The most informed Indians ?

India today says Keralites are among India's most informed.

The statistics they bring up to support this are eye opening. 24 out of the top 25 towns with the highest newspaper reading population in India are from kerala. As for radio listeners, Kerala has the top 26 spots. That is as clear a domination as it could be.

After all this, It is sad to see the state lagging behind many others when it comes to economic prosperity. Communism must be the the main reason for this or is it ? Any ideas ?.

The other day, I was reading through this article and the accompanying comments. All I will say is that I am amused. Big time. Any comments ?

Marriage is a word that is coming up frequently in my friends circle. Society expects you to do certain things at certain times. Now is the time for marriage, it says and so it will be.

Wonder who it is going to be and what is she going to be like.

Anyways don't be surprised, if poetry makes a re-appearance on these pages. I am but polishing my meagre skills in anticipation of a now seemingly imminent feminine presence in my life.

What better way to a woman's heart than through a few flaterring lines of self written poetry :)

My Pithamagan review

I saw Pithamagan, Bala's much hyped film, yesterday.

Before I talk of this film, it is important to take a look at the kind of films that Bala has done in the past : Sethu and Nanda.

The best description for Sethu would be “morbid”, The film disturbs you at a fundamental level.

God knows enough films with “everything is fine and everyone are happy” endings are dished out every year by our directors. Rarely do characters which are out of the common, stories which haven't been explored and situations out of the ordinary get tackled on the screen. To tell such a story and to tell it in such a way that it is a commercial success and not just appreciated by a few “intellectual” critics shows the director's calibre. Afterall, film making is just the new age revision of the age hold art of storytelling in an engaging manner. To succeed in holding the audience's attention with such a morbid story speaks eons about the director's capabilities.

If you are the kind who looks for a hidden deeper meaning in everything, you will appreciate the way Bala deals, albeit in an exagerrated manner, with madness inherent in every love story, in Sethu.

Nanda's uplifting moment is Raj Kiran's scene where he proclaims “every human who fights evil is God” with a tinge of Bhagavat Gita thrown in for good measure. The exact opposite ideology of Kamal's “Love is God” Anbe Sivam. It was saved from the mediocrity of a thousand similar movies by the out of this world cinematography, Surya's arrival as an exceptional actor, Bala's deft direction and this particular scene.

Now comes Pithamagan. Bala doesn't deviate from his favourite theme : Tragedy coupled with unusual characters.

Porraying a character with well defined mannerisms is an easy job for any actor. More difficult is to portray a “normal” human being which calls for a subtler treatment. Kamal excels in the former while Mohanlal excels in the later. Audiences around the world tend to lap up and appreciate the former a lot more than the latter which is indeed a shame.

Anyways, coming back to the film on hand, Vikram does a good job at living the character of chittan with all the exagerrated mannerisms you would expect in such a character but let us not forget the excellent job done by the others like surya, laila and sangeetha.

A lot of questions remain unanswered, the most important of which is why does Vikram end up behaving as if being caught up in a time warp. Surely, anyone who ekes out a living as a cremator would have had semi-regular human contact ( the relatives of the dead ). To show him as a “normal” person with a dead heart would have lifted the film to a different level. Maybe the down to earth sensibility of a malayalam director would have conjured up such a story. Jayaram in a movie remarks with characteristic humour that everything is a bit exagerrated when it comes to the people of tamil nadu. In doing so, he makes a telling remark on the inherent differences between the two states to be found in everything from day to day behavior to the acting styles of a kamal and mohanlal.

All I know is this. Bala is a brilliant director with I suspect a tinge of madness. Eventually, he will come around and let his hero to be a normal human being. I will wait for that day. Patiently.

Meanwhile, go watch Pithamagan. There is indeed a method in Bala's madness.

PS : I am a big admirer of both Kamal and Mohanlal. My remark about their differences is not intended to be a flamebait for either side.

Capitalism is not the answer

I love a good debate. Occasionally, even flame wars will do. If you read my comments elsewhere on the net, you will, more often than not, see me take a contrarian view to the popular opinion, just to liven up the debate.

