives?

As I look at these 3 things - the fundamental factors, which determine how happy we feel over our lifetime - I came to a realization that we have very limited choice in these matters. Its astounding for me to realize that the things which give us the most amount of happiness are the very things that we are completely incapable of affecting in anyway. Whatever delusions of control we might carry about how we lead our lives are quickly swept away by this realization.

It is arguable if the 3 things above are indeed the right set of items. What about wealth? power? fame? etc. Don't these things contribute to our happiness? Well, ofcourse yes. But the factors which enable us to get into a position of achieving wealth, power and fame, directly germinate from whether or not we had a 'decent headstart' and a 'happy and stable family'. While the first point on the list refers to the headstart, the other 2 are about having a happy and stable family.

Now, my father was a genius - a small town blue collar engineer who rose from poverty, went on to graduate from one of the best schools in India, was brilliant in academics, and had an infectious passion for cricket, music, arts and life-in-general. My mother had 4 college degrees, taught science in a school, and was an incredible beacon of compassion, love and strength. I am not sure if I would have tread the same path in life if I were born to a different set of parents. Infact, I am significantly under-achieveing given the headstart I have had. But thats a different subject. I have had my share of roadblocks. But, coming back to the point, I sometimes wonder about being born in a village in Mozambize or into a broken family etc. So did I have a choice in this matter [where I was born]? The answer, which I hope you will all agree, is No! And yet, did this [where I was born] affect my life in profound ways? Absolutely yes!

Therefore, in some way, outcome of our lives is a product of this decent or underprivilidged (as the case might be) headstart that we get from being born into a particular household. Having said this, I must mention that there are some remarkable people who do overcome this with great gusto - for most people (the 80%, content to be well inside the bell curve) the headstart matters. And what they go on to achieve during their lifetime is determined in a significant way by which household they were born into. I sadly don't have any statistical research on this, but I know some research from the field of corporate performance (see the Strategic Management Journal) where researchers have often found a significant 'residual' (unexplained factor) when they attempt to unearth what really drives corporate performance. I call this luck.

Now, here is my main contention or my central thesis - If I don't have any control whatsoever on the things that affect my life profoundly, they why do I worry at all? Why do I carry this delusion of control? and, Why do I fret about relatively insignifant problems in life?

Coming to other things, and again, I don't have statistics to convince you, but I hope you will agree that over a long-term (a lifetime) our achievements are built on a platform of a happy and stable family. Or forget about achievements for a second (who needs them! hah!) just think about being on your death bed, with clear certainty of death in the next few minutes. At that time, I am sure you won't be bothered with your bank balance or your position in the corporate hierarchy - what would matter would be the people around you and how much they care for you.

So do I really have a choice in who do I spend my life with? My life's experience says No! Love just happens. I am grateful that it has happened to me, and that I am able to nurture the incredible feeling of heightened senses and pure joy. More importantly, I didn't plan to fall in love with say person X - it just happened - moreover, the fact that I may or may not end up being with that person is still uncertain. We come back to the same question - Do I have a choice in this matter? No! And yet, over the long-term, will this [ending up with the person I love] affect my life in profound ways? Absolutely yes!

Same thing applies to kids - they can be a source of incredible joy, and yet we have little control over the outcome of their lives or whether they end up even liking their parents or not. At best we can do our best at raising them, teaching them and imparting certain values via examples. But we can't profess any control whatsoever about how they turn out to be, later in their lives. Yet 99% of the parents carry an incredible delusion of control about the fact that they can affect the outcome or control what their kids will think or do.

We have just established that we have no choice on the most important things in our lives, which contribute most profoundly towards a happy life. Yet we worry, or feel stress everyday or strive to be happy. Whats the point? Why do we wrestle so much with this delusion of control?

I don't know. I just know that I feel a little more liberated each time I realize the things we don't choose.

