The World...as I see it ...:)

Among other(well broadcasted) events of the 16th Aug 2011......

2011-08-16T21:09:00.007+05:30

Among the other series of dramatic events, 16th August is also marked with the sadly demise of the RTI activist, who has been appealing to the Madhya Pradesh police for prosecuting an IS officer who has been threatening her for long now. Below is the copy of the letter that she wrote to the DGP, police, MP(its actually this letter which got my attention and primarily compelled me to jot down this entry); however sadly DGP/Police department could not save her life as she was shot dead in front of her house today morning. May her soul rest in peace.

How to save money on UI design part...

2011-08-12T16:43:00.003+05:30

a new beginning

2011-08-02T03:10:00.003+05:30

Coming after a long break keeps on getting difficult with the length of the break as once you are out of writing stuff, procrastination starts to become your best friend, which is not that good.

Its over an year since I was here,and as I analyzed the reason for absence, it was the plethora of social networking sites taking blogging out of me(and I guess most others like me). The simple reason: 'Why write a complete post when you can share a related link on fb or describe it in short crispy 160 characters on twitter?' I do not find any appropriate reason to negate my this reasoning. FB/Twitter and lately G+ have become more efficient conduits for your thoughts. However there's one problem with these: if you are not watchful, the social networks will drain most of your important time looking at the trivial posts/links, with almost zero productive advantage. This reason alone seemed enough for me to deactivate my FB account and be back in here.

With time, as I feel to share my thoughts or any other info, I would try and keep this blog up-to-date.

Here's a family portrait from the clicks of the day when dad entered a new relaxing mode,(with reaching his official retirement as Deputy Education Officer, Govt. of Delhi, on 30th July 2011),

I wish for his years in this new journey to be as relaxing and enjoyable, as assiduous have been his past years.

While my dad's new journey is of relaxation, mine i yet of uncertainty, but this time I finally have the feeling that my search for the 'Moral Fibre'(the twisted definition from a movie ;) is about to end.

Keeping my fingers closed. Will surely keep you updated through this space. :-)

Must Watch Clip; Though avoid Creepy Media Super Celeb :-|

2010-08-30T17:28:00.004+05:30

I was willing to analyze and write a complete post on the following clip, however running really short of time, won't be able to do it now or in near future. So just posting the clip as it is, leaving it open to your comments/observations.

One of my quick observations was how the host keeps laughing(looking even more dumber and completely in the state of apathy) while discussing such a serious issue and how the mike is snatched from people making sensible comments while the people in support of recent riots and complete autonomy(azadi as they say it) get the complete time on air and gets their comments/views re-iterated multiple times by the host. This clip only added to the feeling of aversion I got after reading "Shoddy Journalism"and related articles.

Though it's a looong one, however you should sure take time out for this one, coz its really worth ,to know the grievances, from the concerned people themselves.

Kites....in the sky!

2010-05-22T14:08:00.004+05:30

The long drought at the Box office ended this friday with the release of 'Kites'. A much hyped opus of the Roshans opened this week across the globe. For a change, this one is not much of the stereotyped commercial flick that you would expect from any bollywood mainstream director/actor or as you might expect from the promos... There's no masala or any comic sequences in there. Also, the pace is just too slow from the very beginning to until almost the end of the movie.

The basic plot revolves around the lives of J(HR) and Natasha(Barbara) and how they keep running away from people all around. Until the point where flashback and the prensent met in the story, it can make you feel lost in between. However, at this point, the complete movie, which somehow might not be making complete sense to the viewer, starts engrossing you. And towards the end of it, you would want to cry out(if you are really emotional material else if you went in there with a mindset to view another commercial flick( like koi mil gaya/krissh or something like that) you gonna end up thinking what a peice of s**t was it. Personally, I liked it as a complete package. As I left the theatre, I was emotionally lost somewhere... :)

My recommendation: "Go for it with a open mindset and keep patience if it starts freaking you out in the middle. At the end, You wont regret your decision to go for it."

[I did not understand the logic behind the title and also why it took so long for the team to shoot for this one. Do let me know if you get any of this point. and also how you felt moving out of the theatre...]

Happy Birthday PAC MAN! :)

2010-05-21T22:19:00.003+05:30

As I opened Google.com today, instead of Google logo, there is doodle that looks something like this:

For the newbies, doodle is the word for creative logos that Google uses instead of its regular logo, to refer to the significance of that particular day in the history. The good thing about the doodles is that though they are creatively artistic, you would still be able to read GOOGLE in there. Like today's date - 21st May was the day PacMan was designed/released on, and hence to celebrate the Pac Man Day, they put up the above logo and it still reads the GOOGLE in there. For any of you interested, i posted a video on doodles here and a gandh jayanati Doodle here

Anyway, what is interesting about this particular doodle, that made me write this is that while you click on the doodle, instead of searching the google about the topic, you can actually play the PacMan with the arrow keys. And the 'I am feeling lucky' button in the google has been turned into a 'Insert Coin' button for the day. If you press it, your game will be reloaded.

So in case you have not yet played Pacman ever, or you are missing your old days, today might be a good day to visit Google.com

Original post on Google.com:

Celebrating PAC-MAN’s 30th birthday

5/21/2010 07:58:00 AM
When I was growing up, my dad had the best job I could possibly imagine: he was an arcade game and pinball technician. For me, that meant summer trips through Poland’s coastal cities with their seasonal arcade parlors; peeking inside cabinets to learn programming and engineering secrets; and—of course—free games!

One of my favorites was PAC-MAN, whose popularity transcended the geopolitical barriers of that time. During the heyday of space shooters, Tōru Iwatani’s creation stood out as one of the first video games aimed at a broader audience, with a cute story of pizza-shaped character gobbling dots in a maze, colorful (literally!) characters, friendly design, very little violence and everlasting fun.

Today, on PAC-MAN’s 30th birthday, you can rediscover some of your 8-bit memories—or meet PAC-MAN for the first time—through our first-ever playable Google doodle. To play the game, go to google.com during the next 48 hours (because it’s too cool to keep for just one day) and either press the “Insert Coin” button or just wait for a few seconds.

Google doodler Ryan Germick and I made sure to include PAC-MAN’s original game logic, graphics and sounds, bring back ghosts’ individual personalities, and even recreate original bugs from this 1980’s masterpiece. We also added a little easter egg: if you throw in another coin, Ms. PAC-MAN joins the party and you can play together with someone else (PAC-MAN is controlled with arrow keys or by clicking on the maze, Ms. PAC-MAN using the WASD keys).

PAC-MAN™ & ©1980 NAMCO BANDAI Games Inc.

PAC-MAN seems like a natural fit for the Google homepage. They’re both deceptively straightforward, carefully hiding their complexity under the hood. There’s a light-hearted, human touch to both of them. And we can only hope you find using Google at least a quarter as enjoyable as eating dots and chasing ghosts. You know, without actually needing any quarters.

Posted by Marcin Wichary, senior UX designer and developer

Meanwhile, I also found a bug on this amazingly innovative change. While the up and down arrow keys, along with letting you play the game, works fine to move you across the search suggestions appearing under the search text box, the back and forward keys are not working in the textbox. Try this out, write any string in the search text box and try moving your cursor forward/backward, you will notice that only the PacMan moves, while your cursor is stationary. :)

I sure can get a testing job at google it seems... :D

...and they THINK others don't know the reason...

2010-04-23T02:13:00.006+05:30

I somehow share a good repo with my close friends and they at times do talk it out ven we are in a conversation. 'it' that i meant to refer here concerns the soft side of a person...a side that generally not many of his friends/relatives are familiar with. Unless you are among some rare breed, you wont deny that you have it too(dude, even legend....wait for it...ary Stinson had it once...what are you made up of.. :D[skip this if you are not a fan of HIMYM :-)])

I have been adding the entries to my future bloglist for so long now that it will take me a dedicated blogging weekend to complete it. Just for my personal reference so that i should not forget these, i am going to mention here. do let me know if any of these interests any of my cherished rare readers, thats YOU!

1. Recently omnipresent IPL controversy.
2. A post titled 'Shoddy Journalism' and its after effects.
3. A root cause analysis of naxalism in our very own India[inspored by Dantewara incident]
4. My idea of ideal nation [this would be somewhat similar to the essay we right in our childhood- "If I would be Prime Minister!" :D]
5. An interesting read about Gandhi's Sex life.
6. recent life full of daily dilemma.

I might be missing/forgotten couple of such entries for now...will update if i remember later...right now, I would continue with this one before I lose the context from the first para here.

So how come with so long list pending, I picked up totally random topic first. The reason would be that I got this from someone during the conversation that 'Guys are senti and that they actually do not identify themselves.' My counter agreement to this was (as most of the guys out there would agree[as least secretively]) that 'Its not that a guy does not identify himself. It's just that he does not want to and he do not publicize it. Aldo there exists a valid reason for this, known only to this breed and very difficult to be understood by the fairer sex.'

As expected, the reply was: "And also they THINK others don't know the reason!"

This was the sentence that provoked me to start writing this post: to try and explain if guys really have a soft side and if they do have, why is it not visible to anyone. But as i typed it in uptil here, I am having the change of mind. Why shall i write something that might expose me, u, or anyone in this cadre...even if its a well known fact, few things are better self understood rather than being fed to the brain...So i guess I will give this one a miss....[I know you are intelligent enough and you did get the idea here... :-)]

even if it did not had much/any content, this post at least brought me back to the blogosphere...Have been missing this but had so much on plate, was really not able to make a comeback...

Off to sleep for now...
-Kshitij

2010-03-29T01:30:00.008+05:30

Since the last entry, I was about to write about couple of things: About the increasing inflation(at even higher rate in delhi, thanks to inability of Cong govt to arrange funds for CommonWealth Games and then increasing taxes); about my experience at a district court(for getting back my RC which they seized when i was not willing to pay the improper traffic challan they were filing) among others....I still have couple of them in my drafts...but as I slept a lot in the daytime today....and hence am awake at this odd hour...while i was swapping channels...a movie titled 'Veer-Zara' was coming on one of the channels....and hence this post is about exploring the idea behind the story(or more correctly just the realistic sense behind) this flick...

Let me try to elaborate a bit more here. Though i know this is all a very timepass kind of activity, but i somehow am getting interested in exploring this. For those who are not srk/ad/pz fans or have nbot seen the flick, i will rephrase the main idea of story :

Zara(pz) comes to India(from Pakistan) for some reason, meets Veer(srk) and his family, when she is returning back, her fiance comes to pick her up; at this Veer tells her that he has started loving her. He tells her that 'I know you are already someone else'e but i want you to remember that in case you ever need a friend, remember that there is a friend across the border who can even give his life for you'. Read the last line again because its the line which zara thinks about again and again and then decides that he is the right guy for her. Her friend calls veer(working in Air Force) in India and tells her that Zara loves you, come and take her with yourself. As armed forces are not allowed to come to Pakistan, Veer resigns his job, comes to Pakistan, and publicly meets her. Once its open in the public, girl's dad bcome ill, her mom emotionally tells Veer to leave as it would be good for everyone and he agrees. He also makes Zara agree to marry the other guy. You think its bad enough, hold on: now comes the real bad part of the story. While he is returning back, 'the other guy' being influencial gets him caught y the pakistani police and marks him as Indian intelligence officer. He tells Veer that the only way to escape this is he brings in Zara's name to prove his innocence. But he also adds that if you do so ever, Her marriage...and hence her remaining life will be screwed. Hence its his choice. Veer. being bollywood hero(as they are always right, good and ever sacrificing), decides the earlier path and remains in the jail. the bus from which he was about to return falls in hte valley and hence his family knows he is dead. Its only decades later when a lady lawyer opens his case, he tells her the complete story and asks her to not involve Zara's name in the case, no matter if he gets released or not. After listening to the complete story, when she goes to his village in India, the truth that comes out is different altogether. Better you watch it(if you havnt already) to know it. Its a good one time Senti watch. Another reason I ended the story here is because what I want to explore in this post, that part of the story is covered by now...

Last few days!

2010-03-19T01:53:00.004+05:30

I have been adding a lot to the list of content that needs to be postd here. So, I will log a brief snippet of most of that here in a single post. Let me try and see how successful can i be in this :)

First of all, my most favorite topic of recent times. Maharashtara's very own: MNS; After shiv sainiks creating a stir over useless controvversy, its bask to the MNS man now...I guess aharashtra government should go on a long vacation coz even when they are present, they are not of any use when these guys need to be tackeled. They have recently created a stir by saying that Indian directors shall stop hiring the foriegner extras/actresses in Indian Movies. They even went to the set of "Crooked" and demanded some 27 lakh rupees from the director. No matter what Cong try. They are not able to bring them to the table. I guess even mayawati acted better than the patil when she put Varun gandhi behind the bars. These guys are not even close. What best they can do is make Rahul Gandhi travel by road/in mumbai locals comfortably or to the max....contribute to the successful/undisruptful release of a bollywood flick. What they can't do is to stop people from giving those hate speeches or stop ppl from provoking their supporters to act against North Indians or charge them for demanding illegal money openly in public. Don't know the exact politics behind this, but Cong seem to not go against the fanatics most of the time.
but one thing happened recently that again made me happy. You might remeber how i mentioned recently that when rich and famous people speak, these guys would have to listen. At a recent function in pune, Mr. R thackrey and Ms Asha bhonsle were present at the stage. Mr. Thackrey praised ashaji in her speech for her contribution to the marathi music. However when she came in, She said "Mahaarashtra belongs to India. What mumbai is today is because of the contributions from outswiders only"...something on the similar lines....and there was no opposition to it. I liked this one. When influential/respected people come forward for a cause, it is hard to keep on rambling your stupid stuff.. :)

I saw a stream of India today conclave recently. It was a good watch to see two amazingly genious movie minds on same stage. The minds I am talking about are the one behing Titanic/Avatar and the one behing Taare Zameen Par. Not very enlightening one, but it was a good watch. Give it a watch on utube ven you have free time.

That also reminds me another article i read recently. SRK was to open some FICCI ceromony(dont be surprised why he went there as his best pal, KJ is some Director in FICCI). I would just like to mention his opening lines as it felt really interesting to me and you might be interesting to get enlightened too :)

“The three basic needs of every Indian - roti, kapda aur makaan - seem to have been fulfilled. There is now a fourth desire and that is entertainment! Movies are a popular source of this fourth ‘requirement’. Another concept popularly emerging and posing to have a great future is ‘sport entertainment’. And with the Finance Minister constantly talking about a growing GDP (Gross Domestic Product), we are all the more optimistic about the Indian film industry"

I guess someone should start sending him the food inflation index so that he can remain updated where we are on the terms of fulfilling the basic needs of EVERY INDIAN. It seems like only what he do(read Indian film industry and 'sport entertainment') are the feilds that are most desired and needs fulfillment... God help! :)

In Politics, BJP launched a new party rankings - 'Gadhkari's new team'. May be now they are done with their internal fights and be more aware and concious about the real Indian politics. and about the recent parliamentary session, it has been a historical one. The fourteen year pending Women's reservation bill has been passed and from the next election onwards, 33% of LS seats have been snatched away from open public and gifted to the fairer sex. As if, we are already very united. God bless the judgement committee who ensured that the reservation can't rise above 50% else these bastar*s would have divided each and every domain to the last percent available.
Bloody ***holes.

Speaking of this stupid community, I recently saw a ray of hope in this dark dark jungle. Baba ramdev launched his political party "Bharat Swabhimaan" on 17th March with the purpose "to wash out corruption from Indian politics". Not that I am a follower of him or that I believe in his honesty very much, This is the first time I am hearing a genuine long term vision/agenda from a political party. Till now it has been best upto the level of "Garibi hatao/Mehengai hatao/Mandir banao" etc etc. and then is the vote bank politics dividing the Indians into smaller groups to grab their votes, by providing special benifits/reservations to thse communities. This is the first time that a man has come forward and said that my aim is "To finish the corruption in India" and needs to be given a try. may be he is such a genious that he knows that every other person will support this thought and thats why he is saying so. But whatever, We won't know this unless he is tried out. Can't say about the new BJP/NDA team..but the more I try to evaluate Congress, the more I find them into the deep hole on performance level. I do not see even a single accomplishment(except nuclear deal i guesss) that they can boast of in last five/six years. Terror attacks have arisen. The security concern has been rising. China is grabbing more and more of Arunachal pradesh and they are deaf ear to any appeals. Theya re so busy diving the people into categories, that they are not left with much time to look into other issues. From JLN to MS...the way they have ruined India, It seems next to impossible to bring it back to the original level even decades into the repairing.

On the personal front: a lot of my friends are going for a job change; however, that is a kind of freaking me out. I am not presently looking for any, but however, as and when i get to hear that XYZ moved from P to Q, I wonder why am I not wanting that. But then, my purpose of life is totally different from most of these X,Y or Z and hence i get to console myself ki it might be for them but everyone has different priorities at different times and mine are currenltly not into that direction . :)

I went to see hockey matches recently. the first one was, thanks to my cousin Prakarsh, who arranged for it without any plan, while the next one we went from office. It was a nice experience both the times, though the Indian team was much better with SA than with Aus. Not that there game changes, it was the opposition game that made the difference visible :) Might upload some pics soon.

The songs of KCK have been amazingly good. They have been occupying my playlist for last couple of weks an dI do not see myself dumping them any sooner too. The movie was good one too, one after a long break...almost two months since 3 idiots released.

And lastly, If you are also looking for a change, Adobe too is on a hiring spree and you may forward me your resume in case you would want to give it a chance to hire you. :P

Feeling very sleepy right now and have to wake up early tomorrow. Rest of it later.

Only For die hard SRK fans!

2010-02-24T21:50:00.005+05:30

First things first: I never even thought that SRK would occupy so much bandwidth here. But it did for some weird reasons. So here's the (last here) story on MNIK controversy that appeared in a national daily on Sunday, the 21st Feb!
(I know it's getting lame and i already apologised while posting it on FB, but it has become necessary to Wake Up SID!, so you may ignore this one, if you not SID :-)

Before I mention it, do want to convey, that un/fortunately i am not the author behind it. The complete resopnsibility rests with the author himself : D .

Here it goes:

By Vrinda Gopinath

Shiv Sainiks walked into SRK’s trap by reacting to his statements on the exclusion of Pak players at the IPL auction on the eve of his film’s release

WERE you lifted by a sense of moral euphoria as you bought a ticket for the movie-of-theweek, My Name is Khan? Did you believe that by this single act of defiance you had put those nasty, brutish Shiv Sena types in their place? And, with that, you had let the breath of freedom waft in the air as the streets emptied out with lumpen Sainiks? If you tick all three, you have just entered the world of simulated patriotism and hammy heroism, played by none other than King Khan.

It must surely be a demented and ageing Shiv Sena patriarch, Bal Thackeray, and his gawky heir and son, Uddhav, who believed they could take on Bollywood Brandasaurs Shahrukh Khan and Karan Johar in a mega brand war between Bollywood and Sainikdom. How could they even believe they could match the relentless battering of corporate marketing and public relations and a formidable media machine on the former’s side? For, at the heart of the fortnight-long raging public brawl was the stirring emotional cry of Indianness, craftily let loose by a box officesavvy SRK, while willy-nilly laying out a trap that the foolish Thackerays walked into with typical loony gusto. And as SRK’s simulated patriotism unfurled public discourse and debate, pitting well-meaning, woolly liberals versus ranting nationalists, it was a gullible public, or should we say moviegoing public, who were made to believe it was about protecting free speech, individual freedom and liberties, being vaingloriously defended by King Khan, against the onslaught of the savage Sena.