Something of a prankster ( slashdotters might prefer flamebait ), you might call me. Occasionally, I step beyond the line and get burned but then that is an occupational hazard.

It is my belief that more can be learned by seeing the issue from both sides than passionately sticking to a single viewpoint. Everything is relative, anyways. In my school days, we used to do this fun activity where the same guy had to defend and criticize a topic, switching viewpoints at the sound of a bell. “Just a minute”, I think it was called.

I learned this form of debate growing up in kerala discussing films. Yes, films. Keralites devote ( atleast used to ) an unusual amount of time discussing the question : “Mamooty, Mohanlal : Who is better ?” Since I didn't have a preference either way, I used to oppose the prevaling opinion in the crowd that I was in, for the sake of a debate :-)

I think, it is this middle of the road approach, that made me an Agnostic. I enjoy riling up atheists by asking them to explain the fundamental issue about the origin of the universe ( “How something can never come out of nothing” ). To theists, I normally ask, “If God exists, why can't he do a better job at proving he exists”.

Ofcourse, there is a problem with not having strong principles, best said by the quote,
“If you don't stand for anything, you will fall for everything”.

Still, I prefer it this way.

Why am I writing all this ? I have been part of several debates on the future of america's economy on public forums lately. I have written both extremely positive and highly negative predictions based on the type of the forum I am in ( the opposite view to the popular opinion ).

Paul krugman and others well known columnists have been extremely critical about Bush's tax cuts and the burgeoning US budget, current account and trade deficits. Paul krugman infact goes on to say, in one of his regular columns in NYT, that America possibly can face an argentina style crisis if tax cuts are not rolled back and government spending curbed. Coming as it is from the man considered to be the world's foremost expert on currency crises, it has caused widespread concern.

These columns about “america needs a billion a day in FDI to finance the ever increasing debt of the country” or the “fundamental shift in the economy which has resulted in a jobless recovery” get endlessly discussed in public forums with ridiculous suggestions like “Let us build a fortress around america and ban all imports” thrown around as possible solutions.

It is fun to occassionally step in and point out that for the last few decades, america benefited most from globalisation. Now is payback time.

What americans are most concerned is the apparent lack of care shown by big companies when sending jobs offshore. They forget Capitalism is not driven by ethics but by profits. Capitalism is inherently cannibalistic in nature, a dog eats dog mentality as well chronicled in the history of microsoft.

There is already increasing evidence that although the US GDP is picking up, the benefits will not reach the “common” man but will stay at the top level in the hands of the already rich. Fortune's latest list of the 400 richest americans seems to confirm this when it says that the rich got richer. Not consistent with the situation on the ground. Infact, The word “Oligarchy” has started making the rounds.

Ofcourse, when I point out all these on the “Nothing can touch US” forums, I get very few people to agree with me. More often than not, I get flamed to hell :-)

I like the socialist welfare economies of europe. They have taken the middle road between capitalism and communism and seemed non the worse for it. There is a serious risk of deflation for a few of them but then that might be because of the export dependance on the states.

China is an interesting study. Perhaps, theirs is the hardest task of all. To preserve a communist styled leadership while having a capitalist economy. For now, the western MNCs are interested in tapping china's huge and seemingly endless supply of $100 a month cheap labour. Once popular issues like China's human rights track record have conveniently been relegated to the background in a relentless pursuit to improve their bottomline, a popular buzzword in a recession. If china manages to pull it off inspite of all these, it will be a miracle unmatched in the annals of human history. Only time will tell.

Finally, there is India. If there is any award for the country with the maximum potential, we will walk away with it hands down. Sadly, the potential rarely gets realised. Unfortunately, the very diversity that we are so proud of is proving to be our bane. A collective decision is more or less impossible in our scheme of things.

Like our cricket team's reliance on sachin, will we will always end up depending on individual brilliance ( Naidu ? ) to save us at the end of the day.

