div's blog

Tidbits About Me- Part 1

2010-01-10T00:11:00.005+05:30

This is the first part of a series of posts where I'll share things about myself, some of which I haven't shared with anyone in the past (including the closest of my friends.)

Hmmm... so where do i begin? The beginning seems to be a reasonable place to start from. By beginning i refer to the first memories I can recall.

I was always an inquisitive person. "Over-inquisitive to the point of putting self and those around me in fatal hazard" would be more apt. As a child (and even now) I wanted answers for everything I saw, heard or felt. I never took anything for granted, not even something as simple as life, air or trees. I wanted to know "why we all have different physical appearances, why do objects have different colours, why do Indian states have crooked and weird boundaries, why can't they be straight like USA's etc. etc." I got the answers to such relatively easy questions by nagging my elders (who were not very delighted for obvious reasons :P), but there were some questions which always went unanswered, sometimes due to their lack of knowledge and at times due to lack of patience. Some of these questions were heavily scientific like:

"How can we move our legs or arms or lips by merely wanting to do so? At times we dont even have to think before executing an action. We do some things due to our reflexes." see how I have a statement attached to my question, which would ensure that I dont get stupid answers to it. :D But such a train of thought would usually leave me with another question. In this case this would be "what are reflexes?" and this chain of questions would continue till I found some activity to distract myself with.

Some questions were just a child's musings:

"Why doesn't god appear in everyone's dream and tell us who he is and how he wants us to worship him. That'd definitely make this world a much better place." Questions like these also had follow up questions- "Why does god want to be worshiped? He is so mean and self centered."

And at times they were totally bizarre and involved crazy thoughts:

"What if every electron is a planet and every atom (or molecule) a solar system in itself. That'd make us (and everything around us) host to infinite solar systems some of which would have life supporting planets. What if we are also a part of such a solar system?"

I am positive that by now you think I was completely demented. But my dementedness knew no bounds. When I didn't get answers to such questions, I used to brew up answers on my own to put my over inquisitive mind at ease, at least for the next thirty seconds. :D

To cite an example, once I was wondering what causes the wind to blow? And it so happened that there was a really strong wind blowing at that moment. With the help of my acute sense of observation and razor sharp wits (no sarcasm intended :P) I got to the the conclusion that wind blows due to constant swaying of trees in one common direction. Now I faced another question: How do trees know which direction they are supposed to be blowing wind in today? Simple, they are surely connected with some complex underground network via their roots through which they communicate and live their social lives. I was pretty sure that trees had family and friends and they got to know if one of their seeds germinated. Before you suggest I should visit an asylum, let me tell you that I was about 5 years old at that time.

How I wish we had Wikipedia back then. Nevertheless, a huge number of my questions were answered (and in some cases, my own answers to my questions were corrected) by the scientific and historic encyclopedias my parents used to get me. An endeavour to preserve their own sanity I believe.

more to come shortly...

Hey, Welcome Back

2009-03-25T16:18:00.004+05:30

I am back to writing this blog after a hiatus of 8 months. I had stopped writing cos of a lot of issues. Work pressure, followed by a long state of joblessness and stress, personal issues, a long trip to home, but primarily due to my laziness.

A lot has happened since I last penned down my insignificant thoughts.

I've played dozens of games, seen even more movies, heard a lot of alternative rock and read a bit whenever I got time in between the abovementioned activites. So I've been fairly busy and have had a tight schedule which changes according to my whims.

Saw some really good flicks like city of god, no country for old men, the day of the jackal (1973), the unforgiven, the kite runner, the pianist, hotel rwanda, schindler's list, gran torino etc.

Have been hooked to Kings of Leon, Radiohead, The Killers, Coldplay and my all time fav- RHCP.

Played some awesome games like Fallout 3. competely groundbreaking stuff that will influence games for generations to come. There were some interesting moves in the Indian gaming scene. Some of the biggest titles on PC were released at extremely low prices. For eg: GTA 4 is retailing at Rs 499/- whereas its PS3 and XBox360 counterpart are being sold for 2500-3000. Its nice to see that game publishers are selling at realistic prices after taking into account the net disposable income of the masses.

Signing off now. do drop in a comment or two. see ya soon.

PS- if i fail to update this blog every 2-3 days, those of you who know me personally, please feel free to call up and yell.

