The Wondering Wanderings..

Best Siddhuisms from the World Cup

2011-03-26T14:06:00.003+05:30

Beware of the naked man who promises you his shirt.

Stop calling the world dirty and first clean your spectacles.

Great minds have purpose, others have wishes.

You ask the same question to 10 people in India, you will get 20 opinions.

A hair and a hair can make a mare's head go bare.

Best of the lot - Democracy is like a barber's chair. It fits everyone's bottom.

Most humorous -
Siddhu - A pessimist burns his bridges before they are built
Harsha's reply - And an optimist dreams of a bridge and thinks it is there.

P.S. - Here are some old gems from the verbenator.

Best "Yes Minister" Episodes

2011-02-05T19:43:00.001+05:30

I first saw the Yes Minister series as a child. Although one would imagine that the mature satire of this famous series would be beyond comprehension of a young kid, I was somehow hooked to it completely. Perhaps it was the influence of my dad who loved the show as it reflected the frustrations he had endured by being a part of the Indian bureaucratic system all his life, that drew me to the series. I simply loved the fabulous interplay between the Minister James Hacker and his Permanent Secretary Sir Humphrey Appleby, the amazingly convoluted ways in which the characters uttered the simplest of phrases and the brutal satire on the state of the civil service and politics.

Over the last few days, I have had the opportunity to catch all episodes of this epic series again on YouTube. Although each and every episode is stuff of sheer genius, here is my list of 5 favorite Yes Minister / Yes Prime Minister episodes (Not in any particular order).

"The Death List" (on YouTube - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)
"The Skeleton in the Cupboard" (on YouTube - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)
"Party Games" (on Tudou)
"The Key" (on YouTube - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)
"The Tangled Web" (on YouTube - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)

And here are the episode ratings given on IMDB.

Yes Minister

Yes Prime Minister

Readers are requested to share their favorite episodes as comments.

Chronicals of a chronic cricket fan.. Part III..

2011-01-17T05:36:00.000+05:30

6th December 1991 -

I young kid was glued to the TV set, watching cricket being telecast live from the land of Oz for the 1st time on Door Darshan. India were playing the West Indies in Perth. India batted first, and as used to be the case very often in those days, failed to cope with a fast wicket, and were blown over for 126 only. But our bowlers soon staged a comeback, reducing the Windies to 76 for 8, and then 113 for 9. And then Anderson Cummins and Partick Patterson began their last wicket stand. Slowly but surely the chipped away at the runs. By the end of the 40th over, scores were level. Mohd Azharuddin, the captain had bowled out all his four regular bowlers by then, and had to resort to Sachin Tendulkar. The young kid who had seen the last 2 wickets for West Indies add 50 runs and frustrate all Indian bowlers, had finally had enough. "Now we have even run out of main stream bowlers. They are surely going to score the 1 run needed and win." He thought to himself and switched off the TV.

Later that night, when he switched on the TV for his dose of Door Darshan Samachar, he got the shock of his life when he heard that Sachin had taken the last wicket and the match ended in a tie !!

15th January 2011 -

A young professional was watching a live steaming telecast of an match between India and South Africa being played in Johannesburg, on his laptop. India batted first and were blown over for 190. South Africa began the chase well, but faltered in the 2nd half of their innings. Indian bowlers reduced them to 177 for 8. But then Wayne Parnell and Morne Morkel took South Africa to within 2 runs of victory. Given that Harbhajan Singh had bowled out, and Zaheer Khan had just finished an over from the other end, skipper MS Dhoni opted for the ever lethargic Munaf Patel to bowl. The professional had had it by now. Munaf Patel's fitness levels reminded him of cricketers of 70's that he had seen on achieve footage on Youtube. "All hope is lost." He thought to himself, closed the window and decided to do something else.

When he checked the Cricinfo commentary and score 5 minutes later, he saw that lazy bones Munaf had had Santa Clause visiting him 3 weeks late and gifted him 2 wickets of wide long hops (video), and ensuring that India had won by one run !!

P.S. - Here are Part I and Part II.

Business Class

2011-01-11T23:31:00.000+05:30

A friend of mine asked me to to comment on this blog post. During the course of jotting down an elaborate comment, I realized that I had enough material to create a post of my own. So here are a collection of miscellaneous thoughts that I have on managerial qualities.

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I have been watching the Star Trek series in my free time off late. I started with The Original Series (with Captain Kirk) and am currently seeing The Next Generation (with Captain Picard).

The 2 captains in TOS and TNG are a study in contrast. While Kirk was a person who lead from the front and micro managed everything, Picard is a master delegator who delegates all secondary tasks to competent personnel and only acts as the face of the Enterprise to the external world. Kirk was an arrogant person who pushed his subordinates to shot for impossible targets. He would even go to the extent of being rude in order to get the work done. He on more than one occasion disobeyed orders from his seniors. But Picard is more well behaved and trusts the ability and opinion of his subordinates. He is also more obedient towards orders from Star Fleet, even if he does not agree with them. But at the end of the day, both of them get the job done efficiently, and save the day for everyone. I am sure all of us have met managers in real life who are similar to Kirk and Picard.

I have noticed some differences between Indian and American managers during my experience of working with them, which can be linked to the difference in social behavior between Indians and Americans in general. Indians tend to be more overt in exhibiting the following things than Americans (The Americans have these tendencies too, but due to the culture of the country, such things are not very overtly obvious.)

- Ego due to one's position

- Treatment of sub-ordinates with less respect

- Lack of appreciation of other peoples ability, ideas, interests and personal space

Some of the best managers that I have seen are ones that are able to maintain friendly relations with their subordinates (as opposed to bossy) as well as keep enough distant from them so that the subordinates do not take liberties. The key point here is that the connection needs to be genuine and not superficial. Many managers appear to be quite nice and friendly with the sub-ordinates at a superficial level, but actually use the "glib talking" to lure them into things they want them to do. These people are the most dangerous. I would rather have my manager convey the expectations from me in plain language, than coax me into a corner by giving some Gyan.

At the same time, one needs to understand that the job of a manager is not very easy. The resources at disposal (promotion slots, onsite opportunities, budget, timelines) are always limited. And the demands of clients and sub-ordinates are always higher. So most managers do not have any option but to "lie" their way out of sticky situations, making promises that they know they are not going to fulfill. Even Yudhisthira had to resort to an un-truth in the Mahabharat. But as a subordinate, would much rather prefer someone who is objective and honest, rather than someone who is not.

Beating Mr. Murphy

2010-12-30T07:01:00.012+05:30

Warning – ill-logical post ahead.

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If there is one law in the universe that is understood and endured by all, it is the Murphy’s Law. It states that "Anything that can go wrong; will go wrong". Another interpretation of the Law is that “If you expect something to happen, it never will. If you don’t, it definitely will”. For example, if you carry an umbrella with you, it will not rain. If you don’t, it definitely will rain. The internet connection at your home will work perfectly all year, but get screwed up on the day you are working from home. If you are late in reaching office on a single day in the entire year, you will find our boss looking for you at your desk when you arrive. This will not happen on any other day when you are on time.

Every human being is often frustrated by Murphy’s Law. I am no exception. In fact, I have fallen prey to Murphy’s Law so often that I now expect it to strike anytime. I try to anticipate various eventualities and build contingencies where ever possible. Here are a couple of examples.
If I have 2 pieces of paper in my pocket, one that has a phone number I am looking for, and another that does not, the mathematical probability of me picking the correct slip of paper from the pocket is 50%. But it is funny how I would almost always pick up the wrong piece of paper from my pocket first. In order to overcome this, I at times pick one piece of paper, drop it, and get the other piece out of my picket. This example applies to many scenarios in real life.
Another example. I am sure that the day I am low on charge in my cell, I would get an important call while on the road. So, I try to keep a charger handy at all times. But you can never outsmart Mr. Murphy completely. There can always be a day when the charge would be low AND there would be no electricity for me to re-charge AND I would get an urgent call at the same time.

On giving some more thought, I have figured that there are other ways of beating Mr. Murphy. One can use two occurrences of the law to cancel each other out. Here is an example. One of the most general examples of Murphy’s Law is that “If you plan for something, it will not happen. If you don’t, it will”. If you intend to go on a holiday on a specific time of the year and have made bookings and reservations well in advance in order to avoid a last minute rush, Murphy’s Law would indicate that something urgent would come up at the last moment and you would have to cancel the holiday plans. This is one occurrence of Murphy’s Law. This can be countered by applying another occurrence of Murphy’s Law on top of it. If you don’t make any advance arrangements, you will be able to go to the holiday and have to rush like hell at the last minute. Putting both the occurrences together, a way of beating Mr. Murphy emerges. If you really want to go for a holiday, do not make any arrangements in advance. If you do, Mr. Murphy will ensure that you cannot go. If you don’t, Mr. Murphy will ensure that you do go. You will have to endure the pain of making all arrangements at the 11th hour, but at least your bigger objective of going on a holiday would be satisfied.

While on the topic of Murphy’s Laws, another anecdote comes to my mind. A couple of years back, I was involved with projects related to the entertainment industry and was working with various Hollywood studios. In the beginning of the year, I travelled to Los Angeles for a short business trip. On a weekend, I decided to visit one of the famous theme parks. I came to know that my paying a few extra bucks, I could buy an annual pass to the theme park instead of a single day pass. It made sense to me since it was difficult to see all major attractions in a single day. And as I was working for projects in the entertainment industry, I expected to come back to Los Angeles soon for some other project. Hence I guessed that I would always have the opportunity to use the pass again.

By now you would have already guessed what happened next. Mr. Murphy struck. My next project ended up being in the publishing industry and I landed up on the east coast of US. Hence Mr. Murphy had all but ensured that the annual pass was wasted. But this time I was determined to not let Mr. Murphy get the better of me. I went back to the west coast before the year ended, visited the theme park again, and made sure that I utilized my annual pass and saw all the attractions that I missed the first time.

My Digicams

2010-12-15T08:58:00.001+05:30

July 2006 - December 2010

Sony Cybershot DSC T5

December 2010 - Present

Sony Cybershot DSC HX1

Decoding the Geeta - Part 2

2010-12-13T04:51:00.005+05:30

Caution :– Long post ahead

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Continued from here.

Link between spirituality and science

As I have expressed before, concepts of religion and spirituality were created by great thinkers at various stages of human history in order to show man the right way of living life. While some aspects of various streams of religious thought are in the realm of fiction, used to force man to follow the right path based on a feeling of fear of divine beings, some other aspects do have parallels in science. It was perhaps the very limited development of science at the time that these ideas were first propagated, that resulted in them being represented in the realm of religion and spirituality than the realm of science, for the sake of a common man’s acceptance. For example, the fact that the “tulsi” plant has renowned medicinal properties perhaps resulted in it being designated the status of a holy plant. The various benefits obtained from a cow (as a source of transport, resource for ploughing fields, source of milk, manure and energy) resulted in it being designated a divine animal. According to Hindu cosmology, the entire universe is created and destroyed in one day of Brahma’s life. The next day in his life heralds the creation of a new universe. One full day (1 kalpas) in Brahma’s life consists of 8.64 billion years. Modern science estimates the age of the universe as being about 13.75 billion years. The fact that ancient astronomers got the order of magnitude of the biggest calculation in the world right, indicates the maturity their scientific awareness, and also shows how they used religion to convey scientific truths.

Now that we live in an age of science, where blind belief in religious and spiritual thought is not considered rational by many, perhaps linking scientific truths to spirituality will help a modern man understand it better. Unfortunately, most literature of the day on the Geeta has been authored by religious gurus, who have not moved on with the times in terms of explaining the purport in a language of the modern scientifically thinking rational man. If efforts in made in this area, today’s generation can view the great poem in a completely new light and appreciate it. Who knows, they may even be able to inculcate some of the teachings in their lives.

As an engineer, I have often tried to find parallels between spiritual and scientific thought. One of the greatest theories in Hindu spiritual thought is the concept of “aatman” (soul). As elucidated in the Geeta, “aatman” is un-damageable and indestructible, whereas the body is not. And the aatman keeps going through infinite cycles of taking various bodily forms. Although this idea seems to be in the realm of fiction to most people, I believe I have a theory for linking the concept of “aatman” explained in the Geeta to parallels in science.

Literal meaning of relevant shkolas from the Geeta

na jayate mriyate va kadacit

nayam bhutva bhavita va na bhuyah

ajo nityah sasvato 'yam purano

na hanyate hanyamane sarire

Breaking it word by word -

na -- never; jayate -- takes birth; mriyate -- dies; va -- either; kadacit -- at any time (past, present or future);

na -- never; ayam -- this; bhutva -- having come into being; bhavita -- will come to be; va -- or; na -- not; bhuyah -- or is again coming to be;

ajah -- unborn; nityah -- eternal; sasvatah -- permanent; ayam -- this; puranah -- the oldest;

na -- never; hanyate -- is killed; hanyamane -- being killed; sarire -- the body.

Literal Translation

For the soul there is neither birth nor death at any time. The soul has not come into being, does not come into being, and will not come into being. The soul is unborn, eternal, ever-existing and primeval. It is not slain when the body is slain.

Vasamsi Jeernani Yatha Vihaya Navani Grihanani Naroparani

Tatha Sharirani Vihaya Jeernani Aniani Samyathi Navani Dehee

Breaking it word by word -

Vasamsi- Clothes, Jeernani- worn out, Vatha- as, Vihaya- Casting off, Navani- now, Grihanani- takes, Narah- A man,

Tatha- so, Sharirani- bodies, Aniani- others, Samyathi- enters.

Literal Translation

As a man casts off his worn out clothes and adorns new ones, so does the soul casts off worn out bodies and enters into other which are new.

Avyaktadini bhutani

Vyakta-madhyani bharata

Avyakta-nidhanany eva

Tatra ka paridevana

Breaking it word by word -

avyakta-adini--in the beginning unmanifested; bhutani--all that are created;

vyakta--manifested; madhyani--in the middle; bharata--O descendant of Bharata;

avyakta—non manifested; nidhanani--all that are vanquished; eva--it is all like that;

tatra--therefore; ka--what; paridevana--lamentation.

Literal Translation

O descendent of Bharata, all beings start without a physical body and at death they are again without a body. Only in between do they have a physical body, so why lament?

na tv evāhaḿ jātu nāsaḿ

na tvaḿ neme janādhipāḥ

na caiva na bhaviṣyāmaḥ

sarve vayam ataḥ param

Breaking it word by word –

na — never; tu — but; eva — certainly; aham — I; jātu — at any time; na — did not; āsam — exist;

na — not; tvam — you; na — not; ime — all these; jana-adhipāḥ — kings;

na — never; ca — also; eva — certainly; na — not; bhaviṣyāmaḥ — shall exist;

sarve vayam — all of us; ataḥ param — hereafter.

Literal translation

Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be.

Explanation given by religious gurus -

The core principle elucidated in these shlokas is the fact that the soul is eternal entity that has no beginning or end. Neither does it have any shape or form. The soul passes from one body to another limitless number of times. The soul enters a living being’s body at the time of his birth and exits at the time of his death. Subsequently, it may enter another living being’s body. A living being can be any animal or plant. No person in the world knows the living being that his soul had inhabited previously or will inhabit in the future. The body is just like a dress that the soul wears which can be thrown away after a while and be replaced by a new one. Hence one should not lament the loss (death) of a bodily form, as the soul has not died with it.

Krishna tells Arjuna that there was never a time in the universe when Arjuna, Krishna or any of the kings fighting the battle did not exist in the past. And there will never be a time when they will cease to exist in the future. But Arjuna or anyone else will never know the various forms in which they exist.

Possible scientific parallels –

Everything in this universe is made up of atoms and molecules. This includes the living and the non-living. A man is born from the atoms of his mother. The food and nutrition that help him grow and become an adult consist of atoms. When a man dies, the atoms that make up his body get dissipated in nature. They transform into other natural elements and mix with soil, water or air. These atoms may then follow an infinite number of routes to the body of another living being. An atom mixed in soil may become a part of a seed of a plant, an atom mixed with water may be ingested by an animal, inhibit its body and then move to its offspring. The possibilities are endless. Some atoms may spend an extended period of time in a non-living form (in metal, rock, air etc.) before moving into living being’s body.

The atoms that all of us are made up of are nothing but our soul. They come together into a finite form (“dress”) that we call our bodies. They will depart from our bodies after our death and merge with some other part of nature. And this cycle with infinite number of combinations is each stage is repeated infinite times. None of us know where the atoms that we are made of come from, which living or non-living entity did they inhabit earlier, or what they will transform into after our deaths. Hence an enlightened person should not mourn the loss of a bodily form, as the constituent elements will never be lost. The atoms that all of us consist of are in a sense eternal and cannot be destroyed.

