I was reading the newspaper today morning (the notorious Times Of India), and was pained to see 4 pages on SlumDog making it big in the Oscars. When I turned to the 5th page, I saw an article on 2 kids in Bangalore drowning in a drainage. I fail to understand which of these news is more important to the Indian audience. We have terrorism in various parts of India, people dying due to hunger, poverty, disease and all that the media can think of at this time is to publish 4 pages of not so useful information in the front page.
Personally, I do not have any grudge against SM making it to the Oscars. As an Indian, I am proud of this achievement, and I think Rehman deserved it. But then, Rahman deserved this for Roja, Swades, Lagaan etc. which were much better than the one he is receiving now. When I was browsing Rediff.com, I saw this video of Anil Kapoor (Duh???) talking about how it was like to stand on the stage and receive an award, how it is a great day for India...blah blah blah. Coming from Anil Kapoor it makes sense. He has not seen a single box office success throughout his life, so making it to the OSCAR's would surely boost his image. But I think overhyping this just degrades us further in front of the global community. It sends a signal that India is a 3rd world country and it is finally making it big. I feel India has more potential and it is not necessary that we be recognised for our efforts through a foreign award. When all of this was happening, the media did not talk about Smile Pinki or the little girl who, when I last heard, was waiting for her passport and visa to travel to the awards ceremony. I think, the international audience likes to see the slums and poverty of India. Any movie which talks about this makes it big. There was this novel called "Shantharam" by Gregory David Roberts which was about the life of a escaped NZ convict in Dharavi. The book became a bestseller. Slum Dog talks about how a slum kid makes it big in the "Who wants to be a millionaire?". But there is more to India than just slums. We have a rich culture and heritage (infact more than any other country), we have friendly and loving people, we have a joint family system still in place which is not there anywhere else. We need these kinds of movies which showcase our talents than our miseries.
Now the various State Governments would confer awards for casts haling from their state. Lakhs and Crores of money would be paid to the protagonist and his kins, row-houses and farm-houses would be "donated" to them. And all of this from the innocent tax payers' money. We pay taxes for better roads, infrastructure, water, food, and basic necessities. But the BABUS think that feeding the millionaires is more important.
I would not entirely blame the media or the press for this kind of a behavior. We, the people, should understand what is of importance to us now, we need to shed off the veil of "We are like this only" until then, it is just one man's cribbing against the system.
JAI HO.
Feb 24, 2009
Yet another useless post
I have this feeling to write about the numeric system since a long time, but somehow in all the chaos around me (deliveries, deadlines, dependencies), never found the time or the urge to pen it down (or key it down). I woke up early today morning (around 6:00 AM types), and had a lot of time for office. So, I thought, why not now?
We have always known (and come to acknowledge it as a fact) that the numeric system starts at 0 (I am talking about a real life scenario wherein 0 is the least and 100 is considered to be complete). Infact, it is so much embedded within our system that we have stopped (or never started) questioning it. But is this really true? Why is 0 considered to be the start of all numbers and 100% completion means that the task is completed? Is it because cent means 100? If so, why was cent fixed to be 100 and not 10 or 1000? These are really confusing questions to answer. When we say a task is nearing 100%, we immediately think that it is nearing completion and all the sub-tasks within this task are fulfilled. How about thinking it this way? When we say a task is nearing 100% completion, it could also be thought as the "pending" sub-tasks are nearing 0. Which means, 0 could now be taken to be the completion value. Then the notation 100 loses it's significance. The same is with a graph of the amount of knowledge a person gathers over life. It is said, this graph curve is sharp in the initial stages (like childhood, adolescence) and starts tending to be come horizontal in the later stages. It is attributed to the reason that the grasping power of a person tends to go down with age. Also, the person starts implementing the knowledge he has gained so far in real life situations rather than learning something new.
Then could this also be considered here as below. When we plot this graph with the age on the X Axis and the brain capacity on the Y axis, the graph shows a different picture eventhough the final goal is the same.
We, as human beings, lack the will to question the facts. We are "taught" at school that 0 is the least, and the more we increment, the better. If only we could reverse this order, we would stop being human beings and become GOD.