The Dark Knight

2008-07-29T11:53:00.003+05:30

Yes, the movie was fantastic. I am not going to harp about the excellence of the movie out here. Instead, allow me to justify why he is the best superhero ever:
1. He is darker than anybody else out there.
2. He is completely ruthless. (if you think the Punisher is ruthless, you don't deserve to live)
3. When he bashes villains, they don't get up again.
4. He doesn't have any superpowers (also read as- he doesnt spin web and he can't fly)
5. He has far better gadgets than anyone out there (btw 007's gadgets suck)
6. He doesn't wear his underwear on his pants
There are a whole lot of other reasons, but i guess these should suffice.

Google Analytics

2008-07-07T12:29:00.002+05:30

I just added google analytics a few days back. And it hasn't failed to surprise me as yet. Every day i get some strange stastics. Day before, a guy from birmingham spent about half an hour on my blog, interestingly he went through all the comments as well. Yesterday, a dude entered 'himesh reshammiya' on google and landed here. Of course he closed the window faster than he got here. To everyone who blogs: make sure u add this little app.

New Religion

2008-07-04T16:41:00.004+05:30

Someone who commented on one of my earlier posts gave me an idea to start a new religion. Reason: In India, you get to follow whatever your religion preaches, and you can do whatever it allows you to do. So instead of allowing myself the limited privileges my religion has to offer me, I am starting my own. All those who are interested can join in.

I haven't yet thought of a name for it though. Do post your suggestions for the same in the comments section. Here are some prominent rules for the religion:

1. You can continue to worhip your own god(s) or choose to be an atheist. This is the beauty of my religion, it offers you complete flexibility.
2. Worshipping the creator of this religion (read: Div) is strictly banned. I am neither an incarnation of god, nor a prophet.
3. Pop, hip-hop, rap, trance, himesh reshammiya, altaf raja and the likes will strictly banned.
4. Himesh reshammiya is to be viewed as the "son of devil" sent to the earth to corrupt an entire nation.
5. Rock is to be held at the highest pedestal.
6. The biggest sin would be to stop your children/husband/boyfriend from playing computer games.
7. Anyone who abandons PC gaming for consoles will be grilled by god once his time on earth comes to an end. playstation, xbox, nintendo wii etc are all to be viewed as weapons of satan himself.
8. Discussing stock market tips in public will lead to severe punishment.
9. While accepting this religion, you have to solemnly swear that you believe mayo college to be far superior than doon school in all aspects.
10. There are absolutely no restrictions on food and beverage.
11. There are no mandatory minimum hours (or the number of times) you have to pray in a day. 12. No bias for or against against any religion, caste, creed or race.
13. One can sleep for as long as he/she wants to. I recommend sleeping for atleast 9 hours a day. Waking someone out of his/her slumber is a punishable offence.
14. Graduates are to be given equal preference for jobs as MBAs and CAs.

I'll keep revising the rules every now and then based on feedback and popular demand. All those who wish to join, please acknowledge it in the comments section.

Quotation of the day

2008-07-04T16:09:00.004+05:30

"I have a bad habit of stubbornly clinging to my preference for life over death, and I am told this interferes with my ability to have fun."

- Scott Adams

For those who don't read scott adams, do check out his blog at http://dilbert.com/blog/

Religion Centric Laws

2008-06-22T02:19:00.004+05:30

If you are a religious fanatic, please read no further.

They say we live in a secular democracy. And like a lot of other things they say, I don't believe this one as well. The two biggest biggest proofs I can present are:
1. Our civic laws
2. Reservation
I'll write about the latter some other time.

Let's discuss some of our religion centric laws today. The most absurd ones are
(i) Hindu undivided family act
(iii) Muslim marriage act
Why give privileges to someone, just because he or she belongs to a hindu family which happens to be indulging in business. Basically, its just an archaic law to appease the 'baniyas' of our country.

The second law, Muslim marriage act, makes even lesser sense. Why allow followers of one religion to have upto four wives? 'Cos its written in Qu'ran and even Muhammad had several wives? Krishna had 16000 wives and almost all the kings had multiple wives. Does that mean you alter the laws for Hindus as well? No. It just isn't fair to the women. And as for it being allowed in the Qu'ran, during those days, most ment used to die due to conflicts in the arab countries. Mostly between muslims and jews and other non-believers, and later muslims and christians. Therefore one man was allowed to take upto four wives to balance the rift created by an unequal sex ratio.

