Mundane Musings

This is another memory gone from my life forever............... http://specials.rediff.com/news/2008/apr/23slid1.htm

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/bryan-adams-everything-i-do-voted-greates.../386795/

Our past kind of decided our present, just like our present is going to determine the future. This sounds like a silly statement to make. But I havent copied this from somewhere for once. But I am sure somebody might have something similar like this written before. Emerson once put it, "What you are shouts so loudly in my ears that I cannot hear what you say." There cant have been a more truer statement than this. Very often I have felt this especially while talking to someone close. While conversing with this person there were so many thoughts coming to my head that I didnt pay attention to the conversation and as usual we landed up squabbling. Actions bother him , words bother him , small small or trivial things are irking him, how can we continue this relationship? As it is, it was a forced one. I havent slept for a record 3 nights in a row thanks to him.

Found this interesting article in the Times of India. : http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Columnists/G_Das_What_are_you_reading/articleshow/3718261.cms But I dont know why this has been categorized under Men and Ideas, dont women also read?? Anyways I completely agree with Gurcharan Das and pray that a library like this would be spring up in Dubai. Its bad enough to leave for work at 5.15 am in the morning and to be in horrendous traffic for 2 hours. So why not make use of the time constructively.

A colleague of mine started off an interesting debate today. Is it possible to compromise on something like marriage and still be happy? An interesting person I met during my tenure at my 1st job, said that he married for the sake of his parents. Now the parents are happy, but he isnt. He wants out but they dont allow him to. Is there an end to his misery. Arent most of us in India sailing in the same boat. We have this concept of arranged marriage.We have a 101 things to clear beside just liking the guy or girl. Religion, status, caste, money, position and finally the 'horrorscope' which anyway can never predict the doom of a marriage all play a key role. So how can one get into an arranged marriage without a compromise? Oldies just say it will work fine. How will it work fine? When will it work fine, after either one is dead? Hmm I still have a long way to go in figuring out the ways life works!!!

I finished reading this book about a month back. Due to general laziness I didn’t write the heartfelt review that I badly wanted to write at that time. But this is one of the books that had a great impact on me. I read it in a single sitting on the 7 hours flight from London to Dubai with only interruptions for having food in between. I swear this is the second time (First was Tuesday’s with Morrie by Mitch Albom) I am crying after reading a book. What struck me the most was the helplessness of people? Mainly women suffering from aftermath of mindless wars which are the result of the “so called” mind games of politicians worldwide. The story is based in Afghanistan. It is difficult not to cry for the character that is Mariam. We feel angry when she is 15 and forcefully married to a 47 year old. She didn’t have a legitimate father. She never had a proper education. She was beaten up by this useless husband. She was forced look after his second wife and kids. In the end she is executed b...

To laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent people and the affecion of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends, to appreciate beauty, to leave the world a better place whether by a child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition, to know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived - this is to have succeeded.

Consequent to my marriage 2 years ago , I moved to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Now here I had to face a different environment altogether. Here none of the big conglomerates take you directly on their payrolls in their Information Technology department. They take you on as a software consultant. Now unlike western countries where consultants are paid more than the regular staff, here in Dubai a consultant is quite the straight opposite.You have to toil on an average of 3 years to get onto the direct payrolls of any company here and even then you are not guaranteed the post of a Senior Software Engineer, which is normally given to a person with 3 years experience in India. Most probably you will be placed on par with the fresh engineering college graduates from BITS Pilani Dubai (basically children of filthy rich gulf expats) and the like.All the perks of a permanent job including accomodation and bonus eludes you and you will be made to wonder why you ever came here in the 1st pl...

I came across this saying in one of my friend’s blog posts: There is a certain point in your life, when you are bored of ambition and achievement, even if you haven’t achieved anything. May be I have understood the difference between dreaming and achieving. The difference is work, which is the boring part. Glory is achieved through pure hard work, which makes the whole premise of glory boring. In any case, contentment with what I am and what I have done till now is a quality which arises due to boredom, lack of enthusiasm to achieve anything. I suffer from an inspiration syndrome. I want something to be life altering or I would have nothing to do with it. The first minute I sense boredom with my passion, passion ceases and boredom takes over. “ This aptly describes my current situation. Boredom and loneliness are my 2 best friends now, despite living in a world well conected by mobiles, orkuts , facebooks et al.