Aham Brahmasvi
We have always known (and come to acknowledge it as a fact) that the numeric system starts at 0 (I am talking about a real life scenario wherein 0 is the least and 100 is considered to be complete). Infact, it is so much embedded within our system that we have stopped (or never started) questioning it. But is this really true? Why is 0 considered to be the start of all numbers and 100% completion means that the task is completed? Is it because cent means 100? If so, why was cent fixed to be 100 and not 10 or 1000? These are really confusing questions to answer. When we say a task is nearing 100%, we immediately think that it is nearing completion and all the sub-tasks within this task are fulfilled. How about thinking it this way? When we say a task is nearing 100% completion, it could also be thought as the "pending" sub-tasks are nearing 0. Which means, 0 could now be taken to be the completion value. Then the notation 100 loses it's significance. The same is with a graph of the amount of knowledge a person gathers over life. It is said, this graph curve is sharp in the initial stages (like childhood, adolescence) and starts tending to be come horizontal in the later stages. It is attributed to the reason that the grasping power of a person tends to go down with age. Also, the person starts implementing the knowledge he has gained so far in real life situations rather than learning something new.
Then could this also be considered here as below. When we plot this graph with the age on the X Axis and the brain capacity on the Y axis, the graph shows a different picture eventhough the final goal is the same.
We, as human beings, lack the will to question the facts. We are "taught" at school that 0 is the least, and the more we increment, the better. If only we could reverse this order, we would stop being human beings and become GOD.
Aham Brahmasvi
Feb 18, 2009
Top 10 places to work in India
1. State Bank Of India
2. Vijaya Bank (Bangalore)
3. Union Bank Of India
4. BSNL Customer Care Center
5. RTO
6. Tata Indicom BroadBand (Sales)
7. Reliance BroadBand (sales)
8. Hathway Broadband (sales)
9. Passport Office
10.Ration office (Ration = Place where you get subsidised rice, pulses, cereals, etc.)
I really envy anybody working in either of these places. You should really be lucky to work here, because, not all places pay you for not doing your work. Also, you need to be mentally and physically strong to do the same routine for 25 years (i.e. do nothing). If ever I am born again as a human in my next life, I pray to God, "Do not make me so incapable so as to join Google or Microsoft, place me in any one of above 9 organisations".
2. Vijaya Bank (Bangalore)
3. Union Bank Of India
4. BSNL Customer Care Center
5. RTO
6. Tata Indicom BroadBand (Sales)
7. Reliance BroadBand (sales)
8. Hathway Broadband (sales)
9. Passport Office
10.Ration office (Ration = Place where you get subsidised rice, pulses, cereals, etc.)
I really envy anybody working in either of these places. You should really be lucky to work here, because, not all places pay you for not doing your work. Also, you need to be mentally and physically strong to do the same routine for 25 years (i.e. do nothing). If ever I am born again as a human in my next life, I pray to God, "Do not make me so incapable so as to join Google or Microsoft, place me in any one of above 9 organisations".
Feb 16, 2009
The Black Sheep In The Family
Being a South Indian is not easy. In SI, if you have not travelled and stayed abroad for more than a year, you are not a true software engineer at all. Infact, you are not even a human being. The general statement is "How long have you been in this business? You mean, in these 4 years as a software engineer, you have not travelled to the US/UK/Japan (ofcourse you might have travelled for 2 weeks but that is not considered).
TRAVEL = 1 YEAR STAY AND EARN IN DOLLARS. In that way, wherever you have been, the currency is still the same. You earn in dollars in US, UK, Germany, Azarbhaijan, Zion etc.
And most the questions come from relatives (your parents cannot ask you cos they are fully aware of the issue at hand). But the U(ncle)s and the A(unty)s have more or less hard coded this question in an infinite While loop. And there are 2 companies that they are aware of: Infosys and Wipro. So if you are working in one of those small companies like Google, Yahoo or Adobe, then, forget it. You are a good for nothing chap. Cos, you did not make it to I/W. It does not matter if you are doing documentation or admin or desk cleaning, you are still working there man. Come on. 10 in every 50 South Indian family members works in either Infosys, Wipro or Cognizant.