But why are these special privileges given to certain religions and communities even now? If we must decide to govern an individual according to his/her religion, then let's do so in its entirety. Let the Muslim Criminal Law (which dictates that a thief shall have his hands chopped off and a rapist must be put to death) also be applicable upon all practicing Muslims. And any Chirstian who spills Christian blood must be given the capital punishment. And all Hindu women must be made to worship their husbands.

Why can't we just have the same set of laws governing all the individuals in our country? To each his own? I don't think so.

A great business idea

2008-06-16T19:00:00.003+05:30

I am writing this post in response to Dhawal's comment on my article "journalism is dead."

Dhawal wants to start a reality show. Its a talent hunt to find India's first "dhongi baba." It'll definitely be a huge hit. People in our country love reality shows and they love babas. He is offering people a mixture of two of nation's greatest pass times.

I have something else in mind. I want to create and promote my own baba. A couple of years back, I had entered into a pact with my younger brother to enter into this business. He was going to be the baba and I, his manager. My brother has extremely curly hair which, if grown, will add to the baba effect. If I pulled the strings correctly, I could've created the most sensational and popular baba in the history.

But to my dismay my brother pulled out of the agreement recently. So if anyone out there is interested in living a comfortable, envious life, please contact me at the earliest. The main job of Baba will be to, obviously, preach. One need not possess any knowledge of Vedas, Gita or any other religious scripture. There are three trick involved here:
1. Say random stuff that no one can fully comprehend. Don't speak, gibber.
2. Don't delve too much into religion, speak more about ethical, moral stuff. These things come naturally to a person, somehow people still love to hear all this.
3. Invent your own stories. "Once Krishna went to the jungle and there he saw........" Just don't cite any reference. No one usually challenges religious stuff.

Dhawal, you completely fit into this job description. lol.

Following are the fine points of the partnership agreement, which I've drafted:
1. Partnership will be on a 50-50 percent profit sharing basis.
2. The two partners will be referred to as (i) Baba (aka CEO) and (ii) Manager (aka Managing director)
3. Baba cannot drink, consume non-vegetarian food, wear western clothes or seen with women in public.
4. Baba will have to attend all the public meetings (referred to as "pravachans" in lay man's tongue) arranged by the manager, unless he is medically unfit or has a bad hangover.
5. All the revenues will be divided equally after deducting all the operating expenses (salaries, travel, purchase of equipment, sponsorship of events etc)
6. Lodging is generally arranged by devotees, hence does not require any expense from our side.
7. Salaries will have to be paid to the PR Manager, Sanskrit Interpreter, Chartered Accountants and a few retirees who will be planted in the crowd to handle the situation in case it goes out of control. This list of employees is inexhaustible and more people can be hired if need be.
8. All the donation (money, land, ornaments etc) will be in the name of the trust. Chartered Accountants will specially be hired to siphon off this donation into the name of a SPV (Special Purpose Vehicle,) which is a company designed specially for these kind of activities.
9. If at any time, the Baba is exposed, the manager has full rights to act as a victim of the situation and save himself.
10. In time we will have our own temple. This Idea has been borrowed from European football clubs, as they all have a stadium each.
11. More conditions can be added as and when necessary after being agreed upon by both the partners.

What say?

Things i hate about social networking sites

2008-06-15T02:17:00.004+05:30

Few things i really hate about social networking sites are:

1. How the hell can you possibly "make friendship". People come up with crazy pick up lines on orkut.
2. Why the hell does every testimonial have to start with "well, what can I say about Mr. Loser Symptoms."
3. I don't care if you added a new application or posted a new comment, why the hell does it have to show everytime I sign in?
4. And I don't give a damn about your mood. Whether you are feeling orphaned, distressed, lonely or simply gay, please keep it to yourelf.

Guys, feel free to add your own favourites.

Voters

2008-06-14T01:12:00.003+05:30

With union elections happening next year, and Rajasthan govt elections due this december, I was wondering how can I even trust voters in our country even if they genuinely want to vote for the best candidate. Having best interest of the country in mind is one thing, knowing whom to vote for is another. And i doubt most people can make the right choice. To give you an example of the voters' choice: most of them listen to either Himesh Reshamiya or hip-hop.