With one masterful stroke, suddenly both SRK and the Sena were in business. Three weeks ago, on January 24, the day it all began, SRK burst forth on a TV interview on the “humiliation” heaped on Pakistan’s cricketers excluded in the IPL auction. Of course, no questions were asked why he did not pick one himself, instead the hat was doffed by the adoring questioner, and applauded by an idolising audience.

SRK, however, stuttered on how there were “issues” but the IPL should have dealt with it “respectfully,” that he was thinking of Pak cricketer Abdul Razak, but with crores at stake, “ D’uh, so should I?” ( risk getting a Pakistani in his team?). Soon, all hell broke loose when a frenzied Sena leadership jumped in to demand that SRK apologise immediately for his “ unpatriotic” utterances.

But let’s talk about the unmentionable — there were several niggling factors that did not match up to Bollywood Badshah’s new social and political consciousness. First, SRK made the outburst in a news studio for the promo of My Name is Khan, along with his co- guest, best buddy and director of the film, Karan Johar.

The IPL auction fiasco was raging in Pakistan at the time and was being seen as being anti- Pakistani, and threatening to be projected as being anti- Muslim by fanatics on both sides of the border. Khan, an IPL team owner, could not duck the accusations, and it was time to make amends. After all, who could risk the hostility of the Muslim world for a film that was riding on Rs 100 crore, and was going to have a world premiere in the desert kingdom of Abu Dhabi? It was also a stunning surprise that King Khan had made a fervent statement on public affairs.

Now, why does SRK sound suspiciously fake when he talks about public good? Because it is astonishing that the Bollywood Badshah made a statement on public affairs at all, when all these years he has kept a deafening silence on every front. S RK HAS rightly said that he does not have to say something on like, say, the Gujarat riots, because he’s a Muslim, but he has also never failed to tell persistent reporters ad nauseum that he gives a damn about public good because he is “ just an entertainer, a prostitute, that too self- centred, selfobsessed, money- loving, unprincipled and always compromising.” Surprised that he suddenly woke up to the injustices on Pak cricket players? It was not soon before the public brawl between SRK vs Shiv Sena turned into a media lovefest for SRK — no one in their right mind could take the Sena’s side — with TV news channels tripping over to promote King Khan. If there were any loose ends on King Khan’s side, it was airbrushed for breaking news.

As viewers were carpet- bombed with back- to- back exclusives with Khan, the star even tried to make amends to calm the belligerent Sena, diffusing his earlier passionate statement with mock bashfulness when he stammered how he was not “ really powerful and that real power lay elsewhere,” that he was “ just a movie star who loves his stardom”. The media’s love affair with SRK was not one- sided. A TV news anchor got special mention in the credit roll, so were several news channels featured prominently, perhaps to give the film some credibility, prime- time realism, as well as announce the collaborative deal of marketing, promos and PR between movie moguls and the media.

Suddenly, both the Sena and SRK look strangely similar, even though one uses brute force, the other, cute righteousness — for, just as the loutish Sena grabs eyeballs for a cause that serves its purpose, Bollywood’s Brandasaurs also uses the media to delude and lure the public.

In a marketplace that uses contract conditions to give oneself an unequal position, rolls out the gigantic battleship of PR, marketing and media conglomerates to create a monopoly, uses mega star power to stamp out any fair dissension, that, SRK, is also called fascism.

— The writer is a freelance journalist based in Delhi

From "Support Freedom of thought" to "Support/Watch MNIK"!

2010-02-16T20:29:00.001+05:30

A lot has happened in our Maharashtra since i posted the last entry. The trail of events since then can be briefed as follows:

1 Almost all film industry comes forward t oupport SRK and his release after Aamir did it earlier. Salman said it in front of the media; Priyanka user her tweets as a medium to support and many other followed them. However, I did not hear any more criticism for anyone else from Mr Supremo or his son.

2. Then, before SRK landed up in Mumbai, A press statement is released saying something like this(i dont remember the exact words here) "Traitors, Go ahead and release your movie under the flagship of Congress. We won't bother you further."

3. SS took another event to bring itself to controversy. Here's something that came to their published paper: "Mr. Rahul Gandhi is coming to Maharashtra tomorrow. Unka swagat kale jhando se kia jaye." To this RG replied by coming to Mumbai, travelling by road, air and in local train and then giving speech at youth congress. How much these acts actually count when he was covered by huge security is totally different issue and is the content for a post in itself. but that for later!

4. SS comes to street again saying we wont let the MNIK release in Mumbai. Maharashtra police takes responsibility and converts mumbai into another Kashmir. Kashmir, as in, CRPF was called in Mumbai, first three rows of theatres were to be occupied by security personals and there was a lot of security personals to be deployed in Mumbai.

5. D Day came and many theater owners stepped back and not released the film. However, as the film released, the controversy took another turn. Till now it was about the freedom of thoughts - freedom of expression. However, as the release of movie neared, it took a totally different turn.

As you might already be knowing, almost everyone from bollywood is on micro blogging site. Mr. SRK was so busy twitting, and every twit was so full of praise for the audiences, to the extent that when you look at the complete set of tweets that were posted on the morning when movie was about to release/ released... and the amount of bandwidth they occupied on the Indian Television Media is enough to provoke the listener to go watch the movie. Not saying that people were not going to watch it otherwise, but still, it was provoking enough to make people who were not planning for it, to go watch the movie. Following all this made me doubt the belief I was having in the integrity in SRK and his comments.

Then a little more thinking went into this: Why did SRK not take any pakistani cricketer at first and then he says that "It was bad that we were not able to take it"? Either take them if you are so bold or do not comment when you are not taking them. It seemed to be a planned activity and perfectly suited for the subject of the film too. Even Aamir khan was not able to create such a vibrancy and presence across the media/audience by his disguise acts that one SRK comment did for MNIK and SRK.

It did not end there; everyone in the fraternity who was still unspoken about this issue, came forward to the support. But, not to support the courage and freedom of expression(Aamir and Salman supported the freedom of expression earlier), they came forward to support the MNIK rather.

Everyone was out there: Go watch "My name is KHAN". The controversy has shifted totally. I mean, how often Do you find the competitive actors promoting other's movie. Hrithik said: "Spread humanity with a vengeance, GO WATCH MY NAME IS KHAN. ..and for the record, my name is HRITHIK ROSHAN." PC too said something on the same lines. Its official now: SRK does know the business and he sure know how to sell his stuff; no matter what he has to do for it. Hats off to his marketing skills. :)

As this is something which i have been following closely and am still doubtful about the intentions behind this episode, I would like to know what other people think about it. Do let me know.and for the record: My name is KSHITIJ GUPTA! :P

(my MNIK critical review/reaction to arrive soon! keep reading.)

Asking for trouble, are they!

2010-02-03T20:31:00.003+05:30

They have been really good at amusing people by speaking Marathi and making people speak Marathi. 'Jai Maharashtra' and 'Marathi Maanoos' are few keywords that have been keeping them in news and getting them mileage across multiple times. Then they went even further and started Morale policing. This indeed made them a hero in the eyes of traditional conservative Indians, who thought that western culture was ruining Indian ethics. However, as that was not enough, they went to the extreme and started attacking non-Maharashtrians(nM) to please the Maharashtrians. It all seemed to be working for them as the number of legislative seats has been growing for them. They have been quite successful in pleasing Marathi Manoos with their chauvinist ideas and hence have been rising with each passing day.

Only recently, while I was discussing this with a friend, a very valid point came in, that why is it that only poor/middle class people are being targetted for not being Maharashtrian? Why does these people don't have the guts to ask Mr. Ambani or Mr. Amitabh Bachchan leave Maharashtra. Well, it had an obvious answer: these are the people who they go out for support. Actually, if you start researching, the mumbai has been made, by lots of nM people who put in their efforts to make it the financial capital of India. Once again the cliche question - "What was Mr Tackrey's Maharashtra Nirman Sena doing when 10 terrorists kept whole Maharashtra at ransom for three days?" Seems they only have the guts to attack valentine couples and North Indian common man. But, whatever, this has been worrying me from long time that these ******** would the reason for the fall of indian democracy, when going forward, each state will be fighting it out with every other state for not sharing resources or for capturing other's resources. But no more.

In recent times, say last couple of months, things have started to change a bit. While most of the rich and famous people used to keep mum at these unlawful and absurd acts, not anymore. Lately these people have started coming forward with there positive thoughts. For example:"When Sachin said that he is an Indian first and then a Maharashtrian", I am hoping that it should have made a lot of their followers to re-think about the ideology they are currently supporting. Considering the God of cricket status that Sachin holds, not only in Maharashtra but across India, people are ought to hear and think when he speaks. These people have started realising their social responsibility lately, which is good for the nation. Following him, Mr. M Ambani commented on the same lines at some europe university convocation. Then as if criticing these people was not enough, Shiv sena recently took a step that could shake a large part of its total existing support.

Here's a brief instance i would mention before mentioning the shiv sena act. Last year, our ex-President Mr Kalam was frisked at delhi Airport by some Briish airline and that incident went unsaid until his own secretary mentioned it three months later. Even then when it caught the headlines, all our dear Home minister could do was ask the airlines for explanations. As i read recently, there has been no action taken yet in this regard and the airlines is well operating its business in Indian Sky. Then, few months later, Mr. Shah Rukh Khan was frisked at US airport, and man wwhat that day was! It looked like India and US are going to go at war for this. that story caught media headlines for the complete day. It was Shah Rukh and Shah rukh every where. Indian Embassy too issued some statements on this. Some of our MPs even went ahead saying that 'we should do tit for tat' and 'this could bring serious implications in Indo-US relations'. I doubt there would have been so much news had Mrs. Sonia Gandhi been frisked.

Anyways, coming back our very own...oops...their very own Maharashtra, TheShiv-sena started a protest march towards the SRK house Mannat, against his comments about Pakistani cricketers. They seem to have totally forgotten how crazy India/Maharashtra is about SRK. I guess they are lucky enough to still be existent in Maharashtra. :) On a serious note, I don't know what they were thinking when deciding on this act. Now when the SS paper criticize and write bad about them, It would sure shake some of their supporter's belief.What's surprising is that still there is not much open support for SRK and no open criticism for SS. However, if that was not enough, I got to read today that they have also attacked verbally at Aamir Khan when he was supportive of SRK's statement. Now that looks even more diminishing for SS. Off the complete film industry, Aamir seems to the most logical and thinking personality, who is almost always at the correct side of the statement. Now when they go against so many Maharashtra Idols(Sachin, SRK, Aamir), they sure are going to raise a few eyebrows and make people re-think.

This is much better than what people frmo this fraternity have been doing till now. Apologizing publicly for their thoughts/acts that did not suit SS or MNS. WakeupSid is one of numerous such examples.

Signing off with the hopes of rise of even stronger force of masses to end this infamous Sarkar-Raj.

learned in last 24 hours:

2010-01-25T19:39:00.001+05:30

Either stay calm during testing times or your inappropriate reflex actions will haunt you for life! :(

Just Another Instance of the most awesome date ever!

2009-12-18T00:20:00.004+05:30

The date this title and this post refers to is the date which when comes in the year, post it I have to increase the number i write in the age column in any form. In simpler words, the date would be my birth date i.e. 9th December. :) Generally I try avoid broadcasting my birthday through any social networking site as I feel that its like asking people to wish you because the ones who are going to remember on their own, its only them who are actually wishing you. Rest of them look like a bit superficial to me. However, i got the idea to write this post to log some good/bad moments i have had on my previous Birthdays, because as I scored quarter of a century recently and it gives me a feeling that i might be having mentionable number of instances now to log them for future reference.

By now, you might already know the most obvious reason for 9th December to be an awesome date ever. Rest of them, I will try to figure out here.

The one that would be most clear in my memory would be the day I wrote my first JEE exam. Not that I had a very great going in the exam, it was the first ever professional competitive exam that I wrote and as obvious it is, I did not make it through.(the reason why its the most remembered one follows later) It reminds me having another exam, following that year, of my first year BE subject maths at IP university. Unfortunately, that has been the single (semi)annual exam in my life that I did not clear, and that too for unknown reasons, as It did not go that bad when i attempted it. Later, my prof himself said ki "maths ka paper thora tough aaya hai and is baar checking bhi kuch aise hi huyi hai!". We had a majority of backs in that paper over the ones that passed. Further, in my defense, I did not give a damn to those papers and that college. Though it was my first college experience, I somehow always knew that this is not the place I belong to, and I actually never did put in much efforts in any activity over there. Had I have to do my BE from that college, I would have gotten an easy admission in KIET instead. At least I would have had a good company over there for the following four years. :) Anyway, I knew I was destined for something better(though only academically/professionally) and I skipped the second semester at IP to get an admit in DCE the following year. In short, conclusion that i draw here would be to not write any exam on this date. Both my experiences have been pretty bad as of now. :)

Another experience common to this date across almost all these years would be that I/we got to be the host for the day. I have been pretty much a family boy since always and most of these days involved a family gathering(read dinner party) almost every year. All cousins and uncle/aunts gather at our place/venue and spend some quality time together. When I say family boy, I intend to differentiate between the way where you generally plan out a party with your (best) friends to spend your evening with them and the way i just described. That again brings me back to my JEE birthday and reminds me that it was the only day when I spent my evening with few friends. As you might yourself guess, not anywhere else, but my own place. Guess we had all the relatives over our place in the afternoon and I invited few of my school friends and Manish to my place in the evening. It was one of the great birthdays I ever had as someone did keep a promise intact, though it was a bit uncomfortable as it seemed intially. We had hawan/pooja in the evening, followed by the home cooked scrumptious dinner. It was a great day as a whole and I would not want to forget it anytime i can imagine...one of the best memories of the day(besides the one in my mind) would be this one:

PS: This one is specifically for personal reference only as most people would not get to understand the portrait, except me or the one in the pic.

One of these dates which I would not forget for being the worse one ever(at least among those i remember) would be some where in the four years at my college. I was told to reach Hanuman temple at Yamuna Bazaar directly from college and other people had to assemble over there too. As you might have already guessed, we(a bit of me too) are pretty religious kind of family. Our birthdays don't get complete without paying a visit to a temple. Anyway, I started from college a bit early so that others shall not wait because of me. I reached there around 3/4 PM, almost at the scheduled time. However, for some unforeseen reasons, the arrival of others was getting delayed by an hour with every passing hour. Had it been known at the beginning that others will get late by another four hours or so, I would have gone home and then came back again with them. But this hourly delay updates screwed my day. Had to wait there, doing nothing(I did not even had a mobile that time), until others arrived at around 8PM and then i reached home at 10 in the night, all exhauted, not in any good mood and directly went to the bed. Though I woke up when guests arrived, but my day was already ruined and I don't remember if i did feel good again that day. Phew, worst birthday ever!

Rest of the days have been almost the same, just differing in the number i get to write post the day in the forms :). Few things, beside the ones already mentioned, that make all instances look similar to me would be the phone calls from the same set of people as the clock hits 12 in the night. The cake I get to cut once every year and then get photographs clicked for eating it and feeding near ones the same. The people around me on almost all instances are similar too.

One thing that made this year a bit different and exclusive was that I shared the day with a friend. As it can be guessed, we got into contact only in recent years(because I shared my special day for the first time :)). As it seems to me, it is very rare to find people who share your birthdays, of course you have one in case you are twins, otherwise, its not that common. So in that way, from now on, the date becomes even more awesome. I also get to say "Same to You" when i get the wishes... :P

A week past since then, I have already started counting the precious weeks being wasted doing same trivial work, not adding much value to my life, either professionally or personally. The warning bell is ringing and I shall soon get past it before these precious weeks get past me.
Will do very soon :)

Decode Please! :)

2009-12-14T18:18:00.003+05:30

How should I decode the current status of my order... only god or kpcorp guys shall know... :P

Better delete the legend...at least that won't make my mind thinking if the order has actually been placed or not...

PS: Order details have been deleted intentionally.

Life - experiences - perception - expectations - Life

2009-12-12T01:14:00.005+05:30

As confusing as the title might be, so does the Life becomes many times. Carved by our experiences, it makes us create a perception towards everything, from where arises the expectation, which again makes us go through multiple experiences, both good and bad. It leaves us in this vicious circle, where we make mistakes, learn from them, apply our learnings to beautify the experience, and then mak another mistake...

Before I digress more, The whole idea behind this topic was to re-iterate the obvious,

To not let the others decide how your life turns out, rather take control yourself and mould it the way you want it to be.

Recently in a discussion with a friend, a pretty common scenario came up and I found it worth mentioning here...

We grow up, thinking you have to make it BIG! most of us do...for different reasons: For some, its passion, for some its survival, while for others, its about proving themselves - to fill in the expectations of others, at most times, of the ones we care for. And that too in most cases, our Parent's.

We grow up watching them working hard to provide us the best of everything...from studies to entertainment to all the quality time we spend during our childhood. While many of us forget everything done for us, few consider that it was their duty and other very few, who actually realize it, makes it a point to return the favor, by providing them with everything that they possibly can: from making them proud of being their parents to every materialistic/emotional happiness they can think of. Somewhere in this thought process, we tend to raise the virtual expectations(virtual because, it might not exist many times) from ourselves, where in our brains, we are being expected to rise above the horizon, stay ahead of the people, and make our parents proud. There starts the misery of the situation.

Here, we are trying to fulfill the expectations, which might not really exists. The first answer, as says Marshall Goldsmith, that comes from Parents when asked "What do they want their children to be?" is unanimously 'HAPPY'. Now if in the process of trying to make them happy, if we start rating ourselves down thinking that we are not living up to their expectations, we are not helping the situation in anyway. Rather, we are worsening it, because parents at times might expect a lot from their children, but they would never expect anything from their child at the cost of his happiness. So, if in the process, we are loosing our happiness, we are worsening the situation.

At times its not only your efforts that decide the outcome of the event. A number of factors, ranging from the luck to the attitude of others involved, decide how things are going to end up. You put in a lot of effort, but suppose if in case, you got a worthless creepy evaluator and hence you lose out on appreciation ,while few others, who you know had put in almost same/less effort, takes away the credit, it should hardly bother you. I know its pretty obvious to feel bad, but at such times, the most important part is to keep telling yourself that you have done it to the best of your efforts. Wrong evaluation is a fault at your evaluators end, not yours. And even more important point would be: to always keep in mind that "For people who care for you, incl your parents and all dear ones, it hardly matters how you have been evaluated. To them , you would always remain the same person, regardless you won hte first prize or came in the last spot among the crowd."

For the ones where your relationship depends on your performance appraisal, I would rather suggest to not spare a thought and if possible, totally get rid of such relations. They help in no way and result in creating a useless pressure onto your actions.

The fact that you are cared for shall be enough to fill your actions with seamless confidence, decreasing useless pressure( which is often relative), and thereby making every experience more fulfilling and rewarding.

