A nameless Crisis

I go home once in about 2 or 3 months.

It's not like 36 hours of travel or anything. Just the mindset. A matter of 6 hours... Here I am, in Chennai, preparing to return to Bangalore. I absolutely abhor the idea. I wanna stay here forever. But then, gotta go, I gotta go! It's gonna take at least a week at Bangalore before I can get to like stuff there again..

And then, coming to Chennai is an issue in itself. By the way, I like my work nowadays. Not just the coding, there are a lot of other avenues in IBM. I know I would like the work only as long as I stay at Bangalore. I know I am never gonna want to think about returning to Bangalore, once I am at Chennai. I will keep thinking about the Arts, the Literature, the Football and everything that is not Coding. Identity Crisis, sort of.

So, here I am, in Chennai, preparing to return to Bangalore. :(




PS: I have no idea how certain people can go home and come back every week. Either they hate their job so much that they want to breathe out every week, or they believe they are settled for life.

PS2: Chennai roxx for eva.

PS3: Well, I can go on..

India - Behind the Scenes

The Irony is that I took this pic from inside a Volvo A/C bus.
The pic is pretty much self explanatory. Click to enlarge..

Aamir to CNN IBN : Make sure you read this!

"We should bring up our children in way where we should teach them to be more sensitive. I see around me that a lot of parents encourage their kids to be very competitive. And they want them to come first in everything and I think that creates people who grow up to be extremely selfish and want to achieve their goals without any regard for what is happening around them.

If we bring up our children in a manner where we teach them to be sensitive towards other children, I'm hoping that by the time they are 18 they would grow up to be caring adults. And therefore are caring towards society and the people around them and are not selfish."

I Second that...
I third that...
I fourth that...

Complete interview at:
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/muslims-should-come-out-to-protest-2611-aamir/81297-8.html?from=rssfeed

This is Jack's "Sentiment Time.."

Going back home from Office everyday isn't very easy. To ignore the Table Tennis temptation and take up a 30 min walk interspersed with 30 minutes of bus-travel is not very desirable. It was on one such busy evening (note: 'busy' for the rest of the world), that I overheard (er.. actually, 'heard' would be a good enough word) a person shouting at his mom over the phone. Loud statements of "Don't torture me ma..","You're a head ache.","Amma, Have you gone deaf?","Don't you have any other work?" irritated me, all this, along with the guy cutting the phone quite often, and his mom calling him again and again.

I wanted to tell him a few things. I didn't..(lack of socialising skills, perhaps). I had no idea what situation he was in or why he was doing that. I have seen a few of my friends doing the same in the past. I now have this blog to express this one thing I want to tell them all, this, which i didn't tell them before, because I felt it was unnecessary to intrude into anyone's personal life uninvited.

There is not a single soul in this world who cares for you more than your parents. Not one. Let them be the cruelest parents possible, but they still are doing it all for you.

It's perfectly fine if you do not want to do what they ask you to do. Fine, my mom wanted me to do my MBA and become an Investment Banker (or in her terms, the MBAs who earn a lot), which was totally against my interest. She keeps telling me often that i should do my MBA soon. Very very often. To a guy who only wants to write his life away. But then, She only wants me to do that because she wants me to be the rich guy, with a life full of all the "happies events". I know for sure that I can not be that guy. It's no use saying, "I won't". It will only make her sad. Put it this way, "I'll try to do it" and go ahead and do what you want to do. A Mother or a father hearing an OK from his/her kid is one of those Mastercard moments for them. Priceless. Making your parents happy (even if fictitious) is probably the best thing you can do with your life. Anyway, If you are sure you will succeed in your pursuits, they're the first two persons in the world who're going to be happy for you.

Try saying OK even if you are not going to do it. Let them be happy.

Thank You for reading thru.

I don't want any feedback on this. Take these words if you want / trash them if you don't. A Yes or No would do, if at all you wanna say something. No "Comments" pls.

Be a Sport, Man. Be a Sport!

Aswin ban gayaa Columnist! You can find the Bangalore Sports Column at

Citizen Matters

The Game is ON!!