Conclusion –

This example shows how intelligently the writer(s) of the Geeta may have molded a scientific truth into a spiritual concept in order to show man the right path. They used the fact that all things in the universe consist of the same constituent elements (atoms) that go through infinite cycles of transformation to impress upon man the idea of "aasakti" from the physical body. The concept of the “aatman” was been used to motivate people to "give their best" to anything which they do without actually attaching a very material significance to their actions.

Readers are welcome to leave their thoughts as comments.

References -

1. Mahabharat Episodes with the Geeta (Must watch) –

a. Episode 72

Decoding the Geeta - Part 1

2010-10-26T01:35:00.003+05:30

Caution:- Long post ahead.

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As a great fan of Mahabharat, and a student of the principles of life outlined in the Geeta, I have constantly tried to unearth the real meaning behind some of the convoluted shlokas that make up this epic poem. But unlike most others who read the translations and subsequent elaboration provided by most books on The Geeta, I preferred approach is to de-construct each original Sanskrit word myself and arrive at my own interpretation of the subject matter. I prefer this in order to avoid biasing my personal understanding of the lines by interpretations of others. I guess this approach is similar to understanding the results of a chemical reaction by actually performing an experiment in the lab, as against just reading about it in a textbook and assuming it to be correct.

In this post, I will try to deconstruct the most famous lines in The Geeta and present my understanding. These lines provide the proverbial “saar” of the Geeta. Almost everything else said in the Geeta can be linked to these lines in some way or the other. Please feel free to post comments and share your thoughts.

karmaṇy evādhikāras te

mā phaleṣu kadācana

mā karma-phala-hetur bhūr

mā te sańgo 'stv akarmaṇi

Let us start by breaking up the above lines into each individual word. (Sanskrit is a language of sandhi (joint words). In order to decipher the meaning of any shlokha, one needs to separately identify each and every word, and then put the meaning back together).

karmaṇi — in prescribed duties;

eva — certainly;

adhikāraḥ — right;

te — of you;

mā — never;

phaleṣu — in the fruits;

kadācana — at any time;

Constructed meaning – You have the right to your duty; never to its fruits.

mā — never;

karma-phala — in the result of the work;

hetuḥ — cause;

bhūḥ — become;

mā — never;

te — of you;

sańgaḥ — attachment;

astu — there should be;

akarmaṇi — in not doing prescribed duties.

Constructed meaning – Do not consider yourself to be the result of your actions; never be attached to not doing your duty.

Now that the literal meaning is out of the way, let us try to put together the purport –

You have the right to doing your duties, but not the result. While what you need to do is in your control, the result of your actions is not.

Never consider what is happening to you as the cause of the results of your actions. But at the same time, do not get detached from performing your duty.

Now for the understanding –

The most common comment people have on this shloka is –

“How can I motivate myself without being attached to the results?”

Having wrestled with this question myself for long, I am presenting my understanding of the teaching below.

One of the most important words in the above shloka is “adhikarah”, i.e. right. A person’s rights are limited to what he can do, i.e. this actions, not the result thereof. If one does not have the right to something, one cannot demand it. For example, one person does not have the right to another person’s wealth, hence he cannot demand it. If something is beyond ones rights, achieving it or not is a matter of fate, i.e. something beyond one’s control. If something is out of one’s control, getting attached to it is meaningless.

The Geeta aims to direct humanity towards this higher level of consciousness, which can be a bit difficult to grasp for ordinary people like us. Here is an example for illustrate this. I am sure all of us can remember our childhoods when we used to get emotionally attached to petty objects. A child brings down the house if his toy is broken. His parents try to console him by trying to convince him not to get too emotionally attached to the toy. The toy is not all that important in his life, they tell him. But the child does not understand his parent’s reasoning. For him, the loss of the toy is the biggest disappointment of his life. It is only after the child becomes an adult (and rises to a higher level of consciousness) that he realizes how silly his thinking process was as a child. The toy was actually an immaterial entity. Losing it was not such a big deal. It did not make any difference to his life in the long term.

Extending the same logic, ordinary humans like us are like “children”, who are attached to “toys” like wealth, rank, family etc. We feel inconsolably distraught on loosing these “toys”. But a truly enlightened person would treat these “toys” with the same disregard as an adult treats children’s toys. In the larger picture, all these things do not matter.

karmaṇy evādhikāras te

mā phaleṣu kadācana

“If I am not attached to something, how will I strive for it? If I am not attached to money, how will I convince myself to earn it? If I do not earn, how will I support my family?”

It is here that the concept of “kartavya” (duty) comes in. It is a man’s duty to perform the right actions. A person’s rights are limited to his actions, i.e. his duties, and not to its results. So at no point should he get attached to the results of those actions. The results of the actions should not govern the tenacity with which he performs his duty. He should perform his duty not because he will get something in return, but because it is the right thing to do. For example, if you are walking on the road, and you see an old man stumble and fall in front of you, you would naturally help him stand up on his feet again. You do this not because you want anything in return, but because it is the right thing to do. The same applies to all facets of life. It is every man’s duty to pursue excellence; earn enough to support his family; provide good education to his children; help the poor and needy. But an ideal man should perform these duties without being attached to their results. This is the concept of “nishkaam karm” (duty without want).

An ordinary person finds it almost impossible to give up attachment to temporal things, and strive towards “nishkaam karm”. But an enlightened person raises himself above “moh maya”. He does not need the carrot of the result to be motivated to perform his actions. He performs his actions because that is the right thing to do, i.e. his duty.

A student should study hard for an exam, and put his heart and soul into understanding the subject and scoring well. But he should do it because that is the right thing to do, i.e. his duty, without being attached to the “moh” (want) of securing a high rank in class. The rank in class is not in his control (not his right or “adhikaar”), and is the result of many other factors like other students’ performances etc.

A professional should strive towards excellence in his profession, because that is his duty and not because of his attachment to a high position or greater wealth. That is out of his control.

The results of one’s actions are not based on his actions only. Hence attaching oneself to it is meaningless.

mā karma-phala-hetur bhūr

The cause of all sorrow in the world is attachment to results. Detachment from results is the only true way in which a person can deal with the ups and downs of life effectively. A person who can detach himself from the results of his actions is called “sthita-pragya” (sthita- seated, pragya- wisdom, i.e seated in wisdom). He does not get moved from his mental center of gravity either in joy or sorrow. Detachment from results can help you tide over any sorrow, overcome feelings of anger and jealousy and maintain your equilibrium in moments of joy. In fact, one can argue that a “sthita-pragya” is in a perennial state of joy, as inner joy can only come from performing one’s duties correctly, and nothing else. As long as you have performed all your duties, you should be happy. The results of your duties should not make you happy or sad.

A key point to note here is that “detachment” does not mean “indifference”. Detachment does not mean not loving your family, not caring for the needy, not striving for a good living. A person should do all these as they are his duties, but without being expecting anything in return, or being attached to the result. Do not be detached from your duty, be detached from the results.

Giving love to others is your duty, but receiving love from others in return (the result) is not in your control. Do not expect love in return. It is the duty of your loved ones to reciprocate your love, which they should perfom.

Helping the needy is your duty, but whether the person you have helped would be grateful to you or not, is out of your control. Being grateful is the other person’s duty, which he should perform.

In this way, if every person in the world performs his duty, all discord can be done away with.

At the same time, not doing your duty is a sin. Another practical example can illustrate this point better. If you have an ailing mother, it is your duty to ensure that you do everything in your capability to help her recover. If you cannot save her in spite of your best efforts, do not loose your balance in sorrow. However, if her demise was the result of a lack of effort from your side in taking care of her, you have not performed your duty. This is where the concept of “prayashchit” (redemption) comes in. You are then required to repent and redeem yourself in various ways.

mā te sańgo 'stv akarmaṇi

Most of us (including the writer) may never reach the state of such enlightenment in our lives. But that is what we should all strive for.

Part 2 is here.

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Footnote:- I would like to clarify that I am not a “Krishna Bhakt” or a Geeta preacher, but merely a student of Hindu spiritual thought. The content of this post should be regarded as a dispassionate analysis and not a religious discourse. Readers are requested to share their thoughts on as comments. Please feel free to agree or disagree with me. A constructive discussion will only refine the analysis.

References -

http://vedabase.net/bg/2/47/
http://krishnabhakt.blogspot.com/2008/07/karmanye-vadhikaraste.html
Mahabharat Episodes with the Geeta (Must watch) –

The burden of greatness

2010-10-11T08:36:00.004+05:30

The entire country is currently going gaga over Sachin Tendulkar reaching the milestone of 14,000 Test runs days after being awarded the ICC Cricketer of the Year Award at the ripe old age of 37. His form over the last 2 years has been nothing short of phenomenal and experts are bewildered by how even after two decades in the game can a man churn out runs from his bat with such enormity.

In a speech soon after he retired, Anil Kumble spoke about the difference between himself and Sachin Tendulkar. He said something along the following lines - Both Sachin and I made our debuts for India around the same time, 1989 and 1990 respectively. When Sachin appeared on the cricket scene, everyone know that an all time great was in the making. And when I started, everyone doubted my ability and thought I would not last long in international cricket. I have spent all my life proving people wrong, and Sachin has spent all his life proving people right.

The last line from Kumble reflects the burden on the man. Sahin Tendulkar has to prove to the world that he is truly the all time great that the world has expected him to be ever since his early days. In order to do that, he must reach heights that no other batsman has reached, or will reach in the future. I remember an interview which Sunil Gavaskar did with a young Sachin in the early 90's, where he said that Sachin MUST make 40 hundreds and score 15,000 runs in Test cricket before he retires. Sachin has long surpassed the 40 hundreds mark (48 and counting as of now), and is probably shooting for the 15,000 mark before he hangs up his boots. If he manages to reach the milestones of 50 hundreds and 15,000 runs in Test Cricket along with the 17,000+ runs and 46 hundreds (hopefully 50 by the time he stops) he has scored in ODIs, he would surely have set a mark that no other batsman will ever reach, much like Muralidharan's 800 Test wickets. With the T20 revolution sweeping the world, one can foresee the amount of Test and ODI cricket reduce in the future. This along with the fact that the batsmen of the future who will be brought up on the diet of T20 cricket, are less likely to have the technique and temperament to play long innings in Tests, will ensure that Tendulkar's records are never overtaken. Lara has the only 400 in Tests. Sachin knows that his 37 year old body will not allow him play an inning long enough to beat that mark (In the recent past, we have seen him cramp up whenever he plays a longish inning). But he has the 1st 200 in ODIs as an answer.

Back in 2007, many people thought that Tendulkar had played his last World Cup. There was no way he could last till the 2011 version. But as with all great men, the burden of greatness at times forces them to shoot for targets no one would try under normal circumstances. The ODI World Cup is one such target for Sachin. The greatest batsman in the modern generation does not want to retire without a world title under his belt. Hence, ever since 2007, Sachin's has played cricket with the single minded focus with being available for the 2011 World Cup. He knows that his body can no longer sustain the grind of non-stop cricket all round the year. Hence he takes calculated breaks from ODIs in order to let his body recoup. And his unbelievable run making streak over the last 2 years can also be attributed to the fact that he knows within that his cricketing days are nearing their end. Hence he wants to make the most of the final phase of his career, and go out on a high.

India's rise to the Number 1 position in Test rankings will also give Sachin great satisfaction. His aim would be to take India to the ODI World Cup title in 2011, after which he can retire with the satisfaction of taking his country to the top in both formats of the game. Bowing out of the game after a World Cup win will be the ultimate swan song for the legend. I have a firm belief that if India do go on to win the World Cup next year, Sachin will retire from all cricket right then. Even if India don't win, Sachin will definitely retire from ODIs. He may or may not play Test cricket for some more time.

In the recent past, there has been a trend for cricketers announcing their retirements beforehand and playing a farewell series in front of adoring fans. Saurav Ganguly, Shane Warne, Glenn McGarth, Steve Waugh have all done it. It would be fitting if Sahin too does the same. But I have a strong feeling that he would not. Any retirement announcement from him before a Test series will invariably result in a media and fan frenzy unseen in the history of the game. The outpouring of emotions from fans and the resultant media circus is bound to be so huge that it would undermine the team's focus from the cricket, and possibly Sachin's focus on his final few innings. And being the reserved person that he is, I am sure Sachin would not want that to happen. Hence, I am sure Sachin's retirement announcement will come as a bolt from the blue for his fans, after the conclusion of a series or tournament. I am also sure that he has decided the time when he would retire internally, but has kept it to himself or his close confidants, in order to avoid a media frenzy.

The millions of cricket fans of Sachin all over the world should cherish each inning that he plays these days, since these are the last few times they will ever get to see the great man bat.

Update (6th Jan 2011) -
When Tendulkar finished batting in the Cape Town Test against South Africa, he did something unusual while walking off the ground. He looked skywards. As all of his fans already know, Sachin follows the ritual of looking skywards and thanking the heavens after reaching major landmarks like 100s and 200s. But it was unusual to see him doing this when he is walking of the ground at the end of a Test match when his score was only 14 not out. This act was even picked up by the Cricinfo commentary.
The players shake hands with each other. Alviro has a chat with Tendulkar, who then has a look at the sun and walks away.
Could this be an indication of something very significant? Could this indicate that Sachin has played his last test inning and intends to retire at the end of the World Cup of 2011? Here is the video of the event. Check 6.17.

Chronicals of a chronic cricket fan.. Part II..

2010-10-06T07:24:00.001+05:30

14th Dec 1994 -

The 1st ever Test match in Mohali. India playing West Indies. At the end of the previous day's play (day 4 of the Test match), India were 37 for 1 in the 4th innings, with Sachin Tendulkar unbeaten on 6. India needed another 321 runs to win on the final day. Given the good pitch with decent pace and bounce that had not deteriorated over the 1st 4 days of the Test like a typical Indian wicket, the young (and naive) cricket fan within me was hopeful of a fantastic run-chase on the final day, spearheaded by Tendulkar, who had hit a big hundred in the previous Test at Nagpur.

So I switched on the TV set early in the morning with great expectations, looking forward to be glued to the TV set all day. But I had not accounted for the fact that this was the Indian team of the 90's, which used to flatter and deceive it's fans more often than not. Sachin was dismissed within the 1st 10 minutes of play. And India were bowled out for 114 by lunchtime. The 1st step in the making of a perennially pessimistic cricket fan had been taken.

5th Oct 2010 -

Another Test match at Mohali. India vs. Australia. Another similar situation at the end of day 4. India 55 for 4 in the 4th innings, chasing 216 for victory. The wicket this time was a typically Indian, crumbling at the end of day 4. Sachin Tendulkar at the crease again, unbeaten on 10. Could the God of Cricket undo the failings of 1994? I was not too sure. I was out of the country, in a time zone 10 hours behind. I was wondering if I should sacrifice the night's sleep to watch the finale. I ran the risk of spoiling my sleep as well as my mood (if India lost). Memories of 14th Dec 1994 were still fresh in my mind. But the optimist in me somehow won that day. To hell with sleep, I said to myself. Sachin might retire after World Cup 2011. This might be one of his last hurrays. I will never forgive myself if I miss it. I tuned in online.

Day 5 begins to follow the similar script as 16 years ago. Sachin is dismissed within the 1st hour, India crumble to 124 for 8. It was 14th Dec 1994 all over again. But I do not realize two important differences. The opposition is Australia and the batsman at the crease is VVS Laxman. And whenever these two things happen together, fans are always in for something Very Very Special. Laxman adds 80 runs with Ishant Sharma, followed by 11 with Pragyan Ojha to take India to it's 1st ever 1 wicket victory in Tests. History is NOT repeated at Mohali.

Part I is here.

The Future of Laptops

2010-08-21T00:11:00.008+05:30

As many tech-gurus had foreseen, the launch of the iPad has resulted in an upheaval in the personal computing world. Steve Jobs has hit the bullseye for the 3rd time in a row. iPod, iPhone and now the iPad. He has changed the landscape of the industry for the 3rd time within a decade. Just like the iPod and the iPhone completely changed the way electronics manufacturers looked at portable music players and phones, the iPad has resulted in a mad rush between computer manufactures to come up with a competing tablet PC. I remember a Steve Jobs interview in early 2007, when he had predicted that the future belonged to post-PC devices. We now know what he meant.

The iPad has shown that tablets can be a great medium for content consumption; Games, Movies, Music, Internet. But they are not a very convenient instrument for heavy duty content creation, authoring like documents, creating presentations, editing images etc.. So while the iPad can be a fantastic addition to your personal electronics arsenal, it cannot replace your good old laptop (at least now now).

But if I were a computer manufacturer today, I would be seriously planning for that day. The question I would ask is, in what way is the iPad better that the laptop computer I have been manufacturing over the years? I guess the answer is simple -

1. Touch screen interface

2. Portability and weight

3. Integration with Apple's other typical wizardry like Apps Store, iTunes etc.

Really, that is about it.

While other companies cannot do anything about #3, #1 and #2 are not so difficult.