It seems I lost the track multiple times in between, but i guess i was able to make my point! :)

Lively - Exhausted - Dead - Reincarnated! The cycle starts again :-)

2009-12-09T00:41:00.001+05:30

Last couple of months have been very very exhausting, may be to an extent where I can mark it as most exhausting period in recent times- in all ways – physically, mentally, emotionally and …lly(if there exists anymore stream of getting exhausted :-)

To begin with, as you might already know it was my di’s marriage towards the end of October. That almost takes care of the emotional part. Not that I am very senti type of brother/person for that matter, It’s that I do not have much interaction with anyone else in weekdays. It was only her(almost every time) who used to be awake till I reached home. As my parents would have already slept by that time, I generally have to call her to open the gate to let me in. Avoiding the door bell was a good way to not disturb the dad’s sleep. The anomaly of the circumstance is, now at times I have to call Dad to open the door. So in broader context, everyone’s asleep till I reach home, and till the time I woke up, everyone is at their workplace…I am turning into a nocturnal being I guess…….

The physical exhaustion came in due to huge load of work/pressure coming in from all directions. As I have a very old and very bad(people say so) habit of being involved in a huge number of activities at the same time, the same passed the threshold in the last month or two. Though a bit of it was due to my delaying some personal stuff since September or so, it all came down onto me at one go and drained pretty much all the energy I had in store.

The mental exhaustion came in from the chapter which got closed recently. Without going into details, let me mention it made me change my tagline to “Kshitij is Dead” at the GTalk. Though unintentional and unasked for, it also gave me one very good insight. It helped me realize how many people actually ever see your status messages and is even remotely concerned what has happened at your end. A very good insight I would say.

Anyway, the time for re-incarnation arrived and I have risen from my ashes again, with the purpose to fly out there and conquer the Horizon!

See you there! :)

Damn Brain and Thoughts!

2009-11-19T02:52:00.002+05:30

They keep me bringing back to ground zero, even at this odd hour, while i have a lot of other serious stuff to focus upon right now. And they finally make everything screw up, even themselves: Damn Brain and thoughts!

A dream...of an Indian!

2009-11-12T23:29:00.002+05:30

Here

The fall of Indian Democracy....begins!

2009-11-10T18:16:00.004+05:30

I realized this a while ago but the e-paper today made me write this entry here. The MNS has came a long way, leaving every other party behind in dirty politics. It seems like, they are no more a part of (integral?) India where we still believe we are living in a democratic world. I am not actually able to remember when did Maharashtra or the MNS governed areas were separated from the Indian mainland. It's like either you are a marathi or you are in the line of fire...

It used to be the pain of common man until today when a hindi oath taking ceremony in Maharashtra assembly was disrupted. No points for guessing: You are not allowed to talk in the national language when you are in Maharashtra...

Three MLAs disrupt the oath taking ceremony, manhandle the MLA and they say they are proud of it. I dont understand how such ******* are able to go away with just a suspension from assembly after bringing such a degradation to the national language.

They have been going against the non-maharashtrians and asking them to leave the state . The initial reason they mentioned for it was that these guys are grabbing the jobs and leaving nothing from maharashtrians. From such an unreasonable act, it always went from bad to worse: No Bombay, only Mumbai(not even in a single dialog in a movie, you need to apologize if you want showcase your movie in Bombay...aah..Mumbai), No Hindi-only Marathi, and we can't even get started on the moral policing we have been encountering recently. All this raise just a single question which needs to answered really quick if we are to survive as a democratic nation: "What the hell is government doing while the super humans lie Mr. Maharashtrian Raj Thakrey openly promotes his bad ideas and takes responsibilities for these acts? Why is he not arrested for bringing a shame to the nation and put behind the bars? What is the police doing when these guys openly go around the state disrupting public property and basically everything?" Bringing to your attention again the cruel acts that Govt had in store for peace protester Doctors a few years back.

The choice is ours: Wake up early or regret later!

Meanwhile, heres the article that made me right this post:

A member of the legislature was assaulted inside the Assembly for the first time in Maharashtra's legislative history, by four debutant MLAs whose party -- the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) -- is being represented for the first time in the House.

On Monday, four MLAs from Raj Thackeray's party assaulted Samajwadi Party leader Abu Azmi after he refused to take the oath of office in Marathi.
The Speaker has suspended all four -- Shishir Shinde, Ram Kadam, Vasant Gite and Ramesh Wanjhale -- for four years. The MNS has 13 legislators in all.

Though a standoff was expected as Azmi, a migrant from Uttar Pradesh, had insisted on taking the oath in Hindi and Thackeray had demanded all MLAs take the oath in Marathi, nobody had anticipated violence inside the legislature.

The suspended MLAs were also charged with manhandling a woman MLA, Meenakshi Patil from the Peasants and Workers Party, who tried to help Azmi.

The drama began when Azmi started reading the oath in Hindi.
Before he completed the first sentence, Wanjhale rushed to the dais and uprooted the podium. Within seconds, his colleagues stormed the well, displaying pro-Marathi banners and shouting slogans.

As they tried to pull Azmi down from the dais, members of the Congress, Nationalist Congress Party and Republican Democratic Left Front ran up to help him. Surrounded by others, Azmi completed his oath in Hindi but as he walked to his seat he was manhandled by Shinde and slapped more than once by Kadam.

The MNS remained unrepentant of its MLAs' actions.
"We are proud of our act and will repeat it if anyone dares to insult Maharashtra," MNS spokesman Shirish Parkar said.

CM Ashok Chavan and his deputy, Chhagan Bhujbal, condemned the incident and asked protem Speaker Ganpatrao Deshmukh to deal with the attackers strictly.

The MNS has decided to appeal before the high court. INFAMOUS FOUR SHISHIR SHINDE: Constituency: Bhandup, Northeast Mumbai A ex-Shiv Sena activist who shot to fame for digging the pitch at Wankhede stadium in 1991 to protest against Pakistan's cricket tour of India.
RAM KADAM: Constituency: Ghatkopar (East), NE Mumbai He shot to fame during the Dahi Handi festival last year offering prize money of Rs 25 lakh.
Defeated the late BJP leader Pramod Mahajan's daughter Poonam in the last elections.
RAMESH WANJHALE: Constituency: Khadakwasala, Pune A contractor, Wanjhale is referred to as `golden boy' for wearing 2 kg gold on his person.
VASANT GITE: Nashik. Former Mayor of Nashik, he was blamed for threatening North Indian labourers in the city during the MNS's agitation against North Indians a year ago. OPTIONS FOR MNS It can apologise to the assembly and try to get the suspension reduced or revoked. How the Congress-NCP will respond is anybody's guess.

It may challenge the decision in the High Court. But constitutional experts say the court is unlikely to overrule the assembly's decision.

It may ask its suspended MLAs to resign from the Assembly, and face by-elections, making a political issue of the suspension.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR THEM The MNS will surely try to derive political advantage from the incident. It has already forced the Shiv Sena to reluctantly support its demand that all MLAs take their oath in Marathi.

Losing four MLAs out of 13 will also impact the party's relevance as a political force. If it wants the suspension revoked, it will have to soften its stand.
Maharashtra Navnirman Sena MLA Ram Kadam who allegedly slapped Mumbai Samajwadi Party president Abu Asim Azmi in the assembly for taking oath in Hindi on Monday said he had no regrets for his action and was ready for any sacrifice to uphold the glory of Marathi language.

When asked if his actions were not an insult to the assembly, Kadam said Azmi had insulted the 11-crore Marathispeaking population of Maharashtra in the 50th year of the state's formation.

"It is Mumbai and Maharashtra that has made him big and can't he take the oath in the local language? He had lots of spare time and couldn't he mug four lines of the speech in Marathi?" Kadam asked.

When pointed out that it was not appropriate to act violently in the assembly, he said, we had to teach Azmi a lesson in the language he understood.

Once a close associate of late BJP leader Pramod Mahajan, Kadam shot to limelight when he sponsored a Rs 25-lakh prize for Dahi-Handi festival last year.
He defeated Mahajan's daughter Poonam from the Ghatkopar East seat. A builder by profession, he was arrested a day after the election for allegedly manhandling a constable.

Ironically, Kadam was addressing the media in English and Hindi, besides Marathi. "The Shiv Sena-BJP did not utter a word despite tall talks of Marathi pride and it is for the Marathi manoos to see," Kadam added.

Echoing Kadam, MNS spokesperson Shirish Parkar said: "We are proud of our act and will repeat it if anyone dares to insult Maharashtra.

"For years, this man has been intimidating Maharashtrians and today he crossed the limits," Parkar said. "If he does not understand civil language, we have to make him understand in a language he understands."

Keep Distancy

2009-11-06T18:55:00.000+05:30

Now that's a School Bus: You need to Keep Distancy from it, and that too, only in case of Emergency :P

Delhi Half Marathon Report Card :)

2009-11-05T21:50:00.006+05:30

OverAll Rank
1927

Bib Number:
7794

Name
Kshitij Gupta

Category
MOPEN

Category Rank
1602

Split @ 7.5K
00:43:56

Split @ 10K
00:59:18

Split @ 19.35K
02:06:25

Split @ 20K
02:12:31

Finish Time / Chip Time
02:22:42 / 02:21:39

*Finish time is the time from Gun time to individual Finish Time
Chip time is the individual Start time to Finish Time
* OverAll Ranking is based on Finish Time.

** Check out the original page here.

Back to the blogosphere!

2009-11-04T14:37:00.005+05:30

For the last couple of months, though i have been mentally updating the list of my blog topics, i have not been able to jot down any of the entries recently. However, a recent major change in my life made me come back here again.

The change i am talking about is the wedding of my sis. Now i am officially the loner at my home also. It took me a couple of days to come back to normal and realize that it's going to remain like this only. Though i knew it for long, never felt its such a big change unless it actually happened.

Now, i don't have to anyone to call to open the door when i reach home. As i generally go home late, i used to call her to open the door as my parents are already asleep, ringing the door bell was not a good option. However, that's the only option i now have. Further, i realized, i do not have anyone to fight to on daily basis. :( There's one point even worst than that: all my clothes selection/shopping was taken care of by her and now that req is open... Its bad; very bad. :( As i have mentioned earlier too: You cannot realize the potential of a lose, unless you have actually lost it.

The rest of list of potential post content would be somewhat like:

1. Evaluating TZP from my perspective.
2. Delhi Half Marathon experiences.
3. My new busy schedule.
4. The start and end of C2C.
5. About the approaching rendezvous on the Death day.
6. Discussing the WebStats of this page.
among others....

I also realized that of all the months in last three years, July09 was the month i was most active here. 10 posts in a month! I seriously was too excited that month it seems... :D

As always, signing off with a hope of being regular in the blogging world!

Google logo on 2nd October!

2009-10-07T16:41:00.004+05:30

and on 7th October:

No need to mention..both of them read GOOGLE! :)

Chapter 23 : The moments of Retreat!

2009-09-08T00:47:00.006+05:30

Date: 10th June 2006

The last fortnight has been the worst fortnight of my life. I had known that I am going to lose the most important part of my life today, yet I had to live it all these days. Only if there had been a provision to skip a certain part of your life, my life would have been much easier..........

The Story continues at http://snk.kshitijgupta.in/. You can subscribe to it there if you would like to follow the tale!

In Shillong, it costs 500 bucks to take your life! :)

2009-08-27T15:05:00.001+05:30

Just back from the most exotic dinner i ever had....sometimes its about the people you dine with not the Menu.. :)

2009-07-27T02:03:00.004+05:30

The person i am referring to here would be dining mostly with almost the most powerful or as he says, the most rich and famous people, but here i was, sitting with him, one young lady(from Catalyst India), and my school friend Tarun at a restaurant in Vasant Vihar. Just few hours back, I could hardly have ever imagined any such dinner, but it ended up this way and i am glad it did. Over the next few days, He is going to meet HeroHonda CEO, BCCI top officials, GMR CEO & other top officials and a lot alike, as his clients. Now you might be knowing why i am so excited right now. Actually i have still not overcome from the shock of the phone call i got in the evening and then of these proceedings that i could not write more right now. I will get back to you tomorrow again with the complete story. Till then,

Any guesses who just had the privilege of dining with me...lol(:P)..

Gurgaon - 07/15 - 1510hrs

2009-07-17T19:17:00.004+05:30

Source: HT Photos, Sanjeev Verma

That's Adobe at 6

2009-07-16T18:54:00.004+05:30

One of those days when it felt like mansoon has hit delhi. Alas, it hasn't yet!

Mumbai Tarapora Aquarium!

2009-07-16T18:50:00.002+05:30

A good one if you are touring Mumbai! I saw sea horse for the first time here...

A day @ Dolls Museum!

2009-07-16T18:25:00.001+05:30

One of those good days when aastha and di were here!

Introducing K and S...... hope you like them!

2009-07-12T01:19:00.003+05:30

I do not know why i keep returning to this place...but i am finally feeling addicted to this space. Hard to believe that its the same space that i used to not even look at for months in last three years...but this bloody TIME changes everything...i mean EVERYTHING..

Well, after a lot introspection in the last week, today i am here for a different task...introduce Kritigya and Samiya to the world. Who are they? I will try that you know a little about them before you finish reading this article. For the ease of typing(just for that reason :)), i might use K and S respectively for them.

Kritigya is an intelligent guy and has been very impressive since i have known him. He does not have this habit of mixing up with strangers, however the people who matter to him share a good space of his. When he wants to be reserved, he might not even talk to anyone. It depends and varies with time and circumstances, as it does for all of us i guess. He is one of those rare people, who can live their life all alone, without even speaking a word to anyone. Rest all, he is deeply emotional(fool at times, you can say), very caring, intelligent, simple, sober and a techie guy, who is a perfect example of being an ambivert.

Samiya: just think of the most beautiful face you have seen ever, and you might forget it when you see her. Its not only about the face(or physical appearance), there is something in her aura that when you come close to that, you start feeling the difference. Something unusual starts attracting you to her. The gravitational force is so strong, you have to be strong enough to resist it and be your normal self. Though to many, she seems to be an another ordinary girl, but i do not know why Kritigya is so impressed and effected by her. For him, she seems to be the start and end of every single thought that crosses his mind. Along with all this, she also seems a bit dumb to Kritigya, for she is seldom able to see the obvious or she is so smart that she does not want to show that she knows the obvious. Actually he himself seems to be confused about this. May be, with time, he would be able to sort out this confusion.

About Samiya, she is a perfect example of a gregarious person. You leave her in a room of strangers and five minutes later, you would find everyone longing to talk to her. I may be exaggerating a bit here, but you would come to know yourself once she is on board. A smart girl, many people think they know her, but every time they meet her, they observe an even better side of her. Too helpful, she might even spoil you, if you join that space of her.

One more thing about them, if you ever want to judge/know Kritigya, do not observe him when he is with Samiya. At those rare moments, he is so confused, and so conscious, you would end up thinking a lot worse about him while he actually might not be that bad. So never make that mistake of observing him when they both are together. May be that's why, not even Samiya knows who the actual Kritigya is? To her, he might always remain that fool, who does not know what to do at times. She might not be able to see beyond the physical boundaries to feel what he is actually going though at that time. Or perhaps, she may.

By now, You might be wondering who the hell are these people and why i am writing about them here. They both are the articulation of my thoughts. :). They are the protagonists of my unfinished story. The story which i started telling long back, but was left in between. I somehow got the feeling to take it up again and i wanted to introduce K and S to the world, as i see them and I guess I have been able to do justice to them here... :)

Sapno ki Nagri - Mumbai.

2009-06-08T20:06:00.001+05:30

Right now it’s the evening of the 4th day in Maharashtra. Just out of the Sai Dham at Shirdi, we are headed to Pune.
A Brief intro of the past three four days we spent in here:
Day 1: Reached at Mumbai central at 0845hrs, headed for the inspection quarters, got ready and then we went out for the Steamer ride to Elephanta caves from Gateway of India. About an hour journey each from both ways, we crossed numerous number of ships, boats etc. to reach elephant caves (EC). EC ahas good stone sculptures, though have been destroyed with the sword of time, they still depict the impeccable art of ancient history. While coming back from there, as I clicked the pictures of lightened Taj, I was trying to guess the feeling of those bunch of guys, who came with the anti-social aim, on 11/26. This was the same place they were sailing across, with a few minutes away from creating the india’s worst massacre of recent times. Tried a lot, but could not guess any bit of it. A visit to Maha Laxmi mandir along with a walk along the Marine Drive was good enough to call it a day.

Day2: A visit to Sidhi Vinayak is an auspicious way to start our day. On our way to the temple, we had a look at number of reptiles and varity of fishes at Taraporeum aquarium. In case you coming to visit Mumbai, this is one of the places you shold not plan to miss. It has almost every type of fish I knew(and many others I never heard of). Following Sidhi Vinayak, we went to the very famous ‘Juhu Chowpati’; only to ruin our expectations. It could have been an amazing place, had the visiting tourists had some courtesy for letting it be. You can’t find square feet of place on the beach or a liter of water without polythene and wrappers. The place was as bad as it could be. Could not stand there more than an hour(and that hour too, it wsa only the view, not the water, that held us back), we started for Nerule(W) to meet mamaji there. On the way, our driver stopped at the front of the unglow, and mentioned it is BigB’s bunglow. We got down to find out we are standing in front of ‘Jalsa’. A corner part of the plot was let out to Citibank, while nothing else was visible through that wooden wall put across the boundaries. And then we got back in the car, the FM said we are going to talk to Amitabh bachchan in aminute straight from IIFA, machow. A nd then I knew why there was no one to greet me as I got down at Jalsa ;) The whole fraternity is out there in macaow for IIFA awards. Later that day, we spent time at Nerule, before returning back at 0100 hrs back to IQ.
Day 3: Started from Mumbai to Matheran, a hill station at 2-3 hrs drive from Mmbai. Getting down from taxi, we tracked for around an hour uphill to reach the matheran station of the toy train that runs in the area. We hired a horse each for the further journey. Rest of the day can be read from Photos below:

A dinner on the way to Lonavla followed by a good night sleep at a nearby lodge, ended the day.
Day4: Waking up early, we started the day early, to reach khandala first. A lot has been heard about this place, but for tourists, khandala resides in a single park, with two-three points named inside it. Just an hour and we were out for Lonavla; A visual delight, this is a perfect place for a day’s picnic, when you come prepared with food, sporting items etc. to spend a day out here. Further, people say it’s a perfect place for the rainy day, so it would be even more beautiful than it looked to us(as it was not raining today.). An hour more, and we were out for some spiritual purification at shirdi, being a weekday, there was not much crowd there and we had the fortune of having Darshan peacefully.and now, we are headed to Pune, from Shirdi, when I got the idea of writing this weblog before I forget most of it.

Moon - from the banks of Ganga!

2009-05-30T17:49:00.005+05:30

At the banks of river Ganga, in the middle of the jungle trees on one side and mountains at the other side of the ganga, environment so serene, leaves you with the most peaceful state you can ever be in....One of the best shot i have ever taken!

Ten Rupee Coin! Released in 2006, still seldom seen!

