Jas Personal Blog
Jas
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Posts by Jas
Downtime Notice
Jul 19th
Dear Readers,
Lately some of my plugins have stopped upgrading themselves, so I got the hint – I need to upgrade to latest version of WordPress!
Am planning to install the new version today night IST. So the personal blog will not be available from 23:00 IST Jul 19th to 02:00 IST Jul 20th.
Thanks for the readership!
Update (01:00 IST) : The blog has been successfully updated!
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Jun 27th
Had tried to see the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind many times before but then every time it was at about 1AM in Friday or a Saturday night and I would leave the movie in very starting as it was too slow for that hour. All the while I have been hearing from people about how great the movie is, but never knew about the storyline or the theme for it. Surrealism has always attracted me, and am glad I watched this movie today!
Such a mentally gripping and vivid capture of surrealism can only come out of European mind, so it is no surprise to know the movie is directed by a French director Michel Gondry. The film uses elements of science fiction and neosurrealism to explore the nature of memory and romantic love.
Story
Emotionally withdrawn Joel Barish (Jim Carrey) and the emotionally dysfunctional, Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet) meet each other for the first time at a beach in Montauk, New York, and subsequently become romantically involved. However, they fall out of love with each other. Clementine discovers the services of Lacuna, Inc., a firm that is able to erase all specific memories from her mind (of Joel). Joel cames to know about this and himself opts to have his mind wiped of all memory of Clementine too.
During the process Joel realizes that his memories of Clementine are being erased in reverse order. As he experiences in his mind the earlier, happier times with her, he realizes that he wants to stop the procedure and keep the memories of Clementine. He begins to fight the mind wipe by trying to hide Clementine in the deeper memories of his mind but realizes that he is not able stop the mind wipe. Before his last memory of Clementine at the Montauk beach house, on the day they first met is erased, she tells him she loves him and says “meet me in Montauk.”
Joel wakes up the next day, decides to skip work, and goes to Montauk where he meets Clementine (who is now a stranger). Unaware of whom each other is, they quickly bond and begin to form a new relationship. After returning to the city, Joel drives Clementine to her home where Clementine finds her Lacuna file in the mail and plays the tape from it for her and Joel. Clementine travels to Joel’s apartment. She finds Joel with his own Lacuna tape and holding a drawing from their former relationship that was missed out when he handed over his possessions to Lacuna. They both become aware of their former relationship, and that it had flaws. The two recognize that their previous relationship may had problems based on their past relationships with other people, but decide not to let those failings prevent them from seeing each other… and trying again. The movie ends with them in a teasing snowball fight on the Montauk beach.
Personal Rant
We all have the memories that we will like to just forget; they say that it takes for wounds of hurt to heal and I would point that the yes the time would heal, but how much time is what we decide on our own and that is the main thing. Some people takes few days and others few years. We never forget our first love and for people from advanced culture – our first parents! Blessed are those who found spouses in their first love but others go through hell. Then there are people who have an embarrassing experience which they would just like to forget while others have trauma to be forgotten.
US researchers said in 2008 that they were able to selectively erase memories from mice in a laboratory, raising hopes human memory afflictions like post-traumatic stress syndrome can one day be cured. But then how many of us who would wish for these memories being deleted, be actually ready for deletion? These memories may be tough on heart but then they are lined with something we always cherish deep within. Yes, it is for the people who have suffered greater at the wrong hands, not for those who suffered at the right hands, for we the latter, shall keep and protect these memories deep within for ever.
How do I get time to blog?
Jun 15th
This is one question that is hurled towards me every now and then. It would start as that I saw your blog, nice posts… and then the inevitable pops up, “How do you get time to blog?”. It has not made me to ponder ever, but when one of my company’s director asked me this question, I gave him my usual answer of passion and interest, but it really made the right side of my brain to step in.