FIGHT CLUB - 1999

Director - David Fincher
Based on a novel by Chuck Palahniuk

Frank verdict: Awesome Movie , one of the best among the movies I've seen. No idea why it is number 23 in the IMDB top 250 movies list. A lot more thought provoking, a lot more intelligently made and it's definitely got a better plot than most of the movies above it. I am probably exaggerating, but then, this movie goes to show that the will of one man can change anything.


Edward Norton comes up with a super performance in the movie, and Brad Pitt is most definitely the style icon of Hollywood. Underline that.

The movie is about Norton and his insomnia. Sounds simple? Okay, let me rephrase it. The movie is about the story of one man (Norton) as he establishes one of America's biggest underground organisations ever, The Fight Club (which gives birth to Operation Mayhem later). If you think there's a big difference between the two, you got to think again. So, we have Norton who goes to a doc to see if he can cure his insomnia..his mental pain. The doc tells him that pain, as such, is something else, like what folks with testicular cancer undergo. Now, Norton goes to the weekly meeting of the cancer-affected, where they pour their heart out, and our hero sleeps like a log after that. This being his cure, he picks out all such meetings in town, from Alcoholics anonymous to all-cancer-stuff anonymous and attends them through out the week. All this till he meets Marla.

Marla's presence disturbs him too much and he loses his sleep again. He confronts Marla one evening and divides the days of the week into two so that he can attend his meetings in peace, and won't see her again. That has to get him back his sleep.

In comes Tyler. Norton meets Brad Pitt (Tyler) during a flight journey, gets his card, and goes home only to find his condo blown up. He has nowhere to go, so he calls up Tyler (who doesn't pick the phone, and calls him back [This is perhaps the first and best clue] ) and goes to meet him. He stays with him after that and gets introduced to his world of Soaps & dynamites. Tyler and Norton punch eath other for fun, discover the thrill in fighting, and start it as a hobby. People around them are tempted to check it out and find that they like it too. This fight-for-fun network grows into one of the biggest in the United States, what with Tyler handing out assignments every week to the members. And these assignments include a variety of things from blowing up a computer shop to picking up a fight with a total stranger. Marla comes and goes in the middle, and the incoherence in her behaviour kept telling me something was wrong, though i had no idea what. And the Fight Club grows into one of US's biggest threats under Tyler, with Norton kept in the dark regarding most of the activities.

The Rules of the Club:
---------------------
The first rule of Fight Club is - you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is - you DO NOT talk about Fight Club. Third rule of Fight Club, someone yells Stop!, goes limp, taps out, the fight is over. Fourth rule, only two guys to a fight. Fifth rule, one fight at a time, fellas. Sixth rule, no shirt, no shoes. Seventh rule, fights will go on as long as they have to. And the eighth and final rule, if this is your first night at Fight Club, you have to fight.


Yea, coming back to the story, One fine day, Tyler goes missing. And Norton embarks on a journey throughout the USA to find Tyler, when he realises the mammoth reach and strength of the once small time gang called Fight Club. All this under the smart, capable and genius ways of Tyler Durden, who is spoken of as nothing less than God. Each wing of the Fight Club is now as strong and independent as the other, and is capable of surviving without explicit leadership. Norton decides this should end, and doubles up his speed to find Tyler, only to discover a bigger truth.. Tyler doen't exist!

So, who is Tyler Durden?

That changes everything you thought you'd seen so far.

I wouldn't write the climax here in case you haven't watched it yet. Ten on Ten. Anyday.

Brett "the Jet" Lee

This post is not about Brett Lee or Jet li. This is about the Malaya lee who runs 90 percent of all Barber shops in India.. The Malaya Lee who did not have the heart open a Barber shop in my part of Bengalooru...

I didn't realise how many days it had been since i had a haircut or a shave for that matter, till a passerby said, "Sami Saranam" when i was out for dinner on Saturday.

So, at about 9 : 30 AM on Sunday the 2nd of October, i went to the hairdressers'. This is not the first blog ever on a visit to the Hairdressers'. (Refer Vinod Ganesh's blog on Malabar Hair dressers and Gelf..). But then, this is not about the Malayalee Scissor Specialists. Today, i'd been to a "Namma Saloon", a totally Bengaloored Hindi Fellow setup. And one thing to learn out there, you need to have great marketing skills and an awesome communication quotient to get a good hair cut.