2009-05-29T17:16:00.003+05:30

I got a look of it first time and so i thought sharing it with you guys is not a bad idea. Next someone gives you a Ten Ruppe coin, do not think of him as a fraud. Its a Govt of India coin, was released back in 2006, but still i don't know why it's not in the market.

The way India lost her Mahatma; a Mahatma?

2009-05-15T11:33:00.011+05:30

Yesterday, we were having the regular bantering session in my cubicle when the topic drifted to the politics(as it is the festive season of Indian democracy these days :-). While talking about today's problems, the discussion switched to their root causes and the Indian history(post-independence) was being reviewed. While we were talking about the number of incidents(actually blunders), suddenly the reference of killing of Mahatma Gandhi came in; and Sandeep(he joined our team around a month back) mentioned about the speech of Godse, that he gave in court after firing those (un?)fortunate shots.

I already knew a lot of blunders by Gandhi and have been a constant critic most of his deeds, so it aroused my interest, as to know, what would make anyone kill the so called 'Father of the nation'. Though it was a bit long, i read it in full and post-reading, i felt like sharing it here:

(This is the speech given by Nathuram Godse in the court when he was tried for the murder of Mahatma Gandhi)

Born in a devotional Brahmin family, I instinctively came to revere Hindu religion, Hindu history and Hindu culture. I had, therefore, been intensely proud of Hinduism as a whole. As I grew up I developed a tendency to free thinking unfettered by any superstitious allegiance to any isms, political or religious. That is why I worked actively for the eradication of untouchability and the caste system based on birth alone. I openly joined anti-caste movements and maintained that all Hindus were of equal status as to rights, social and religious and should be considered high or low on merit alone and not through the accident of birth in a particular caste or profession. I used publicly to take part in organized anti-caste dinners in which thousands of Hindus, Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, Chamars and Bhangis participated. We broke the caste rules and dined in the company of each other.

I have read the speeches and writings of Dadabhai Nairoji, Vivekanand, Gokhale, Tilak, along with the books of ancient and modern history of India and some prominent countries like England, France, America and’ Russia. Moreover I studied the tenets of Socialism and Marxism. But above all I studied very closely whatever Veer Savarkar and Gandhiji had written and spoken, as to my mind these two ideologies have contributed more to the moulding of the thought and action of the Indian people during the last thirty years or so, than any other single factor has done.

All this reading and thinking led me to believe it was my first duty to serve Hindudom and Hindus both as a patriot and as a world citizen. To secure the freedom and to safeguard the just interests of some thirty crores (300 million) of Hindus would automatically constitute the freedom and the well being of all India, one fifth of human race. This conviction led me naturally to devote myself to the Hindu Sanghtanist ideology and programme, which alone, I came to believe, could win and preserve the national independence of Hindustan, my Motherland, and enable her to render true service to humanity as well.

Since the year 1920, that is, after the demise of Lokamanya Tilak, Gandhiji’s influence in the Congress first increased and then became supreme. His activities for public awakening were phenomenal in their intensity and were reinforced by the slogan of truth and non-violence, which he paraded ostentatiously before the country. No sensible or enlightened person could object to those slogans. In fact there is nothing new or original in them. They are implicit in every constitutional public movement. But it is nothing but a mere dream if you imagine that the bulk of mankind is, or can ever become, capable of scrupulous adherence to these lofty principles in its normal life from day to day. In fact, honour, duty and love of one’s own kith and kin and country might often compel us to disregard non-violence and to use force. I could never conceive that an armed resistance to an aggression is unjust. I would consider it a religious and moral duty to resist and, if possible, to overpower such an enemy by use of force. [In the Ramayana] Rama killed Ravana in a tumultuous fight and relieved Sita. [In the Mahabharata], Krishna killed Kansa to end his wickedness; and Arjuna had to fight and slay quite a number of his friends and relations including the revered Bhishma because the latter was on the side of the aggressor. It is my firm belief that in dubbing Rama, Krishna and Arjuna as guilty of violence, the Mahatma betrayed a total ignorance of the springs of human action.

In more recent history, it was the heroic fight put up by Chhatrapati Shivaji that first checked and eventually destroyed the Muslim tyranny in India. It was absolutely essentially for Shivaji to overpower and kill an aggressive Afzal Khan, failing which he would have lost his own life. In condemning history’s towering warriors like Shivaji, Rana Pratap and Guru Gobind Singh as misguided patriots, Gandhiji has merely exposed his self-conceit. He was, paradoxical, as it may appear, a violent pacifist who brought untold calamities on the country in the name of truth and non-violence, while Rana Pratap, Shivaji and the Guru will remain enshrined in the hearts of their countrymen forever for the freedom they brought to them.

The accumulating provocation of thirty-two years, culminating in his last pro-Muslim fast, at last goaded me to the conclusion that the existence of Gandhi should be brought to an end immediately. Gandhi had done very well in South Africa to uphold the rights and well being of the Indian community there. But when he finally returned to India he developed a subjective mentality under which he alone was to be the final judge of what was right or wrong. If the country wanted his leadership, it had to accept his infallibility; if it did not, he would stand aloof from the Congress and carry on his own way. Against such an attitude there can be no halfway house. Either Congress had to surrender its will to his and had to be content with playing second fiddle to all his eccentricity, whimsicality, metaphysics and primitive vision, or it had to carry on without him. He alone was the Judge of everyone and everything; he was the master brain guiding the civil disobedience movement; no other could know the technique of that movement. He alone knew when to begin and when to withdraw it. The movement might succeed or fail, it might bring untold disaster and political reverses but that could make no difference to the Mahatma’s infallibility. ‘A Satyagrahi can never fail’ was his formula for declaring his own infallibility and nobody except himself knew what a Satyagrahi is.

Thus, the Mahatma became the judge and jury in his own cause. These childish insanities and obstinacies, coupled with a most severe austerity of life, ceaseless work and lofty character made Gandhi formidable and irresistible. Many people thought that his politics were irrational but they had either to withdraw from the Congress or place their intelligence at his feet to do with, as he liked. In a position of such absolute irresponsibility Gandhi was guilty of blunder after blunder, failure after failure, disaster after disaster.

Gandhi’s pro-Muslim policy is blatantly in his perverse attitude on the question of the national language of India. It is quite obvious that Hindi has the most prior claim to be accepted as the premier language. In the beginning of his career in India, Gandhi gave a great impetus to Hindi but as he found that the Muslims did not like it, he became a champion of what is called Hindustani. Everybody in India knows that there is no language called Hindustani; it has no grammar; it has no vocabulary. It is a mere dialect; it is spoken, but not written. It is a bastard tongue and crossbreed between Hindi and Urdu, and not even the Mahatma’s sophistry could make it popular. But in his desire to please the Muslims he insisted that Hindustani alone should be the national language of India. His blind followers, of course, supported him and the so-called hybrid language began to be used. The charm and purity of the Hindi language was to be prostituted to please the Muslims. All his experiments were at the expense of the Hindus.

From August 1946 onwards the private armies of the Muslim League began a massacre of the Hindus. The then Viceroy, Lord Wavell, though distressed at what was happening, would not use his powers under the Government of India Act of 1935 to prevent the rape, murder and arson. The Hindu blood began to flow from Bengal to Karachi with some retaliation by the Hindus. The Interim Government formed in September was sabotaged by its Muslim League members right from its inception, but the more they became disloyal and treasonable to the government of which they were a part, the greater was Gandhi’s infatuation for them. Lord Wavell had to resign as he could not bring about a settlement and he was succeeded by Lord Mountbatten. King Log was followed by King Stork.

The Congress, which had boasted of its nationalism and socialism, secretly accepted Pakistan literally at the point of the bayonet and abjectly surrendered to Jinnah. India was vivisected and one-third of the Indian territory became foreign land to us from August 15, 1947. Lord Mountbatten came to be described in Congress circles as the greatest Viceroy and Governor-General this country ever had. The official date for handing over power was fixed for June 30, 1948, but Mountbatten with his ruthless surgery gave us a gift of vivisected India ten months in advance. This is what Gandhi had achieved after thirty years of undisputed dictatorship and this is what Congress party calls ‘freedom’ and ‘peaceful transfer of power’. The Hindu-Muslim unity bubble was finally burst and a theocratic state was established with the consent of Nehru and his crowd and they have called ‘freedom won by them with sacrifice’ – whose sacrifice? When top leaders of Congress, with the consent of Gandhi, divided and tore the country – which we consider a deity of worship – my mind was filled with direful anger.

One of the conditions imposed by Gandhi for his breaking of the fast unto death related to the mosques in Delhi occupied by the Hindu refugees. But when Hindus in Pakistan were subjected to violent attacks he did not so much as utter a single word to protest and censure the Pakistan Government or the Muslims concerned. Gandhi was shrewd enough to know that while undertaking a fast unto death, had he imposed for its break some condition on the Muslims in Pakistan, there would have been found hardly any Muslims who could have shown some grief if the fast had ended in his death. It was for this reason that he purposely avoided imposing any condition on the Muslims. He was fully aware of from the experience that Jinnah was not at all perturbed or influenced by his fast and the Muslim League hardly attached any value to the inner voice of Gandhi.

Gandhi is being referred to as the Father of the Nation. But if that is so, he had failed his paternal duty inasmuch as he has acted very treacherously to the nation by his consenting to the partitioning of it. I stoutly maintain that Gandhi has failed in his duty. He has proved to be the Father of Pakistan. His inner-voice, his spiritual power and his doctrine of non-violence of which so much is made of, all crumbled before Jinnah’s iron will and proved to be powerless.

Briefly speaking, I thought to myself and foresaw I shall be totally ruined, and the only thing I could expect from the people would be nothing but hatred and that I shall have lost all my honour, even more valuable than my life, if I were to kill Gandhiji. But at the same time I felt that the Indian politics in the absence of Gandhiji would surely be proved practical, able to retaliate, and would be powerful with armed forces. No doubt, my own future would be totally ruined, but the nation would be saved from the inroads of Pakistan. People may even call me and dub me as devoid of any sense or foolish, but the nation would be free to follow the course founded on the reason which I consider to be necessary for sound nation-building. After having fully considered the question, I took the final decision in the matter, but I did not speak about it to anyone whatsoever. I took courage in both my hands and I did fire the shots at Gandhiji on 30th January 1948, on the prayer-grounds of Birla House.

I do say that my shots were fired at the person whose policy and action had brought rack and ruin and destruction to millions of Hindus. There was no legal machinery by which such an offender could be brought to book and for this reason I fired those fatal shots.

I bear no ill will towards anyone individually but I do say that I had no respect for the present government owing to their policy, which was unfairly favourable towards the Muslims. But at the same time I could clearly see that the policy was entirely due to the presence of Gandhi. I have to say with great regret that Prime Minister Nehru quite forgets that his preachings and deeds are at times at variances with each other when he talks about India as a secular state in season and out of season, because it is significant to note that Nehru has played a leading role in the establishment of the theocratic state of Pakistan, and his job was made easier by Gandhi’s persistent policy of appeasement towards the Muslims.

I now stand before the court to accept the full share of my responsibility for what I have done and the judge would, of course, pass against me such orders of sentence as may be considered proper. But I would like to add that I do not desire any mercy to be shown to me, nor do I wish that anyone else should beg for mercy on my behalf. My confidence about the moral side of my action has not been shaken even by the criticism levelled against it on all sides. I have no doubt that honest writers of history will weigh my act and find the true value thereof some day in future.

-NATHURAM GODSE

It enlightens number of good points about our Mahatma, which seem so true but not many people give a thought when they talk about him. Like :"his was a kind of dictatorship over Indian political arena that threw out\executed the people(like Netaji Subhash C Bose, Bhagat Singh) who tried to raise voice against it" among others. As someone has rightly said:

"He was not a saint trying to be a Politician, rather a politician trying to act as a saint."

You might think that these things have no relevance in these times, and why am i making you read this? One of the reason would be: next time whenever you tell someone(may be your next generation) that Nathu Ram Godse kiled our bapu, you should also let her know the purpose of assassination. When a history book tells students that Nathu Ram Godse killed Gandhi, they should also mention the purpose as given by the assassin. Without knowing the purpose, it always paints a wrong image of Godse as a fanatic who killed our (dear?) Bapu and ruined the nation, while the adding the purpose would leave this decision of good/bad with the reader. As Bhagat Singh rightly said :

"The purpose of any act is as important as the act is!"

They Voted, Got Clicked, (may be abused too:-), but in style!

2009-05-08T17:39:00.006+05:30

Sure, its good to go to vote. For the popular ones, its even better; as they to come out, they get flashed for showing the ink on their finger. But Mumbaikars did it in different style this time...

Yes. Do not feel abused when you see famous "Kajra-re" trio showing you the voting finger(well not actually :-), guess Mumbai polling officers knew the ink they put in is going to be clicked in huge way, so they ignored the usual index finger;) But whatever, they sure got a picture of their lifetime. See, how happy they are,(and the attitude on the third one), voting can't only be the reason to make them so happy... :-)

Though he got it done the same way, here is a gentleman's way to show the voting ink(and he is actually showing just that he has voted...No DOUBLE MEANINGS here.)

Meanwhile, yesterday, i went to vote too; though i was in extreme hurry and there was a queue at the polling booth, but it somehow felt good to be standing in there. Coz, When you have to stand in the queue, its for something that is important for others too. And i was happy that the VOTE is getting it's desired weightage.

Go for a change this time :From Comment to a Post...

2009-04-27T19:49:00.003+05:30

I was replying to a comment of a friend on a blog and while coming to an end, i realized it turned out to be complete post, and hence put it here.

Although coming after a long break, this one is about the topic of the season(and not any personal article): Not IPL :) Am talking about Indian Elections 2009.

In last election, i used to be a neutral voter, but the governance strategies in past few years polarized me to go for a change this time.

Just to quote a few instances, can be further explored on net(Thanks to Google :-))

The current government regime has used there power ILLEGALY to enormous extent in order to gain advantage at various platforms.

1. Our Hon'able Health Minister Mr. ramadoss, keeping AIIMS director Venugopal on brink, over multiple issues during his term.

2. Using CBI to defreeze the accounts of Ottavio Quattrocchi(You may want to read this: http://news.indiamart.com/news-analysis/bofors-scam-governme-11489.html) and taking off all charges against Late PM Rajiv Gandhi.

Though not sure of authenticity about this one, you may find some more info here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/946898/Indira-Gandhi-Murdered-the-Judge-Who-Ruled-Against

3.Hon'able HRD Minister Arjun Singh has already destroyed the Indian Educational System upto the extent which will take decades to recover from. Further more, when there were peaceful displays of disapproval across the country, these bastards used forces against the protesters. I remember, there were no official comments coming out of PMO for weeks while Doctors were being beaten/dragged and fired(with water canons) in public. Later HRD ministry says, we condemn what has happened. Even when SC put a stay at the order, these dumbos tried to bring in a constitutional change to implement the caste based reservation.

4. Used State governers to appoint there on CMs to form the government. Search for the Jharkhand issue on the net, and you would agree. As i remeber, the Jharkhand Governer invited Shibhu Soren, to form the government, while BJP Cm candidate was protesting against this at president's house in the physical presence of the MLAs required to form the government.

5. Letting Tytler go free(again using CBI) is the most recent such instance and hence is fresh in everyone's memory.

6. The terror attacks have increased during last few years exponentially. A bomb blast claiming less than 50 lives is no more a breaking news. All this is due to the UPA government's negligance/lineancy in dealing with terrorists. Just to quote an example, they are not letting even Supreme Court hang Afzal Guru for the Parliament attack. Now if you can't prosecute a man who planned attack on your Parliament, i doubt they even bother to find the guys behind minor attacks...Leave recent months aside as elections might be a possible reason to avoid driving away muslim vote bank...they have not let this happen for over an year now... and that too because, they have put in another puppet at the country's top most job "Mrs. Patil".

7. Installed another Informer(as already complained by the then CEC Gopalaswamy) in the Election Commision. Now no matter whether UPA comes back to power or not, they would have their control over the Election Commision until our new Cheif Election Commisioner Mr. Naveen Chawla resigns. when Ex- CEC complained him being inclined towards congress. Go thru the following articles to explore further:

http://www.hindu.com/2009/03/02/stories/2009030256890100.htm

http://lawyerjourno.blogspot.com/2009/02/cec-gopalaswamy-and-allegation-against.html

8. Even Mr. Laloo Prasad Yadav got rid of the all time famous "Chara Ghotala" for supporting the Congress led government. Seems like all cases(of almost all sorts) pending with CBI were closed for all the politicians allied with congress.

These ***holes(most of their allies) do know only one strategy: Divide the citizens on the basis on castes/religions etc and win vote banks.

9. Though not on central level, still i would want to bring one more instance on the table:
Don't know how many people are aware or not, in accordance with the recent congress government ruling, students in govt. schools can't be held back in the same class, even if he scores a zero in all subjects. He would be promoted to next class.

Although this change seems very small, but this is gonna ruin completely our educational system at primary level. With no more actual literates(on paper they would be literates as they passed 8th class), i seriously doubt if we would are we actually increasing the literacy population or increasing the invisible illiteracy across the society.

These are only the ones that come into light. I can't even imagine how hollow they might have made India coz even a little accomplishment is always mentioned everywhere while only major blunders come to light.

One achievement of UPA that i found worth a mention here, was the closure of the Nuclear deal. Except that i could not find any more achievements, for which they should again be brought back to the rule.

It started as a reply to

"There are many factors which compel govt to take such decisions....we cant judge by a mere mail thread."

and now seems has already become a long post... :)

In case your views differ and you have some points of disapproval worth mentioning, which i do not know, please let me know so that i can evaluate the other side of the story too!

What if Google had its logo like this...

2009-02-09T12:54:00.003+05:30

No Petrol....No Time.....

2009-01-08T13:25:00.003+05:30

Seems like we shall start working more pro-actively towards other fuel resources...

While coming to office today morning...i got a feeling of say what would happen 50-60 years down the line... Almost all pumps have dried up on my way until i found one at Delhi-noida border....there too...after waiting for 20 odd mins..i realized, my number is not going to come b4 2hrs...and then too...agar bacha toh milega...warna go for the next one.... This is the scene that u can expect few decades down the line....when only privileged ppl would get their hands on the petrol/deisel, no idea yet, vat all others would be relying upon...... :(

Then suddenly i realized..ppl dont generally go to the Noida pump as the fuel is a bit costly there....so i rushed to the Indian Oil pump behind Noida Stadium....to my rescue..there tank has not yet dried up...and i got some fuel(actually i got my car's tank full with the fear that if the strike continues very long, bicycle is the last option i wld have...) and reached office to write this one... :)

A couple of posts are pending before this.... One in the drafts....and others in the mind with pictorial views(about the trip to shillong and all)..would get them out too before i forget all about the trip...

Its been four days since i started writing this post(with strike already ended)...and now on 12-jan at 2142 hrs....am forced to cut this short...being reminded of makke ki roti-sarso ka saag(its lohri today...) when i have already missed the lunch today, the mice in my belly aren't allowing me to write anymore...

Would try to jot down the mentioned entries soon....

Wish you all Merry Christmas and a Very Bright year ahead.