Coming back to choices, and the explosion of alternatives on offer today - which is where our discussion started. Barry Schwartz claims that more choices end up making us even more dissatisfied in life. He feels that having too many choices presents us with too many imagined alternatives that induces us to regret the choice that we have made and this regret subtracts from the satisfaction we ought to get from the decisions we make, even if, at the time, it was a good decision. Hence, and I agree with him, that we end up more dissatisfied when presented with more choices than we would have been, if we had lesser 'imagined alternatives' to choose from.

Why do I bring this up again? The reason being that we can't talk about happiness without understanding 'regret', 'satisfaction' and 'expectations'. We all know that low expectations = happiness. But have you ever achieved any meaningful happiness by having low expectations? Its just an impractical idea. So where does this old impractical belief leave us? and what is low expectation anyway? Can we even control the amount of expectation we feel? I guess not. In fact I hope not! Because it would amount to dampening of senses. What I mean is that I feel that we can't live our lives by going through it via a dampening muzzle (like a silencer of a gun). We need to live it with a bang! We deserve to live it fully by feeling all the senses that we feel. Yet, we are told to manage our expectations. Its just not possible. Would you like to dampen your senses during sex just to convince yourself later that you really enjoyed it? Its absurd.

I prefer a more rational route of realizing happiness through the deeper understanding of choices (or lack thereof), regrets and (dis-) satisfaction. Understanding that regret is born from imagining alternative choices we could have made and knowing that dissatisfaction is born from our heightened expectations and thinking about pleasant attributes of those alternative choices is fairly important. We can't dampen our expectation each and every time we confront a glowing moment in our life. That would be living a very muted - or a shock absorbed life. Instead, if we well and truly realize that we can't really choose to be happy, then where does this leave us?

I think in a great position. We only need to do 2 things in life:
1) Keep an open mind
2) Go about doing the best in everything that we set out to do

and hope that the so called "big" things, which are totally out of our control anyway, will fall in place - Hence we have no reason to worry at all - which leaves me quite a happy person :-)

What about you?

The expectation and obligation of availability

2009-04-28T14:38:00.007+05:30

I learned a new word today - Ubuntu - pronounced ùbúntú (doesn't help, I know) is (as per wikipedia) an ethic or humanist philosophy focusing on people's allegiances and relations with each other. The word has its origin in the Bantu languages of Southern Africa.

Nobel peace prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu has this to say about Ubuntu - “A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others...he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole...". He goes on to say, "[Ubuntu is] the essence of being human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can't exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can't be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality - Ubuntu - you are known for your generosity."

Anyway, as I was reading this it struck me that I got Ubuntu! And its a Samsung SGH-B100i with a 3.0MP camera. Archbishop Tutu would have been proud of me. I should be known for my generosity!

Cellphones are the Ubuntu-carriers of the modern age. The medium which ensures that we don't live as individuals and stay connected, so that whatever it is that we do, it affects others as well.

With each passing day, I feel that are very few "here and now" moments that I get to experience in life. Simply due to the proliferation of cellphones. What is even more intriguing, are the behavioral social patterns that have emerged with the advent of modern day cellphones.

As Renny Gleeson puts it, when someone answers her phone in the middle of a live conversation, its almost like she is telling me that "You are not as important to me as almost anything that can come to me through this device". Its almost like when the phone rings you are expected to stop what you are doing immediately, and need to immediately alter your present reality and mould it to someone else's reality. In many instances, it is akin to someone barging through the door and hollering "Stop what you are doing! TALK TO ME NOW!". Perhaps this view is too extreme - and don't get me wrong - I participate in this as well. Willingly too. I do call people - don't I? Still, I remember the times when my physical reality - people and things in my immediate vicinity - were more important to me than the alternative 'voice-only' reality that I share with my cellphone.

I do realize that people are going mobile. No question. Have a look.

I am also not an over-nostalgic anti-technology proponent of the 'good old times'. No Sir. Its just that, I haven't coped well with the expectation and obligation of availability that comes from living with my cellphone.

How do I find the right balance between my immediate physical reality, i.e. the things/people around me, vis-a-vis the obligations of staying connected and sharing life with people who are distant?