I was only the second guy in the queue when i entered the shop, but was the sixth guy called up to the altar, a good 30 minutes after I stepped in.

"Cutting? Shaving?"

I said, "Hmm.. Both".

The guy went on to take his comb and scissors and started 'workin' on my head without even asking me if I was there to trim it or cut it short. I stopped him after a few seconds and said that I wanted a military cut (:D) and if he had that machine cut technology. :P. And all this with my Broken Hindi mixed with Kannada and Tamil. He showed me the scissors and said, "Scissors." I had no idea how to argue with that statement. He then continued from where he'd left and made a statement with my head in less than 5 minutes. I am not sure where i was looking for the ensuing minutes. Perhaps , i closed my eyes. I do remember closing my eyes when he was working over the frontal lobe of my skull (that's the one in the front, isn't it?), and when I opened em after about 60 seconds, I saw a mixture of Bruce Lee, Jet Li and Brett Lee on the mirror in front of me. No, not the Jet Li from "Once upon a time in China",but the one from the Western movies. Was it Lethal Weapon 4? It looked like I'd tonsured my head about a week back and the hair had regrown in some parts. More like a brown colored Brett lee, who had this tonsure a week back, add to it the expression of Bruce Lee after any of his famous Final-Life-taking-shot from his fights.(For those who don't know, he bites his teeth, shrinks his eyes (further), manages to project his earlobes, tries so much that all his nerves and/or veins show and says, "Eeeeeeeeee"..) Add to it Jet Li's face through a filter. Ta da!

I still had some hope left in me. I said, "Front part mein Zyada hai, sides to compare karke.. Front mein aur bhi thoda cut khijiyae na?..er?.. bhaiya?"

He gave a look that looked like Ahmedijinad's reaction if you'd say "Bush Rocks!" to his face. He kept still for a second, shook his head and said,"Shaving? Haan? Square? Slope?" I was not that strong with my Math, so i shut up and nodded, what ever he'd take out of it.I had no idea what slope had to do with a Hair cut... Or squares, rectangles or circles, for that matter.

I came home, only to find Jagan thinking twice before letting me in. And people in my room have discussed about Jet Li two or three times since morning, and I have a weird feeling that my absolutely unintentional hair-do reminded them of Jet Li.

Yes, a Completely changed man in an hour. And all credit to Namma Hindi Saloon. :)

Wednesday 2 Wednesday - An Introduction

Things that happened from 7 PM on Oct 22 (a Wednesday) to this moment, every single second deserves a blog entry.. Learnt a lot of things..

I don't know if & when i'll get the time to do it, But just thought i'd put down these two lines as of now.

Travelogue updated!

Be (a)Ware !

The Landmark Book store at Forum, Bangalore. I was there recently with a few friends, and i was rummaging through a pile of books that were on a discount sale in the Non-fiction section. (If you'd be curious, one of my friends was reading the Calvin & Hobbes book there, waiting for us to move to the DVD section.. one more wondering if a Management book would be a good buy, one more undecided on buying a Wodehouse collection, and another in the Matthew Reilly section..) So, there i was, lost among the titles, looking for a book i had decided to buy the last time i was there.

"Are you looking for some specific book?", asked a voice from nowhere. I looked up. It was a total stranger. "No... Just looking through if i can find anything interesting", i said and went back into the books, without a bit of courtesy. "Oh.. You come here often?", teh guy continued and proceeded to introduce himself as a Chip Design Engineer from a reputed MNC in Bangalore, despite a glaring, should i say, 'blatant' show of disinterestedness from my end. He would not rest till he knew about me. After a few questions from him, i said 'Bye' and went back to work. So, he said,"Okay, let's keep in touch. Can i have your number?" I did not want to give my number to a total stranger. I said some bullshit about me going to change my number in a week and got his number instead, promising i'd tell him my new number after i get it. But he felt it was alright to have my current number for this week. :o I gave my number, not wanting to hurt someone i didn't even know by giving some wrong number.