#1. Touch screen interface is becoming more and more commonplace by the day. Apart from most smartphones, even digicams and handycams have touch screen interfaces these days. I will put my neck on the line and say that the day is not far when all laptops will have touch screen interfaces. It will not take Apple and Android long to create OS versions that support touch screen interfaces for full fledged computing devices like laptops. Microsoft will soon jump into the bandwagon (copying others as they have done for decades) with a Windows variant. I believe that within 5 years or less, most laptops will run touch screen interfaces like the one seen in the iPad or other tablet PCs being launched today. The days of the trackpad are numbered.

#2. This is even simpler. Laptops are getting slimmer and slimmer by the day anyway. More processing power is being backed into lighter and more portable machines all the time. Within 5 years, all the computing power in a top of the line laptop can be compressed into a device of the size of an iPad.

Now for the things that a laptop has that the iPad does not -

1. Full Manual Keyboard

2. Other peripherals like CD/DVD/Blur Ray player, USB, Webcam etc.

3. More computing power

#2 and #3 are no brainers. They can be easily possible going by the same logic as I highlighted in the previous paragraph.

#1 can either be achieved with an add on keyboard (as is already available with the iPad) or a slide out keyboard. Just like slider phones have slide out keyboards, a tablet PC can also be designed to have a slide out keyboard what can be used for full speed typing. This would convert an iPod like tablet into a complete laptop.

Here are a couple of photos from the recently launched Blackberry Torch.

As you can see, RIM has tried to bring the best of both worlds into this phone - a full size "iPhone like" touch screen interface and a full blackberry keyboard.

I believe that laptop manufacturers can easily take a cue from this and come up with a similar design for a laptop in the near future. The 13 or 14 inch laptop screen could be made touch enabled and powered by any touch based OS like Android or a Windows variant. A keyboard could slide out from from behind when required, and be tilted and fixed at an angle to the screen to convert the tablet into a functioning laptop, with all the associated bells and whistles.

Hence, I believe we are not far away from the time when a laptop and tablet PC will cease to be separate categories of devices, but merge into a super-tablet genre. What has happened with portable music players and phones in the recent past will happen to laptops and tablet PCs too.

Globe Trotter - New York

2010-07-24T01:45:00.010+05:30

My mom is in the US these days. And I am taking this opportunity to show her around a few places nearby. A few days back, I took her to a 2 day trip to New York City.

New York City probably contains the highest number of tourist hotspots within the confines of a single city. Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, Times Square, Central Park, Grand Central Terminal, Rockefeller Center, United Nations, Brooklyn Bridge, China Town, World Trade Center, Wall Street, NYSE, The Charging Bull.. the list is endless. I wanted to cover as many of them as possible. While planning for the trip, I considered two options to achieve this goal –

1. Take a guided tour that would take us to all major tourist spots in the city, or

2. Plan to visit all major tourist spots by ourselves, using the New York Subway.

As I had worked in New York earlier, and was familiar with the New York subway (which by the way, is probably one of the most dense and complicated in the world), I decided to opt for the second option. The fact that this option gave me the added thrill of doing a classic tourist road trip; trying to find my way around a city with multiple maps and train schedules in hand, made the decision a no brainer.

But I also needed to make sure that I don’t goof up anywhere, since the last thing I wanted was to get stranded in the middle of NYC, with my mom around. Hence I chalked up this detailed plan for the trip with the help of Google Maps and train schedules from mta.info. After doing this, I realized that my plan could serve as a template for anyone planning a 2 day trip to NYC in the same way as me. I am posting my plan here. Hope it helps a future tourist in the Big Apple, who wants to visit the same landmarks as me. They can pick the elements from this plan that are relevant to their trip, and customize the rest.

Note that the plan includes to and fro travel from Boston to New York (4 hours by bus). The starting location in New York was Chinatown. Anyone travelling from other cities or starting locations needs to make the necessary updates. I have not included the times next to many of the entries, as the time taken at a point of interest may vary greatly. But if one does not plan to spent an extraordinarily long time at one place, one should be able to cover all the locations included in a day's plan.

Detailed schedules for all subway trains mentioned below are given here.

Day 1 -

Time	City	Activity
6:38 AM	Boston	Leave for South Station by Commuter Rail
7:19 AM	Boston	Reach South Station
8:00 AM	Boston	Take GoToBus to New York
1:00 PM	New York	Get off at Chinatown, New York
	New York	Walk to Grand Street Metro Station (5 Min)
	New York	Take Subway - B - Direction: 145th St Station OR D - Direction: 205th St - Norwood Station
	New York	Get off at 34th St - Herald Sq Station (7 min)
	New York	Walk to Empire State Building (3 min)
	New York	Walk back to 34th St - Herald Sq Station (3 min)
	New York	Take Subway - N - Direction: Astoria-Ditmars Blvd Station OR R Direction: 71st Ave - Forest Hills Station OR W Direction: Astoria-Ditmars Blvd Station
	New York	Get off at Times Sq - 42nd St Station
	New York	Walk to Times Square
	New York	Walk back to Times Sq - 42nd St Station
	New York	Take Subway - 1 - Direction: 242nd St - Van Cortlandt Park Station
	New York	Get off at 59th St - Columbus Circle Station
	New York	Walk to Central Park
	New York	Walk to 59th St - Columbus Circle Station
	New York	Take Subway - 1 to South Ferry Station
	New York	Get off at Times Sq - 42nd St Station
	New York	Take Subway - S to Grand Central - 42nd St Station
	New York	Get off at Grand Central - 42nd St Station
	New York	Walk to United Nations
	New York	Walk back to Grand Central - 42nd St Station
	New York	Take Subway - 4 - Direction: Utica Ave - Crown Heights Station
	New York	Get off at Fulton St Station
	New York	Walk to World Trade Center
	New York	Take Path to Hoboken
	Jersey City	Get off at Pavonia/Newport
	Jersey City	Walk to Hotel

Day 2 -

Time	City	Activity
6:45 AM	Jersey City	Walk to Pavonia/Newport
7:07 AM 7:17 AM 7.27 AM	Jersey City	Take Path WTC Station to Hoboken - Direction: To WTC (7 min)
7:14 AM 7:24 AM 7.34 AM	New York	Get off at WTC
	New York	Walk to New York Stock Exchange
8:00 AM	New York	Walk to Battery Park
8:30 AM	New York	Take Ferry to Liberty Island
9:00 AM	New York	Get off at Liberty Island
10:15 AM	New York	Take Ferry to Ellis Island
10:30 AM	New York	Get off at Ellis Island
12:05 AM	New York	Take Ferry back to Battery Park
12:45 PM	New York	Walk to Charging Bull
1:00 PM	New York	Walk to Bowling Green Station
1:02 PM	New York	Take Subway - 5 - to Dyre Ave - Eastchester Station
1:07 PM	New York	Get off at Brooklyn Bridge - City Hall Station
1:30 PM	New York	Walk to Brooklyn Bridge
2:00 PM	New York	Walk back to Brooklyn Bridge - City Hall Station
2:02 PM	New York	Take Subway - 6 - to Pelham Bay Park Station
2:05 PM	New York	Get off at Canal Street
3:00 PM	New York	Walk to 55 Christie Street and take GoToBus
	Boston	Reach South Station
	Boston	Take Commuter Rail back home

Contest to find a symbol for the Indian Rupee - Our entry

2010-07-24T01:03:00.010+05:30

News about the Indian rupee getting a new symbol is all over the place these days. The results of the contest held by the Govt. of India for finding a symbol for the Indian Rupee (INR) have been announced recently. The contest invited ideas from across the country, and had the following selection criteria –

1. The symbol should represent the historical & cultural ethos of the country as widely accepted across the country.

2. The symbol should be applicable to standard keyboard. The symbol has to be in the Indian National Language Script or a visual representation.

3. The symbol should be original work of the participant and must not infringe the intellectual property rights of any third party.

Here is the winning entry.

Some people have voiced their dislike for this design. I personally find the design quite good. It is interesting to note that all 5 designs that made it to the finals were very similar; each using the Devnagiri letter (ra), with a bar being placed at various places around it.

Nikhil and I participated in this contest and sent a couple of ideas from our side. We are sharing these along with the rationale that we had proposed. We would love to know how you rate our designs, as against the design that finally won.

Design 1 –

Capital I in Verdana font, with a horizontal bar bisecting it.

Rationale for design 1–

1. Capital “I” represents India and INR. It also represents the vertical Ashoka pillar.

2. The additional bar in middle creates 3 horizontal bars in total, representing 3 strips in our flag (and hence representing all that the Indian national flag stands for)

3. This is a most simplistic design that can be drawn by anyone by hand easily

4. The simplicity of design represents the principles of “single living, high thinking” propagated by our founding fathers like Mahatma Gandhi.

Design 2 -

Capital I in Times New Roman font, followed by R in Mangal font.

Rationale for design 2 –

1. Capital “I” represents India

2. R in Mangal font represents “Rupee” in Devanagari. It also represents Indian culture

3. The combined symbol created English R that stands for rupee

Globe Trotter - Niagara

2010-07-11T00:36:00.002+05:30

4th July (US Independence Day) is probably the 3rd biggest holiday weekend in the US after Christmas and Thanks Giving. The fact that it falls bang in the middle of summer (and summer vacations for kids) is the biggest incentive for most people to venture out of their homes and take a holiday.

This 4th of July, I decided to visit Niagara Falls. As a general rule of holidaying, I always try to avoid crowed places and crowded times of the year as much as possible. I feel it takes the fun and relaxation out of the holiday to a great extent. But I decided to make an exception this time, as I was looking forward to the special Independence Day fireworks on show.

Niagara Falls in the US is in a way like Taj Mahal of India, in that it is probably more popular among foreigners than natives of the country. Just like on any visit to the Taj, one is bound to find as many non-Indians (read whites) as Indians themselves; any visit to Niagara Falls will in all probability result in one finding as many non-Americans (read “desi”s) as Americans themselves. It was interesting to hear that a majority of Americans in my office had never seen Niagara, whereas each and every “desi” I knew had been there multiple times. I guess most natives prefer beaches during summer; whereas a sun-tan is not what most brown people would greatly appreciate :-)

Niagara’s accessibility from the population hubs of the east coast (Boston, New York, New Jersey, Washington D.C.) as well as the central / mid west region (Chicago, St. Louis etc.) is an added incentive for a “desi” day out. Hence I was not surprised to find that a vast majority of tourists encountered on the trip to be from our country. Summer is the time when most Indians working in US get their parents to visit them. Hence vast numbers of the elderly were also spotted in the mix.

They say, if you stand long enough at Times Square in New York City, you can meet someone from every country in the world. From all the stories I had heard from my friends who had gone to Niagara on 4th of July weekend, I had come up with a similar theory myself. If a “desi” visits Niagara Falls on the 4th of July weekend, he is bound to meet another “desi” he knew. I was looking forward to testing this theory of mine in this trip. And as it turned out, it passed the practical test with flying colors. I happened to meet not one, but 3 acquaintances; an old school mate, a B-school junior turned office colleague, and a client representative. And I am sure there were a few other people around that I knew, whom I did not notice in the crowd.

The over abundance of “desi”s has also started to have its effects on the staff working in the Niagara Falls. Some of them have picked up Hindi words like “neeche” (down) and “upar” (up) for guiding the tourists along. I won’t be surprised if I hear a word or two in Tegulu next time, given that the biggest chunk of Indians in US are from Andhra, and by some margin as well.

Globe Trotter - Orlando

2010-04-04T08:27:00.005+05:30

Florida had been on my travel map for quite some time now. It was one of the last major tourist hotspots I had not covered in the US. So, when I was asked to travel to Orlando for a series of business meetings, I grabbed the chance with both hands.

The meetings were scheduled from Wednesday to Friday. I decided to stay over the weekend as well to satisfy my tourism bug. Out of the plethora of tourist options available, I picked the Kennedy Space Center and Sea World as my destinations.

Having had a keen interest in astronomy from childhood, and followed space programs of various countries for years, a chance to visit NASA was like an offer for a kid to a candy shop. Cape Canaveral is 50 miles from Orlando. I found a tourist shuttle to take me there early in the morning. We reached Cape Canaveral at 9 AM. First stop was the Astronaut’s Hall of Fame. This place is a museum of sorts, with memorabilia from scores of space missions on display; space suits, rocket capsules, command consoles, moon rock specimens and so on. A key attraction was the 4G ride that simulates gravitational pulls of up to 4G that jet pilots experience in flight.

Next stop was the Visitor Center Complex. A full size replica of the shuttle Endeavor that had been used for training astronauts in the past was the 1st thing I checked out. Next was the Shuttle Launch Experience that simulated what astronauts go through during launches of actual shuttle missions. Though the simulation was quite realistic, I felt it lacked the “extreme thrill” that I was used to in some other thrill simulations. Perhaps it was due to the fact that a lot of children take part in the ride as well, and they don’t want it to be too tough for them to handle.

After a hot dog for lunch, the next stop was the NASA bus tour, that took me to International Space Station Center, LC 39 Observation Gantry, and the Apollo/Saturn V Center. The sheer size of the moon rocket (imagine such a huge structure brimming with high octane explosives at the time of launch), and the numerous mini labs within the International Space Center (ISS) exhibit were the key highlights of the tour. One of the key objectives of the ISS is to perform experiments in Zero gravity that might help us make new inventions and discoveries that we have not been able to on earth. On out way, we also passed the famous NASA Shuttle Assembly facility that appears in most media clips, the area from where VIPs see Shuttle launches, Shuttle launch pads and the specially designed carrier that taxies Shuttles from the assembly building to the launch pads.

Back at the visitor center, I scurried to watch one of the 2 IMAX movies on show, “Magnificent Desolation”, narrated by Tom Hanks. Though I missed the other IMAX movie, “International Space Center” due to schedule conflict, I did manage to attend an Astronaut Encounter Session with John Fabian, who spoke about how photographs of earth taken from space help in various scientific endeavors. I rounded off a great day at NASA by checking out a few model rockets and cockpits in the Rocket Garden. By 5.30 PM, I was on my way back to Orlando.

The only dampener was the fact that I did not have any friends along with me. So, taking pictures of myself was a problem :-). But I was fortunate to find a Brit lady and a Brazilian guy to tag along during the NASA tour, and we agreed to be photographers for each other.

The other must see scientific destination on my travel map is CERN, Switzerland. Hope that I would get a chance to go there some day. (A friend of mine, Hemant, has been there).

Next day was meant for Sea World. I had heard great things about it, and was specially looking forward to the experience. Since I had an evening flight to catch and hence needed to leave the park by 4 PM, I carefully noted down the timings of all attractions I wanted to catch, and charted out a critical path to cover them all. Here, being alone turned out to my advantage. I did not have to get slowed down by others in my group and miss some attractions, as had happened to me in the past. I took the Journey to Atlantis,

Manta,

Sky Tower

and Wide Arctic (helicopter simulation) rides,

but chickened out of Kraken.

Amongst the animal exhibits, the opportunity to see some precious aquatic and polar animals like dolphins, penguins, sea lions, whales, polar bears, sharks, walruses and manatees from close corners was a fabulous experience. But the chief attractions of a day at Sea World are undoubtedly the various shows on offer.

Blue Horizon (Dolphin show),

Allure of the Ocean at Nautilus Theater,

Clyde and Seamore Pirate Island (Sea Lion Show)

were all fantastic.

But the centerpiece was Believe – The “Shamu” Killer Whale Show, that had 6 tonne killer whales jumping upto 6 feet in the air and performing various other tricks along with their trainers.

Thus, I rounded off my extremely enjoyable visit to Orlando, checking off one more destination on my travel map.

Side note:- Days after my visit, a Killer Whale attacked and killed one of the trainers. My condolences to the family and friends of the deceased.

e-Wedding

2009-12-25T23:19:00.004+05:30

When one of my best friends told me about his wedding date a couple of months back, I was pretty distraught. There was no way I could attend his wedding, as I would be out of the country at that time. Not only was I sad about missing this momentous occasion in his life, I was also disappointed at missing a chance to catch up with all my old friends that I would have met after years, at the wedding. I could also feel the disappointment in my friend who was getting married, that one of his closest pals would not be around to see him get hitched.

Then one day, over a telephonic conversation, we hatched a plan to overcome our geographical boundaries. As with almost all life's problems these days, the web came to your rescue. We decided to use my friend's laptop and webcam, along with his wireless internet data card connection to webcast his wedding LIVE via Skype.

And thus, the web helped Me and his Grandma, who was unable to attend on account of ill health, register our e-presence at wedding from different parts of the world.

Related Post - GBM

Yeh Jeevan Hai..

2009-12-25T22:51:00.003+05:30

Over heard in the Boston Metro..

I woman on crutches, with her right leg heavily plastered, gingerly hops onto the subway train. Due to office hour rush, she is not able to find a place to sit. She somehow manages to balance herself and stands next to a vertical support.