I am sure this guy doesn't know the answer.

What am I listening to?

2009-01-06T21:56:00.004+05:30

Super Album.

Updated my movies page

2008-12-30T03:19:00.003+05:30

Guys, as per your suggestion, I have started capturing my movie list. Hopefully, in a year or so, the vast collection in my mind will soon be captured on this webpage. After all, its my lifetime's work, and still a work in progress :-)

http://www.adwivedi.com/movies

Updated my photography page - check it out

2008-12-30T03:17:00.002+05:30

www.adwivedi.com/photography

Plenty more coming soon!

Would love some feedback on the pictures.

Best of 2008

2008-12-30T01:47:00.011+05:30

Its that time of the year. The end. Its time to reflect on the year that was...

My fav bollywood song:
There are too many to list down here! I keep listening to them on the radio (with Sud!), but never remember the name. The winner for 2008 is "Ye tumhari meri baaten"...but some of the other favorites are:

Just can't enough of Rock on!! :-) "Tum Ho to" gave me a new reason to pick my guitar once again!! Songs from Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na, Ghajini, Jab We Met, Race etc. then some of the popular radio hits like Maa ka laadla, Lucky boy etc have also grown on me...which I have enjoyed while waiting for Sud.

Some other super songs this year:

Currently learning to play, "Pehli Nazar Mein" from Race, "Roobaroo" from RDB, "In dino dil mera" from Life in a Metro.

Go to my music page for more details: www.adwivedi.com/music

Top movies of 2008 according to Abhijeet :-)
1. The Dark Knight - Saw it 4 times! Haven't seen a better movie in ages.
2. A Wednesday - Very relevant
3. Aamir - I love experiments
4. Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na - Makes me want to fall in love, again!
5. Ghajini - Well... Aamir Khan
6. Rock On!! - The only movie other than #8 which made me cry this year.
7. Burn after reading - Love Coen brothers
8. Taare Zameen Par - Saw it twice! Awesome movie! Will never forget it.
9. Wall-E - The only movie other than #6 and #8 which made me cry this year.
10. In Bruges - I am sure many of you have missed this movie. I was lucky to catch it by accident in Chicago. Really good movie - pulp fiction level.
11. The curious case of Benjamin Button - Haven't seen such a good movie in a long time.
12. Slumdog Millionare - You know the happy feeling you get, when you just finish a good movie. You will get 10x that feeling after this movie.
13. Iron man - Well, what can I say, I love Robert Downy Jr.
14. Frost/Nixon
15. Man on Wire - Best documentary I have seen

Best soundtrack this year (non-hindi) - Hands down its "Slumdog Millionaire"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHUQht1HRmY

Top TV series of 2008
1. Dexter (Finished all 3 seasons! Yay!)
2. House MD (Well into season 5. Had to catch up a lot after moving to India. But well worth it)
3. Californication (Love David Duchovny)

The next list is of all the top gadgets that I wish I had in 2008. Every year, I make this list (of stuff I never end up buying), as I always end up buying stuff for others, but never for myself. But now that I have a blog, I thought atleast I must store my thoughts somewhere. So here goes, the stuff I will buy in my better days :-)
1. The FatMan iTube ValveDock

2. Sennheiser MX W1

3. "The" camcorder

4. My fav toy! I am not the right age. But hey, give me a break! Look at it!! ha ha!

Enough lists...its time for me to go and listen to some music. Ciao my friends.

2006-07-11T20:43:00.000+05:30

Its would seem things would change. But no. Nothing changes. World is still the same.

2006-05-01T07:39:00.000+05:30

Something changed today...No! wait! ..nothing changed. Hmm. Sorry.

2005-04-23T01:05:00.000+05:30

Nothing ever changes in the world. Well, at least nothing of any consequence....yawn...

2005-01-19T21:10:00.000+05:30

Even today, nothing has changed.

2004-05-03T20:12:00.000+05:30

Nothing changed in the world today!