It might have been anyone, from a genuine book lover who wanted to increase the circle of book-readers he knew, to a terrorist who was on a recruitment spree, what with all this news about Radically-inclined-Software-Engineers in Bangalore! I was confused, as i walked on, only to be surprised by the fact that the Matthew Reilly guy among my roomies also had to give his number to another stranger who picked up a conversation out of nowhere and claiming to be a Software Engineer! Come on, like, is this a gang operating or what???? Getting the contacts of people who run around in malls and book stores.. And for what?

I am not sure what's going on. If these guys are terrorists or just a bunch of guys who are trying to improve their socialising skills or maybe, the-guys-spelt-with-an-'a' :P I got a call from that guy yest afternoon, but i din't pick it up, just in case.

Whoever they may be, You guys refrain from giving your numbers to strangers, however business-like or high-profiled they may look.

No idea what will become of my number, but chal, it doesn't matter.. i can't think of any situation where he can misuse it. :)

Of Insomnia and Infinia..

It’s been 3 days now.. 3 nights, i should say.

I have been trying to sleep. But No, I cannot.

This Friday, I had to digest a very sad news. == I lost sleep. Well, there was at least a reason I couldn’t sleep. I got this software to play chess from a friend. Infinia. I installed it and was playing with a few guys over the net for sometime. Got bored. Saw TV. Got bored. Lied down, closed my eyes and spent about half an hour thinking why I couldn’t sleep. Got up again, drank water, looked at the sky for sometime, tried to wake my roomie, but in vain.. Tried watching some old movie I had. No. But I couldn’t sleep. It was about 5 in the morning when I slept of exhaustion. Was up by 8 or 9 in the morning. Not sure.

I did not sleep in the afternoon thinking that it may affect my night’s sleep. When darkness came over again, I was awake. Still awake. Tried to shut my eyes and think of Bhumika and Emma Watson, but heck I couldn’t sleep. Got up again. One of my roomies who knew I was awake through the previous night was looking at me in a weird way that could mean only this: “What the hell’s gotten into you???” I watched Godfather II, and another old movie. I took to Infinia again and won 3 matches in a row. One of my opponents was an American who hinted on knowing my nationality that I should have gotten up very early in the morning. I saw the time . five thirty in the AM. No way I am awake! It is quite a famous habit of mine , but for those who do not know, I sleep from 9 PM to 7 AM in general. And here I was, with 3 hours of sleep in 48. No reason, nothing. I just couldn’t sleep.

Sunday morning 6. I was thinking about the story I am working on for my book, hoping I’d sleep. And I did. Don’t know when though. Got up at eight thirty. “Insomnia” was the word running around in my head. Geez, what the heck’s gotten into me? I sent a message to a few people asking if anyone has experienced that before. No one replied. They must have thought that this was just the first step of another of my pranks.

Sunday went past. I did some traveling, and ate till the throat for dinner, taking every step to ensure that I’ll drop dead on my bed as soon as I reach home. But here goes. I didn’t sleep much last night either. At about 3 o clock in the middle of the night, after two successive losses in Infinia, and one pathetic attempt at creative writing for a friend, I decided that this was all I could take. I lied down and starting thinking about my book again. This time, sleep deserted me and badly at that. I looked at the time in my mobile now and then. And the last time I did that, that I could remember, was 4. 45. Just imagine, almost two hours of simply trying to sleep. I didn’t sleep despite the exhaustion I was (and am) feeling. It was torture, but I am not sure if it qualifies to be hell. I thought of going to the hospital 20 minutes from my home to get some of those sleeping tablets.. Thought of it more than once. And then, somehow, I fell asleep. Got up between 8 30 and 9 today. And here I am, at work, blogging about this totally strange thing happening to me.

Does anyone know anything about this? This sudden insomnia in an otherwise “Somno-phile”? :D

I’ve got problems with my dreams as well, but ya, that’s another story!


UPDATE - 24/Sep

Hurray! I found a cure.. And the reason!

The reason that i have arrived at, is that i haven't attended trainings, meetings or otehr classroom sessions in a long time! We had an area meet yesterday, and Gawd, was i sleeping!