I got this message when I had joined my 1st job......... Rule 1: Be sure you are happy and excited about your job. It is extremely important that you find a job that you feel happy and excited about. This will be the foundation for your job performance, satisfaction, and leadership. If you are doing something that you enjoy, you have a positive effect on those you work with, and the results of your efforts benefit the organization and your career. On the other hand, an unhappy worker tends to produce low-quality results and have a negative impact on the team, with little hope of career advancement. Rule 2: Be a recognized expert in a particular field. Establish yourself as an expert in a field and gain recognition for this expertise. Your reputation will grow, and people will come to you for help. The more people you network with, the more you will share and broaden your knowledge. The core expertise you started with will expand its boundaries into many related areas, and recogniti...

Human behaviour is influenced by our perception of the world and other people and events in it.When we look back on some of the choices we have made,there is always this feeling of what might have been.What if we had gone to a different college. What if we had not taken up that 1st job. About me, I chose(or rather my parents) to study computer science and engineering on the year Y2k.Not that this is a bad choice for many. But it simply was the wrong choice for a person like me.I struggled through this course for 4 years. Programming lab exams were always a nightmare. I had been a pretty good student all throughout school. Now I was "average".Whatever that means. But as luck would have it, I still got through a campus interview and landed my first job as an application developer(read programmer) at a medium-sized company.But here the matter got worse. From being average I went down to below average.....:-( That year I wrote several competitive exams CAT,GRE, SCJP for program...

Recently received the following message as a forward from one of my friends: New Exam pattern in India (Revised): 1. General students - Answer ALL questions. 2. OBC - WRITE ANY one question! 3. SC - ONLY READ questions!!!! 4. ST - THANKS FOR COMING........ AND 5. GUJJARS & JATS - THANKS FOR ALLOWING OTHERS TO ATTEND THE EXAMINATION .. !! CHEERS TO RESERVATION...... Same day came across the below article as well: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Now_IITs_face_shortage_of_students_/articleshow/3319507.cms Its high time the government realise that real talent has got nothing to do with the caste or upbringinf of a person it is something inherent. Not giving an opportunity to real talent to grow will result in a loss to this nation. Wake up atleast now..........

"Time is what we want most, but what we use worst." - William Penn "Don’t be fooled by the calendar. There are only as many days in the year as you make use of. One man gets only a week’s value out of a year while another man gets a full year’s value out of a week." -Charles Richards "Time = life; therefore, waste your time and waste of your life, or master your time and master your life."- Alan Lakein "Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you." -Carl Sandburg "A man who dares to waste one hour of life has not discovered the value of life." - Charles Darwin "Make use of time, let not advantage slip" -William Shakespeare "Those who make the worse use of their time are the first to complain of its shortness." - Jean De La Bruyere "Once you hav...

Reading is a habit that evolves from childhood. In the age of television, reading books is not as important as it once was. People can learn as much by watching TV as they can by reading books. Before the advent of the erstwhile cable TV. There were only 2 channels in India then, DD National and DD metro. Kids back then didn’t have too many distractions. Computers and Internet had not yet descended on the masses as they have today. Reading was a habit inculcated by many in their childhood. There was a lot of fun in discussing about Nancy Drew, Famous five, and Secret seven. Today after a full day at school, tuitions and then babysitters. Viewing any channel from NDTV to ESPN to even FTV the children have no time to discuss what’s in rather than discuss the intricacies of a book. With the advent of so many channels, especially news channels in the foray we get up to date news and all information from TV itself, so what is the point in reading one might ask. Well, reading is ...

Dubai and Sharjah are definitely amongst the top ten worst planned cities of the world. While most people living outside of Dubai are unaware of this.It's high time the administrative bodies of these cities note the fact and make some changes about this. Each city or Emirate as it is known here is ruled by a different ruler. And between them there is no unity or harmony, and who suffers because of this? Ya no points for guessing.....the middle class as always. Well you might ask who is middle class here. While there is no clear line of demarcation, it practically refers to the entire working expatriate population minus the priveleged Europeans, Americans and the other white-skinned races. While the former makes up about 90% of the population, there is nothing done to ease their misery in these cities and if anything something new is added to their cup of woes everyday. Yesterday practically everyone took 2-3 hours to reach offices from their homeS(We are talking of a distance of 10...