An old man standing nearby, moved by the situation, speaks to her. “It must be difficult travelling in the subway in this state. You should have stayed home.”

“I need to go to work every day.” the woman replied with a smile.

“Oh! Going to work everyday must be a challenge. I guess you must be happy that the day is over and you are going home to take some rest.”

“Not really. With this broken leg, I find it harder to do the household chores as compared to my office duties, especially with 2 young kids at home.”

“Ya, I guess so. Hope your husband shares some of your burden at home.”

“I am a single mother”.

The old man pats her on the back. The conversation ends.

The incident highlights a couple of things for me. One, how tough and lonely life can be in extremely individualistic societies of the West; where the concept of family life as we know it in the East, simply does not exist. And two, no matter how tough your life is personally, you can always find someone else who is going through worse times. Hence, we should always be thankful for what God has given us.

Favorite Star Trek Episodes

2009-12-10T07:07:00.005+05:30

As a big Star Trek fan (of The Original Series, not The Next Generation) since my childhood, I was pleasantly surprised to see that most episodes of The Original Series up on Youtube a couple of months back. Since then, I have seen most of them again on weekends. Here is my list of favorite episodes.

1. Space Seed (Sci-fi at it's best)

2. The City on the Edge of Forever (Most critically acclaimed)

3. Tomorrow is Yesterday (Sheer time travel fun)

4. Amok Time (Spock's "human" side)

5. The Trouble with Tribbles (Funniest)

6. The Enemy Within (Great concept of good and evil)

7. The Devil in the Dark (Moral tale)

8. Spectre of the Gun (Shades of Matrix philosophy)

9. The Corbomite Maneuver (Core Star Trek concept)

10. The Way to Eden (Hippies in the Star Trek universe)

Salt Lake City Airport

2009-12-08T07:09:00.006+05:30

When I recently happened to make a stop over at Salt Lake City Airport, I was quite dazzled by the natural beauty surrounding it. The airport is flanked by picturesque mountains on several sides, and the view before landing is something to behold. I understand that all of Salt Lake City is flanked by such wonderful mountains, as if they are guarding the city against enemies.

Here are some pictures. (Sources - I, II). More pictures from Salt lake City are here.

Darr ke aage jeet hai..

2009-12-07T08:36:00.005+05:30

I have had a fear of heights right from my childhood. I always tend to avoid peeping from high rises and mountainous cliffs. The same goes for roller coasters and thrill rides as well. One incident 5 years back, when I was coaxed into jumping onto a roller coaster by a few friends and felt horribly giddy afterwards, further increased by reluctance towards taking up any activity involving high G-forces. I decided never again to undertake any such ride in my life.

Hence, when a friend of mine invited me to join him on visit to an adventure park that had many high intensity thrill rides earlier this year, I was naturally very apprehensive. As I reluctantly joined him on the trip, I kept telling myself that I would not take any of mind-numbing thrill rides on offer under any circumstances. Yet, I finally bowed down to my friend's repeated requests and took one of the rides on offer.

To say that it was a petrifying experience would be an understatement. My head was swiveling like a top. But once done, I felt a strange feeling of accomplishment within me. I felt I had overcome an internal demon. I had "survived" a roller coaster ride!

So, when my friend asked me to join him on the next thrill ride that promised even greater G-forces, I said yes. Even though I knew my heart would be in my mouth again during the ride, I wanted to take that experience to see how I cope with it. Surprisingly, though the second ride scared me as well, it did so much less than the first one.

Ride after ride followed next. Though I felt an element of fear in all of them, it slowly ceased being a mortal one. By the end of the day, as I gingerly walked away from the amusement park with my head still feeling the aftereffects of all the twisting, turning and falling, I almost felt that I had overcome my fear of heights to a great extent.

I few weeks back, when I visited Las Vegas, I wanted to re-test the extent to which I had overcome Acrophobia. Hence I decided to take pay a visit to Stratosphere Tower, the tallest freestanding observation tower in the United States and the second tallest in the Western Hemisphere, and take the Big Shot and X-Scream rides, which are the world's highest amusement rides.

Big Shot

X-Scream

I was surprised at the relative lack of fear these rides were able to induce in me as compared to the previous ones I had taken. It reinforced my belief that it is possible to overcome one's deepest fears and insecurities, provided one is willing to take the first step.

Almighty Encounter

2009-11-15T06:10:00.002+05:30

Prologue:-

Long and controversial post ahead. Read when you have time to spare. Do leave a comment after reading. Would love to know your reaction to these ideas.

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Does God exist? Why was the concept of God created? What practical purpose does God serve in our lives? Probably the most commonly asked questions by mankind. Whether one believes in God or not, there is a high probability that at some point in one’s life, each one of us have asked this question, either to ourselves or someone else.

Let us try to look at these questions from a logical point of view.

Why was the concept of God being created?

The concept of God was probably created many thousands of years back, when early man had just differentiated himself from other animals by virtue of his intelligence. At that stage, though man was intelligent enough to cultivate food, use primitive mechanics etc., he was not intelligent enough yet to be able to understand the real reasons behind natural phenomena like floods, droughts, fire, earthquakes, disease etc. Due to this lack of understanding, he ended up attributing these phenomena to an omnipotent Supreme Being he could not see, touch or hear. Someone up there must be pulling the strings that made these things happen, he must have thought. The concept of God must have been created right then.

It was again due to this lack of understanding of natural events, that man must have begun worshiping God. Man did so in order to please Him so that man does not incur His wrath. Man feared God. Man did not want natural calamities to befall on him; instead wanted “divine” help in carrying out his worldly activities in the easier and better way.

As the process of human evolution moved forward, man became ever more intelligent, and hence more powerful. With this, man became more arrogant as well. Groups of men started fighting with each other over land, wealth and women. The weak began being suppressed by the strong. Primitive dictatorships were established.

It was probably then that a few enlightened souls began to reflect on the degeneration of humanity. They began to realize what was happening was not correct, and needed corrective action. What is the use of man’s superior intelligence, if he continues to behave like a wild animal? Someone needed to reign in mankind; else man would lead to his own downfall.

But how could they make ordinary men follow the right path, and make sure that they do not get carried away by their primitive instincts? If they had tried to instill the righteous way of life to others by themselves, they would have been rejected outright. The enlightened souls might have then realized that, in order to show man the right path, they must feed on man’s most primitive emotion: fear.

They must then have merged the notions of the omnipotent and omnipresent Supreme Being that people had at that time, with teachings about morality and duty. They used concept of God to guide less awakened men and women through their lives. They preached moral principles as the word of the Supreme Being that controls the world; the word of God. If you fear God, you got to obey his word. The word of God was to live in peace and harmony, to take care of the weak and underprivileged, and to work together for a greater good of humanity. If you do not obey Him, you will incur God’s wrath. Perhaps this was how world’s earliest religions were invented.

Every religion in the world teaches the same things, as the word of God. The vehicle is different, but the destination is always the same.

Does God exist?

Whether God has said these things or not, we cannot prove or disprove scientifically. But we do know that what has been preached as the word of God is the correct way of life for all of humanity.

What practical purpose does God serve in our lives?

One, the word of God, as conveyed by each and every religion in the world, shows us the right way of leading our lives. Do not oppress the weak, but help them. Do not resort to anger and violence. Do not cheat. Man’s natural tendency is to go against all these things. But the fear that God always keeps account of your moral credit history, is what keeps most of us from going astray.

Two, God is supposed to help us in our troubled times. We pray to God when we are in distress, and God supposedly provides divine intervention to help us.

Have you ever scientifically thought how praying helps? Is the world any different before and after you have prayed? Has the obstacle you were about to face become less severe? Have the problems you were trying to solve become easier? No, right? Then what has changed after praying? It is your self belief. After prayer, you begin to believe that God is on your side. You believe that He will guide you through rough waters. You are now ready to take the challenges that life throws at you head on. That is the power of belief in God.

Do we need God?

Why does a shepherd tie the cows with a rope, or surround them in a fence? Because he does not want them to wander away aimlessly towards danger. God is the “imaginary” shepherd. And the word of God is the rope or fence that ties us ordinary mortals to our morals. Else we would have wandered away to our downfalls centuries ago.

If a cow is wise enough to realize that she is not supposed to wander away and stay at the location the shepherd has assigned for her, she does not need to be tied to any rope or fence. Similarly, the really enlightened ones among us do not need the concept of God to guide them through their lives. They know the right path without any fear.

BUT the other 99.99999999999 percent of the world DOES need God.

Chronicals of a chronic cricket fan..

2009-11-06T05:54:00.005+05:30

31st Jan 1999 -

I was preparing for my pre-engineering test. I had a mock exam that day. But my heart was not in studies. I was more interested in the dramatic India vs. Pakistan Test Match going on in Chennai. Yet studies always came first. I turned up for the mock exam on time. As soon as the final bell rang, I rushed back to my friend's home to catch the final moments of the match. The match was over by then. But the highlights were still playing. Sachin Tendulkar and Nayan Mongia were in the process of digging India out of a hole and taking them to a memorable win. We jumped and rejoiced as the highlights moved as a frantic pace; as Tendulkar battled back spasms to hit one boundary after another, taking India closer and closer to victory. Just when we thought the match was in the bag, disaster struck. Tendulkar hold out to Saqlain Mushtaq for 136. Within minutes, the Indian innings was over. Pakistan had secured a famous win and were doing a lap of honour in front of the Chennai crowd.

5th Nov 2009 -

I was in office, away from India, busy with work. While browsing the net, I suddenly realized that Tendulkar was leading a heroic solo effort against Australia, in an ODI in Hyderabad. I immediately logged into Cricinfo and started checking the latest score updates. Forgetting all work, I kept pressing the refresh button endlessly, as the scoreboard motored along with each Tendulkar boundary. Trying to recall the thousands of runs I have seen him score on TV over 2 decades, I tried to visualize each shot from the commentary I read on the webpage. This time, Tendulkar was determined not to let Chennai 1999 be repeated. But with 19 required of 18 balls, Tendulkar hold out for an epic 175. The Indian innings was soon wrapped up. History repeated itself.

P.S. -

1. Other similarities between the 2 games.

2. Previous post on a similar event.

Should newspapers charge for online content?

2009-07-23T06:58:00.000+05:30

As I work in the Media vertical in my organization, I am constantly bombarded with information about how newspapers are struggling as more and more readers turn to online modes of news consumption. The web is abuzz with articles on the biggest problem newspapers are facing today - online revenue is growing, but not fast enough to make up for falling print advertising. This got me thinking about what could be the real reason behind this.

In an ideal world, the amount of revenue generated by one medium should be somewhat proportional to the readership of that medium. Example, if 30% of NYT’s readership comes from NYT.com and 70% from the offline newspaper, around 20-30% of ad revenue for NYT should also be generated from NYT.com. This is clearly not the case; otherwise the above problem might not have arisen.

One factor that comes to mind is that the effectiveness of online advertising can be measured much more easily and accurately than offline advertising. For example, it is very easy to find out how many people clicked on your ads on a news website, but very difficult to measure how many readers paid attention to an ad posted on page 5 of a newspaper. The only measure of effectiveness advertisers probably went by over the years was the sales volume, which may or may not have been impacted solely by the ads they published in newspapers.

Hence, for all the decades that companies had been posting ads on offline newspapers, they may never have been able to guess the value (eyeballs) generated by their ads with a great deal of accuracy. So they continued to pump in a lot more money than it was probably necessary, into newspaper ads.

But advertisers today are no longer constrained by limited amounts of information about online ads. Hence they are now perhaps not going over-board with their online ad spending. The amount of online ad spend is being driven by more precise information about the value obtained. Thus, advertisers are perhaps not being as profligate with their online ads spending today, as they had been with offline ads all these years.

The rise of targeted online advertising might also be a reason for the dip in proportional revenue. While in an offline newspaper, targeted advertising would only be limited to placing a sports equipment ad on the sports page, or placing a home furniture ad in a special home improvement supplement, online ads can be targeted based on the reader’s demographic and historical browsing data.

This factor is making advertisers smarter; helping them place ads with more accuracy, and spend more wisely. They are now paying for ads to be displayed to only a subset of readers accessing the news website that belong to their target segment, and not for the entire population. Thus, advertisers are perhaps spending less on online ads for a new campaign as compared to what they might have done in an offline counterpart in yesteryears.

The above factors, along with other drivers like higher number of avenues for advertising available today (mobile, TV, non-news websites etc.) as compared to the past, might be key reasons why online ad revenues are not being able to reach the same heights as offline revenues of the past.

Charging users for online content seems to be the favorite line of thought pursued by most media houses today, for increasing online revenues. I beg to differ with this strategy. Free content is the very DNA of the internet. All great internet innovations, from e-mail to social networking, have thrived on being free to the end user (How many takers did we see for the paid 20 MB e-mail accounts that that Yahoo and Hotmail used to offer to users when the free accounts had 2 MB space, in the pre-Gmail era?). Hence, charging for online content might not be the wisest thing to do. Especially since one is always likely to find relatively equivalent quality of free content somewhere else on the web.

The problem caused by data can perhaps also be solved with more data. It might be a good idea for news websites to invest more heavily into web analytics and obtain greater degrees of information about their readers and their reading behavior. This could help them broaden the gamut of options they provide advertisers for targeted advertising; and even explore options that advertisers have never done before. This can drive newer and more diverse ways for posting targeted ads; and consequently earn them more revenue.

The utopian aim should be to reach a stage where they have enough information so that all the ads shown to no two readers on the same webpage are exactly the same. After all, one of the key advantages the web has over offline mediums is that it is not constrained by size and shape. While one can only stuff in so many ads in a copy of an offline newspaper, the avenues for customizing content on a web-page are limitless.

Challenges of customization of online news

2009-05-31T19:23:00.001+05:30

Warning:- Technical post ahead.

When I came across this article sometime back, I was specially intrigued by one particular portion –

Everyone can publish, and everyone will - This is a problem, but since online journalism is still in its relative infancy it’s one that can be solved (we’re technology optimists, remember?). The experience of consuming news on the web today fails to take full advantage of the power of technology. It doesn’t understand what users want in order to give them what they need. When I go to a site like the New York Times or the San Jose Mercury, it should know what I am interested in and what has changed since my last visit. If I read the story on the US stimulus package only six hours ago, then just show me the updates the reporter has filed since then (and the most interesting responses from readers, bloggers, or other sources). If Thomas Friedman has filed a column since I last checked, tell me that on the front page. Beyond that, present to me a front page rich with interesting content selected by smart editors, customized based on my reading habits (tracked with my permission).

This got me thinking about the way presentation of news is expected to evolve in news websites, and how it would differ from offline newspapers. Most news websites these days do support “Guided navigation” features, suggesting articles to readers though links like “You might also be interested in..”, “People who read this also read..” etc. While “guided navigation” does have its obvious benefits, I have a difference of opinion with the suggestion that news websites of the future can completely replace the reading pleasure of offline newspapers. Anyone suggesting that content on a news website should ONLY be tailored to the interests and reading patterns of the reader, forgets that one of the key benefits of reading an offline newspaper is the ability to BROWSE through all topics all the time, and figure out what is interesting to you at that moment. For example, Mr. X may never have read the Finance section of the news website in the past, but if he sees an article about lay-offs or pay-cuts in the Finance section one day, he would definitely read it. Similarly, Mr. X might never read the Science and Health section, but might be interested in an article on an ailment which he suffers from. If the content of presented to Mr. X by the news website is tailored only on what Mr. X have been reading since the time he started using the service, such articles would never show up for him. Such algorithms would only narrow down a reader’s vision and knowledge acquisition to fields he or she has been 'historically' interested in (historically here means the history carried by the service provider), which might be biased by the previous set of articles and news items accessed on that service. Hence, an attempt of this kind, narrows the reader’s interest and intellectual growth in the direction defined by the interest he or she had from the time the reader started using the service. I do understand that such algorithms do get more “intelligent” as the duration of use increases. But there is a limit to which an algorithm can guess what a person wants to read.

A hybrid approach might be the way to go in the future. Front pages of news websites can have 2 sections, one presenting the latest headlines and editorial articles belonging to various topics (that is same for all readers), and one that presents articles based on historical data about the reader’s reading habits (stored with the reader’s permission). Going forward, algorithms of the future, apart from a person’s reading habits, must also consider other attributes like a person’s background (educational, professional, personal, demographic) while coming up with customized articles of the reader’s interest. This approach might help counter the two scenarios mentioned above. In this aspect, integration with social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn etc. might be an option worth considering.

Mythological Mystery

2009-05-28T09:27:00.005+05:30

Yesterday, someone at work forwarded me this joke -

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In some remote village of India , a Masterji was teaching Mahabharat Katha to class 6 students. He was at the 'Krishnajanma' chapter.

Masterji: Kansa heard an akashwani that, his sister's 8th child would kill him. He was furious. He ordered to put Vasudev and Devaki behind bars.