Went home, Said good night to my roomies, slumped into my bed and ZZzzzzzzzzz...... No idea what happened what for the next 8 hours :)

LET ACTIONS SPEAK !

BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE IN THE WORLD - M.K.GANDHI

http://www.orkut.co.in/Community.aspx?cmm=37977080

Instead of just discussing about India never developing in anything, i really hope to see each member of the community and each visitor to this community do something... it can be very simple things that would go a long way in inspiring others... i request you to do something..

And then... go to the Community and say what you did in the "Recent Changes" thread..

Let this be a thread of action and not words... If the nation is to change, remember..... we are gonna do it!

Tell all ur friends THIS community exists in Orkut..

Actions most definitely speak much louder than words...

Despite all our differences.. yeah, your ideas are different from mine and any others', We have a common goal..

And that is,

Jai Hind.

Mummy 3: The tomb of the Audience

The first movie in this series.. "The Mummy" was Legendary. I never knew when the movie ended. Mummy returns was a sequel that lived upto the Original’s reputation. And at the end of that movie, I only wished it lasted a little longer.
Here comes the third!

Mummy, the tomb of the Dragon emperor, returns to haunt from the Dead. And trust me, after every 20 minutes, I was wondering why I did not find out the length of the movie before entering the Theatre. Trust me, it is nowhere close to the first two editions.

The first glitch was in the form of the new Evelyn, who is not even comparable to Rachel Weisz from teh originals. Brendan Fraser is a walking example of the saying, “Actions speak louder than words.” The previous two installments in the saga were all about action and this one was more about words. There were a lot of unnecessary dialogues in the movie that give you the feeling that the Director added them to increase the length of the Movie.

I must say that the sequence of events in Mummy 3 were a bit hurried. The way the bombs blast after Evelyn holds Rick’s nose to stop his snoring was a good attempt at innovation, but unfortunately, you can realize how much I had to search through the movie for such a scene. Worst of all, attempted comedy scenes were not so funny and some serious scenes were hilarious. You can’t help laughing your heart out when the emperor who-never-keeps-his-word wishes to fight Rick o Connell as a Human, just because Rick challenged him to a fight ! In any case, Alex’s female interest and the now-tiring comedy of Evelyn's brother,Jonathan, are enough to make you think that all that money you spent on the ticket and the time you spent in the theatre aren’t exactly complete wastes.

The real fans of Mummy would be left disappointed, and they will pray another such installment doesn’t come. While for the rest of the world, it will be a two hour time pass, a visit to a different world, with the tame Dragon Emperor who can be killed by a normal father-son duo and a peek into the undead world of Rick O Connell.

Cuil (pronounced cool)

My Verdict: Not So Cuil….

Cuil (a Gaelic word for Knowledge), is the new search engine on the block with an aim to kill Google, the Goliath. And this may not exactly be the David-wins story. Goliath wins hands down.

The UI of Cuil indeed lives upto its name, and the results format are also cool. But It fails where it can never afford to. The Content. A Search in Google vs Cuil format led to a 392 results vs none , reflecting the sad state of affairs at Cuil. Cuil may claim that it indexes more pages than Google, but the cached section of Google is something Cuil cannot contend with.

The team behind Cuil are former Google employees, and if I can say anything, I’ll say you can never write them off. There is no smoke without fire, and I only hope they haven’t run out of tricks yet.

Another valiant attempt, and sadly, looks like another failure.

The Dark Knight - Ten out of ten

Indeed the darkest Batman flick yet. Christopher Nolan can pat himself on the back and say Prestige was no lucky break. This man can indeed stun the audience every single time!

I had heard enough about the Joker before I actually saw the movie. “I have never seen such a terrifying villain before..” “You say Darth Vader’s the best?(followed by a wide grin)”… “Damn, was he psychotic!... You should see it to believe it!” And more of that.