2008-12-24T18:04:00.002+05:30

As we approach the end of the year, its time to wish you all Merry Christmas and a very Happy Year.

May god bless us all with Health, Wealth and immense Happiness.

With our office also going for a holiday break, am also off to Shillong from tomorrow morning.

Would be back in Delhi 30th Morning.

Federal anti-terror Agency for India too...

2008-12-15T14:32:00.001+05:30

It took number of dead bodies and loads of terror to wake up the Indian governance to the need of an autonomous body to deal with terror. Still this body(whenever it gets operational) would still not have authority to look into the corruption cases against our dear representatives. They have the right to deal only with the acts of terrorism.

Meanwhile, Pakistan is coming under pressure from the international community, they are not leaving any stone unturned t odisplay their strong stand against terrorism. They have done some (auumed) bombing at terror camps in POK. They have house arrested couple of brand ambassadors of terrorism in Pakistan. I do not understand how do they justify the house arrest of these bastards. Take the case of Masood azhar. Everyone knows that he escaped from Indian Jail after hijacking IC814 way bac, still they put him in house arrest and say, if required, he would be tested in Pakistan courts and not be handed over to India. This comment itself shall give India enough reasons to be aggressive against Pakistan. One, they are saying he is residing in Pakistan(which they used to deny in the past). If he is residing in Pakistan India shall have all rights to force Pak to deport him back to India. We also shall question the connection of IC-814 and Pakistan. Secondly, If we have the proof of his involvement in the anti-india acts(the same reason for which he was in the Indian jail), we have all the right to get him deported to India after he is confirmed to be present in Pakistan. They have also banned the J-u-D Charity organisation which was acting as a front for LeT to collect the fundngs. The ban means we would soon get to know a new Charitable Organisation operational in the Pakistan with some other name. No actual arrests/handovers took place for leaders of this organisation.

The Big Brother US is acting as a mediator while taking completely nuetral(kinda yes) stand between the neighbours. It cant allow india to be aggressive against Pakistan as it stands to lose out on its own war against terror in the west Pakistan tribal areas. Also it cannot leave out India and take complete side of Pakistan, when there is an ongoing procedure of improving INDO-US relations. This leaves them with no options except what they are doing right now. Consoling India for what has happened, talking(just talking) tough to Pakistan and askig for actions. And in reply to this pressure, Pakistan is doing the acts i already mentioned above.

So even after lots of discussions and condemning, we have still not been able to take measures against the people associated with this act of terrorism. We are planning to make tough laws but implementation of these laws is still doubtful. Under these circumstances, even if we see some military action between India and Pakistan, it shall not be surprising. Even if India survives such military action, i am really doubtful how immune is Pakistan Economy to such actions to survive it. and in case the Pakistan reaches the brink of bankruptcy, and it is too desparate to hurt India in anyway, the use of Nuclear weapon seems quire realistic from its perspective. I felt so coz you can never justify their actions logically. They are so anti-india that they do not think of the circumstances while executing their inhumane acts. If a nuclear weapon is anytime used anywhere, we can for sure expect a third world war in the pipeline, bringing the destruction no one has ever imagined. This might be the reason we are containing our military options against Pakistan, coz has it not been a nuclear state, we would have gone to war soon after Pakistan involvement was established.

Well deserved Resignation;however, it, still, is not enough...

2008-12-01T22:26:00.004+05:30

Along with the security failures, our dear Home minister has not had enough words to explain the deadly situations arising due to failure of his team.

Of course, Mr. Home Minister has always been more concerned about his hygiene then the circumstances across the nation.(this is the old story when during visiting the injured in delhi Blasts, within a short span of ,say, 4 hrs. Mr. Patil had to visit his wardrobe thrice to change his appearance.)Just to mention, following are the comments given by Mr. Shivraj Patil on various occasions:

Not just him, almost all our leaders have been so ignorant about serious national issues. Donno how much we shall criticize the other nations(for the acts like the one mentioned in the prev post), when our own Political system/representatives are so corrupt. :(

May the soul of all the people who left this planet in this inhumane act rest in peace and the bereaved get the potential to fight the circumstances.

WTF...Pak Media is all about...

2008-12-01T20:52:00.005+05:30

Just a quick post to let you all know wtf Pakistan media is all about. Just look out for the links below to know what they think about the most inhumane act of terrorism on Indian territory:

Part1
Part2
Part3
Part4
Part5

Further, how can any national channel dub the voice of the most famous adv of India. Why the hell this(part2) is not being tested if it actually is RamJethMalani(which i am sure he is some bastard dubbing on his part). If it is not, Pak media should pay the cost for forging things, else RamJethMalani should explain how could he make such stupid comments publicly. I remember a quote here:

Better to be quite rather prove yourself a fool

If this is the kind of media active in pakistan, No doubt the pakistan awam(as they say it) is so misguided and misled by these a**holes....

Leaving the post in between due to lack of time...lot more needs to spilled out here b4 i am done with this topic.

Blue Screen of death...

2008-10-04T01:44:00.005+05:30

For lots of reasons, i have been trying to come back here

The sentence above was typed in and left incomplete on 4th October, when i was writing my post. The reason why it was left incomplete...Thanks to Mr. Bill Gates...the Blue screen of death suddenly appeared on my lappy for first time and i never came to the drafts section again. Now if you are not a blogger user, you might be wondering, how come i saved the sentence in that case?....for this, i might need thank to Mr Larry Page, for every google product from mail to blogger to docs, has the Auto saving mechanism...you write few words....it saves that into drafts....:)

Coming after a long time, this might go a bit longer than the routine post(which themselves are very long these days...)

There happened lots of incident recently when i felt like writing it out here. Be it, the serial bombing in Delhi, the repeated bombing in delhi, the Jamia Nagar shoot-out, journey from 15K to 8K(u would know this if you have lost your hard earned money recently), procedings at my office or the progress at my other endeavours.

Among above, the second bombing at delhi was the one which i experienced most closely. the others are like, you get to read about it in the newspaper or watch that in the Breaking News section on any news channel. When the serial blasts happened in delhi, everyone raised the fingers at the security measures, ability of the police force and valus of human life and thousand other issues. before saying any such thing, we need to think about our ignorance in cooperating with the administration. Say, for example, if a policeman has put barriers in our way, we would give him number of bad words, saying ki "saala kuch kaam toh hota nahi hai, public ka time kharab karne men lage rehte hain". If we cannot cooperate, we shall not be the ones who curse the administration for not being rite.

Anyways, coming under pressure, The govt must have pressurised the police and hence happened the Jamia Nagar shoot-out. I have not been there, but as i read the witness comments in the newspapers, it felt like it was more of the planned thing rather than the actual shoot-out. The residents might have also been the normal human beings. There only fault might have been the family they were born to belonged to Muslim religion. I am not a religious enthusiast, but the course of events that were mentioned in the newspapers made people believe that it was the acted scene, just to show, that the Delhi police is still alive and it performs the action if required. The supposedly Indian mujahidden big shots were killed in the shoot out. The delhites started feeling that delhi is now safe for at least next three years...however, that was not the case.

The next saturday, after shootout, i went to nehru place with rawat to get some1 a PC assempled. As i was watching the technician join the parts, a news came in that a bomb has gone off in mehrauli. After few minutes, some1 said Saket has also been hit. This was the time when i actually felt the impact. I was at nehru place, which was on top of the Hit List last time. Police made people shut down their shops and we also got the machine and left the place. Later in the evening, when we went to Cross River for dinner, i was amazed to see that on Saturday evening, the mall was totally empty. This is what the fear can do to you. anyway, i was quite lucky that day to reach my place safely.

Signing off with the Hope to be alive till my next post. :)

Chrome's cool.....however Mozilla still rules...

2008-09-03T21:44:00.002+05:30

As soon as the goole released their much talked about Web Browser Google chrome here, there must have been millions(or even billions) of enthu googlers downloading and trying it out....i also am one of them....

So i installed it to give it a try and this is what i felt when i compared to Mozilla in performance perspective: As always, Google has kept this product of their's in the simplest form possible and hence the chrome seems to be an absolute performer. I loaded a number of web portals in different tabs. First of all, each of them was rendered quite fast as compared to other browsers in the market. Then i tried loading wikimapia.org in chrome. It generally takes some time for firefox to load that; however it was there in chrome at much faster speed. Same was the case for other videos sites also.

The UI is not that better(may be, because we have got too habitual of the normal menu bars) for chrome as of now, but we can hope it might get better with time and then the time come when it will be able to compete with Mozilla firefoz, till then...Mozilla rules...:)

Also i have read people's comment that this is a beta release and the final product might be much better than this. Just a simple question to those guys: How many products has google actually released..most of these(incl the most popular GMail and Gtalk) are still in the beta version, inspite of the fact that these have been ruling the markets since inception...so i personally do not expect any official Chrome product coming out of google soon..

This also reminds me of Archis's comment that this is the one field where microsoft is way ahead from google. Microsoft actually has the products most of which are into production, while most of Google's product are still into beta release. In case you are wondering who this Archis is, he was one of the guys i met during my small stint at Microsoft internship. So you might have got the idea where this came from. We were actually trying to figure out, what all is good about microsoft as compared to Google....

And if you are wondering why i missed IE 8 beta in comparison above, the reason i have stopped using IE any version since i tried firefox for the first time....

Anyways...do let me know what you thought of Chrome....

Signing off for now... :)

What Pakistan could not do in 61 years, BJP did in 36 days...

2008-09-02T22:22:00.003+05:30

No matter that the BJP and RSS have since their inception opposed the mare existence of the Muslims here, Still Pakistan(and also POK) government must be too delighted with what BJP and RSS have done for them in the past 61 days...This is something they had been trying to achieve for past 61 years....

If you are not too ignorant about the current affairs, you already know what i am talking about...The Jammu and Kashmir issue.....

While i would be mentioning the list of events i got regarding the whole story from one of the e-papers....they actually forgot to mention one of the major incidents(at least what i think, it was quite important one) that was part of this story....we will come to that in time...meanwhile here goes the complete story in case you missed out on the current affairs recently:

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

From trigger to truce over shrine land

May 26, 2008: Trouble in J&K begins with state govt & Centre’s agreement to transfer 100 acres of forest land to SASB

June 22: Protests against land transfer start in Ganderbal & spread to most parts of the Valley

June 25: Counter protests begin in Jammu against separatists

June 26: PDP threatens to quit govt, Omar Abdullah asks SASB to return land “on their own”.

June 28: PDP withdraws support to Azad-led coalition govt

June 29:Governor N.N. Vohra abandons SASB’s claim on land

June 30: Protests, bandhs begin in Jammu against cancellation of land allotment.

July 1: Curfew imposed in Jammu after violence

July 7: Azad resigns as CM without facing confidence vote

July 8: Shri Amarnath Yatra Sangarsh Samiti (SAYSS) constituted to spearhead strike

July 29: A civilian tries to end life in support of agitation

August 1: Army called in Jammu and Samba districts, curfew imposed after two die in firing

August 2: Curfew imposed in Udhampur too, Army deployed on highways for safe movement of truckers plying to and fro Srinagar

August 5: Mob damages rail track between Ghagwal and Kathua, burns offices and police post

August 6: PM chairs all-party meeting in New Delhi

August 8: All-party delegation reaches Jammu. Abdullah and Mufti dropped from delegation

August 14: Another civilian ends life on 23rd day of bandh.

August 18-20: SAYSS begins three-day ‘ jail bharo andolan’

August 22: Curfew clamped and Army called out in Hiranagar as mob torch a truck & fight cops

August 23: Communal violence in Poonch; curfew imposed, Army called. 3 rounds of talks held between Vohra’s panel & SAYSS. Govt seeks 2-3 days time

August 24: Samiti extends Jammu bandh till August 31. Another youth attempts suicide in Bishnah

August 25: Violence erupts in Jammu and Kathua districts

August 28: Bandh for 37th day. Talks deferred

August 30: Govt panel & SAYSS meet for fourth round and ink an agreement.

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

You might be wondering why have i used the "36 days" in the title while the story expands to so many more days...Let me tell you the fact,...the heading has been stolen from one of the daily's frontpage on 26th July...I read it and the heading made me read the complete article while i was getting late for the office...the Kashmir people were finally more inclined towards Pakistan as on that day than towards india/indian Government.

Around 26th July, when the issue was already on for past 36 days, and people at jammu have been blocking the NH1 for more than two weeks. This is also one of the things Pak has always been trying to do(remeber the shelling days on NH1 during Kargil war); however, it has not yet succeded, thanks to dedicated efforts of Indian Armed Forces. But, this time it was more difficult to handle this, because, this time it was the countrymen themselves who had turned into the destroyers for some other countrymen.....What Pakistan has also been trying for the past 61 years is to win the trust/confidence of Kashmiri(or India Occupied Kashmir, if i go by Interm=national media standards) people...

So what happened was, Kashmir was running out of daily neccessities as NH1 was blocked by BJP and RSS supporters, and the crop in Kashmir was being ruined as it was lying there for days, hoping to reach the relatively southern market someday. The one and only option left to them was to turn to POK for help.

The Kashmiri separatists declared that they would march to Muzzafarnagar and start dealing with them. Everyone knows that this must have come from some bloody separatists politician, but the people were not left with many options to choose from and hence the March to Muzzafarnagar slogan was ubiquitous across the valley on that day....everyone was ready to move to muzzafarnagar to buy few things....and to sell few things...The date was decided and the indian government had made all possible arrangements to let people reach not even within kms of the LOC. The bigwigs of the march movement were put under house arrest...people being warned not to try anything stupid and all.....everyone out there would have wanted to ask just one question to Mr Shivraj patil that day: If not this, What shall i do to feed my family?

Although this was a political move by separatists, which failed that day as the Full curfew and heavy armed forces deployment did not allow people to reach even nerar the highway leading to Muzzafarnagar;however, i felt that the move did not fail completely. It was the first time, people("AVAM" is the word to use) were themselves more interested to go to POK. The sentiments were flowing in reverse direction...

I have been there to Kashmir once in 2005(and it actually is too good a place to be in) and what i realized during that tour was that the people at kashmir are not interested in who holds the control over kashmir, whether it is India, Pakistan or even US, for them, what matters is that they shall live in peace "...Saheb, Kashmir na hindustan ka hai, na Pakistan ka, Kashmir hamara hai, aur hamen aise hi rehne do."..these were the words used by our Ca driver during one of the excursions...that time toh i felt like hitting him hard ki tum saala khate hindustan ka ho...pehnte hindustan ka ho...india ka aadha budget yahaan peace maintain karne men lag jaata hoga and still you guys say that you do not belong to India....it was later i realized the actual situation...

These guys have been living in such a heavy military deployment for so long that the mindset do changes....and above that, when the armed forces are like abusing people based on their caste...it only worsens the situation. Please do not get me wrong here, this is about those few "gandi machli" jinhone pure talaab ka naam bekaar kar rakha hai...and in case you do not agree to this...you need to see some good bollywood flicks as Shaurya, Yahaan etc... So they have finally given in and now they expect only the survival of themselveds without thinking about any other stuff....

Anyway, finally,at least partially, we have lost the battle to the separatists who have wanted to turn the public opinion towards the other side of LOC... How would you look upon the person who you know is responsible for your and your family's sufferings for so long....i would wanna kill that bastard so mercilessly that he never dares to repeat this mistake in any of his further lives..(read Many lives many masters, if you have doubt about the existence of future/past lives)..so in short, the feeling of hatred which the valley habitants must have acquired during this time would take a very long time to faint in their minds....

It was not all the valley people who have objected to the Land transfer to the shrine board. It was just a few separatists group who, because they had support in the government, and their supporters did object to it... and again it was not the whole jammu that was blocking the NH1...only a few adherents of the famous hinduism groups...however, this has created a gar between the complete set of people in valley and the whole chunk of people in jammu...this is quite clear because i was reading in todays paper only that the kashmiri traders are now looking for the traders in northern india outside jammu while earlier they used to trade with the jammu traders....

Looking from distant, it seems to be just another series of protest over some issue...but believe me....it is not just protests...its much bigger than that....Only time might be able to tell what all consequences we would have to face for this shameful event in indian history....

Live your Dreams...........Go RockOn!

2008-08-30T01:06:00.004+05:30

Coming to this place after so long.........I have realized that the life is getting very very trivial kinda affair....i know i have already mentioned this a couple of times already...still i wanted to repeat this statement just to convey how it is goin about in the software industry.....OK...i have been here at Adobe for quite sometime now and it is not that boring as it was back in GL; however(now i mostly use this, thanx to Shruti from HTS) it is still not that i or anyone else would expect it to be.....

We all wake up on Monday mornings and start thinkin gof the long week ahead......what all we need to complete by the end of the week...and how it needs to be done......a couple of days and we start waiting for the next weekend so that we can get some rest in this busy schedule....and when the weekend comes...its spent mostly in sleeping or in planning the next weird plan which seldom comes into existence......

I dont know why.....even this blogging has seem to have started looking something as a work that needs to be done....for the past one month or two...i have had many ideas that i wanted to spill out here....but never felt like typing in the characters to convey my thoughts on this Google server.....Today too...i opened this to write on some very serious topic....but when i started typing...it was all different text...i would anyway tell you the serious stuff i was about to write..."What Pakistan could not do in 60 years, BJP did in 36 days...."...If you are still wondering what this is all about....dude...go get some know how of Indian politics.....This is sure the title of my next post as i have been dying to bring it to notice here....how our machiavallen(hopefully this is the word...bahut time ho gaya hai WL yaad kiye huye...) politicians are destroying the future of the country...

Finally my Product at Adobe has reached the RC Submit....and would soon be shipped across the Globe..so in case you grab the Adobe CS4 copy...do make sure you install the Adobe Contribute in your machine...go to Contribute Help menu and click on About Contribute....The text would start scrolling on the screen...just wait for some seconds and you would get the section "Internationalization Engineering : Kshitij Gupta"...yup that would be me..:)...looks quite good to see your name on the proct team that drives the world crazy.....and in case you too are consistent blogger/you own a couple of sites that you update very frequently...you can't miss upon this product...go grab your copy at the earliest....

How often does life gives us a second chance to try do the things that we once missed upon...not sure to many it occurs...but it just gave the Magic Band this chance...(If you have not already got it....just wait for few days when you would get it..)..me still waiting for mine .. :)

Back from the evening show of RockOn!, i can say that there is still some creative talent left in the indian industry.....never heard this name...Abhishek Kapoor....and the guy has still pulled up a pretty decent package....not sure how much fame would he get out of it as RockOn has been symbolized as a Farhan Akhtar movie in the market and i do not think many of the audience ever read the casting titles appearing on Screen...Akhtar ..no doubt has given in a good performance throughout the movie..but the story and direction were pretty good..So the story is about living your dreams.....what you actually wanted to do in life and what you left behind at some stage...Seems like there exists a bit of Adi in each of us who was something else few years back and the life has transformedhim into something else.....i know i have been talking tooo Philosophical...but we are forgetting actual us in a race to win in life...trying to achieve the next level of success...

So do not ever throw even that little dream of yours out of your mind as you might get a chance to fulfill it anytime...so keep all of them within your heart..and when your chance comes in....Go out...Live Your Dreams....RockOn!