First son is born, and Kansa kills him by poisoning...

Second one is born and Kansa throws him off the mountain peak...

Third one is born....

Now Ramu, who is smartest of the lot, raises his hand.

Ramu: Masterji, I have a doubt (sounding nervous and confused)

Masterji: Ramu bete, whole of India does not have doubt in Mahabharata then how come you have one?"

Ramu: Masterji, if Kansa knew that, Devaki's 8th child was going to kill him, why the hell did he put Vasudev and Devaki in the same cell???

Masterji fainted.......

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Though the joke was good, I began thinking about the real reason for this. After some research, I chanced upon a plausible reason -

Kans was a doting brother. He loved his sister Devaki very much. Vasudev was Kans’ friend and his choice as the husband for Devaki. When Kans heard the Akashvani about Devaki’s 8th son killing him, he imprisoned Vasudev and Devaki together. His plan was to release Devaki and Vasudev after he had killed first 8 children. Though Kans was a cruel man, he loved his sister, and did not want to keep her imprisoned for life. Moreover, he had complete confidence on the security system of his jail and could never imagine that someone could escape. He thought, that after killing the 8th child, he will be out of danger.

The next question that came to my mind was -

If Kansa knew that Devaki's 8th child would kill him, why did he kill the first 6 (remember that the 7th child Balrama was not killed either)?

After some more research, the answer to this question was also found -

The first 6 sons of Devaki were sons of Marichi. They once laughed at Sage Devala, as he was very ricketee. He cursed them. They were born as the sons of Kalanemi. They became known as Sadgarbha. They used to remain in the water at Patala loka performing penance to obtain immortality. Brahma granted them immortality. However Hiranyakashipu became angry at this. He did not like his brother's grandsons obtaining a boon from Brahma (Kalanemi was the son of Hiranyakashipu's brother Hiranyaksha).

Therefore, he cursed them to be born again and be killed by their own father. Accordingly, they were born as Devaki's children and were killed by their own father. Kamsa as Kalanemi was their father in their earlier birth. The boon given by Brahma to be immortal and the curse given by Hiranyakashipu to be killed by their father were reconciled by Durga.

To make this happen Narad muni went to Kansa after akashvani and feed this idea of “killing all” into his head. To trick Kansa - Narad drew a circle with eight dots and asked Kansa to identify the 8th dot, which was impossible and he obliged to kill all approach.

Here is another line of thought as a possible explanation -

Kansa knew that Gods had a history of deceiving Asuras. He may have thought that Vishnu may take birth as any one of Devaki's sons, and not necessarily her 8th.

Kansa's belief came from various examples in Hindu mythology where Gods deceived Rakshasas.

Few examples being, Hiranyakashyap (bhakt prahlad’s father) had a boon, that he cannot be killed by a man or animal. So Vishnu adopted the Narsinha Avtar to kill him. And then there is the story of Bakasur. He got a boon from Shanker, that anyone placing a hand on his head would die immediately. He went on a killing spree of devtaas. Devtas cried foul and asked Vishnu for help. Vishnu took a roop of a beautiful apsara and attracted Bakasur. Bakasur proposed her and she (Vishnu) kept a bet for agreeing to her proposal that Bakasur would have to do few steps of dance like her. Bakasur agreed, and after few steps the apsara kept her own hand in her head, so did the foolish Bakasur and died. There are many other stories like these in Hindu mythology.

Now for a possible scientific reason -

In case Devaki had a mis-carriage by chance, Kansa may not come to know about it. In that case, the count of her offspings would be wrong. Hence he may not have wanted to take any chances.

The more you study this great epic, the more interesting things you learn.

6 Online Vices

2009-05-12T14:32:00.006+05:30

This tag from Nikhil has forced me to come out of my online slumber.

I agree with all the vices mentioned by Nikhil, hence I will start my list from no.6. But I will go one step further and list 6 vices from my side. :-)

6. Sending mails with "Hi" or other such meaningless subject lines

In these days when an average person's mailbox consists of hundreds and thousands of mails, and searching for the right mail is a time consuming and often irritating activity, the least one can expect is the sender to use proper subject lines in mails (indicating the content of the mail), so that the recipient can easily figure out what the mail is all about.

7. Sending mails with no subject line

This is not an out-an-out wise as it were. It might sometimes make sense to send mails without subject lines. But one should try to avoid it unless absolutely necessary, for the same reasons as mentioned in point no. 6.

8. Typing entire mails in CAPITAL letters

This is a universally accepted vice. Not only does a mail in ALL CAPS indicate that the composer is try to shout aloud at the top of his voice, but it also makes it very difficult to read.

9. Using multiple font colors in one mail

While it might be necessary to use more than one font color in a mail (for highlighting a particular portion), extravagant use of multiple font colors various sentences / words in the same e-mail a big turn-off.

10. Not being able to find mails in one's mailbox and asking people to re-send mails frequently

Mailboxes of today have ceased to be tools of leisure and become the single most important repository of personal information. Hence, it is imperative that people manage their mails properly, and not loose or misplace them frequently. Given the extremely high number of mails received by everyone these days, it is natural to misplace an odd mail or two at times. But this should definitely not be a chronic problem.

11. Using "Read Receipt" and / or "High Priority" in all mails

Excessive use / abuse of anything makes it loose its value.

The Vote

2009-04-26T14:22:00.006+05:30

I did something momentous the other day. I voted for the 1st time in my life!!

Although I have been an adult for quite some time now, this is the first time I have exercised my franchise. The main reason for me being not voting all these years was the fact that I had never been in my hometown at the time of polls. I am happy to have finally broken the jinx. :-)

Similarities between IPL and Elections

2009-04-07T22:09:00.006+05:30

Both will begin and end together..

Both will be highly entertaining..

Both will contain many controversies..

Both will cause a Media frenzy..

Both will result in record TV ratings..

Both have obscene amounts of money at stake..

Both involve Corporate funding..

Both involve buying and selling of people..

Both have number games..

Both have Bollywood Celebs involved..

Both involve heavy Marketing and Propaganda..

Both their key players will make millions..

Both feed on strong regional allegiances..

Both involve many weird acronyms (KKR, NCP, BJD etc.)..

Both have "foreign" participation..

Both will capture the imagination of the nation..

Both will not change the life of the common man..

My Favorite Subjects

2008-12-28T19:55:00.028+05:30

I watched Taare Zammen Par the other day. The movie made me think back to my school days, the subjects I studied and how I fared in them. Thankfully, I did not have any learning difficulty like the protagonist in the film. In fact, I was more like his elder brother who used to do well in class. Watching the film took me back to a variety of thoughts that floated in my mind as a student.

Every student has a different approach to learning. Some like to understand each and every concept in depth. Such students score very well in some areas (in topics they understood completely) and very poorly in other areas (where they could not grasp the topic completely). Some others like to cram the content in each subject till they memorize it by heart. Such students usually score highly in exams, since they can reproduce pages after pages of content as it is from textbooks to exam answer sheets. My method of learning was based on maximizing the return of investment. Based on the analysis of several factors like type of questions to be asked in the exams (descriptive or objective), the likely examiner, the amount of content to be covered for the particular exam, I used to formulate what and how much to study. Instead of spending hours trying to understand each and every concept, or trying to memorize pages after pages of content, I preferred to develop a deep enough understanding of the subject matter that was sufficient enough to write a good answer in the exam; nothing more or nothing less. I also placed a great emphasis on revision of studied matter. I made it a point to revise the content at least twice before the exam, preferably once on the morning of the exam, in order to ensure that all ideas are fresh in my mind. This approach helped ensure that I had countered the two most basic pitfalls in learning for an exam, not covering the entire course and forgetting what one has studied. And when it came to actually writing the exam, I followed another simple strategy to overcome one of the most common mistakes students make in an exam, i.e. taking too much time to finish the initial answers and ending up short of time to answer all questions. I divided the time alloted for the exam into the number of sections in the question paper, leaving some buffer at the end for revision. For example, in a 3 hour exam with a question paper having 5 sections, I allocated 30 minutes to each section, leaving the last 30 minutes as buffer. I tried to complete answering each section within 30 minutes. If I took longer in one section, I tried to make it up in the next. And the last 30 minutes where used up in either finishing up on some incomplete sections and / or reading through the answers to avoid any silly mistakes like wrong numbering, attaching supplements in wrong order etc. These approaches served me well all through my student life. But each student has his own way of learning, and one size does not fit all.

The protagonist in "Taare Zammen Par" had great difficulty in remembering spellings, but was exceptionally good in arts. This made me think back to the subjects I liked in school. Though I did well in almost all subjects, like every student, I had a few favorites. Here is a list of my favorite subjects in school (and college subsequently), starting from the most favorite to the least.

Mathematics - No surprises here. Given the fact that I ultimately ended up being an engineer indicates by preference for logic, and hence for Math. Though I loved all disciplines within Math, I had a greater affinity towards topics like Geometry (2D and 3D), Trigonometry and Calculus, as compared to others like Algebra, Probability etc. In fact, I could never figure out the intricacies of Probability till the last day. I can still remember the joy I derived from solving sums in school (and college subsequently). Perhaps one day, when I am retired and have plenty to spare time, I would open some school books and solve a few sums again, just to bring all my school memories back.
Sanskrit - A surprise at the number 2 position. What is a language doing at the second place in the favorite subjects list of a person who turned out to be an engineer? Well the answer lies in the question itself. I found Sanskrit to be the most logical language I studied. Words, phrases and sentences followed a more logical structure in Sanskrit than in any other language. The only tough part was memorizing some of the tongue twisting words. But as I used to have a pretty good memory in my childhood, I never faced any problems on that front.Plus the decent handle I had on Hindi spellings (refer point 4) helped out in making fewer mistakes in writing Sanskrit words.
Physics - This one is a bit tricky. Physics (along with Chemistry) branched out to be a separate subject from 11th standard onwards. I was not too font of some of the initial topics that I studied in 11th and 12th standard like Oscillations, Gravity, Fluid Motion etc. But by the time I reached the higher topics like Relativity in college, I was truly fascinated. This was perhaps due to 2 reasons. One, I had always had a fascination for topics like Relativity, Space, Time etc from an early age, due to some of the scientific concepts my father had embedded in me as bed time stories. And I just could not wait to have the opportunity to learn these topics in class. Two, I was fascinated by how complex mathematical equations came together to explain some of the most intricate laws in Physics.
Hindi- Another strange entry. Hindi was not a subject that I particularly liked; it is just one that I was quite good at. The story of my proficiency in Hindi is an interesting one. In primary school, I started off being very very poor in the subject. I could some how never get all the "maatraas" right. Till date, I have never been able to remember all alphabets in the Hindi language in their defined order. Then one fine day, my mother decided to subscribe the Hindi children's magazine "Paraag" for me. And that did wonders for my knowledge of the language. Soon, I got rid of all the spelling errors I used to make and began scoring consistently high marks in Hindi. In fact, I still remember that my marks in Hindi used to be almost at par with subjects like Math and Science, which was a surprise since people generally do not score as highly in Language as they do in Math and Science. One of the reasons for my scoring highly in Hindi was also the fact that the same teacher (Madam Tiwari) taught us Hindi for 7 years in school (6th to 12th standard). And as I have written before, one of the keys to getting good marks is being able to figure out the type of answers your teacher likes. I got so used to her way of teaching and examining papers, that I began to understand the way in which she liked answers to be composed. She had a preference for a particular logical ordering of content. I began to tailor my answers in order to match the same year after year, and reaped the benefits handsomely.
Social Studies (History, Civics, Geography) - I was quite ambivalent towards this subject. I neither liked or disliked it. It did not provide me with any specific point of interest like Math or Physics. Since I used to have a sharp memory in those days, I did not find it too difficult to memorize the long pieces of content that were required. Perhaps my lack of interest in this subject was also due to the fact that it was taught be one of the most soporific teacher in school, and that the textbooks in those days used to be very bland, unlike ones today that contain a lot of pictures and other interesting tit bits of information.
English - Another ambivalent subject for me. Though I performed above average in this one too, but it never captured my imagination. One of the reasons could be that the English curriculum in our Board was pretty rudimentary. Hence the subject matter did not arouse much interest in students. But the logical mind in me did like English Grammar, much like Sanskrit Grammar.
Chemistry - Now to the category of subjects that I disliked. I somehow never got the hand of Chemistry. I have no idea why. Ideally, a person who liked Math and Physics should like Chemistry too, after all it is quite a logical and interesting subject. Our school Chemistry teacher was a good lady was pretty good as well, but I somehow never got to liking the subject. As a result, my Chemistry grades usually lagged behind other subjects.
Biology - I disliked biology because one had to remember everything. There was no way of logically deducing anything. That too when most of the stuff was pretty cryptic. Chloroplast, Epidermis, Protozoa, Hermaphrodites were not for me. And what's more, unlike Social Studies where you could memorize the crux of the content and then right it in your own words, one needed to remember each and every detail in Biology. My dislike for the extensive amount of cramming one had to do in Biology was one of the core reasons why I decided to pursue Engineering as against Medicine.

Quote Hanger

2008-12-28T19:50:00.005+05:30

Here are some of the good quotes I have encountered in the recent past. Some funny, some thought provoking, some both at the same time :-)

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What do you call a beautiful woman on the arm of an ugly man? A tattoo.

It doesn't matter how often a married man changes his job, he still ends up with the same boss.

He that falls in love with himself will have no rivals.

When a man holds a woman's hand before marriage, it is love; after marriage, it is self-defense.

The man who smiles when things go wrong has thought of someone to blame it on.

You can tell what a man is by what he does when he hasn't anything to do.

You can also tell a man by what he does first when he has a lot to do.

Cricket quote:- Good captaincy is like pornography - it's hard to define but you know it when you see it.

The financial situation at the moment is so bad that women are now marrying for love.

Early to Bed and Early to Rise ,makes your Girl go for another Guy.

Those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.

In order to conserve energy, the light at the end of the tunnel has been switched off.

वक़्त मिलने पे मै तेरी जुल्फ को सुलझा दूंगा, आज उलझा हूँ वक़्त को सुलझाने में!

There are some things man was never meant to know. For everything else, there's Google !!

Life is like a taxi meter. It keeps ticking whether you are getting anywhere or not.

End of an era..

2008-11-10T23:12:00.003+05:30

All Indian Crickets fans in their 20s, like me, will identify with this amazing article in Cricinfo.

La Loo !!

2008-09-16T20:05:00.006+05:30

The following photographs were taken inside an AC 2 Tier compartment of an Indian Train.

In case you are wondering what the gadgets above are, these are Toilet Occcupancy Indicators, giving passengers inside the compartment an idea about whether the toilets are occupied or not. Trust the Indian Railways to come up with such ingenious innovations.

Needless to say, the indicators always showed the "Vacant" sign irrespective of whether the toilet was occupied or not.

My favorite TV shows

2008-09-10T15:18:00.002+05:30

Off late, I have been thinking about some TV shows that I have loved watching over the years. These are shows I can watch again and again, whenever they are telecast on TV.

1. Yes Minister (and it's later Indian version "Ji Mantri Ji")- Classic British humor. For all you fans of "Friends" and other American sitcoms, I believe nothing comes anywhere close to the instantaneous bureaucracy bashing wit of this legendary British show. I loved the Indian version as well, but was disappointed that it turned out to be an exact copy of the original, whereas introduction of a few nuances of Indian politics into the script would have made it many times more relevant and interesting. Alas, the Indian version had too few episodes.

2. B.R. Chopra's Mahabharat - It was this epic TV series that kick-started my fascination with the story of Mahabharat. The production values and manner of story telling in this serial were far superior than the other mythological epic telecast on Doordarshan in the 1980's, Ramanant Sagar's Ramayan (Particularly infuriating were the repetative scenes where opponents used to hurl arrows at each other in war, and the arrows took almost the entire length of the episode to hit each other.). My fondness for the show also stems from the inherent beauty of the multi-leyered story line of this epic. Ekta Kapoor's recent Kahani Hamarey Mahabharat Ki is just a gaudy remake of the original.

3. Flop Show - This is unquestionably the best satirical comedy telecast on Indian television. No show before or after this, has been able to expose the idiosyncrasies of Indian society and the inefficiencies of Indian bureaucracy in the same laugh-out-laud way as this show. Office-Office is the only other show that comes close, but is not in the same league. Even Jaspal Bhatti has not been able to re-create the same magic in any other show since. The amount of humor packed into each episode o the show was truly incredible. Each episode which dealt with a different problem in the life of a common man, consisted of a small joke in the beginning, the main storyline in the middle, and a parody song in the end. Sheer genius!!

4. Star Trek - As a child with a fascination for sci-fi and space, Star Trek had to be one of my favorites. Apart from the sci-fi elements, I loved Captain Kirk's at times arrogant personality and Spock's funnily shaped ears!! "Beam Me Up, Scotty" is my all time favorite TV dialogue.