I really love The Joker’s character in the Batman Comics, primarily because he chooses to play mental games with his adversaries. And the psychotic bank robber was on top of my expectations list. Next came in two-face, better known as Harvey Dent. (I am this villain fan, yes, more a fan of Darth Vader than anything on the planet). Batman came in third. I had no idea which part of the comics was being covered, except for the rise of two face, which I’ve read a lot of times before. So, to put it short, I expected a brilliantly executed movie, with a regular batman-saves-the-day storyline, a lot of action scenes, car chases and yes, a lot of mind games.

Enter PVR. Like the guy on IBNlive said, “this was the kind of movie giant screens were invented for”. The first row, unfortunately, but trust me, I neva knew the difference. I was living in Gotham for the next two hours and half !

“SPOILER ALERT!” – Yes, I need to add this. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, don’t sit here reading reviews ! Get going !

The Opening Scene, and I became a Joker fan for life. The way he planned the bank robbery was top notch, and the way one robber kills another in a kind of relay was again top draw. Out of the six clown-masked robbers, just two remain at the end. One doubts the intentions of the mastermind of the robbery (known only as the Joker), and points the gun at the other and says, "I'm bettin' The Joker told you to kill me soon as we loaded the cash..." The other replies calmly, “No I kill the Bus driver…..”

The first gets confused, “What Bus Driver???”

A Crash, and the bus enters through the wall. (I almost stood up and clapped then..) The Height of planning, if there ever can be one!

The bus smashes the first robber.

The other person dutifully kills the bus driver and reveals himself to be the Joker…

Doesn’t sound so good uh? You got to watch it fellas!!! Height of Execution!

This scene was the sign of things to come, and the cat and mouse game to follow, the dialogues, wow!

I've got no words. This was one movie where everyone in the theatre wanted the villain to win.

But for the namesake-show-of-handsomeness, the amazing skyscraper dive and the toooootally amazing Nose-diving-truck scene, Christian Bale did not have much to do as Batman, and I’d call it talent wasted! We all know what he is capable of!

Aaron Eckhart comes up with a stellar performance, both as Harvey Dent and Two-Face (though the latter did not have much of a part to play). And I’d go so far as to give it an Oscar nomination for an actor in a supporting role… Rachel Dawes was also scope & talent wasted.

I would have cut Nolan with words for wasting so much talent in the movie, but hell who cares, We had the Joker, and every other character had to make way for him and lose their scenes, including Batman… The Intro, the way he sets up the people on the two boats, all those fantastic dialogues and I MUST mention the way he walks out of Gotham General Hospital in that nurse dress…. Totally Awesome! The way he turns around to see some part of the hospital intact and checks his remote trigger… whoa man, Ledger must have lived the Joker! The much debated posthumous Oscar for the best actor, yes, I vote for that! (Note: not the supporting actor.. but for the central role.. The best actor!)

The Agent of Chaos ruled the movie, and how!

The BatMobile, The new two wheeled rocket, yes yes, they are all good, but I really didn’t think it’d stand a chance against the scheming Clown, and yes, I was right.

The only point is that Nolan could have bettered this best performance in the way Joker was caught in the end. I guess he wanted to say that the Joker could be caught in the end only because people in the right sense of mind decide not to blast the other boat out. But, we’ll never know…

One movie where everything is perfect, be it the storyline, be it the execution, be it the technicalities. A Great movie to hit the screens, after a long long time, both technically and by entertainment quotient.

I salute Ledger, I salute the Joker, and he’s definitely the second best villain of all time, if not first, and the only one comparable to the Darth Vader in the history of World Cinema. (ya, you would bring in the Silence of the lambs, but this is MY opinion, and no other villain is anywhere near the Clown and Anakin).

On top of IMDB, and deservedly at that.

And to all those who shout "this doesn't deserve it !"..... Why So Serious? :)

Goal of life

I simply wonder why we lack
People who laugh..
People who live..

I also wonder why the heck
People feign friendship..
People speak lies.

As we grow from three to thirty
Time goes on..
Pressure mounts on..

Hard to believe that all were once
Children who played,
Ones who forgave.

Why should the child in us so vanish
The Smile in us fades,
The truth degrades..

Why should the childishness be banished
To the depths of the soul,
In life, Is that our goal?


To survive without living?

A Message from Calvin !

Came across this C& H cartoon.. Well, I can’t put it any better than this.