22nd July.....more than a bllion people waiting for it...

2008-07-21T16:53:00.000+05:30

22nd July 2008...That's tomorrow, the UPA Government needs to pass the trust vote in the parliament.

Poor Indian Democracy :(

2008-05-29T12:35:00.009+05:30

While coming to office this morning i had a sense of Deja vu where all the roads to Adobe office were blocked by some stupid people of a particular community, demanding for inclusion into the reserved category of scheduled tribes. If you are residing in India, i guess you know by now what community i am talking bout.

Around same time last year, i had a written test planned here at ADOBE for recruitment purpose. On the way, i came to know that all the roads from Delhi to Noida are blocked and that there is a good chance of riots happening on the way. The traffic was jammed everywhere on the roads, with the thulla log(read (traffic) police) diverting the traffic from here to there and vice versa. That was an instant action by these road blockers and so no security/stopping measures could be planned for the day. In those violent demonstrations, people were seeking to reclassify their caste to a lower level, which would allow them to qualify for government jobs and university places reserved for such groups. Almost half a hundred people were killed and many hundreds were injured in the demonstrations. Public Property worth thousands of dollars was put to fire by these rioters.

A snapshot of the demonstrations.

Later, they apologized to the Indian Govt. and stopped all the demonstrations across the country and took back their demands. That was for the last year.

This year, they have again risen(like phoenix rises after death, however, they rose just an year after the death) and the demonstrations started across the Rajasthan(root cause last year too) again putting up the same stupid demands. The Rajastha Govt, putting up so ineffective show, started passing the riot heat to central counterpart. and their starts the blame game of the representatives of the people.

What is astonishing to note was these protesters declared around 25th May that they are going to block all the supplies in and out of Delhi on 29th of May. Even when having 5 days in pocket to plan and sort things out, all the involved governments were waiting for the day, diverting, delaying and even cancelling important trains going in/out of delhi. What they could not do was stop these violent protesters from blocking the roads/rail tracks and setting an example, showing that no such violent acts are welcome in future from any section of society, for any reason whatsoever.

If you think its because of Democracy(freedom of expression of your thoughts) in India, Let me mention one more protest incident for reference, which was killed like anything by our very own, democratic central Government.

In 2006, when our HRD ministry announced 27% quota in Central govt. funded institutes, the students went on silent, non-violent protest. When the government felt that these non-violent protests could turn out to be effective, protesters were beaten mercilessly, water canons fired and every single way was executed to kill the protest.

None of the political Party came forward to support the Youth for Equality forum, which eventually died with filing a case(PIL) in apex court which finally applied the quota this year putting forth some sensible conditions(like exclusion of Creamy Layer, minimum scores etc.).

Not moving too far from my point, what i want to bring to notice is that this is the same government which is acting as helpless in stopiing these violent protesters while they know they can do that very easily. Neither the government, nor the opposition wants to act as they might loose the vote bank of this particular community, if they do.

Indeed our democratic structure, which was established to keep things in control, is actually destroying the nation, where representatives, in the greed of coming to power, do not want to act against the rule violators in society. But these same guys do not ever miss a chance to kill the non-violent, peaceful demonstrations , may be because from our past experience, we know that this non-violent thing was actually very effective against English and helped us in getting us our independence(which , by the way, we are again on the brim of loosing it once more.)

If these circumstances continue for one more decade(which i hope and know they will, for sure), it would be really hard to continue using the very famous title, "The Largest democracy of the World", currently used for India , anymore.

Past Half year!

2008-03-28T22:12:00.004+05:30

A lot has been happening around these days. Except a little news recently, i have been absent from this place for almost 6 months now.

In the past six months, following mentionable things have happened.
Am still working at Adobe@noida. Shifted partially into the C++ thing. Still, the bug fixing takes most of the official time. Since i joined here, i have been trying hard to follow my little encounter with Java/J2EE @GlobalLogic, to no avail. Have collected so much resources, and still hoping that some day i will start using them to achieve proficiency in this arena. Looking that learning/using jsp is a time consuming task, i have also started trynig asp.net if that can be learned easily. Would be able to let you know how easy it is, only once i get to learn it.

The reader might be wondering that being in C++ domain, why is this guy so enthu about the Web designing thing. That's just because, i have number of innovative web ideas which can turn into miilion dollar pages. Neglecting this exaggeration, incase you are proficient in this feild, and looking to convert it into a major revenue generating source of your income, don't think another moment before contacting me.

i joined here at Adobe in September. A lot has changed around since then. No more GC with Mutreja on daily basis. Have gained a little more professinal look towards the work. Getting a thicker paycheck every month. Paying a bit more tax to our responsible Indian Government. GC with few new people("Nidhi, Kshitij(sharma), Nitin, Twinkle, Ashish and Chirag) on daily basis.(in case i have not mentioned it before, ashish is actually a older pal from DCE).

Everything else is great in life.

Signing off!

Marking Anniversary...

2008-02-16T22:03:00.000+05:30

Being absent from this place for long now, i suddenly realised that 16th February id the day i posted my first post over here. So, i thought of congratulating myself publicly that the blog is still active. Although last few posts have very popular lyrics and usual stuff, however, am still looking forward to continue it if enough to congratulate myself. I am saying so, because, starting posting here itself took me more than a year since i thought about it.

Just this Congratulation message for now! Take care!

Sorry, Blame It On Me

2007-11-15T19:35:00.000+05:30

As life goes on, I’m starting to learn more and more about responsibility.
And I realize that everything I do is affecting the people around me.
So I want to take this time out to apologize for things that I’ve done,
things that haven’t occurred yet,
and things that they don’t want to take responsibility for.

I’m sorry for the times that I left you home
I was on the road and you were alone
I’m sorry for the times that I had to go
I’m sorry for the fact that I did not know

That you were sitting home just wishing we
Could go back to when it was just you and me
I’m sorry for the times I would neglect
I’m sorry for the times I disrespect

I’m sorry for the wrong things that I’ve done
I’m sorry I’m not always there for my sons
I’m sorry for the fact that I’m not aware
That you can't sleep at night when I am not there

Because I’m in the streets like everyday
I’m sorry for the things that I did not say
And how you are the best thing in my world
And how I’m so proud to call you my girl

I understand that there’s some problems
And I’m not too blind to know
All the pain you kept inside you
Even though you might not show

If I can't apologize for being wrong
Then it’s just a shame on me
I’d be the reason for your pain
And you can put the blame on me

you can put the blame on me
you can put the blame on me
you can put the blame on me

said, you can put the blame on me
said, you can put the blame on me
said, you can put the blame on me
you can put the blame on me

I’m sorry for the things daddy put you through
And all the times you didn’t know what to do
I’m sorry that you had to go and sell those bags
Just trying to stay busy until you heard from Dad

When you would rather be home with all your kids
As one big family with love and bliss
And even though pops treated us like kings
He got a second wife and you didn’t agree

He got up and left you there all alone
I’m sorry that you had to do it on your own
I’m sorry that I went and added to your grief
I’m sorry that your son was once a thief
I’m sorry that I grew up way to fast
I wish I would of listened and not be so bad
I’m sorry that your life turned out this way
I’m sorry that the feds came and took me away

I understand that there’s some problems
And I’m not too blind to know
All the pain you kept inside you
Even though you might not show

If I can't apologize for being wrong
Then it’s just a shame on me
I’d be the reason for your pain
And you can put the blame on me

you can put the blame on me
you can put the blame on me
you can put the blame on me

said, you can put the blame on me
said, you can put the blame on me
said, you can put the blame on me
you can put the blame on me

I’m sorry that it took so long to see
What they did wrong, trying to put it on me
I’m sorry that it took so long to speak
But I was on tour with Gwen Stefani

I’m sorry for the hand that she was dealt
And for the embarrassment that she felt
She’s just a little young girl tryin to have fun
But daddy should of never let her out that young

I’m sorry for Club Zen getting shut down
I hope they manage better next time around
How was I to know she was underage
In a 21 and older club they say

Why doesn’t anybody want to take blame
evry1 backed out, disgracing my name
I’m just a singer trying to entertain
Because I love my fans, I’ll take that blame

Even though the blame’s on you
Even though the blame’s on you
Even though the blame’s on you
I’ll take that blame from you

And you can put that blame on me
And you can put that blame on me
you can put that blame on me
you can put that blame on me

And you can put that blame on me

And you can put that blame on me

Play the song.

ReIncarnation....a truth or a myth...?

2007-10-04T19:57:00.001+05:30

For a change, i am diverting the blog content from normal side of my life to the philosophical side. Hence, i chose the subject as "Reincarnation".

Before you start jumping on the answer to the question of whether its a truth or a myth, let's first try figure out what exactly is the meaning of this word.

In accordance with the hindu mythology, where its mentioned "Punar Janam", it has always been there since the creation of this earth. They say there are 8.4 million species of life which you have to pass through to be born as a human being. These 8.4 million births/lives could be anything, varying from insects to animals to anything. Its mentioned in the hindu mythology that you have got this human life after a very long wait, its very very precious, and hence shall not be wasted, instead be utilized to reach the state of "Moksha", which they mention as the state of eternal peace and joy from where you never have to return back. Although being a little skeptical until few years back, i used to believe the same upto some extent.

One more thing, the word "you" in the last paragraph and henceforth refers to the spirit, and not the human body we possess.

In my college(around two three years back), i read a book by Dr Brian Weiss titled "Many lives Many Masters". It added a different angle altogether to my perception of reincarnation. In the book, which is claimed to be a true story, Dr. Weiss describes his interaction with his patient "Catherine" who was the first patient he treated with regression/past life therapy. In past life therapy, the doctors treat their patient using hypnosis, trying to figure out the reason of the suffering from the various past life the spirit has lived through. Initially, as Dr. Weiss, i too thought that it could be a coincidence of imagination what "Catherine" was speaking during he state of hypnosis, until she mentions of the son of Dr. Weiss, who died just after the birth. Only he knew about it, but how come Catherine was telling his story without knowing even a single bit about him.

Its mentioned that during the state of hypnosis, Catherine was interacting with the masters of the spirit world. They also mention a lot of stuff to Dr. Weiss which none other knew and then they talk a lot about the facts of Spiritual World. One thing that i remember for definite reasons is that, the soul always come back to earth in groups. Like, the people you know right now, have lived with you in previous lives, and would come again with you in further lives too.

That probably is the reason why we feel a strange sense of attraction to some people even when we meet them for first time. As if we have known this stranger for long, very long. And at times, later in your lifetime, you end up making a strong bond with this stranger. All this seems to be very real and practical, ain't it?

A must read for everyone who has a slightest interest in the spirituality. Being impressed by this book, i was searching for his another title, "Only Love is Real" for long now, until i got a copy of that in Adobe library here.

This one is about his two patients who never met each other ,and during their past life therapies, they end up identifying each other as their soulmate. The concept of Soulmate refers to that one soul with whom you have lived for many of your past lives and are going to live in many of the coming ones. Its said that at times, you can identify her with the first look in her eyes. You come to know that she is the one made for you.

If you look at your past life, I am sure you will identify a person, watching whom you felt that you can live your whole life with her. That, if you get her in your life, their hardly would be anything more you would be demanding from your life. I am so sure about it, coz, sometime in the past, i have experienced it myself, and am sure you had it too. Most of the times, you will try to hide this feeling, thinking what people around would think of you, but inside, you know that it has happened to you.

These couple of literatures, have changed my perception about the reincarnation, spirituality and all other stuff which earlier, at some level, i used to think are unproven concepts. This has brought in a lot of awareness in my life, both spiritually and unexpectedly, in materialistic world too.

Spilling over the various facts about it here, i leave it to you, to decide on weather its truth or a myth. Do let me know if you have different opinion about the subject.

?????????????????????????????????????

2007-10-01T18:20:00.001+05:30

It has been a long break from blogging. No doubt, a lot has happened since then. But firstly, the most important thing. Me and Mutreja, after being together for last four years through college, placements and the same project at GlobalLogic have finally been separated. I left GlobalLogic last week, on 28th September.

I left it to join Adobe@noida. It was not an easy switch. All began while me and mutreja were having lunch at the Ambrosia@GL. Suddenly, Mutreja got a call and the other person asked if he would like to appear for the Adobe test. He says no. After a few minutes, i got the call which i never picked coz my cell was in silent mode. but we could figure out that it was from same number. I somehow got the call later again and was asked to come for the process the following day.

It actually put me in an interesting situation. Being put into Java for last couple of months, i was totally out of sync with c/cpp and being in java for just two months, wasn't very sure about it too. So, i somehow prepared for it and went for the test. Managed to get through the test, i screwed up my first interview with Ankush. He asked me c++, which i havent done recently, so i botched up that. then ven he shifted over to java, agan i ws pretty miserable. The other three went good; however i wasn't very hopeful.

Past few days i got a call to join here at Adobe(which i am still surprised about remembering my performance in talk with Ankush). It raised another important issue, how to leave the project Acteva@GL. Not that i was the backbone of the project, but for past one month, i have been groomed to play a major role in it. I somehow told my manager that i would be leaving. He acknowledged it and i left it on 26th Sept. But they relieved me only on 28th.

So, a lot happened over last ten days or so, and a lot has changed during this period.

Last ten days were the birthday week at our place. Starting from my sisters, all other four members of my family except me, have their birthdays on 21st, 23rd, 27th and 30th of September. The chronological order remaining same as the order of elderness. So, had a lot of parties over last ten days.

Then their was this party on 29th too. Don't ask the occasion. As it was a long weekend, Puneet was also here from Banglore. We had a little get together, so, another reason for party..:)

Its seven in the evening now, and its time for me to go back to my place. A lot more is still to be spilled over here. So, i can hope i would be regular this time.

And yes, if you are still wondering about the title of this post. "???" is just because i was not able to think of one title for so much of info. So "???"... :)

When You Say Nothing At All...

2007-08-21T11:42:00.000+05:30

Its amazing how you can speak right to my heart

Without saying a word, you can light up the dark

Try as I may I could never explain

What I hear when you dont say a thing

The smile on your face lets me know that you need me

Theres a truth in your eyes saying youll never leave me

The touch of your hand says youll catch me when ever I fall

You say it best..when you say nothing at all

All day long I can hear people talking out loud

But when you hold me near, you drown out the crowd (the crowd)

Try as they may they can never define

Whats been said between your heart and mine

(you say it best when you say nothing at all

You say it best when you say nothing at all..)

The smile on your face

The truth in your eyes

The touch of your hand

Lets me know that you need me..

(you say it best when you say nothing at all

You say it best when you say nothing at all..)

The smile on your face

The truth in your eyes

The touch of your hand

Lets me know that you need me..

(you say it best when you say nothing at all

You say it best when you say nothing at all..)

First Salary.....:)

2007-08-01T17:00:00.000+05:30

Today is the 1st of August and considering that i joined in GlobalLogic on 2nd of July, i completed one month here yesterday. Hence, I got my first salary in the evening. It was good to see my account being credited but it would have been good had they given us whole salary. As we joined on 2nd, they gave us the 30/31th share of the stipulated salary... :(... as if it was our fault for the first day of july being sunday...neway....feels good to get mah first salary. Lots of gifts to get for lots of ppl....hoping to finish it off by the mid of month..:P

कोई ये कैसे बताए की वो तन्हा क्यूं है

2007-07-27T10:49:00.000+05:30

कोई ये कैसे बताए की वो तन्हा क्यूं है
वो जो अपना था वही और किसी का क्यूं है
यही दुनिया है तो फिर ऐसी ये दुनिया क्यूं है
यही होता है तो आख़िर यही होता क्यूं है

इक ज़रा हाथ बढ़ा दें तो पकड़ ले दामन
उसके सीने में समा जाए हमारी धड़कन
इतनी क़ुरबत है तो फ़ीर फ़ासला इतना क्यूं है

दील-ए-बर्बाद से नीकला नहीं अब तक कोई
इक लूटे घर पे दीया करता है दस्तक कोई
आस जो टूट गयी फिर से बांधाता क्यूं है

तुम असरर्ट का कहो या इसे घम का रिश्ता
केहते हैं प्यार का रिश्ता है जानम का रिश्ता
है जन्म का जो ये रिश्ता तो ये बदलता क्यूं है

Another good one from the movie Arth.

Last one month......in a quick recap.

2007-07-23T10:31:00.000+05:30

When i visited my Dashboard, i realized that its been a month since i posted anything over this space. Although last three posts have been just for the sake of posting something, i still managed to tell vatever new happened.

As i mentioned earlier, the vacations passed by on the fly. Went to a short week family trip to Dalhousie. The weather was awesome there. During our short stay at Dalhousie, a shooting unit of some new movie "Chaha hai tumhe" was there, shooting a small sequence on the busy mall road. Then after a two day stay there, we went to Khajiyar. It was another cool place but the main attraction was the peaceful atmosphere there coz there were not much tourist in here.

There was a large bowl shaped ground where people come over from dalhousie to have a day picnic over there and they return back in the evening, but we decided the other way, we stayed there for two days and guess what, the same shooting unit followed us there also, you know, they were so eager to spend some time with me ;-) . Anyway, we went to Chamba later and then back to our very own Delhi. I had just a couple of days left before my joining @ GlobalLogic.

Before that, Ish putra(the NGO i am actively associated vid) was organising an Eye camp at a village near merrut. It was good to be there. Around 300 people were treated with there eye problems and few of them, who needed the operation were operated at St. Stephen's hospital.

Coming back to my first job, i joined@ GlobalLogic on 2nd July. At first site, it seemed to be a frightening idea to join in, but in following days, it became alright. A bit hectic, but still, the good part is that i am being trained as a java programmer while being paid for the same.

I started writing this entry a couple of days back. Its 25th july evening now and am still not done with this.

Let me quickly mention the various significant things that happened since the beginning of this article till its completion:
* I have attended no. of Java Servlet sessions while typing this.(One of it is still goin on).
* My very good friend "Kshitij Sudan" has gone aboard a flight to Utah university.
*I can code a web page now while i couldn't when i started typing this in.
*......

Don't think about the ellipsis above, I couldn't find the fourth thing and didn't like mentioning just three....so the ellipsis.

K...my session is over now and i might be off to my place in an hour or so. Hoping to be regular from now on.

Just for the sake of it..

2007-06-13T02:35:00.000+05:30

As you might have guessed, this one's just for the sake of posting something......in these after exam before joining days...i should be the most vella person around...but as always...;ife's different from what it shall be....last week...had my al cousins at ma place...how that week went away...cant figure out yet.....and as they left on Sunday night..another special guest,(not actually a guest but i couldn't figure out the proper word) , aastha and didi came in for holidays...now tha whole day of everyone...is spent talking misc things to her(which i doubt she understands even a bit..)

Last monday i gave in the written test at adobe....to tell you the truth..i felt this was my last chance to crack smthing big(after MS, of course), and so i studied like hell....for four long days as i never studied in past four years...and had acquired a lot of fundas/tricks by the time of test...although the paper was a little lenghy and different from what i expected...i performed quite well...attempted 31/35......but when i got HR's mail yesterday...it said i wasn't at the level they expect and am not being shortlisted for the interviews......Screw them...Now lemme tell you the truth...