I remember reading a blog post of my blogger friend, Sara. Her husband had once marked her blogging as a hobby as she blogged during her free time only and she retorted, “NO!!- I think blogging is not something you can do when you find time. It is compulsive, it can be so dominating and demanding!! You get some idea in your head and your fingers start itching to type in-spare time or not, you have to do it.
It keeps on gnawing at you from within.
And its like a heavy rock you carry on yourselves and keep feeling the weight of it, unless its typed in and posted on the blog.”
I agree. Once we start sharing our thoughts via blog, it takes on from just a casual writing to an effort of a worthy reading (may not be true for all!). So I told my director that if he realised, most of the posts were done late in night or had many drafts before they could see the light of the server just because I would be too tired to complete it!
Personally, blogging keeps me alive. I need to breathe my thoughts, if my work gets monotonous then the urge heightens. We all are in a rat race and something that makes us a worthy in own eyes is very vital, and that is where my expressions come. I do not write the blog posts to get advertisement money (there aren’t ads anyway on blog as of now!), so expression becomes paramount.
Simply put, there are things which we need to do and there are things which we want to do. The second one can fuel the first and first one can kill the second. The level of compromise is the only thing that we decide over here.
Taliban – the social bastards
May 13th
You may ask me to mind my language, but if after reading this post you still believe in saying these words to me, I would ask you to mind your language.
One morning of Nov 2008, Shamsia Husseini and her sister were walking through the muddy streets to the local girls school when a man pulled alongside them on a motorcycle and posed what seemed like an ordinary question.
“Are you going to school?”
As they replied affirmative, the man pulled Shamsia’s burqa from her head and sprayed her face with burning acid. Three pairs of men on motorcycles began circling the school. One of the teams used a spray bottle, another a squirt gun, another a jar. They hit 11 girls and 4 teachers in all; 6 went to the hospital. Shamsia fared the worst. Scars, jagged and discolored, now spread across Shamsia’s eyelids and most of her left cheek. Her vision has started going blurry now, making it hard for her to read.
Atifa Ali, 20, left, Shamsia Husseini, 17, center, and Fatima Sakhi, 19
You may discount it off as an one off incident, after all Taliban and and other fundamentalists are making news for all wrong reasons daily. But let me bring more knowledge on latest events to your indifference. At least 98 people from an Afghan girls school were admitted to a hospital on Tuesday (yesterday) for headaches and vomiting in the third such episode in three weeks, officials and doctors said. Officials are suspecting gas poisoning.
Students were lining up outside their school in northeastern Afghanistan when one girl collapsed, said the school’s principal, Mossena, who was herself in a hospital bed gasping for breath as she described the event. She said a strange odor had filled the schoolyard. Then other girls started passing out. Ms. Mossena said she did not know what happened next because she collapsed and woke up in the main hospital in Muhmud Raqi, the capital of Kapisa Province, which lies just northeast of Kabul. The episode was the third in three weeks in which girls became sickened at school by what the authorities described as a gas cloud. A similar event took place late last month also in Parwan, when dozens of girls were hospitalized after being sickened by what Afghan officials said were strong fumes or a possible poison gas cloud.
Local mosques are splashed with posters shouting “Don’t Let Your Daughters Go to School”.
There was an ancient crime called Sati earlier in our customs of ancient India. This is a bigger crime as Sati was done under a belief, which itself was barbaric and savage. But such incidents are done under hatred and need for a male dominance sparked by the jealousy. This is worst! I do not believe in judgment day, but I hope it comes for these rotten souls where they get damned and anathemized to suffering themselves equivalent to what they have caused to every single human ever.
The impostors of God/Allah should see themselves to understand their own mentally ill psyche. One who can not value a lady as a mother, sister or a daughter; who can damn her to burqa to hide her body and face and then rape them throwing off the same burqas, who beat their own women and lecher around at the sight of other women, who teach the others the Allah/God’s way of living and then filth around in liquor and opium wilting the same lives of Allah/God’s children, who talk of eroding the other reliogions than theirs, but promises to leave if given money/Zazia, blackmailing their own self… this ONE is surely one of the worst social bastard of our time.