While Jhumpa Lahiri is definitely one of the best writers of her generation, she has 1 drawback. And that is, she knows very little about India other than Bengal. And this is what the 3rd novel also highlights like its 2 predecessors. All her female characters sport large bindis are round faced, and wear cotton sarees and put vermilion on their hair partitions. The Bengali men are even more boring stereotypes. Her attention to detail is commendable but I wish she had more knowledge about India other than the ‘dirty Kolkata’. That there’s more to life here other than the main protagonist’s relative’s death and funerals is not known to the author. If she wants to attract more readers from the Indian sub continent she had better extend her reach beyond Bengal. Well we can’t expect much more from NRI’s like Jhumpa who come to India once in a Blue moon. But atl least she has got the talent to write meaningful stuff about India. Then why not use that and not write these repetitive type of ...

The day started with reading "The 3 mistakes of my life" to watching an "Inconvenient truth" and "What women want". Like I said you sometimes value the loneliness and for me this is one of those times. But I am enjoying it now. After a long time I finished a novel of fiction in 3 days flat, despite hectic work days. But even though I didn’t like the One night at a call center, I still picked up the 3rd book of Chetan Bhagat. This one begs to differ from the earlier 2 books and I think it is by far the best of his works. So that 100 bucks spent on this book was well worth it. The other thing I did was to watch a movie or rather 2 movies, The inconvenient truth.It forces us to think a lot, but what can we do to change this world anyway. I liked the saying in the film: What gets us into trouble is not what we don’t know. It’s what we know for sure that just aint so. Well , that just about winds up half of the weekend. Let's see what we can do tommorrow.

Chennai could be defined as a city where the old world charm meets the new world. This being the city that I was born and brought up in, will always remain close to my heart. Chennai is a metropolitan city located on the South East coast of India, and it was an important port city while India was being ruled by the British Raaj. Hence there is a bit of British influence in the architecture in some parts. That coupled with the glass framed modern buildings of the IT companies is what I mentioned as the place where the old meets new. While these modern structures are the signs of growth of the city, the old buildings are the remnants of history and a bygone era. Chennai boasts of a large number of good educational institutes which were started long ago by different Christian missionary groups. Most notable among these institutes include Loyola College, MCC and the Presidency College among others. Apart from these it boasts of a number of Engineering Colleges situated in and around the ci...

Loneliness, a topic that I almost always come back to at some point of time or the other. It has been a part of me from since I can remember. I have been left out in the family, in a circle of friends, in a job! There are times I hated it, there are also times I valued it. These days even more so. But what is also heartening for me is that there are staggering statistics nowadays about the number of lonely people in this world. So I am not alone. Well, this comes as a surprise as we are now living in a world which has so many ways for us to connect. So why the loneliness? What is loneliness? It is a frame of mind that occurs in every person at some point in time in life. But in some people even more so than others. Spend your life as if there’s going to be no other. And watch the good moments multiply like never before. This is a sound advice to all those lonely people like me out there. Why or how does one person become lonely? Sometimes we impose loneliness upon ourselves, sometimes ...

Indian authors ……… I don’t quite know why I picked up this book(Almost Single by Advaita Kala) from the Odyssey Bookshop when I went to Chennai in Nov 2007. But I just felt like picking it up on reading the story on the cover. The story inside lived up to the expectations I had on reading the cover. I am sure if my Mom or Dad had read it, they would never have liked it. But this is what refers to the mindset that a modern day working woman who is single or even otherwise might have. I truly agree with some of the observations made by the author. And some incidents are rather thought provoking. Like the matrimony site for example, these things are absolutely true all throughout India whether it is South, North, East or West. With young Indian authors like Chetan Bhagat, Advaita Kala and Tushar Raheja arriving on the circuit, Indian writing in English has become really much better and relates more to our contemporary living more than anything else. Hope more and more authors come up in t...

This is an article I like about Sachin : http://www.7days.ae/en/2007/03/28/sport-letters-25.html . The content is as follows: This is in response to some of the disheartening mails that came from the so-called Indian cricket fans maligning Sachin Tendulkar in 7DAYS on Sunday March 25th 2007.Recently when India won the series against West Indies and Sri Lanka the whole nation was agog with celebrations and suddenly India was touted as the top contenders to win the 2007 World Cup. Sachin Tendulkar Man of the Series in the series against West Indies. Do you think we would have made it to the 2003 World Cup finals without him?It was mainly his effort that made India a force to reckoned with.Why is he being blamed after all the effort this time?What happened to the other greats in the team?A World Cup should a collective team effort and not something won by a one-man army. Australia has proven this time and again. Why can't we learn a lesson from them?Why blame one person for the failu...