They at first told me that there are no further positions available and they have freezed the recruitment...but when i insisted...they asked me to give the test and then they will look out for the availability of the position...now even when they know they are loosing a brightest GEM of Software world...they can't do anything because they have already filled all the positions with the less shining ones..;-) (with no offence to neone..)

Had my last day at coll on 29th May......it also ended up totally wrong way....something cooked up and the temperature rose up due to some creepy behaviour of some of my batch mates and all the things were screwed up before i could manage it let go.....but no regrets as i didn't feel that it was me who botched it up..

Since the start of holidays.....i don't remember a day ven i woke up befre 10 Am...so many times i have made up a morning movie program with ppl...but everytime...we end up waking up late and its all canceled..

Went to Crossriver mall this weekend with cousins...and we all decided to try out the scary house over there....wasn't that much scary until at exit the dead man almost jumped on me...:P..its good to try for once if you are goin to crossriver.......

तेरे बारे में जब सोचा नही था

2007-05-26T14:16:00.000+05:30

तेरे बारे में जब सोचा नही था, तेरे बारे में जब सोचा नही था
में तन्हा था मगर इतना नही था, में तन्हा था मगर इतना नही था,
तेरे बारे में जब सोचा नही था, तेरे बारे में जब सोचा नही था.

तेरी तस्वीर से करता था बातें, तेरी तस्वीर से करता था बातें
मेरे कमरे में आईना नही था, मेरे कमरे में आईना नही था !

में तन्हा था मगर इतना नही था, तेरे बारे में जब सोचा नही था

समंदर ने मुझे प्यासा ही रखा, समंडर ने मुझे प्यासा ही रखा,
में जब सहरा में था,प्यासा नही था, में जब सहरा में था,प्यासा नही था
में जब सहरा में था,प्यासा नही था

में तन्हा था मगर इतना नही था, तेरे बारे में जब सोचा नही था.

मनाने रूतने के खेल में हूँ मनाने रूतने के खेल में हूँ
बिछड़ जाएँगे ये सोचा नही था, बिछड़ जाएँगे ये सोचा नही था
बिछड़ जाएँगे ये सोचा नही था,

में तन्हा था मगर इतना नही था, तेरे बारे में जब सोचा नही था.

सुना है बंद करली उसके आँखें, सुना है बंद करली उसके आंकें,
काई रातों से वोह सोया नही था, काई रातों से वोह सोया नही था
तेरे बारे में जब सोचा नही था.......

In case u missed out...that is a gazal from jagjit singh..:)

Feedback post....

2007-05-22T01:15:00.000+05:30

This post is meant for all of you who have been ignorant enough till now...or have been missing the chance to post your comments/feedback here.........So in case you are the one among those guys/gals(i doubt there would be anyone in this category)....this is your chance to be a part of this famous en devour......

Actually the post below had a bug of not giving the option to post comments..and puneet was dying to give the one..so he asked me to arrange for it...hence this idea....and this Feedback post...

Have a wonderful day ahead...... btwn...i would be starting the "Quote of the day" and "joke of the day" column from today on.....so venver this page gets a new page....you get a new joke to giggle and a new quote to think upon....

Finally an engineer.......sigh!!!

2007-05-21T00:50:00.000+05:30

That sigh was because it took four long years of hard work, physical and mental stress, sleepless nights......to get to the other side of the line between a student and an engineer......now before you start thinking that they actually make students do that much struggle at Delhi College of Engineering(in case you dont know me much, thats the college i would be getting my BE degree from), i must make the terms a little more clear....

The lots of hard work involved was getting our office works done...like getting over long queues at academic section, hostel office and other such places. Physical stress involves running from one department to various other departments just to submit a fee or to get something signed......to me personally..the physical stress at DCE could also mean the infinite steps i ran to get the numerous gold/silver medals at DCE sports meet(by the way, its not self bragging, seriously...am just giving another definition of physical stress, my last four years involved)....

Mental stress was not due to the immense technical stuff we had to get into our minds.....actually never did that.....the mental stress was the part of the process of waiting for the results.....coz if you are coming to DCE in near future...must know one thing...although papers you write do make a difference, but you can never be sure about the marks you gonna get in the result....just recently...while our whole class cruised along and crossed the 70% line......a good friend of mine...Sudan...got the least among his all semesters.....

And lastly, the sleepless nights are a mixture of fun and study.....there were a few nights when we had to study until early mornin hours....these were the nights just a day before exams...as doin the complete book(at times more than one book)...within 8 hrs or so is not an easy task... and the reason we get only 8 hrs for this is the sleepless nights during rest of the semester when GC(dont ask me the full form of this one), movies or anything more worthwhile used to preoccupy our nights at hostel.

Just now as i was writing this post, i was pinged by Rohit sethi. and now after finishing my chatting with him, i dont remember vat i was to write further. As he was talking , previously it seemed he is trying to fool me up, but after i came to know that he is talking about this to other people too, i was shocked. Even you won't believe what he is upto. Here it goes..."He is thinking to pursue the part time ME from DCE alongwith his job in conexant".....although i told him that he needs some sleep and help to get out of this, he still seemed to be determined to go for it....Poor rohit....

Would complete the rest of "Bye Bye DCE"(a little more) stuff i was about to write in the next post as i don't remember anything now after hearing this shocking news....

Recent update...

2007-05-16T13:55:00.000+05:30

The Indore people seem to be not lucky enough to get me there....the waiting result has been postponed until 28th may and now it seems that they are loosing on their chance as i am loosing on mine.....coz no doubt me goin there would have been a mutual benifit for both of us...

Am into the middle of End semesters and so would keep this one short.....but i do have time to watch some barbad movie.."Tara rum pum"....saw it yesterday night....senseless movie.....i mean sidharth wanted to send some message across but the script totally lost it somewhere in the middle...you dont expect the son of Michael schumaker(dont pay attention to the spelling...am talking about the F! champion) to eat the left over food from the bin even after tens of years of his retirement...neither would his children have to save their lunch money ever to save for their school fee....totally senseless..

The stupid Network managers here have blocked orkut.....while i wanted to log in to check out some updates over there...as i heard about them from someone......so if you guys know some good proxy site...i would love to know that....unless they are one among "mathtunnel.com, powerscrap.com, kproxy.com" or any other very famous proxy...

Have my Software engineering paper tomorrow...so got some time to come in here to check the results..and then i took some more time to post this one too...

"Interview Curse" seems to be moving away......slowly....

2007-05-13T02:40:00.000+05:30

But that should go steadily too.....hey....i remember telling you to expect the next post not anytime before 19th...but as i also told you that i was to have interviews today...and guess what...i was offered a job at the same instant in the HR interview.....i was actually sitting there and discussing the terms and conditions with the HR head, CSC that why would i come to CSC while Globallogic is ready to pay me more with the almost same or better profile......finally i told them what they wanted to hear......and they told me that i might have to join on 28th May itself.....isnt that funny...my last exam is scheduled on 29th and they are asking me to join on 28th....else they might drop the offer....neways...i myself am not very enthusiastic about joinin there.....

So now finally the interview curse seems to be moiving away.....appeared for an interview after such a long break....and cleared it successfully........ :)..hope the curse totally vanishes before i go aboard my next flight to Hyderabad..

Had a little talk with saurabh bhaiya in the evening and got a piece of news about Global logic that was shocking enough to shake my confidence of joinin in there....even there they have freshers on bench......man what is happening to indian software industry.....people are paid just to be enrolled in the company and put in their attendence daily....no work to do...he actually proposed me to go for TCS or wipro than induslogic......never expected these circumstances to arrive.....with no offence to the employees of any company...i thought globallogic...being an MNC would have a good profile job and lots of innovative work......kaash...aisa hota...

so now i have a very good and strong reason to go for indore.....in case they are lucky enuf to give me a call........calcutta and lucknow already lost their chance.....lets see whats in the fate of indore.....

had a little talk with one other friend too and seems everybody else than me has a unanimous rai(hindi wala...;-)/opinion about my joinin there or not....and i am the single most stupid person thinking of trying again next year......would come to know where to go once i get update on that waitin and the microsoft interview is over......till then..the unending wait is on roll....woh kehte hai na.."Sabr ka phal meetha hota hai......i wish ki woh sahi kehte hain"

A little delay before i post another senti one....

2007-05-12T01:28:00.000+05:30

From my saying love is farji…i never meant to say that 90% of them are mere infatuations than being true love….rather I wanted to say that it can worsen your life instead of making it beautiful if you don't act on time…but still, if you wanna go ahead with the of 90-10% idea …..i must tell you one thing, my case doesn't happen to be in the 90% category for sure…

In my last post I told you that I was supposed to post something else when that came out….this one was to be about that something else....... just typed that in and was about to post it when i had a little talk with Mani.....were talking general stuff when i mentioned it to him.....and he asked me to show him the thing...he read it and my post went into the draft section rather than being published......

It might....ooops sorry...he said...it would create the controversy and would not even solve the purpose i wrote it for.....rather it would have the opposite effect.....so even after a long discussion of my persuading him while my phone balance decreased continuously(He has gone far away.. :-)........i decided to go with his suggestion for now, but am not sure till how long i would be keeping that one in draft section...so please bear with me if you get some insensible stuff to read out here in the near future.....meanwhile the routine posts continue.

This weekend i had a blast to celebrate...actually......nothing....firstly we college people..hope u remember the pic i shown you...six of us went to noida to watch spiderman on saturday..."HOUSEFULL"....thats what we saw at every ticket window...so we just had a long lunch..(no we didn't eat much...the duration was long..)..and then, we went for Akshardham temple...also saw that Musical fountain show which somebody suggested me on my birthday too... when i went there at wrong time......it was awesome.....and then the regular photo session of us all....and the day was over.....

Last weekend was bharat's birthday...so had a treat pending from him too....so on sunday we, school buddies, decided to meet at V3S(for people who know bharat....dont be surprised...its just five minute walk from his place) and watched Spiderman there....it was good to reunite after so long while everyone is still going in the totally different directions.....k...we had one more addition in the group this time..Bharat's friend "Abhigye" who was in his class.....till some 2nd - 3rd grade....we sat for sometime and exchanged some talks...Mr. Devashish...(No no.......he was one among us only but you know...for some people ..you always need to be formal..so Mr.) had to leave early.....we others(read me, ravi and chawla) had a little walk and some more time pass......Spiderman 3...as most of you would agree..was awesome....kuch zyada hi fictitious(and at some places....senti too) ho gayi thi....but chal sakti hai......

Then just the next day i had my last practical at DCE....went fine...now even professors have become practical to the situation and agree to the fact that we people dont know anything...so they themselves dont ask much.....so...had no probs over there.and since then...am busy sleeping and sleeping...nothing on the cards....end semesters are less than 4 days away and i haven't touched the books yet....:)...god knows kya hoga is baar.....

Between...forgot to tell you.......got my 7th semester result today.....73%...not very good as compared to class result....but yes.. now i think i would be crossing that 70% mark in aggregate....

Have got another interview scheduled tomorrow mornin while i am typing this here...so better i shall go to sleep as i have to reach there at 9:00 am sharp...(as they have mentioned in there mail..)...and then tomorrow evening i would be leaving for the hostel.....rest of the week is gonna pass by with the books in front of me..so no chatting, no orkutting and no blogging for that period..and yes...i would also be getting my waiting list result on 15th....so might expect a single short post on that day..else would cya all after 19th.....

Love....The most farji emotion......

2007-05-08T00:01:00.000+05:30

People who disagree with me ...please dont start on telling me that "you will come to know what it exactly is, when you will experience it yourself"...that part is over.... have heard really nice sayings about the same thing.. a few like.. " If you love someone, set it free, if it comes back, its yours, if it doesn't, it never was."..." Love is like a mustard seed; planted by God and watered by men"..." There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved"...." Love is like a mountain, hard to climb, but once you get to the top, the view is beautiful."....

Believe me...when you start playing in this arena...all these and lot other things start looking wonderful. And all remains beautiful till you remain on the better side of mountain.....But if by any chance,(i pray u never come to the other side), you do come to the other side, you will come to know that it was better before you started climbing the mountain. Believe me, i have seen a lot of my friends screw their life for long time, just because they tried(or unknowing got into trying) this wonderful feeling....

In most cases, it starts with being a single sided affair.....u start feeling a strange sense of attraction to someone....it increases exponentially with time.....and finally reaches a point where you cant bear it being a single sided nemore...now at this stage....few of us dare enough to speak out and then there is a 50% probability of success...so you have already invited 50% sorrows....
okie....about the other half...who decide to not speak by deciding to give it some more time..or satisfy themselves by saying "If its mine, it would come back on its own"..... people you are even in worse situation than those 50% sorrow guys.... you are heading to the life of 100% sorrows....

Giving time to any relationship......is worth only when both the sides decide to give it sometime to get settled...but in this case..you have decided to give time just to yourself without even letting the other person know...so this little more time of yours end up being the long unbearable wait which you wont ever able to come out from...and for the one who are waiting for their love to come to themselves for the reason of their love being true...let me tell you one thing...nothing ever is goin to come back unless you ask it to...and that also belies the above comment about setting your love free... The correct one goes like this... "If you love someone... and its trying to go free...you should try persuade it by telling her the truth and do not let her go...coz if its gone once....chances of returning are very rare...and you are not away from converting your beautiful world into hell"...

By saying the beautiful feeling of love "farzi", i only meant that its a lot worse than it seems it is....no doubt......it makes you go places in life....achieve great things....but Please please please...before starting to climb the mountain and imagining the view, let the other climber know the situation so that you both can enjoy the view from the top together...and also so that you both can help each other out in case of any hard times...and in case she is not ready to climb it with you..you can save yourself of a lot of mental trauma....

I hope you didn't get the feeling that i am strongly against the word "love"......its just that i wanted to save novices out there from what i have already seen many of others go through....
Actually i started with the feeling of writing exactly opposite of this but somehow this came out of somewhere inside..... so do watch this space for the next one too....may be tomorrow itself...

Life's screwed....now for sure........i need to visit some pundit...

2007-05-04T15:18:00.000+05:30

I am just back in this heat from Logix Technopark....tower B... 5th floor....or simply...from Dilithium networks office.... had an off campus call from there.....went there in the morning at 10...heres how my day was screwed.....

We had a little orientation about the company...the profile etc.....followed by a light snacks...then we were to go thru the written test... which as far as i know....was a simple to the extent that neone of us can get thru...here are a sample ques from there....

1. three func definitions were given..two declared a variable in stack and were trying to return that variable...and 3rd one allocated variable in heap and returned it...which func calls are incorrect.??

definitely first two.........No. of questions correct : 1.

Q2. the following code output is ::

e(int n)
{ if(n>0)
{ e(--n);
printf(n);
e(--n);
}
}

output van e(3) is called....

answer 0120.... No. of questions correct : 2.

Q3. int counter(int i)
{
static int count = 0;
count+=i;
return count;
}
main()
{
for(int i=0; i<=5;i++)
j=count(i);
}

what is the value of j after program ends ??

answer :: 15; No. of questions correct : 3.

Q4. foo(int *x)
{ x++;
*x++;
}

main()
{
int a[3] = {2,5,10};
int *b = &a[0];
foo(b);
cout<<*b;
}

what is the output ??

my answer :: 10
correct answer :: 2
....No. of questions correct : 3.

Q5. what is the type of temp in here ::

typedef int (*test )(float*, float*);
test temp;

answer :: pointer to function returning int and taking parameters as (float*, float*);
.No. of questions correct : 4.

Q6. merge two sorted arrays a[100] and b[100] into the third array c[200] that should also be sorted at the end.......

answer :: did this question too and was right coz i tried it yesterday only.......if anyone out there want the exact code i wrote...pls lemme know..
No. of questions correct : 5.

then there were some c++ question which i did well too but cant remember right now.......

the written test was over and we were back at conference room....we were ordered pizzas for the lunch... and then came the result sheet after sometime.....

there are 4 candidates who have been eliminated.......

the fourth name was mine....bang...never expected it.....it was even more disheartening then the day of 2nd august.....was worst till date.....you might be thinking that am insane to mention all the questions above but that is for a purpose...may be you guys can help me find out whats wrong in there.......but vatever....that was a total loss of dilithium(thats for self satisfaction..u are allowed to disagree to that....i even told ppl that it was microsoft's loss when they threw me out in the last round and selected a very bright brilliant girl from our class......(hope u know what sarcasm is))........so it seems, finally am heading to Induslogic.... u know that could be for my better also...coz as soon i became part of the Induslogic family..the next week they acquired a firm called bonustech in new jearsey...so may be i could end up in new jearsy by the way of induslogic.....not that new jearsey is better than delhi or the dollars out there attract me....instead have some personal affair to give direction to in there....am waiting to get in there and restart with a few lost links....coz money is not the only thing on the cards...at least not on mine..there are lots of other things too...and the one i just mentioned is on top of the list........u know that even made me give GRE last year while i had no plans of goin in for MS.....but one thing is for sure, before its too late..i am gonna get in there and the day i get my goal....would post the details about that the very next day....so till then keep watchin this space... :)

As i was coming back home from dilithium....took hell out of me to recollect all these questions..especially coz as i recollected..each answer was coming to be correct and that made me even more frustated... thought of goin for spiderman 3 but dhuri didnt agree...(said rawat is goin to take us for the show...he clared adobe off campus this wednesday only..still sitting for dilithium..hamare pet par laat maar di nalayak ne..:-)......so i jst came home and started typing this crap....

A couple of doors closed..

2007-04-28T01:56:00.000+05:30

Lemme go straight this time.....am too much overwhelmed with the emotions right now......I got a reject from IIM calcutta and lucknow today and have been put onto the waiting list for the indore one....but that is not exactly which has taken me over at this moment....that news is of about four hours back.....as i got the result...i was just surfing the channels looking for something to change the mood...and i fixed on an odd movie cming on Sahara Tv... "Tathastu"....just started watching it because of the kid in there....but now that i have just finished it...i would definitely like you all to see it too....... it actually takes you through the journey of life in such a way that you wont ever dare say that money is the secondary thing in life.....

Please tell Arjun Singh to stop playing before somebody bowl him out.

2007-04-25T00:45:00.000+05:30

23rd April.....The apex court says its not going to take away the stay from OBC reservation implementation... Expectations begin that the lists might come out now but come 24th April...and a couple of more news Flash across the TV channels.... 1. IIMs asked to stop the Admission Procedure until further notice... 2. Next hearing of case on 8th May 2007.... means a wait of 15 more days....neway am not complaining this time...I have got the long time to prepare for other stuff which could have been hampered once i knew the result...(no matter -ve or +ve)...

We had two college parties last week....in fact three were there...one would hardly qualify to be called a party...First we had Hostel night..an official farewell to the final year batch...total crap arrangement...some stand fell and injured a couple of students, and the function was over.....Then we had two different parties organized personally by two groups of our college... One was Grad party (which i heard was good) and the other was Prom Night(Which i was abt to go to, but plan changed at last moment and now i hear it sucked big time...Sometimes being late can save you from big disasters :-)

We had a li'l photo shoot on the hostel nite and here is one of the classic piece of my work... coz not everyone can think of going to the topmost point of college and clicking the Wi-Fi tower there like i did it below...