What answer do we give to them?
“My parents told me to keep coming to school even if I am killed,” said Shamsia, 17, in a moment after class. Her mother, who like nearly all of the adult women in the area, is unable to read or write says, “The people who did this to me don’t want women to be educated. They want us to be stupid things.” And I can not agree any more with her.
I do not know what Islam Taliban is teaching, what Hinduism these Sena people are preaching and what sikkhism the ‘Babbar Khalsa’ was teaching. Any teaching where a person hurts some one else, where a decision of one is imposed on other is a stinking fake teaching.
Sources:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/13/world/asia/13school.html?_r=1&ref=global-home
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/14/world/asia/14kandahar.html?_r=1
I dreamed a dream in time gone by
Apr 23rd
I have been seeing this particular YouTube link from Vaneet, a close friend of mine, as his status message and GTalk pings kept throwing this URL at me. Coming from a person who is really passionate about the dreams and pursuit of them, I should have guessed it.
The video is of Susan Boyle singing ‘I Dreamed a Dream’ song from Les Miserables, the longest-running West End musical in history. Based on a french novel by same name, this musical, set in early 19th-century France, follows the intertwining stories of a cast of characters as they struggle for redemption and revolution.
The video has become a rage it seems on YouTube, because the lady who comes to sing it gives a background about herself first to public in the famous ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ show. Picture this, an old English lady from a village down Brighton (it is more rural than any other place near London), 47 years old as per her claim, comes on stage and is sneered at contemptuously by two of the three judges and many among crowd. But the moment she starts singing, the very first few words evoke a strong turbulence in the very folks. Singing at the age of 47, these lyrics do grab a lot more gravity (check the lyrics at the end of the post).
I have already put in almost four years of my life in work and almost all of rest in studies, and dreams have been the oxygen for me. But lately I have started having other thoughts, of leaving the control to the Almighty and take retirement from dreaming. Somehow it seems the more you try to control the things, the more awful you feel when things just do not move in positive direction. So the lyrics left a very intense impact on me, leaving me hold a Requiem for the Dreams I dreamed of changing the world as per my wishes!
I dreamed a dream in time gone by
When hope was high,
And life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving.
Then I was young and unafraid
When dreams were made and used,
And wasted
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung,
No wine untasted.
But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hopes apart
As they turn your dreams to shame.
But there are dreams that cannot be
And there are storms
We cannot weather…
I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I’m living
So different now from what it seems
Now life has killed
The dream I dreamed.
Youtube link for the old village lady who has taken the Web2.0 by storm!
The day I met Francisco D’Souza
Apr 11th
Today we had CEO of Cognizant Technology Solutions (my current employer) visit us in company campus. The 6k+ employees were all bubbled up to see the one of the youngest CEOs of a company of this scale. Having heard about him from management, followed his internal blog, I was not having much of an image about this guy. Most of the business dailies of today were shouting about Cognizant being a contender for Satyam Computer Services Ltd, especially with Wilbur Ross making statement about a joint bid with Cognizant for Satyam. With only three bidders left in fray (L&T Infotech and Tech Mahindra being other two), the campus is surely abuzz around the coffee machines. And not to forget that Satyam was the one which mentored Cognizant, a joint venture between Dun & Bradstreet (76%) and Satyam (24%), when it was formed. That surely had put more focus on the man with the red button – Francisco D’Souza.
Francisco D'Souza
Now what would be the image of a CEO we would have? A wise old man, silver or white hair elegantly showing the years of experience and an air of formal composure which stamps the authority. Francisco was totally different. Still looking like a homely man in mid thirties as in this picture on right (his actual age is 40), he brought that shine in the eyes of all his associates (and am not dramatizing!). Damn it man! Such a young CEO? I mean we have such CEOs for self styled start ups, but a global giant of almost 3billion USD… this young!