When my relatives look at me, they murmur behind my back: "Every family has a black sheep". Being a South Indian is not all that easy.
TRAVEL = 1 YEAR STAY AND EARN IN DOLLARS. In that way, wherever you have been, the currency is still the same. You earn in dollars in US, UK, Germany, Azarbhaijan, Zion etc.
And most the questions come from relatives (your parents cannot ask you cos they are fully aware of the issue at hand). But the U(ncle)s and the A(unty)s have more or less hard coded this question in an infinite While loop. And there are 2 companies that they are aware of: Infosys and Wipro. So if you are working in one of those small companies like Google, Yahoo or Adobe, then, forget it. You are a good for nothing chap. Cos, you did not make it to I/W. It does not matter if you are doing documentation or admin or desk cleaning, you are still working there man. Come on. 10 in every 50 South Indian family members works in either Infosys, Wipro or Cognizant.
When my relatives look at me, they murmur behind my back: "Every family has a black sheep". Being a South Indian is not all that easy.
Feb 11, 2009
The Crow, The Fox, The Lady and the Donut
We are aware of the story of a crow which stole a salted donut (vada) from a poor lady (who was preparing the same on the roadside). The fox stole from the crow by pretending to be a fan of the crow's voice. When the crow opened up it's mouth to show it's singing skills, the donut dropped due to gravitational force (Damn Newton) and the fox ran away with the piece.
For a long time, people have concentrated on this story and did not talk about what happened next? That's because what followed was a chain of chemical reactions (welllll...not exactly), some law suits, a few angry (a.k.a juicy words) and an All's Well That Ends Well. As you already know, I have a PhD. in human psychology and, I thought, this is the right time to make the world up-to-date about what really happened later.
The lady initiated a law suit against Jon Doe (since she did not know whom to initiate the law suit against). The crow initiated a law suit on Fox since it knew the culprit. To support it's case, it bribed a few more crows and brought them to testify against the fox. The fox denied the charges laid on it, and asked for substantiating proofs. Meanwhile, the lady was following this crow vs fox lawsuit and she thought "Better to side a known devil than an unknown friend". So she stood by the fox. What the crow did not know when it stole the donut was that, the lady was an ex lawyer who, in troubled times, had taken to making donuts. The Lady represented the fox and pleaded her client not guilty. The crow salted the jury (meaning bribing the jury) and tried to tilt the case in it's favor. But the judge favored the fox, since the judge and the lawyer had an affair before the lady became an ex lawyer. The crow lost the case, and a lot of money (remember it had paid it's friends, the jury, the plaintiff, the bus driver, the postmaster etc.). The fox thanked the lady and the judge and every one lived happily ever after.
"Creative comments are welcome"
For a long time, people have concentrated on this story and did not talk about what happened next? That's because what followed was a chain of chemical reactions (welllll...not exactly), some law suits, a few angry (a.k.a juicy words) and an All's Well That Ends Well. As you already know, I have a PhD. in human psychology and, I thought, this is the right time to make the world up-to-date about what really happened later.
The lady initiated a law suit against Jon Doe (since she did not know whom to initiate the law suit against). The crow initiated a law suit on Fox since it knew the culprit. To support it's case, it bribed a few more crows and brought them to testify against the fox. The fox denied the charges laid on it, and asked for substantiating proofs. Meanwhile, the lady was following this crow vs fox lawsuit and she thought "Better to side a known devil than an unknown friend". So she stood by the fox. What the crow did not know when it stole the donut was that, the lady was an ex lawyer who, in troubled times, had taken to making donuts. The Lady represented the fox and pleaded her client not guilty. The crow salted the jury (meaning bribing the jury) and tried to tilt the case in it's favor. But the judge favored the fox, since the judge and the lawyer had an affair before the lady became an ex lawyer. The crow lost the case, and a lot of money (remember it had paid it's friends, the jury, the plaintiff, the bus driver, the postmaster etc.). The fox thanked the lady and the judge and every one lived happily ever after.
"Creative comments are welcome"
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