Worst movies I have seen..

2008-09-10T10:55:00.002+05:30

I am not a great movie buff. I watch very few hindi movies. Hence, I am perhaps not the best person to write a blog post on this topic, as I have not seen a lot of gems like Love Story 2050, Bichchu, Oh Darling Yeh Hai India, Safari, Apne etc.

Yet, I have been lucky enough to watch a few landmark movies that will undoubtedly go down as one of the worst in the history of Indian cinema. I call myself lucky since I am sure the number of people who have seen the following films can be counted on fingertips. The idea was not to list poor movies, but the absolute worst of the lot.

1. RGV ki Aag (2007) - This film will almost certainly go down as the biggest disaster in Bollywood history, the greatest damp squib of all times. What strikes you most is the mockery it made of exceptional actors like Amitabh Bachchan and Mohan Lal. Absolutely none of the elements of the original Sholey, like the bond between Jai and Veeru, Thakur's internal angst, Gabbar's menace etc. get depicted anywhere near as well as the original. RGV might have been better off projecting his movie as a comic spoof of Sholey rather than a serious remake, as a majority of the audience came out laughing from the theater at this utterly ridiculous attempt at mimicking a classic.

2. Gajagamini (2000) - To call this movie "bad" is an injustice to it. "Incomprehensible" is a more apt description. Watching this movie was like staring at a Modern Art painting, trying to figure our the hidden meanings behind the abstract expressions. I am sure not many apart from Mr. M.F. Hussain have been able to figure them out. Even Hussain's muse Madhuri was so embarrassed that she did not turn up for the film's premier !!

3. Badhti Ka Naam Daadhi (1974) - This movie, which must have been conceived by Kishore Kumar during of of his eccentric fits, was an attempt to recreate the magic of the 50's hit "Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi". The horrendous nature of the movie is aptly illustrated by the absurd premise of the story. A rich old man mentions in his will that he would give away his fortune to the person with the longest beard. The lucky man turns out to be Kishore Kumar, whose beard it longer than his height itself. the rest of the film has a few goons chasing him with scissors, and the Kishore Kumar dodging them successfully. The least one expected from a Kishore Kumar movie was some good music, but this film was a monumental let down on that front too.

4. Jaani Dushman - Ek Anokhi Kahaani (2002) - Raj Kumar Kohli's suicidal attempt to remake his 1976 hit Nagin and launch the acting career of his son Armaan Kohli. The saying "Money can't buy everything" is apt for this hopeless film. It is very apparent that the makers spent a fortune in trying to re-create special effects of major Hollywood blockbusters, but it seems that they completely forgot to make any attention to the storyline itself. How else can you justify the hero of the movie just having a couple of lines to speak, inspite of being present in almost half of the scenes. Anyone watching this film should not forget to catch Sonu Nigam doing some of the worst acting ever seen on the silver screen. No wonder no one has heard of Raj Kumar and Armaan Kohli ever since.

Note:- I have confined my selection to A list (big budget and leading star cast) films. I have not looked at B grade movies like countless Mithun-da flicks (Truck Driver Suraj, Kaliya, Chandaal to name a few) for my selection, since such movies are meant to be poor by definition.

I am sure readers of this post would recall many other equally horrible movies they have seen. Comments invited.

Arbit Choudhury turns 4 !!

2008-09-05T11:17:00.008+05:30

Today is a very special day for me. Today Arbit Choudhury celebrates his 4th Birthday!!

The last 4 years have been an incredible journey for us. When we first conceived the idea way back in 2004 - it started as an attempt to create humor out of our B-school lifestyles, textbooks, syllabi and jargon. Today, the flavor of Arbit humor has expanded to cover corporate life, business lingo, management concepts, and occasionally even social happenings.

Comments, criticisms, encouraging mails and most importantly unwritten and unspoken support that fans have given Arbit over the last 4 years have kept us going.

To mark this special occasion, we have released a new version of the Arbit Choudhury website www.arbitmba.com today, replete with cool features like Tag Clouds, Rating Widgets etc.

This is in fact the 3rd version of the Arbit website. Today, let me go down memory lane and display the various versions of the Arbit Choudhury Website over the years..

Arbit Choudhury Website V1.0 (launched on 16th January 2005)

Arbit Choudhury Website V2.0 (launched on 5th September 2006)

Arbit Choudhury Website V3.0 (launched on 5th September 2008)

I Bowled at Geoffrey Boycott :-)

2008-09-04T15:44:00.004+05:30

Readers of this blog know that I am a big Cricinfo fan, and visit the site quite regularly to get my dose of Cricket news, articles and stats. A few days back, I had posted a question in the "Bowl at Boycs" section. Mr. Boycott has replied to the same here. (My question is the 4th in the list.)

Chakravyuha Demystified

2008-09-03T11:56:00.011+05:30

As I have mentioned before, I have been fascinated by the epic tale of Mahabharata since childhood. I have frequently pondered over the numerous nuances of the story, trying to figure out how and why things happened as they did, and what was the hidden message behind it all.

One of my areas of interest has been the Chakravyuha formation used by Dronacharya to kill Abhimanyu. I have often wondered what the formation actually looked like, and why was it so difficult to breach? I have been trying to uncover the answers to some of my questions through some internet research. As with any epic that has been handed down through countless generations, the anecdotes from Mahabharata have been interpreted and presented in various ways by various people. Since I have encountered various interpretations of the Chakravyuha incident as well, I have tried to stitch together a theory that satisfies most of them.

Why was the Chakravyuha so difficult to breach?

The most plausible explanation I have encountered is as follows:-

The word Chakravyuha is made up of Chakra meaning circle or ring and Vyuha meaning formation.

Some sources describe the Chakravyuh is a formation consisting of 7 concentric circles of warriors rotating in unison[5]. This is supported by the way the formation is depicted in the famous TV series Mahabharat [7], by B.R.Chopra, as shown in the snapshots below -

Another representation of the formation is in the shape of a 7 layered rotating spiral. Images on the Wiki page for Chakravyuha illustrate this [1].

I personally feel that the spiral formation depicted in Wikipedia is more credible than the 7 ring formation, as it is also engraved in some ancient Indian temple sculptures.

The Chakravyuha was specially difficult to penetrate since the attacker is not able to focus on a still target in front as the targets keep changing with the rotation of the Chakras. Even if an attacker can penetrate one ring and get inside the Chakravyuha, the rotating nature of the vyuha makes sure that the ring he has penetrated closes behind him. As a result, the attacker is trapped within the Chakravyuha.

How did Abhimanyu come to know about the way to break the Chakravyuha?

It is well known that Abhimanyu learnt the method to enter the Chakravyuha while he was inside his mother's womb. But there is some confusion on who actually mentioned the method to Abhimanyu's mother Subhadra. While most versions mention that it was Arjun who was explaining the method to Subhadra, some versions mention that he heard the method from Krishna [6]. But the thing that is consistent across versions is that Subhadra fell asleep midway and hence Abhimanyu could not listen to the way one could exit from the Chakravyuha.

Now to the major question.

What exactly was the technique for breaking into the Chakravyuha?

Here are some of the inferences I have drawn based on my research.

The rotating Chakravyuha consisted of warriors of various caliber. The Other Pandavas were not able to breach it because of 2 reasons. 1. They attacked the stronger warriors in the ring and were repelled. 2. As soon as they started to get an upper hand on one warrior, the ring rotated and another Kaurava warrior confronted them.

Abhimanyu overcame this by attacking the warriors to the left and right of him, and not the ones directly in front. [2] . As the ring rotated, the gap he had created to his left or right came in front of him and he penetrated with Chakravyuha. He repeated the same for all the rings.

Another version of the story states that Arjuna had mentioned the "right time to enter" and the "right words to enter" the Chakravyuha to Abhimanyu [4]. This seems to indicate that there was some sort of key to the jigsaw puzzle using which Abhimanyu broke through the maze. The key perhaps indicated the weak points in the formation, which should be attacked in order to break through them.

As he broke through each ring, Abhimanyu defeated one great Kaurava warrior after another. He trounced Jayadratha, Dronacharya, Karna and Aswathama in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th rings respectively[5]. It was after he had penetrated 6 rings did all Kaurava warriors join hands to attack him in unison, that resulted in his demise.

But there are some more questions that I am yet to find answers too. Like why could Abhimanyu not apply the same method that he used to enter the Chankravyuha, to exit from it as well? What was the difference in the method between entering and exiting the Chakravuyuha? Perhaps Kaurava’s joint attack into him could be the reason, as he didn’t even get a chance to apply the same logic of entering the Chakravyuha, in getting out of it. But this is just a guess from my side.

I suppose we will never be able to get exact answers to all these questions. As it is said in the Mahabharat, only 4 people; Abhimanyu, Arjuna, Krishna and Pradyumna; knew how to breach this formation. Since Ved Vyas, who recited the great epic, himself did not know the secret, how could he mention how it was supposed to be done in the story.

I have based this blog post on the limited amount of information I have been able to rummage through the Internet. For all you know, I might be completely off the mark in my conclusions. Anyone reading this blog post who can share more information about the Chakravyuha formation in Mahabharata that can help be refine this article is welcome to post a comment here.

References:-

1. The Wiki entry

2. Mahabharata - A Modern Rendering - Jayadratha's Moment

3. Mahabharata Summary - Abhimanyu

4. Chakravyuha - by Adil Jussawalla

5. The Crest Jewel: srimadbhagwata Mahapuran with Mahabharata

6. Master the Mind Monkey: Experience Your Excellence - By Anand Patkar

7. Chakravyuha Episode - in Mahabharat TV Series by B.R.Chopra

Nonsense Rhymes - XIII

2008-08-31T22:39:00.003+05:30

A part of me wants..
To bury the past,
As I can neither change it nor bear the pain..
To overcome the angst,
As I can no longer withstand the strain..
To erase all traces of wounds,
and reboot with a new vein..

Yet.. another part wants..
To preserve the memories,
However painful they may be..
As they have helped me grow wiser,
They are a part of ME..
I want the scars to remain,
As a reminder of the battles fought and lost with destiny..

Unshutdownable - Part 2 (Comedies)

2008-08-20T21:40:00.002+05:30

Unshutdownable - Part 1 is here.

Comedies have been the flavor of Bollywood in the last couple of years, with many of them like Singh is King, Welcome, Hey Baby, Golmaal, Kya Kool Hain Hum etc. doing well at the Box Office.

Here is a list of my favorite comedy films. None of the films in this list are either lewd or cheap. Perhaps that is why they are regarded as classics.

5. Padosan (1968) - I feel it was Kishore Kumar, in arguably his best screen performance, who elevated this film from a regular run-of-the-mill Mahmood comic flick (like "Bombay to Goa") to classic status. This film also deserves a place in this list as it contains the most hilarious song in the history of Indian Cinema "Ek Chatur Naar".

4. Hera Pheri (2000) - This is one of the very few genuinely comedies to come out in the last two decades, which have been littered with cheap Govinda style or lewd humor. This film established Paresh Rawal and Akshay Kumar's status as leading funny men in the industry, and they continue to entertain us with their comic roles till date. On the flip side though, I feel the second half of the movie was not half as funny as the first, and the songs were completely out of place.

3. Gol-Maal (1979) - Probably Hrishikesh Mukherjee's finest comedy, the movie exemplifies the fact that you dont need stupid histrionics to be funny. Unadulterated Nirmal Anand.

2. Andaaz Apna Apna (1994) - It is extremely rare to see a movie where almost character is as funny as the others. Though most of the goings-on in the film appear stupid, the comic timing of the actors and the simple yet funny dialogues (like "Yeh Teja Teja kya hai? Yeh Teja Teja?") make it an all time classic.

1. Jane Bhi Do Yaroon (1983) - The best political and social satire of all times. Period.

P.S.:- Since I have tried to put together a list of "pure" comedies here, I have not included a lot of other funny classics like Lagey Raho Munna Bhai and Dil Chahta Hai in this list.

Bending the laws

2008-08-08T15:21:00.004+05:30

Cricinfo is undoubtedly the best Cricket website by a light-year. The very best Cricket gurus, an unparalleled statistical database and articles of great analytical and literary quality make it a true Cricket fan's dream website. From time to time, they also come up with eclectic collections of events from the past, that give you great insights into the history and evolution of the game. Here is one such fantabulous collection, that lists how players and teams have tried to bend the rules in the past, with their actions resulting in many changes in the rules of the game. The snippets on declaring a one-day inning, placing a helmet at mid-wicket and dropping the bat while playing the ball are specially intriguing.

My Gmail Wishlist: 5 features I would like to see in Gmail..

2008-08-07T17:14:00.006+05:30

Regular readers of this blog will know that I am a huge Google and Gmail fan. Not only do I use Gmail very frequently[1][2], I also keep thinking of ways of making this fantastic service even better. Here is a list of 5 features that I feel Gmail should possess. Some of these features are already offered by other e-mail applications.

1. Delete / archive in one click. I believe this feature is present in AOL mail. When you mouse over a conversation, icons for deleting and archiving the conversation should appear automatically, and you should be able to delete or archive any conversation in one click (as opposed to 2 clicks- checking the check-box next to the conversation and clicking on Delete). The check-boxes next to the conversation can be used only when deleting a number of mails together.

2. Sorting. I know that Google believes in "Search. Don't sort." philosophy, but I would still like to be able to sort mails based on various criteria like sender, date, mail size etc.. I know that Google believes that you can perform "sorting" function through various combinations of search keywords, but that still involves remembering the search keywords etc.. Direct sorting is much easier, as it is just a matter of clicking the Sort button on sortable fields. Sorting can also be used along with Searching, in order to locate a mail faster.

Here is an example. You know that a friend of yours sent you a very large multimedia file many months back. You want to locate that mail, but do not have any idea when he sent it, what was the content or subject line of the mail and what was the title or size of the multimedia file. Plus you have 100s of mails from the friend in your mailbox, and looking for one particular mail sent by him by just searching for the friend's name or e-mail id is not feasible. If you have the sorting feature, you can search for all mails from your friend, and then sort the mails in descending order of attachment size. You will be able to find the mail you were looking for in the initial set of results.

I understand that implementation of sorting feature can create complications in a conversation based e-mail service like Gmail. A conversation can have multiple senders, multiple dates and multiple attachments. But I trust Google to find an innovative and intuitive way of doing this, if they ever decide to do so.

3. Video Chat. Just like the normal Gchat window appears as part of the Gmail window, it would be really cool to have a video chat window appear as part of Gchat. This would help a person video chat with one or more friends while he is composing other e-mails/ navigating within Gmail.

4. Save a mail in Drafts or Outbox and set the time of delivery. Suppose you need to send a mail to a friend on 14th of this month. But you know that you will be traveling and will not have access to Gmail on the 14th. You can then compose and save the mail in the draft section, and set the delivery date to 14th. I suppose this is similar to the existing reminders functionality. But giving this option as an email is also a nice to have feature. This feature is already present in MS Outlook. It is specially handy when you want to let your boss know that you are working late. You just need compose a mail to him and set the delivery timing as 1 AM :-)

5. Forward a bunch of mails together. Again, this is present in Outlook, and would be good if Gmail can provide this as well. There are times when you need to give a new joinee in your team a dump of all the conversations that took place before he joined. The Bulk forward feature can save time in such cases, as it takes away the time you would need to individually select a number of conversations and forward them one by one.

In case anyone reading this post has some other feature he would like to see in Gmail in his mind, I invite him to share his thoughts as a comment.

5 things I want to do before I die

2008-07-19T11:59:00.007+05:30

1. Re-learn Sansktrit and study ancient Indian scriptures. I have mostly forgotten the Sanskrit I learnt at school. I have always been fascinated with the language and ancient Indian works. Studying them in the language they were written and drawing my own conclusions without being biased by any other interpreter, has been a childhood dream.

2. Author a book of fiction. I have always been fond of writing, and I wrote a number of short stories as a child. But somehow lost touch as I grew older. Would like to go back to writing fiction whenever possible.

3. Be a space tourist. Hoping space tourism becomes affordable within the next 3 or 4 decades.

4. Travel in a cruise liner. Travel by sea is a unique experience by itself. Would love to experience it first hand.

5. Make Arbit Choudhury a globally popular comic character. No explanation needed :-)

Tagging Nikhil, Abhishek and Manish again.

PS:- Today is my birthday. This is perhaps the loneliest birthday I have ever had, with almost no near and dear one around to celebrate with me. Today, I am getting nostalgic about the best birthday celebration I have ever had, 4 years back.

Update:- Nikhil, Abhishek and Alex (through a tag relay) have responded.

Spirit of Cricket??

2008-06-27T19:57:00.007+05:30

19th Feb 1999, Eden Gardens, Kolkata . India are 2 for 143, and in a solid position chasing a stiff target of 279 to win in the 4th innings of an edge-of-the-seat Indo-Pakistan Test Match. Sachin Tendulkar after punching Wasim Akram in the leg side, turns for the 3rd run and is about to make it comfortably, when this happens.