Pardon the copyright infringes, if any ;) . Just spreading a real good message.

By throwing trash into the dustbin consciously every time, you can even go to the extent of making NASA think if it’s really that necessary to find if all of us can relocate to Mars.

Not with me? Go read about the Butterfly effect, will you?

Wassup Doc??

I feel hungry, but i cannot eat..

I feel sleepy, but i spend sleepless nights thinking about white, blue, shoes and grass..

My pulse is increasing abnormally at times...

So, i went to this doc and asked him, "Is this a medical problem? Or Am I in love?!!"

He said, "Not a medical condition.. Not love either.. But i have seen a lot of people coming in this week with similar symptoms. All of them had one thing in common... Are you a football fanatic?.."


EURO FEVER!

thefootballdreams.blogspot.com

I GO ON...

The morning news hour says that the National Capital is expected to be sealed by protesters… I go on...

The morning paper claims millions dying in Myanmar.. I go on...

Friend 1 had called and said he had quit his job because he didn’t like it. I go on…

I heard about this Friend 2 who claimed that he quit because he was ill treated at his workplace. I go on..

There’s this friend 3 who has been asked to leave his company, and who’s on desperate job-hunting mode. I go on.

I see a six year old carrying a box, visibly too heavy for him.. and I am sure that was child labour. I go on.

I remember this 80 year old woman who was begging on the streets of Chennai. I go on..

I also remember catching a glimpse of this “mad” man I saw when I went to Madurai. The man who waves the national flag (or was it the Gandhian flag?) every evening for as-long-as-my-friend-could-remember.. I go on..

I see all this hue and cry about the rise in fuel prices. I think of the 20+plus+rupees subsidy that the Government provides us, and people shouting at the Government! Ya, rite.. There are many people who still don’t get food to eat. And the media coverage is all about Petrol and Diesel! (Can’t blame em.. Those channels were started for ‘viewership’ too, I guess.. Profit, not people..) Well, I go on..

I see I don’t like to code my days.. Yet I go on..

I see children begging on the streets of Bangalore. I still go on.

I see people who speak the same language dying across the strait. Shouting for help, not getting any. Taking to violence, getting the odds stacked against them. Killed our Prime minister, didn’t they? I don’t know. I was a kid then.. Oh well, I go on..

I see all this furore in national and regional politics about things of no value. I still go on..

I see farmers dying, I see an all time high in urban corruption, pollution and crime. I still go on.

I see women of India crying for characters in Mega-soap-ventures on TV, and turning a blind eye to all that happening on the streets.. Recently, I saw a woman push a child to the ground because the child (perhaps 4 yrs old) was “touching” her while begging. “The little robber! These are the creatures that become robbers in the future…”, she told everyone around her. The child was crying… Who wouldn’t become a thief, if this is how the World treats him? I close my eyes for a minute, pray to God and go on.

I see people still getting that 25 or 50 rupees per day for wages, when inflation cuts their throat. I still go on.

I see the Government declare Special Economic Zones to aid MNCs… those that create solutions for conglomerates. Those which provide this techno-luxury to the world, luxury compared to all the problems that we face in our country. I see all necessities at the “aam-aadmi” level being ignored. Man, A lot of Indians still die of debts and hunger everyday. I somehow manage to go on…

I go on..

I go on developing and testing software, and providing after-sales support for the customers. I do these, that are of no value to either the country or the world. Why would you want to optimize luxury when you see basic necessities going out the window? It’s about increasing the GDP? This quasi-improvement? Go to hell, It’s about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.. Don’t blame any one else.. It’s me, It’s YOU, it’s every single person who’s contributing to it.

We don’t need nano technology. We don’t need to spend years researching on how AIDS can be stopped. (I mean, that’s a good intention, but not first priority..)

We need to ensure food for all. We need to stop this concept of people dying of Malaria, or worse.. fever.

Think about it.

I still go on, immune to all that around me. Can’t hold on for long...

Remember..

“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crises maintain their neutrality”. – Dante

Hell is just getting HOTTER!

Momentumum updated !

Madurai tour added to the Outer ring road incident...


U know where to go!

momentumum.blogspot.com