As he answered few questions about his own personal life, the image of a high handed CEO came crashing down. He was such a plain person with simple straight answers, even his accent wasn’t ‘phorein‘ (slang for foreign – as in western). A son of an Indian Foreign Services (IFS) employee, he got a great global exposure as his father kept shifting as per his job cycles. He talked about how when his family moved to Hong Kong, he could find only one English medium university and that too taught only night classes, so he started working in mornings. That is when he taught himself programming to make some money on the side as a contract coder, something which was going to change his life forever. And he says that life’s best moments came to him by chance.
That was teens. At 24, he was already a part of Cognizant Technology Solutions, an American it services company that was created to leverage the India advantage. At 33 he got elected as Chief Operating Officer of the same company and four years later, he was promoted as CEO of it. What stuck me was that he said that when CEO position was offered to him he first thought of his family. He understood what would it mean to take up the CEO role, and for him the family came first (he has a boy and a girl). Only after he was convinced he could juggle both, did he say yes to then CEO – Lakshmi Narayanan. And he lives by that even today, saying , “Children do not need too much time from you, just quality time.” And he makes sure he spends quality time with them before they go to bed, when he is at home.
What hit me and most of us the most was that when asked what would you advise to your associates, his reply was prompt and precise – “Take risks”. The questioner had to wait for few seconds and ask back, “That is all?”. “Yes!”, Francisco replied with an assurance and smile, the whole auditorium was filled with sounds of claps.
Addendum
This is my third employer, first and only one post MBA and I already have seen three acquisition headlines about my employer! When I was at Adobe Systems, ‘we’ took over Macromedia. Being an ardent user of products of both , I was just gaping at the headliner. Coming to Cognizant in July 2007, it announced the acquisition of Market Rx, a pharma analytics firm, some time later. There was some more acquisition I guess by Cognizant between that and now. And now Cognizant is already in news as one of the three bidders for Satyam Computer Services!
I sure am a good catalyst for inorganic growth!!
When Atlas Shrugged
Mar 12th
Atlas Shrugged
Recession has had its effect in strangest of places. Economist has posted how in this turbulent time, college students approaching Ayn Rand’s legendary ‘Atlas Shrugged‘ novel. When biggest of the pillars of a highly relied upon system start crumbling, its natural for the new generation to have ideological shifts and their questioning of the earlier established philosophies.
THE ECONOMIST — Reviled in some circles and mocked in others, Rand’s 1957 novel of embattled capitalism is a favorite of libertarians and college students. Lately, though, its appeal has been growing. According to data from TitleZ, a firm that tracks bestseller rankings on Amazon, an online retailer, the book’s 30-day average Amazon rank was 127 on February 21st, well above its average over the past two years of 542. On January 13th the book’s ranking was 33, briefly besting President Barack Obama’s popular tome, “The Audacity of Hope.”
Economic news vs Atlas Shrugged sales
Furthermore, says The Economist, data from TitleZ.com show recent sales spikes of the book coinciding with major political events, such as the passing of the stimulus plan (see image).
The spikes, The Economist surmises, happen when people (including a handful of bloggers, politicians, and economists) notice the eerie similarities between real-life events — like the recent spate of sea pirate attacks — and the scenarios Rand described in her book.
Hmm… interesting! But there is more…
Have a look at the Google trends, we had a first spike in its search when New York Post talk about the rumor that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie may team up for ‘Atlas Shrugged’ movie. Even if novel’s sale is rising, it means there has been a rise in information about novel. But am curious to know, how much of it was by word of mouth and that too in context of philosophy and not the movie etc.
And wind up the post here is a surprise – Google trends reports that after US, it was people from India who searched the term most! Howzzat?
Note: I dont know about others but, yes, I myself am reading this very novel these days!
See related Freakonomics post and Carpe Diem post.