Besides all this, We had a little family get together at kaushambi... was first formal visit of Bhabhiji over there...below are a couple of moments captured from that day...

Between...aastha got her "Mundan" once more...and now have very less hair again...it looked cute enuf to me to share this one too...

The official session of College ended this 24th...although i never attended any classes this semester but now.. i need not even think about going to classes anymore... :).. If i look at the four years in the past...at one moment it looks like the four years passed in a blink and the other second, it seems like the unending period of life... but one thing is for sure...i totally enjoyed it and made a pool of good friends here...

Not that i am very enthu about knowing the CAT results soon but if anyone out there is, and you are thinking of executing the title of this post...just let me know...may be i can help out :)

A bit of a relief...

2007-04-13T19:31:00.000+05:30

Hey people....a few things have improved today over yesterday's situation.... in the mornin i read about the IIMs going ahead with their results on 21st April and taking the HRD ministry head on....the seat count is going to be the same for General students....and in case the OBC quota applies too...at later stage..they would have to add on arnd 150 seats in total of 1350. I had a talk with hari again today and got a couple of things cleared...seems am gonna wait a li'l before going to the interviews....and personally...i am feeling a lot better than yesterday...it was a very bad evening..... and i went to see the movie "Provoked"...jst for the change of mood.....It was a nice sensible movie and must definitely be shown to the indian Women...especially the ones who generally try and teach their daughters that after marriage...their husband is everything and all that crap...u might be thinking what days am i talking about...i know its hard to believe but yes this is the truth that still their are lots of girls out there who are told to follow their husband's will and to obey him..as they say it...consider him.... "Pati parmeshwar".......Hell with it.....We have to realise the truth and start looking at the other half with a sense of respect and honour... in many cases.....they are even better than us..and deserve much more than what they get... the earlier we understand this..the better it would be for us..

Delays....gonaa kill somebody..

2007-04-12T18:17:00.000+05:30

Hi everyone.....as you already might have noticed....the :) above has turned to :(.... thats for a reason..i was just called on by my mentor hari, to discuss about my internship at microsoft..... and man..its not good...i got a delay of two months in my interview..... man now i hate waiting...although it might be for my good so that i dont screw up another interview...but still i am fed up of waiting for the things to end up...on the other side...the IIM ppl have been asked to delay the results indefinitely by the stupid HRD ministry bastards....... i need to see smthing(either success or failure).. happening very quickly before i fall prey to these delays and lose hope......

Anyway, i might agree with him that i could screw up the interview if he sent me in for it now...but i seriously have a doubt how i would perform after two months....I guess whatever he told me was not the kind way to throw me out and he really wanted me to improve and come back again......although he pointed out a couple of good things too about my stay..but i personally felt the bad ones were overpowering the good ones.....i mean there might be a lot of hard working techies out there...then where do i stand?? now..i can see my career path leading me to induslogic finally....coz if after observing me for 2-3 months, Hari feels i need to work upon a couple of things before going for the interviews...no doubt IIM ppl have also observed it and would certainly decide to give me a year to prepare for MBA interviews too...after i clear the CAT next year...

Now i have started to feel that the MS(not Microsft..Master of Science)...would have been the best option for me...at least thats the one place where they wont take the interviews before taking me in. May be if they start it there too..i wont have any option available afterwards... :P

How sad am i right now.....u can judge it by the length of this post itself...you can think how difficult is it to write with the bad mood....so this is gonna be the short one....Hope none of you ever get into the state vat i am in right now..

Last week of March..IIM L interview.. all passed by while i slept...

2007-04-05T17:32:00.000+05:30

I came back after mid sems as i mentioned earlier, we had a archit's b'day party. We had dinner at galaxy.....I had a week to go for before the lucknow interview....and i had lots of plans..but the whole week went away sleeping and watching TV/movies...on my PC... and nthing imp happened except..

I got a call from the Campus connect paper i wrote and it seems they have called everybody...for the VEVEO company...at banglore...they are doing some research in the VoIP feild...no not Voice over IP...its Video over IP..They took the telephonic interview a couple of days ago..and guess what.. i cleared it for the second round....good time pass to do until the Microsoft ppl/ IIM guys finalize my future.... In any case..induslogic toh apni hai hi..:)...

Went for the GD-interview after preparing a little... centre was at IIFT, delhi. The GD started at the scheduled time..and it was the first Gd i had with the TOPIC ..not the case study... The topic was... "If there is a way to delay an important decision, The good beurocracy will find it."..We were asked to write in a couple of paras in the alloted 10 minutes and the discussino began thereafter. My writing part wsnt that good..but came out well at discussion lately..made a couple of points and examples..but as the events followed..it seemed it wasnt enough. You will know y am i saying this.....as they started calling for the interviews..mine was the 6th no... and the duration ws arnd 20-25 mins each...as i went in..the guy and the lady sitting there started asking me the quick questions....about my hobbies...blah blah..and other HR stuff...then they turned to the technical side...asked me about the best stuff i have genereted using data structures..i explained a little about my recent project..a couple of more question about software engineering..and "Ok...kshitij..we are done..nice to talk to you"..i was surprised looking at the length of the interview....then i thought..while sitting there, it always seems to be short time..but as i came out and had a look at my watch..man it was just 7 mins and 30 secs i went in and i have been thrown out...not a good one,....one thing is sure no matter what the result is......either they rejected me beforehand after reading my two wonderful paras on the topic......or i impressed them so much in those 7 mins...that they didnt find any need to ask me more....whatever was the case...would let u know once the results are out... :)

Towards the end of month...it was good time again...my cousin, who got married recently, came for the formal "first dinner" after marriage with bhabhiji. All other cousins etc were also there....in short, we had fun....and this way another month passed by and am still in the dangling position....have so many options open and none of them is confirmed,...:(....but still am enjoying the last few days of my life......

And you.. yes you...if you have come till here...at least let me know na..else it seems only Kshitij, comes in here(not me...sudan)...and no one else ever visited this page.... :)... waiting to pour in the april updates.....(only after smthing spl happens..)..and yes i have been feeling to share a couple of things at this space...would bring that on too...in next couple of posts.. :)

Lots of things happened last month...

2007-03-30T18:12:00.000+05:30

Hey people...its long time since I posted here and a lot has been happening since then. I came back to Hyderabad around February end and wrapped up my project here at Microsoft and then they were kind enough to leave me out for my couple of other interviews I had at Delhi. I went back to Delhi arnd march second week and had my IIM Calcutta interview on 15th march but before that, we had a special occasion coming on 14th.... it was my niece aastha's first birthday...she had lot of fun and we had fun too....a couple of moments from that day...

Talking of the interview..Calcutta people have shifted to the business case study this year. Till last year, they used to have their GD's on abstract topics... like one of my seniors told me as his was "Silence is the golden rule until I speak". Anyway we were lucky enough to get a case study. It was based on Marketing strategy of some World leader in digital cameras while entering Indian Market due to India booming hype. It was more chaotic then my earlier one. There were few known faces from Indore GD. Anyway...It went fine...I came in a no. of times and made good points. Then came the interview.....

As I entered, my name pronunciation, as most of you will agree, it’s a li'l difficult, was discussed. Then followed some tech ques..which I told them..they asked me about my entrepreneurship plans...told them that too until they got satisfied... and finally they looked at my scorecard...I scored worse in my DI sect..94.52%.. He decided to gimme a DI problem.. Here it goes..

There are three persons A, B & C... A & B have shops. C goes to B, buys sm stuff worth 239 bucks and pays a 500 Rs note. B, not having change, went to A, got change, and gave C, the stuff and the remaining money. After C went away, A comes with that 500 rupee note saying its fake, and takes 500 Rs. away from B....So, now B has lost a lot of resources in this deal, you tell me how much B lost in total....

I told him the answer but he wasn’t satisfied....you people, if you try it out, leave your answers in the comments or let me know otherwise......would tell you the correct answer afterwards....just give your mind a li'l exercise first....

As I got over with this interview, had my mid sems scheduled from 19th, so had to rush to hostel but I found a break to have a small party with Mani....a very dear friend of mine...well his actual name is manikant but a some people call him "manideep" and other names...so "mani" is the acronym we use for him....He was about to leave for trivandrum on 18th..so we decided to meet at pacific on 15th evening itself....had a nice time...donno when again we all are gonna sit together...Everyone's getting to the different directions.....me..Hyderabad...a couple of dear friends @ noida....lots of them are moving to banglore.....and a couple of them to U.S too for MS...Mohit is going to Australia....while the other few have already left India.....Everyone's getting apart...well...i guess that's the way life is....u loose some...and you make new ones...but its definitely hard to loose dear ones...

Although u might raise a point that in today's e-world, everyone is in touch online...but you can’t find a replacement to those ambles at hostel...or long hours sitting with the group of friends talking crap.....watching four four movies juxtapose at nights...and lots of other such moments...

..Back to the point...I went to hostel afterwards and had the same routine mid sems...but one good thing about these mid sems was...they were our last mid sems at college... we would never have to write mid sems again at DCE...yepeee.. :).. anyway... they went fine...and the following day, I had another day out at pacific with some of my college friends...K2G etc

i was having a party due to them...we saw 300..did not find it a very great movie... was jst fine....
and then there was my lucknow interview scheduled for the next thursday....which am gonna tell about in my next post..as this one's already got very long..

And one more thing...people...if you read this one or any other ones...just leave a comment na or at least your initials in there.....so that at least i could know that few of you actually go through this crap at times... :)..so expecting a couple of them this time...

Rocked at the interview.......no idea about the GD....

2007-02-27T02:03:00.000+05:30

Hey people, thanx for all your prayers..(in case you did one :).. i had a good interview this morning. As i reached the venue just in time, after paying a visit at Sai temple.(venue was just behind it and anyway, we all need divine blessings), the prof was already taking the attendance. My name was still to be called. After i put in my attendance, he went out, so i decided to give me a moment in the washroom. As i came back, the same professor was looking for someone in the hall outside waiting hall, and it was none other than me. My GD group already went for the discussion room. Wasn't a great start. I collected my file etc and quickly rushed to the room. Including me, it was only seven people in there. We were given instructions and then the case for discussion. It went on for 15 mins and i was involved constantly but had a feeling that i haven't performed to my best. But as we went out of the room, and as people were discussing, it came out that all spoke well barring two guys...and to my relief, i wsnt the one of two. Then started the never ending wait.

They told us that they will call for the interview in the random order. I hoped i will get a chance earlier than at least one candidate, but no, the moderators were in for a different idea. I was the last person called in.(Will tell you what being called last signifies, as soon as i come to know). As i entered, first question was "So are you working or studying?"(Donno why these moderators take 10 long mins to scan through the form:)..anyway, that gave me a good chance to mention of my internship. for being in there for past two months, i was asked about the company, its competitors, from there on, to open source, and other IT companies. About NASCOM and Devang mehta( I read these words last week in the paper but didn't bother to get into details...my bad luck..:-(..anyway, i performed quite well except this question and then this guy passed the control to the other moderator. This was a techie guy. He started with the internship project and went on to ask from Compilers to Algos to OOPs and then to basics of C...like loops etc. I answered all of them pretty well as anyone of us will do. From there he went on to ask about the difference btwn various stuff, IT/ITES, C.Sc./C.Engg. etc. and i answered them too. The best part was, even being the last one, i was interviewed for the same average duration as others and the worst part was, even after having a long look at it, he didn't question me about the beautiful piece of sketch i carried in my file as a proof of my interest in sketching.(Yes, i do do that sometimes in my free time).Although i was happy with my performance. Am not expecting anything, until the result is out.

The journey i went on board for, after my last post, i learned an important lesson there. I think its worth sharing with you people. At my opposite seat, sat an uncle from faridabad, was too much extrovert and at times, very interfering and in the first quarter of my 24 hour long journey, i marked him as an annoying and boorish person.However, in the last quarter of the journey, as he was talking to other people in the coach, he told about the recent bereavement of his life due to demise of his only son. I don't know why, but hearing that gave me a feeling of guilt, of having judged him the way i did. No doubt, that incident would have had a bad effect on his psyche. May be, he wouldn't have been like this before the death of his son. This small mention might not look important to many, but it practically taught me a lesson which i knew for long, "To Never Judge any person without knowing him fully", or to be precise, not to judge anyone ever, coz, we hardly get a chance to know anyone fully.

The exciting fest of my college, i told you about, i didn't get a chance to get a glimpse of it, but as i heard from others, it really sucked this year. OPS had a control all over, and nothing was worth attending.

While writing the last post, i was raring to go to sleep, so had a lot of misspell words/sentences.....but have corrected it now.i was so raring to go to sleep that when i reached station an hour earlier, i was waiting on the bench there and fell asleep. The train came at 08:45 and was to leave at 09:05. I woke up at 09:01, just in time and ran for the train. Don't know what would have happened had i missed it that day..may be, i would have posted a new post that day itself..:). Bharat, i will definitely put up their other religious beliefs too once i am able to recollect it or till i have another discussion with Abhijeet. And Kshitij, i hope you guessed very well about my "almost atheist" friends..:).. and this time, just Signing off.. coz i dont think i can write a shorter post than this one.

Here comes the next one....because of spare time... :)

2007-02-22T05:43:00.000+05:30

As i mentioned earlier that i will try be regular, this is the effort to follow what i said. and as i also said about the demo i had to give over the weekend, that part is done too. So now, i have completed both the things i mentioned earlier..that definitely bolsters my being a man of words..huh!..neway...as you might be wondering over the title...this post is seriously a result of the spare time i have before i leave for Delhi. Yes, i am going back to Delhi, finally!

The college is on a roll having all the fests combined for the first time, how can i waste my week working in front of the PC. Also i have this small GD-Interview for IIM Indore over the Weekend. So as i leave for my journey in an hour or so, the speakers are playing wonderful classical music i recently got from a store. Its a 4 CD pack for all the four parts of the day, and no points for guessing that its Su-prabhat CD playing right now.

I submitted my project today finally. Its a good result of all the hard work(eh eh), i put in over the last few days. Today i finally came to know the actual efficiency of Visual Studio in building and debugging the projects. Had a lot of runtime exceptions in the project, but sorted all out successfully, of course with somebody's help. It was Vijay this time. He was an intern here earlier but now a FTE(thats Full Time Employee). The only FTE, after the other two, i am comforatble discussing the problems i encounter in my code. Anyway, i completed it and shipped it to them with just in time. They must have had a demo by now. And yes, i still dont know about the VoIP- GSM gateway. Man! people are so ignorant here, asked a couple of them, but none knows and they have been here for more than a year.

Anyways, I have been coming in this odd shift for past 20 days now and hope it would shift to the normal from now on! The sole reason for this shift was the availability of Saurabh and Hari at the other end. The other day this week, i went back home after mock GDs, arnd 8 am and was really dying to get to bed, but my roommate here, Abhijeet was in a different mood. He just got the job change with a quite high rise, so who doesn't like to talk at such point. Anyway as we were talking, i decided to ask him abt the question i had in mind since he shifted. He follows this tradition of reading the Bible every morning. I asked him about this, and to my total surprise, he told me he was the actual Christian. I mean, it would take a lot f effort to find people with so common names in Christian community.

Anyway, as we get talking about it , i got to know certain things about this particular religion/community beliefs. He told me they don't even take Prasad. I have had a couple of friends who don't go to temples and are just a bit less than atheist, but i haven't seen anyone rejecting prasad. Its a sweet anyway, but its totally restricted in the Protestant's beliefs. If you are also wondering why, its because Jesus gave his life for us, and we should not be happy about it. Instead they take in a piece of bread and the red sauce every Sunday at church thinking of it as the flesh and blood of Jesus. I didn't like this idea but it's useless to argue with anyone for his religious beliefs.So i was just listening.

Then as catholic word came up, i came to know that the Catholics consider the Mother Mary as the ultimate savour while the Protestant's consider Jesus as the one. Anyway he also told about the spirit after death etc. which if you like to know, post a comment and i will try to recollect it for the next posts as many readers(among jitne bhi aaye honge :-) might have already closed this page having a look at the length of the post. Friends i have an interview this weekend, So pray for me, although i am not sure about taking up management at this stage, but still try and pray for me. This time, Signing off with the hope of Regular and short posts...and if that alone doesn't sound promising enough......just a small recollection that i try to keep my words might help..and with this...my hour is also almost over, so see you all at Delhi!

First Post, totally unexpected Content - C++ parser using Bison.

2007-02-16T01:46:00.000+05:30

I have been thinking of starting blogging for quite a while now and believe me, at least hundred of thoughts already crossed my mind about what to write in My first one..but what i am going to blog here about, is not among the hundreds of those thougthts...Finally i am starting filling this space just with the purpose of helping a few of you in case you are dealing with compiler generator tools.First things first. i mean, my little intro.

In my final year of computer engineering from delhi university, i am doing internship here at Microsoft, hyderabad for past two months now. Most of this time has been spent in dealing with the compiler generation tools- Flex and Bison. Now if you are not familiar with these terms, these tools can be used to generate compilers for any language you design. They generate the compiler in 'C' language. In the process of compiling your language, you need to give the actions your compiler should perform when it parses a valid statement. Now if you want to give those actions in any other language than 'C',('C++' in my case), you are in trouble as flex can help you generate the .cc(c++) code with the -+ option but with bison there is no compromise. It generates the code in C and thats the problem i was stuck on for last few days until last night.

Fed up of this problem,( which i earlier thought not worth mentioning), while searching on net for it, i found a number of posts regarding the same problem and also a no. of solutions proposed to these queries. Having tried all and still not able to get through, i decided to take up this with my mentors here,(which are in redmond right now) Hari and Saurabh.

Both are really cool, helpful, and needless to say, are genious guys. Before joining this place, i had this weird notion that this place would be full of techie geeks,(may count me in this category too, but not much), but after joining here, the whole perception has changed. All people here are quite cool about the work and the woek enviro is totally cool too.

I called them up in redmond over the VoIP phone installed here( I am still trying to figure out whether they have a IP-GSM international gateway to this line or not, coz in case they have, i need not mention how useful that would be).

After digressing too much, let me come back to the problem. I discussed it with them and we decided to get together in some time till they have a look at it. After a few minutes, Saurabh pinged up and suggested a way. I tried that over and bingo..my parser was able to execute the C++ statements. Now the problem and solution for you.

When you generate a parser with bison, it has some dependency on the header file "unistd.h". It is a GNU based header and is incompatible with windows VS platform. If you rename the parser as .cpp and try to execute it, C++ being more stringent in the dependency resolving, doesn't allow you to build the program without including "unistd.h". Now if you remove that inclusion, it throws some int is_atty(); function unresolved dependency. So, I created the an empty header file with the name unistd.h in the include folder and gave the declaration for is_atty(); but had no idea about the body of the function. It was at this point that Saurabh came to the rescue. He said that is_atty() is a func used to verify the file descriptor, so i can simply return the true value in the body. I did that and cool...the problem was solved.

Those of you who are having the same problem, or may encounter it in the future, try using this solution and do let me know, if it doesn't work or in case you figure out a better one!

Now i have to get back to work as i have to show some demo over the weekend.
Signing off with the hope of regular posting.