Wasim Akram, Captain, Pakistan appeals vociferously. Third umpire gives Sachin out.

25th June 2008, Oval, London. New Zealand are in the midst of a tense chase against England, when this happens.

Umpires confer and ask Paul Collingwood, the English Captain if we wants to uphold the appeal. He says yes, and Grant Elliot is given out.

Collingwood later apologizes and regrets not having withdrawn the appeal.

The Gmail Story of the ‘Arbit Choudhury’ Trio !!

2008-06-22T13:01:00.007+05:30

Hemant vaguely remembers the 26th of June 2004 when he got an invite to create a Gmail ID from a batch mate at NITIE – a management school in Mumbai, India. He got so fascinated by Gmail that he soon invited Shubham and Nikhil – his closest pals – on 26th of August 2004. Those days of 2004 and these days of 2007; the trio haven’t looked back or anywhere else for email.

The refreshingly simple and innovative and clutter-free interface giving keyboard shortcuts (for key board freaks like us) swept all three of us off our feet and it was almost love at first sight. :-) The interface, the speed, the search capability, the labels, everything was truly extra-ordinary; besides the unimaginable 1GB of mailbox space it was giving those days – come to think of it; today it stands at about 6 GB (and we’ve got so habituated to the space that one of us has 45% of the 6GB consumed).

Gmail, which redefined web based email services, slowly become our nerve center. We moved all our contacts to it and made Gmail our single point of contact for all practical purposes. We did still have friends on hotmail and yahoo and other services, but they were also being infected by the Gmail-virus and gradually ‘converting’.

Together the 3 of us have shared the joy of working on Arbit Choudhury – The worlds first MBA comic character. We created Arbit Choudhury when we lived in the same campus, but post our MBA, we went on to join demanding jobs which took us to different parts of the world.

Gmail helped us stay in touch and seamlessly coordinate all our work and allied activities. A majority of our online communication, brainstorming and discussions shifted to Gmail, besides instant messengers. And when Gmail integrated a chat with mail, we gave up other messengers and migrated “full time” to Gmail. Amongst the three of us, conversations have been exchanged across 3 Continents (Asia, Europe and North America); 8 countries (India, Switzerland, UAE, UK, USA, Mauritius, Malaysia & Thailand) and 20 cities (Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Bilaspur, Baroda, Bhopal, Geneva, Lucerne, Zurich, London, Norwich, Kuala Lumpur, Kuwait, Dubai, Baltimore, Jersey City, Bangkok, Pattaya) over the last 3 years.

Arbit Choudhury comic strips are released every 15 days and all communication on this has been happening through Gmail over the last 3 years. Each comic idea is evaluated by 3 of us first and a panel formed out of 20-25 friends before it enters our ‘idea bank’.

Thereafter Shubham creates the pencil sketch, scans it and sends it by Gmail; and then refines the sketch based on feedback. Once the pencil sketch is finalized, Hemant colors it using an imaging tool and the final ‘comic’ again goes through a feedback routing on Gmail. Finally, the mail-text accompanying the comic also goes through a similar loop of discussions on Gmail, before the comic gets released to our mailing list.

Till date, over 100 comic strips (and emails) have been discussed, finalized and quality checks done through Gmail. In fact, in all our GMail boxes the labels around ‘Arbit’ are by far the heaviest.

Besides Gmail; allied services of Google are also used for ‘Arbit activities’; discussing Arbit plans on GChat, scheduling Arbit activities (like website backups) on Google Calender, simultaneously working on shared documents on Google Documents (previously Writely) etc.

GMail has frankly been the life blood of Arbit e-volution over the last 3 years. Today it is also playing a similar role while we are dreaming of our own start-up. It is the nerve centre of all out ideas, brainstorming and discussions. For us, Gmail, along with the allied services, proved to an ultimate collaborative tool to work on.

The extent of our dependence on GMail and it's related services was best summed up by Hemant, when he blogged about it in his own inimitable style, stating that our daily routines begin with "Google before Gargle". Also, it become apparent when Nikhil commented once that if someone wants to know us, he/she should read through our Gmail.

We believe that today, GMail has virtually reached the pedestal of the best e-mail service in the world. It has done so not by simply meeting customer expectations, but by giving them something they never imagined in their wildest dreams. And by doing this, it has left all competition playing a hopeless catch-up game. With all the wonderful innovations Google has brought so far, it has also raised the bar for itself in the future. Google users will continue to expect such extra-ordinary innovations in the future too. And we have no doubt they will succeed.

Come to think of it, we even discussed about participating in the Gmail story contest and discussed all about it over Gmail from 3 different cities across 2 countries. :-)

-- The “Arbit Choudhury” Trio

Here is our story on Google's GMail Stories website.

Online Habits

2008-06-18T22:26:00.007+05:30

My 5 Favorite Websites:-
1. Wikipedia
2. Cricinfo
3. Orkut
4. IBNLive
5. Moneycontrol

Favorite Browser:-
Mozilla Firefox

Google Tools and Services I use:-
1. Reader
2. Docs and Spreadsheets
3. Bookmark
4. Calendar
5. Picassa
6. Maps
7. Checkout
8. Gmail Mobile
9. Alert

Tagging Nikhil, Hemant, Manish and Abhishek to share their online habits.

Update:- Nikhil , Manish and Abhishek have responded to the tag.

Nonsense Rhymes - XIV

2008-04-14T08:03:00.001+05:30

A part of me..
Wishes to forget the past..
Bury the angst..
Erase all traces of despair..
As some breaks are beyond repair..

Yet, another part..
Wants to preserve those memories..
However painful they may be..
As they have helped me grow..
They are a part of ME..

GBM

2008-04-12T17:43:00.003+05:30

The other day, I was chatting with my cousin in the US over Skype. As she had to step out for some urgent work, she asked me to keep her 8 year old son busy by chatting with him till she came back. She set up the web-cam so that we could see each other while chatting and left. I chatted with the kid for about 45 minutes before his mother returned. On her return, she thanked me and said that this might be the first instant when someone sitting in India had been baby-sitting a kid in the US !!

Is this the next big thing in outsourcing?? :-)

GBM- Global Baby-sitting Model

Arbit's social responsibility

2008-04-01T14:25:00.006+05:30

Though Arbit Choudhury is all about humor, we do like to utilize Arbit’s popularity do your little bit for important social causes. From time to time, we extend our whole hearted support to various social projects and awareness campaigns.

Project WHY !

ProjectWHY is an organization aiming to provide under privileged children a means to learn, earn and live with dignity. The Project WHY resource center is located in the Giri Nagar slum in New Delhi. There are currently 600 children enrolled at WHY. Children at WHY are enrolled in local government or municipal schools.

We have released a special comic strip related support one of the initiatives taken by ProjectWHY

The entire Arbit Team (Arbit, his friends and his Creators) extend a helping hand to the under-privileged children by announcing their support to Project WHY. We would appreciate all the Arbit fans who would come forward and help such initiatives.

Project WHY Coordinators:

Mrs.Anuradha Bakshi (Contact No. +91 98 1142 4877)

Ms. Shamika Bakshi(Contact No. +91 98 1111 3420)

AIDS Awareness

The Arbit Choudhury Team is also a keen supporter of the AIDS awareness campaign. On World AIDS Day every year, we release a special comic strip dedicated to spreading awareness about AIDS.

If you think Arbit can help some other Social Responsibility Projects, we would like to hear from you about them. Write to us at arbit.mba@gmail.com

"I was there"

2008-03-30T23:13:00.006+05:30

History is not made every day. Those who get the opportunity of witnessing history being made should consider themselves very privileged indeed.

History does not repeat itself very often either. Hence, only an extreme bout of good fortune can make you witness history not once but twice.

The above logic applies on the cricket field too, where great feats are seldom repeated. And when they are, only a few lucky people are privileged to watch them happen on each occasion. Richard Stokes, a spectator who watched Jim Laker and Anil Kumble take all 10 wickets in an innings; and Bob Simpson, who played for and coached the Australian cricket team in the 2 tied test matches in Brisbane-1960 and Madras-1986, were two such fortunate people.

Through I have been an avid cricket fan since childhood; I have never had the opportunity to witness an international game on the field till now. Hence all my memories of great moments on the field emanate from the television set. Having watched cricket on TV for more than two decades, I have watched many great and record breaking moments on field. While all these could comprise of a full blog post, I would like to reflect on two instances of one particular record breaking moments that I was very “lucky” to catch on TV.

29th March, 2004. While the 1st Test of India’s tour to Pakistan was in progress in Multan, I was appearing for my module 3 exams in B-school. Sehwag had ended the previous day at 228 not out, and was looking all set to score many more, Though I desperately wanted to catch the match on the hostel tele, the pressure of appearing for two exams in a day, separated only by a 1.5 hour gap, 3 days in a row, was weighing on my mind. When I checked the score in the morning before rushing to the examination hall to see that Sehwag had begun the day in the same blistering fashion that he had ended the previous, I got a feeling that we might be in for something special here. But there was a good chance that I would not be able to catch the memorable moment on TV as it happened, because of the tight exam schedule. Never the less, I rushed straight to the hostel TV room as soon as I finished the morning exam. While others used the small time window available to grab a quick lunch and make some last minute preparations for the afternoon exam, I watched Sehwag send the ball sailing into the stands to complete the 1st ever triple century by an Indian!! And I rushed to my room immediately afterwards to revise some chapters.

28th March, 2008. The 1st Test of South Africa’s tour to India was in progress in Chennai, and I was travelling by train. I had been checking the score on my mobile and was aware of the fact that Sehwag was nearing another triple hundred in tests. And having seen him achieve this feat previously, I was desperate to reach home as soon as possible to get a chance to see him repeat the feat (in case he managed to do it). But Indian Railways seemed adamant to de-rail my plans this time around, and the train was delayed by a good 2 to 3 hours. Yet, I some how managed to scamper home just in time to see Sehwag flick the ball away to fine leg and celebrate yet again!! Sehwag now joined Don Bradman and Brian Lara as the only batsmen to have hit 3 triple hundreds in tests. Though not physically present at the ground, I too can now say that “I was there” when Sehwag re-wrote the record books, twice.

Update - 4th December 2009. 3rd day of the 3rd test between India and Sri Lanka. Sehwag had ended day 2 on a mind numbing 284* (all scored in just 78 overs of India's batting). At the beginning of day 3, everyone was holding their breaths to find out if Sehwag would become the 1st man in Test Cricket history to score 3 triple hundreds. Having seen his previous 2 feats live, I was surely not going to give up the chance of watching him do it for the 3rd time. Unfortunately, I was out of India and did not have access to a TV channel that showed the match live. But the die-hard cricket fan in me found a way to see the match live through a video streaming website. I held my breath as Sehwag pinched singles one by one and inched closer and closer.

But it was not to be. He fell to an tame dismissal in the hands of Murlidharan. Sehwag's shot at cricketing immortality was missed. So was my change of being witness to it...

Arbit Choudhury- 100 not out !!

2008-02-05T14:24:00.005+05:30

It was a sunny winter afternoon in 2004 - me, Hemant and Nikhil were sitting in the B-school hostel, enjoying the sunshine and chitchatting about random things when someone sent a huge collection of comics on the LAN. We flipped through some comics and were not particularly perked up - we did not particularly relate to the humour.

All of us mulled over the thought that nowadays it was much more fun to spoof management jargon which we learnt in class, in our day to day life. Why isn't there such a concept in comics - there is Archie which pokes at school life, Laxman's cartoons poking at social affairs, even Doonesbury poking at politics. As we wondered, the feeling grew upon us that Management Jargon was one of the most 'attractive' fields to poke at - and more so as you make fun of it - you indeed are also helping simplify its understanding.

These thoughts which were seeded in the winter of 2004, bore fruit in the summers and Arbit Choudhury was born, which we launched in September 2004. We have come a ling way since then till today, when we released the 100th comic strip in the Arbit Choudhury series. have enjoyed every moment of creating humour out of management jargon - and as feedback from Arbit fans keeps confirming time and again, we are sure fans across the world have been enjoying the same.

On this occasion, we thank all our fans - professionals, consultants, professors and students as much as we thank the management gurus who create the jargon for us to find humour in. The centenary comic strip celebrates the quintessential property of an MBA as a tribute to all our fans ;-).

We - the Arbit Choudhury team - wish that we keep enjoying this journey and celebrate many more such milestones!!!

Feedback / suggestions are welcome at arbit.mba@gmail.com

Jai Hanuman !!

2008-01-30T21:27:00.003+05:30

One of the most controversial and exciting Test series in recent times concluded a few days back. While the clash between the top 2 ranked cricket teams in the world, Australia and India, lived up to the expectation of a combative on-field contest, some other unforeseen "Monkey" business that transpired on the field has left the entire cricket fraternity befuddled. I had been itching to write about the series for a while, but decided to wait it all the fun was over before posting my thoughts. I will take all the "hot" topics one by one.

Preparing for the worst

No one in the world with the slightest knowledge of the game would have concurred with the tour itinerary agreed upon by BCCI for this test series. Having only one warm up game before taking on the World Champions in their own den was almost as daft a decision as going out to bat against Brett Lee with no protective gear. It was bound to hurt India. Like countless decisions in the past, the bosses of the richest cricket board in the world proved that they know absolutely nothing about the game, with this decision. And what's worse, is that they don't seem to give a damn about it either. For long, the BCCI has been treating Indian cricket as a caged animal in a zoo, using it to rake in as much moolah as possible, while never caring for it's well being. The trend started during the Dalmiya era has only got worse in the current regime. Indian cricket has been doing well, not because of the board, but inspite of it.

Buck-was Umpiring

It can be safely said that the umpiring during the Sydney Test was one of the worst seen in recent times. While it is true that the recent advances in technology have exposed the umpires like never before, some of the erroneous decisions made during the test were even apparent to the naked eye. It was harsh in Bucknor to be removed from the subsequent test match, but most people know that his umpiring has been on the down slide over the last few years. As Bob Willis mentions in this article, Steve Bucknor is really past his prime, and at 61 years of age, should retire before he faces further embarrassment on the field.

ICC is not helping matters by having only 10 members in the elite panel, and making them travel for more than half of the year around the world. Every test match is umpired by two members of the elite panel not belonging to either playing nations, and every ODI by one of them. An umpire's job is almost as hard as the players themselves, as they need to be on the field for the entire duration of the match, and need to concentrate on each and every ball. They need to be physically fit and mentally sharp at all times. Hence, over work can easily lead to umpiring errors, like the ones seen in Sydney. The ICC needs to seriously contemplate increasing the number of umpires in the elite panel, so that they travel less, and stay fresh for the matches they officiate in. I also feel that the ICC look at inducting younger umpires into the panel, given the fact that the two best umpires on the panel, Simon Taufel and Aleem Dar, are also the youngest of the lot.

Sledge-Hammer

Andrew Symonds believes Harbhajan called him a "Monkey", and hence, he is a racist. Now while it will never be proven if Harbhajan actually called him a "Monkey", or if he was just abusing him with the common Punjabi slur "Teri Maa Ki", this incident should be looked in the light of many other facts, which have been conveniently ignored by most of the Aussie media.

Andrew Symonds has himself admitted to justice Hansen that it was he who started the confrontation by hurling abuses (including the F**** word, which might be a standard part of Australian vocabulary[1][2][3], but is not acceptable to any civilised Indian) towards Harbhajan, that prompted him to get back with his own slur. While Mr. Mike Proctor, who had previously distinguished himself in another tricky situation at the Oval in 2006, turned a blind eye towards this, thankfully, the New Zealand Judge Mr. Hansen did not.

Symond's justifies his abuse at Harbhajan saying that his friendly tap on Brett Lee's back saying "Well Bowled", was not acceptable, since "a test match is no place to be friendly with an opposition player" is as ludicrous as it gets [full text of judgement], since it would also qualify this

as unacceptable. If Symonds had been in Tendulkar's place, he would probably have abused Brett Lee in return for this gesture. I guess it is the Aussie way to return innocuous gestures with verbal abuse, as reflected here.

As many an expert has pointed out, the Aussies have been the worst sledgers in world cricket for decades, and have even been accused of racist comments[4][5][6]. While they like to hurl the foulest of language at opponents, they do not like it one bit when they get it back in kind. I guess they think asking one opposing player what his team mate's d**k tastes like[7][8] and spitting on opponents is fine, but "so called" racism isn't? The Australian media says that Harbhajan should know the word "Monkey" might be innocuous in India, but has serious racial connotations to Mr. Symonds. By the same yardstick, the Australians should also know that F*** and B****** are not words that Indians like to listen.