Obama’s effect on Indian elections
Mar 11th
Obama has become a global symbol for hope and change (for good). And with depressed economy, unfaithful leaders in power, silent but resilient people looking for a change, its but natural for Indian political parties to exploit the “Change” plank of Obama and recycle it in Indian context. For every second mention of “Hope” and “Change” in political speeches, Obama’s name somehow is being shoved into the speech. Lets see how they are doing it.
Politics in Andhra Pradesh, India
Well am in this state right now and somehow it feels that this state’s parties are the one that have been bitten the most by the Obama bug. Congress party is in power and TDP is praying for anti-incumbency swing. A famous south Actor, Chiranjeevi, has seen an opportunity to launch his new party – Praja Rajyam Party (PRP) (while still being undecided about what really his agenda is). He is the one who situationally can use the Change plank the most and he duly tries it.
Obama campaigns for Chiranjeevi
Unknown to the word ‘copyright’, PRP has gone to use what we call as Associative Marketing. Few days back I saw this billboard. Written in local language it means:
“Today, in America it’s Obama”
“Tomorrow, in Andhra Pradesh it’s going to be Chiranjeevi”.
“The only thing people expect is “Change””.
-Praja Rajyam Party (PRP)
Whoa! That is funny! Lets see what happens when prez Obama has a look at this billboard. Am sure if he does, Chiranjeevi would suddenly realise how bad the Rs is faring vs US Dollar!
Immediately following Barack Obama’s historic win in the US, Chiranjeevi had announced that he will do in Andhra Pradesh, India what Obama did in the USA and win in the elections. Now how much he really knows about Obama’s campaign and actions is really going to be interesting and hard not to laught at, only if he would spill the beans of his heart!
Mr. Chandrababu Obama
The second party in waiting (for win), TDP, has already decided to follow the grass roots movement that Obama managed to setup in the USA. And a local newspaper, Eenadu, has given all the support with this (forged) photo graph on left. I mean… leave it! Here is the link to Eenadu news article.
Both of these campaigns have acually nothing to do with Obama as a person or his ideals or even his startegy for win in elections. Its just another opportunity as seen by the opportunistic regional parties who have no idea what the cyber laws are or how they are making a joke of themselves in educated class. Worst, I dont think they will ever know!
Advani takes a clue from Obama
Coming to the national front, the largest Opposition party of India, BJP, has taken the mantra from Obama – use internet. For months now, the Post reports, a core group of political strategists, computer specialists and management graduates have been poring over Obama’s speeches and web site, his campus of change and, of course, the rhetoric of change, to nail down how Advani’s campaign can be run to inspire India’s untapped potential of young voters.The BJP seeks to project Advani as the harbinger of change who will replace this despair with hope.
‘About 100 million first-time voters will enter the election landscape next year. That is a staggering number of young people. And the Indian youth is impatient for change,’ Sudheendra Kulkarni, former journalist and one of Advani’s key strategists told the Post. ‘We want to project the image of Advani around the idea of change the same way that Obama’s message resonated with people’s hunger for change.’
LK Advani, BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, has not only launched an official website in lkadvani.in targeted at pitching him as the prime minister for the upcoming elections but also launched a blog on the website in order to connect with the internet audience. He is also using aggressive Search engine marketing campaigns to promote the website. Even the ads are being targeted at causing a word of mouth effect as they are being placed at highly used sites like technorati.com. (My older blog itself had been filled with Advani ads!)
You think that very tech savvy? Hear this – Going the Obama way to reach out to millions of people, the BJP has launched Advani TV via IPTV technique to popularize Advani. In the US presidential polls, each and every step, right from Obama’s candidature acceptance speech to his victory speech was watched the world over through this technology.
Within all this mayhem, am really curious to see how these people react to the results once the elections are over!