Journalism is dead

2008-06-12T00:56:00.003+05:30

One news really bothered me today. I am not referring to the crap shown on india tv ot tej. All that seems more of a joke. I tune in occasionally for my dose of laughter.

What i am referring to is probably the most ignored news of the last decade- maoists taking over nepal. Even today, Aarushi's muder and the gujjar protests took precedence over the king of Nepal leaving his palace for good.

There goes another ally country. Our politicians have been too busy stacking hay in their godowns to realise they should've sent a few army battalions to nepal long back, for defeating the maoists. Or atleast to help them keep at bay. God alone knows when are we going to give up these policies of non-intervention.

What came as a real shocker was the lack of coverage in news. This issue was being discussed in the editorial section of a few newspapers alongwith a small column on the front page, while the limelight was taken by 2 gruesome murders and gujjar protests. Way to go. I am sure I can create more ripples by claiming I am a reincarnation of Vishnu, than i I can by discovering a cure for AIDS.

Are you a true believer?

2008-06-11T23:32:00.006+05:30

I dont have problems with any religion, sect or faith. But more often than not, I have problems with the way people interpret and follow the above.

What irritates me the most is blind faith. I am okay whether you are a Hindu, Muslim, Christian, or follow some unknown religion which originated in african jungles. But do you follow your religion because you fully understand it and believe in it, or just because your parents and some spiritual guru adviced you to? I guess most people will belong to the latter category.

If you haven't challenged and tested (and even disregarded some of) the beliefs of your religion, how can you claim to be a hardcore believer. In fact how can you claim to be a believer at all. Its like your physics teacher explaining you nuclear fission, and you accept the theory without questioning it. How is it humanely possible??

Best jokes on the net

2008-06-09T01:49:00.003+05:30

The other day, my perpetual state of joblessness led me to discover the best jokes portal on the net. No its not santabanta.com, its bharatmatrimony.com. Don’t believe me, check out the following excerpts from matrimonies. (my comments are in bold):

This is what the dudes had to write:
1. My habbits kusti karna kabdhi nai 2 dost banana. dusaro ke help karna
2. Hai,i am vasan,i like an beauty $ homly girls,i am expecting an graduate girl
3. I am searching for my second mother in the name of wife , i am sure i will be your first child. (what a retard)
4. Our son is soft, smart, intelligent and we want a girl who can take care of him personally. (I didn’t know u had outsourcing for this kind of stuff)
5. Life is beatiful, we have to enjoy our life with good partner,so expect this
6. My lifepartner must be a understandable & adjustble person, she will give the response to the elder. (???)
7. I am a good person. And free type character i want free type girl (free type of girl? Didn’t know you had to pay for a wife)
8. I am eswara qualifification diplamo.my anual income 4,50,000.00.my family is desency & homlyi am working private .i like fair girl in kerala.my future wife if wel education,and adjustable & help ful mind.i like the friendish mind character.
9. I am nice man but some time angry tension coming. I am cool (retard of the month)

These days, whatever guys can do, girls can do better:
1. I want very simple boy. From brahmin educated family from orissa state she is also know about ramayan, geeta bhagabata, and other homework (homework??)
2. I want a boy with no drinks if he wants he can wear jeans in house but while steping out of house he should give recpect to our cast (its jeans, not langoti)
3. Hye i am a good loking girl,who has the capability to make any body to lough.i believe in god and according to me friends are the real messenger of god. The 3 things i am looking from a boy they are (a) They must believe in god. (b) They have to like my proffesion (c) They should not get bored with me when i will try to make them lough.
4. Whatever he may be but he should feel that he is going to be someone groom and he must think of the future life if he is toolike this he would be called the man of the lamp (looking for the genie, are ya?)
(author is too stressed out for any more comments)
5. I love my patner i marriage the patner ok i search my patner and i love the patner ok thik hai the patner has a graduate ok
6. Iam pranati my family histoy my two brother two sister and father & mother sister completely married
7. I am sharmila my colour is black, but my heart is white. I like social service.

I have come up with a new business model. I intend to tie up with bharatmatrimony.com, to showcase the latest jokes on my site. That is bound to get traffic tricking in. But how do you get the best matrimonies? A filter designed to pick the worst grammar and spellings should do the trick. Or simply select the profiles which have been around for the longest duration. For obvious reasons.