By the way, I felt the most interesting part of Justice Hansen's judgement was the following statement:- "Mr. Singh had innocently, and in the tradition of the game, acknowledged the quality of Mr. Lee’s bowling. That interchange had nothing to do with Mr. Symonds but he was determined to get involved and as a result was abusive towards Mr. Singh. Mr. Singh was, not surprisingly, abusive back. He accepts that his language was such as to be offensive under 2.8. But in my view even if he had used the words ’alleged’ an ’ordinary person’ standing in the shoes of Mr. Symonds who had launched an unprovoked and unnecessary invective laden attack, would not be offended or insulted or humiliated in terms of 3.3.”

One can only hope that the ugly incidents of Sydney and their aftermath, would make cricketers from all countries refrain from making personal abuse on the field of play in the future. It is also important that the on field umpires take charge of events, and proactively prevent such altercations, before things go out of hand (as suggested by Ian Chappell, who was one of the few Aussie commentators who looked at the whole issue without any bias).

Blackmail

The Sydney fiasco (questions on the Aussie sporting spirit, horrendous umpiring and the racism row), and the resultant bashing received by the Australian team [1][2][3] had placed the BCCI in a great position to drive home the advantage, and gain the moral high ground by a dignified and balanced stand on the issues. They botched a great chance of exposing the Australian hypocrisy, match referee's lopsided verdict and ICC's incompetence, by their own inept handling of the matter. The BCCI made a mockery of themselves dealing with the situation with the same political brinkmanship as would suit an Indian state assembly. So whats new, one could say, since Indian cricket is being run by politicians anyway.

Angry Young Men

The Aussie cricketers are apparently "angered" by justice Hansen's balanced verdict [1][2] on the matter, and say "...this shows how much influence India has, because of the wealth they generate. Money talks." I guess the appropriate way for them to register their protest is to refusing to endorse any Indian products and refusing to play in the IPL. Would they do this? Instead, they are now confronting their own board for a chance to participate.

अदम्य Gilchrist

The greatest wicket keeper batsman in the 130 year history of the game has decided to hang up his gloves (and squash balls too). While experts around the world have been talking about is fantastic feats with the bat and the gloves, I will always remember Gilly for being one of a few gentlemen among an otherwise uncouth and abrasive set of players. Gilchrist and Brett Lee are probably the only two in this golden generation of Aussie cricketers, who are equally loved through out the world, and not just in Australia. Most others like Steve Waugh, Shane Warne, Glenn Macgrath, Ricky Ponting, Mathew Hayden and Andrew Symonds, have not exactly distinguished themselves by their on field behaviour over the years.

Gilly was a unique cricketer in many ways. He was one of the quietest wicket keepers in the world, who would seldom utter more than a "Well bowled Warner" from behind the stumps. He was also one who almost never over appealed (this incident with Dravid being an exception, but I guess we can give him the benefit of the doubt here), was never involved in any major sledging incident, walked on most occasions and never once indulged in mind games with opposing teams by his remarks in the press. He was the epitome of the phrase "hard and fair".

We will miss you Gilly...

Final comments..

With all the controversies around the game, the media almost ignored the fact that this was probably the best test series played since Ashes 2005. As I had predicted last year, the simultaneous exit of Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath, has left a serious dent in the Aussie bowling armory. While Mitchel Johnson and Stuart Clark are more than competent bowlers at the international level, they are no match for Mcgrath. And with the ageing and inconsistent Hogg, and the injured McGill, the Australians will find it ever more difficult to dismiss opposing teams twice in a test match, specially away from home. Their repeated inability to get rid of tail enders quickly during the summer is an indication of the reduced sharpness in their attack. It can be fair to say that Brett Lee, who won the Man of the Series award in both series, has carried the attack on his shoulders. With Adam Gilchrist also leaving the scene, one can look forward to more competition from other sides to the aussie hegemony on the cricket field.

Arbit Choudhury: Rewind 2007

2008-01-01T20:44:00.002+05:30

As another year in the life of Arbit Choudhury draws to a close, it is time we share some key Arbit happenings, achievements and challenges of 2007 with all of you.

2007 was a special year in more ways than one. During this year, Arbit Choudhury won the Manthan Award under the e-Entertainment category, for its contribution to developing the concept of micro-distribution.

Arbit's important media mentions this year included a feature article on "Indian Webcomics" in Indian Express (Chennai Edition) on June 15th, mention in a Times of India article about the proposed creation of Arbit Choudhury on 12th March, and an Interview with the creators of the comic strip appearing in the popular management blog Management Informatika.

During the course of the year, we invited Arbit ideas from our fans, and converted the best of them into comic strips through our yearly Mastishk Arbit Fresh Ideas Contest (MAFIC). We also tested your knowledge on Arbit Choudhury through a special quiz hosted on our website, on the occasion of Arbit's 3rd Birthday.

In 2007, Arbit Choudhury also became a regular feature in Tango- The Cognizant Technology Solutions Newsletter circulated among Cognizant associates and B-schools across the country. We launched an Arbit Ideas Contest in the December edition of Tango, inviting humor doses from all recipients of the newsletter. Arbit Choudhury comic strips have appeared in the Satyam newsletter, GE CIS newsletter and BHEL "Caravan" newsletter over the years.

Apart from our regular comic strips, we released special comic strips on Valentine's Day, international Labour Day, Google's Birthday and World AIDS Day.

During 2007, the Arbit Choudhury creators created and released comic strips from 12 cities, 6 countries and 3 continents across the globe. Even as our professional commitments take us to different parts of the world, and make us work from different time zones, we have tried to provide Arbit Choudhury fans their regular dose of Arbit humor without fail. We will continue in this endeavor in the future too.

We promise to make 2008 equally enjoyable for you, if not more. Do keep writing to us at arbit.mba@gmail.com

To receive the latest Arbit Choudhury comic strip straight into your mailbox, join the Arbit Yahoo Group / Mailing List . If you want to join the Arbit Yahoo Group but cannot do so, Please send a mail to arbit.mba@gmail.com with the subject “Join”- Your id will be added to our mailing list directly.

Feel Good Factor

2007-12-30T11:11:00.001+05:30

Every once in a while, you get a chance to make a small difference to the lives of others, and do something that really makes you feel good from within.....

Travelling in a Mumbai local is an experience like no other. Mumbai's local trains and their stations, are places that defy Newtonian Laws; where displacement can take place without application of force, and every push can result in two equal and opposite shoves. Local trains are not meant for the faint hearted, the slow and old, and the physically challenged.

I had just disembarked from one such jam packed local train at Kanjur Marg station, and landed on a platform bustling with a sea of people jostling to take the next arriving local. One does not usually pay attention to people around, in the middle of such a crowd. But for some odd reason, my eyes fell on a middle aged couple trying to make sense out of the madness at the station. After a fraction fo a second, I realised that both of them were blind, and were struggling to find their way around. Just as I was wondering how the visually challenged couple would be able to make their way into a train overflowing with people, things got worse for them. As the blind man extended his wooden stick forward to check the boundry of the platform, it hit the corner of the platform and fell onto the railway tracks.

How would the man get his stick back, I thought. With a local train arriving every 5 minutes or so, there was no way he would himself be able to jump into the tracks and pick his stick up within the short time, specially since he would also not able to see a fast approaching train. Without his stick, he would not be able to navigate his way to any other place either, specially since his female companion was also blind.

When I got down onto the tracks at the end of the platform to cross over to the other side, I jogged upto the place where the man's stick had fallen, picked it up, and handed it over to him. Even as the blind man and woman thanking me, I rushed to the other side of the tracks.

While I walked away from the scene, I began wondering what would have happened had I not helped the blind man. Perhaps some other commuter would have picked the stick up for him. Perhaps someone else would have helped him get into the train.

The man I helped could not even see me. He did not hear my voice. He did not know my name either. He will probably even forget that someone picked his stick from the railway tracks very soon.

But I still felt happy to have helped him.

Having a Blast !!

2007-12-29T23:14:00.001+05:30

Overheard on a Hyderabad-Mumbai flight....

A:- How long have you been in Hyderabad?

B:- 2 years. I work for an IT company here. What about you?

A:- I live in Mumbai. Just came here for a week.

B:- So how did you like Hyderabad?

A:- Nice place, but I was kind of scared by the recent bomb blasts here.

B:- Oh, the one in Lumbini Park? In fact, I was around that place on the fateful day.

A:- Really!!

B:- I was travelling in an auto-rickshaw when I noticed a lot of commotion. On enquiring, I came to know that a major bomb blast had taken place in nearby Lumbini Park. The auto-rickshaw wallah, who appeared to be quite disturbed to hear this, asked me if he could take a diversion and pass in front of the park, so that he could see the scene of the mishap. I agreed.

A:- Then what?

B:- We went near the blast site. As expected, it has not a pleasent scene. The injured were being rushed to ambulences, the police were trying to control the crowd and the media had arrived in full force to cover the tragedy. After a couple of minutes, I asked the auto-wallah to take me to my destination. When I received, I checked the meter, and handed over the fare to him. To my surprise, he asked me for 30 extra bucks. When I asked him why, he replied in his Hyderabadi accent "क्या साब, मैंने आप्कू इतना बढ़िया बोम्ब ब्लास्ट दिखलाया.. कुछ तो ज्यादा पैसे दो.. ऐसा सीन आप्कू रोज़ थोड़ी देखनेकू मिलेगा !! (I showed you such a wonderful bomb blast. Please pay me something extra. After all, you wont get to witness such a scene everyday!!)

My Cell Phones

2007-12-29T22:49:00.000+05:30

November 2001 - August 2004

Motorola Talkabout T2282

August 2004 - Noverber 2007

Motorola c350e

November 2007 - Present

Nokia N73 Music Edition

Nonsense Rhymes - XII (Hindi Edition)

2007-11-04T20:58:00.000+05:30

After a lot of English poems, here comes my first attempt at Hindi poetry.. Beware !!

मुझे ना जाने क्यों ऐसा लगता है..
की ख़ुशी की "density" गम से ज्यादा है ॥
गम को जितना भी ख़ुशी में दफन करों..
कम्बक्त हर बार उभर आता है..
कम्बक्त हर बार उभर आता है॥

वैधानिक चेतावनी :- अर्थ हीन कवितायेँ सुनना स्वास्थ्य के लिये हानिकारक है॥

The Evolution of MastishK

2007-10-23T21:08:00.001+05:30

MastishK 2007- India's 1st Fully Online Business Simulation Games Challenge is currently live. This is the 4th edition of the annual event, 1st started in 2004. For someone who had the privilage of being part of the the core team who conceptualised and created the event in 2004, it gives me immense pleasure to see the event go from strength to strength every year.

Arbit Choudhury, who was 1st launched during MastishK 2004, has also been part of each subsequent edition of the event, in the form of MAFIC (MastishK Arbit Fresh Ideas Contest), were participants are invited to send in their funny ideas, and the best ones being converted into Arbit Choudhury Comic Strips. This year's MAFIC is slightly different, with people given specific themes on which ideas are invited. To participate in MAFIC, do visit www.mastishk.nitie.net

Apart from all the wonderful business simulation games that attract folks to MastishK, the innovative web interface has also been a big hit among participants over the years.

Today, let me take a walk down memory lane, and share with our the "different" MastishK interfaces over the years.

So here is.. the changing face of MastishK :-)

MastishK 2004

MastishK 2005

MastishK 2006

MastishK 2007

History repeats itself !!

2007-10-17T22:48:00.001+05:30

October 21st, 1996

Australia vs. India, a Day-Night ODI at Chinnaswami Stadium in Bangalore.

Australia score 215 batting 1st. Chasing, India are 164 for 8.

Srinath and Kumble come together, as Kumble's mother watches from the stands.

They add an unbeaten 52 runs together, taking India to a memorable victory.

October 17th, 2007

Australia vs. India, a Day-Night ODI at Wankhade Stadium in Mumbai.

Australia score 193 batting 1st. Chasing, India are 143 for 8.

Zaheer and Murli Kartik come together, as Zaheer's parents watch from the stands.

They add an unbeaten 52 runs together, taking India to another memorable triumph.

The edge of reason

2007-10-16T19:11:00.001+05:30

.....Continued from here.

The Reasonable Man:- “All life works on reason.”

The Unreasonable Man:- “All progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

The Reasonable Man:- “A reasonable man is respected by one and all.”

The Unreasonable Man:- “Reason is a personal opinion. No one likes to believe he is unreasonable.”

The Reasonable Man:- “I can convince anyone with reason.”

The Unreasonable Man:- “Reason cannot convince one who does not appreciate or understand it.”

The Reasonable Man:- “A reasonable man can adjust to people and situations.”

The Unreasonable Man:- “Adjustment is a weakness which makes you give up your ideas and convictions.”

The Reasonable Man:- “He who does not adjust to situations, is stubborn.”

The Unreasonable Man:- “Only the stubborn get their way in life.”

The Reasonable Man:- “Reason always wins.”

The Unreasonable Man:- “A reasonable man is bound to loose to an obstinate one.”

The Reasonable Man:- “Reason helps you understand others.”

The Unreasonable Man:- “You understand others. But do others understand you?”

to be continued......

Blogging 2.0 has arrived !!

2007-10-15T21:02:00.001+05:30

Bloozler , the next wave in Blogging, was launched at BarCampMumbai two days back.

Bloozler is the ‘Tool’ from bloozle which enables anyone to read all the blogs / news feeds etc in his/her reading list at one single place. No more going to each blog individually and checking for updates. No more missing out on the latest post. No more keeping track of your (blog / rss feeds) reading list by maintaining it in favourites or in document files.

So whats the Big Deal !! There are already some good blog aggregators / feed readers available. Whats with bloozle’s bloozler !!

Well, Bloozler tries to transform the simple act of blog reading and the attempt is to take it to the next level of maturity. Blogging is a phenomenon which has given netizens the ultimate freedom of expression. Simultaneously, it has become a nice source of latest happenings, news, views and reviews. In this Web 2.0 age of User Generated Content; people just don’t want to read some blogs out of plain interest to spend leisure time. They want more. They want to know more and more about the best blogs around, they want to increase the width as well as the depth of their reading. People not only want to read some blogs they already know of, they also want to read the ‘best’ blogs around (but usually don’t do so since they do not know the best ones around). Also the quality in these best blogs may not be consistent.

Bloozle takes into account all these current and future needs of the global blogging community. Conceptually, Bloozle is the platform which brings together the blogs you read, your friends read and everybody (using bloozler) reads. It then brings in a mechanism for ‘organizing’ the complex world of blogging information. Rating and tagging features form the foundation for organizing and filtering the huge abundance of user generated content resulting in ‘blog float’, the best blog posts or feeds automatically floating to the surface for everyone to read.

Bloozler is the web-based tool at your disposal for taking advantage of the revolutionary concept called bloozle. This web based tool will enable you to access your reading list from any internet connected computer terminal in the world and deliver the hottest blogs and posts right onto your screen.

Do check out Bloozler

Nonsense Rhymes - XI (Alone vs. Lonely)

2007-10-11T12:13:00.000+05:30

At times, I would rather be alone..
To ponder dispassionately..
To look back around the mental alley..
To evaluate each success and failure..
To wonder what future has in store..
To envision where I want to be..
To set each goal and priority..

Yet, I would rather not be lonely..
Lest the past comes back to haunt..
Lest memories bring pain along..
Lest old wounds re-surface..
Lest old feelings show up on the face..
Lest I go back to my shell..
Lest I cry, in sorrows I can’t dispel..

At times I would rather be alone..
At times I need some personal space.
Yet, I fear memories coming out of the closet..
Yet, I fear loneliness.

Statutory Warning:- Reading nonsense poetry is injurious to mental health.

Arbit Choudhury wins the Manthan Award !!

2007-10-03T13:57:00.002+05:30

I would like to announce with great pleasure that Arbit Choudhury has been awarded the prestigious Manthan Award under the e-Entertainment category, for its contribution to developing the concept of micro-distribution. The Manthan Award is an initiative by Digital Empowerment Foundation , India as the National initiative of World Summit Award, to select and promote the best practices in e-Content and Creativity in India.

As the Award Jury put it – “Comic characters and ICT [Information Communication Technologies] offer immense possibilities for communicating serious thoughts quickly and to a large audience and in an interactive mode. [Others] could adopt Arbit's strategy of micro-distribution over a large geographical area to reach the target audience.”

You can read more about Arbit Choudhury's contribution on the Manthan Award website here

The list of all winners of the Manthan Award can be found here

We would wish to thank all our fans for their support which has kept us going and has brought us to this day when Arbit has been recognized as a concept with an impact farther than Management and B-schools.

Sabyasachi Ghosh, a close friend of mine, who was present in New Delhi, accepted the Manthan Award on our behalf.

Do send your messages in relation to the award along with feedback, suggestions and Arbit ideas to arbit.mba@gmail.com You can also join the Arbit Choudhury Mailing List by visiting this link, and clicking on the “Join This Group” button, or writing a mail to arbit.mba@gmail.com with the subject “Join”.