Sources:
- http://hemanthology.wordpress.com/2009/02/04/obama-in-hyderabad/
- http://blogs.inspions.net/2008/11/15/obama-inspires-chandra-babu-too/
- http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1208950
The New Address
Feb 13th
Its quite fascinating to think that I have done almost all those things that we would be doing for a change of house. I was happy with my small old home, where I had done lot of decoration which had taken months of minor adjustments, major overhauls, little brushing around the corner and few showpieces here and there. But then friends told me how the newly constructed city of WordPress offered ravishing apartments and bungalows with various new age facilities that we aspire for. I saw it and actually found that they were damn nice, things were efficient, lot of people were living there and kept sharing goodies between themselves for ease of each other. In short it was enchanting.
So here am I, I have just moved in. Once I had the structure suited to myself, I had to get some painting done. As I have moved from an apartment to a bungalow (domain name), there is a lot to be done. I am still setting up new rooms. I am yet to introduce a formal gate, the mailbox and the outgoing RSS feeds.
I will keep you guys updated but just to spill few beans, I will be working this V-day at my home to experiment with the entry gate. There will be many more experiments this time, after all its a bungalow!
Do keep telling me your views on the design , content and anything on this site/blog.
Memoirs of a fool’s youth
Dec 7th
You know what is the difference between some bad incidents and bad memories? The incidents you may had forgotten but the latter one will be still haunting you. Shown more or less aptly in the psychological drama – Flashbacks of a Fool, Daniel Criag plays a fading star Joe Scott who burns his hollow life with coke, sex and drinks only to come back and face himself one day when he gets the news of death of his childhood best friend, Boots’ death. This takes the protagonist, and the movie, into an extended flashback to a sea-side town in 1970′s Britain.
In his teenage Joe is seen enjoying his childhood with Boots. As a teenage boy he gets in a tentative relationship with a school-girl called Ruth. Although he loves Ruth from heart he takes the life on a casual note and ends up with a guilt from an unintended accident which leads to the death of a small girl. Unable to confront himself, he runs from away from England on the day of funeral and lands up in US.
Movie shifts to present and Joe decides to confront his fear and returns to England for a difficult meeting with Ruth, who had gone on to marry Boots and has been a left a poor widow now.
The characters have been played very distinctively and director makes sure each one justifies his/her presence. The initial dialogues of each character defines his/her individuality markedly. In the outset only the following dialogue vividly explains the character of Joe.
Ophelia (helper/secretary): Don’t you have any philosophies in life other than self indulgence?
Joe: I really do not like looking at myself from your eyes. Your happiness doesn’t interest me, mine does.
Also you cant help but appreciate how the backdrop has been chosen for all the shots. The fact that the director Baillie Walsh has earlier worked in music video direction does have a positive impact on the movie, as its visually and symphonically more appealing than average. And the song that has been his favourite in his teenage years have been using not only as the backdrop but also as the theme for the movie. “That song was a key to the writing of the script because the lyrics are so pertinent to the script.”, he adds. This song, “If there is something” of Roxy Music is first played when young Ruth brings Joe to her home and both dance on this song. Lyrics of the ending part of the song goes like:
Shake your hair girl with your ponytail,
Takes me right back when you were young.
Throw your precious gifts into the air,
Watch them fall down when you were young.
Lift up your feet and put them on the ground,
You used to walk upon when you were young.
Takes me right back when you were young.
Throw your precious gifts into the air,
Watch them fall down when you were young.
Lift up your feet and put them on the ground,
You used to walk upon when you were young.
Young Ruth dancing to “If there is something”
The expressions and dance movements have been done so elegantly that the viewer catches the song even deeper. You may not like the song in first minute, in case you download and hear, but the gripping saxophone and guitar mix comes from 1:30mins past start and then the late 70′s British glam era grabs you with force. I personally felt the song did justify to be the theme or the storyline did justify the song. Later on when Joe has to meet Ruth, which he never does, he leaves her few pounds and a letter with the lines, ”Shake your hair girl with your ponytail, Takes me right back when you were young.”, reading which she breaks out in tears marking end of the movie.
It is not a kind of movie that will appeal to everybody and thus has a limited viewership, but if you can connect with the plot, its surely worth the money for one time.