Maybe I can run a ‘creep of the week’ award. The angry dude is sure to win the first one.

hard work vs common sense

2008-06-08T01:39:00.002+05:30

I recently came across a very interesting piece. I did some home work and found out its not true, but it still makes for an interesting read:

"NASA's Zero Gravity Pen
When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered the ballpoint pens would not work in zero gravity. To combat the problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 Billion to develop a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to 300C.

The Russians used a pencil."

Of elephants and commerce

2008-05-30T18:16:00.003+05:30

The other day i was pondering over some useless stuff again. This time, about the standard of my higher education.

If you ask me- any course in this world is better that doing a BCom, that too from mumbai university. the course repeatedly remind me of a lame joke i heard ages back

Q: how do u put an elephant in a fridge in 3 steps?
A: 1. open the fridge
2. put the elephant in the fridge
3. close the fridge

This is exactly what BCom teaches you. Half the curriculum consists of questions like (a) Explain the steps in planning OR (b) what are the elements of quality control.
The answer to steps in planning would be:
1. establish goals
2. evaluate external environment
3. evaluate internal strengths and weaknesses
4. formulate alternative plans
5. select the best plan
6. implementation of plan
7. review of plan
8. rectifications (if any)

Now, do you ever think and plan in do many goddamn points in any given situation? So how the hell is it practical and applicable to management.

The other half of the syllabus is [features, advantages and disadvantages] of everything such as [planning, organising, communication, et al].

So you get the drift. don't you?

2008-05-30T18:10:00.004+05:30

a very weird thought just crossed my mind- why do footballers get only their legs insured? its not like they can play with an injured back or a damaged skull. publicity????

another reason for rolling stones magazine going down the drain

2008-05-30T11:03:00.000+05:30

Check out the rolling stones' list of "The 100 greatest guitarists of all time"
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/5937559/the_100_greatest_guitarists_of_all_time

I don't know what kind of weed the editorial team of rolling stones magazine was smoking while compiling this list. Where the hell are Steve Vai, Joe Satriani and Slash? And why are David Gilmour, Angus Young and Van Halen so down below in the list. Kurt Cobain at number 12? Are you kidding me? And anyone who is even remotely acquainted with mark knopfler would know he deserves to be in the top 10. But at least some justice has been done to Eric Clapton, Kirk Hammet, John Frusciante, Jimmy Page, Keith Richards, The Edge and Tom Morello.

Are monkeys really fond of bananas?

2008-05-29T19:36:00.000+05:30

By the title of this blog you can ascertain how jobless i am, even though i pretend to be busy as hell. This being my second blog, i still couldn't decide what to write upon. So i stuck to what i do best- ask weird questions. This question sprang up in my mind when my boss compared me to a monkey while i ate a banana at office today.

We all know they do love eating bananas. But don't you think cartoons and movies exaggerate it a bit. I mean, how can you generalise it to the extent that a monkey is almost always holding a banana in his hand or salivating looking at/ dreaming about one. Thats like saying all Indians are snake charmers or no marriage in the west work.

So I came back to my desk and googled 'do monkeys really eat bananas.' The generally consensus seemed to be that monkeys eat all fruits and mostly anything they can lay their hands on. I recall going to many temples and tourist destinations and seeing many monkeys at those locations. But I can't recall any of them eating a banana. I sure do remember them eating laddoos or sandwiches or anything given to them by tourists/devotees. I am not trying to say monkeys don't eat bananas, or don't like eating bananas. All I am trying to ask is "why are bananas looked upon as international food for monkeys."

Btw, are monkeys region specific? I mean, is it like monkeys in kerala love bananas and the ones in maharashtra love mangoes. Just as yankees are always seen gobbling burgers and bengalis drooling over fish.

Hi all

2008-05-28T19:03:00.000+05:30

I hereby mark the inauguration of my blog. Finally. I was beginning to think blogger.com will sue me for signing up over a year back and not having written anything. Not that I am a great writer and they were missing out much.

This is more difficult than I thought. Writing with a clear objective and concept in mind is one thing, trying to punch random thoughts on this ugly black keyboard another. Anyways, can’t think of much to write now. Will keep posting new entries every now and then. Ciao.