Luckily, we seem to be finding a new hero ( anju george ? ) regularly these days. Maybe, it is a tide of better things to come.

All these forums did help in increasing my limited knowledge of how the global economy works. Till I lose interest, my occassional ramblings on politics/economics will continue. Anyone wants to take a contrarian view ?

Why communism must go away

Having lived most of my life in kerala, I ( like most others ) had a bias towards communism. Communism is an easy philosophy to like, One which appeals to a comman's man mind instantly.

I used to write speeches for the “wannabe communist leaders” in our college, most of whom sadly hadn't even bothered to read the Das Capital let alone understand it before hitting the campaign trail and and making promises bordering on the absurd ( yes, even at the college level, communists have a penchant for making populist promises ).

It takes a while for the impracticalities of communism to sink in. Atleast, It took a long while in my case. But eventually I had to give in. Communism is not practical however good it might sound.

But apparently most of the oldguard at the Communist party of India still don't have enough common sense in them to realise that communism has failed to deliver its promises. By a long margin.

What prompted me to write this post was the big fight on NDTV over the perils of the disinvestment process.

Here was sitaram yechuri, sitting with a big sheef of papers, making statement after statement about the perils of disinvestment. The whole audience, infact anyone who was watching that programme, could see the hollowness in his arguments. But was he willing to concede a point ? Was he even remotely willing to compromise ? No Sir. Not at all.

All he did was to repeat the same argument a thousand times. It is suffice to say that it was a sorry sight.

Chidambaram, on the other hand, was lucid and put forward a compelling argument on why certains PSUs must be privatised for the betterment of the people. Or why, “Government should not be in the business of doing business”.

It was suggested by someone in the audience that the AAI with a cash kitty of over 2300 crores could do the modernisation of the airports itself. Obviously, the guy who made this statement, has no clue about the amount of investment needed to create a modern airport.

It was said that HPCL & BPCL are strategically important to India. IOC ( 191 in fortune 500, the only Indian company in the 500 ) dwarfs both of these by a long margin and is the primary supplier to the defence.

Do we really need 30 odd nationalised banks ? Do we really need three big nationalised petroleum companies ? Does the government really need to run star hotels ? Simple questions with a straightforward “NO” as an answer.

Unfortunately, the likes of sitaram yechuri will not understand Or don't want to understand or even better, They understand but don't want to admit that they were wrong. All these years.

So sit they will, in front of Posters of Lenin, talk day and night about an outdated idealogy and hope that their union brothers don't see the obvious hollowness in their arguments.

Meanwhile here is my favourite quote about our politicians these days,
“India will grow inspite of its politicians.”

Interesting outsourcing/BPO marketing strategy using blogs

Telegenisys, an ITES company is using blogs in a big way to run an advertising campaign centred around outsourcing to india.

They have three blogs running on this topic,

callcenterinindia.blogspot.com/,
outsourcingtoindia.blogspot.com/ and
bpoindia.blogspot.com/.

Interesting. This is the first time I have come across a company, especially an indian company, coming up with a marketing campaign based on blogs.

Wonder whether this will work ?

It would have if they had run this on their corporate website rather than using blogspot.

'Let Us Keep Aside Non-Issues' by Abdul Kalam

“On the eve of the 57th Independence Day, I extend to you my best wishes for your happiness and prosperity. My salutations to all of you at home and abroad. Let us on this occasion remember with gratitude the selfless service rendered by the personnel of the armed forces and also those of the para-military forces, who guard our frontiers on the land, at the sea and in the air.

Let me dedicate this Independence Day broadcast to those great souls who pioneered the Independence movement. We remember them with reverence and gratitude, not for their religious, political, language, caste and creed affiliations, but for the 90-year saga of sacrifices to realise the singular and noble vision of heralding an independent India.”

Read more.

Needless to say, I am a big fan of Abdul Kalam. It would have been far far better if he had been the prime minister rather than the president though.

India on par with china ?

“But Khanna and Huang say India is streets ahead of China.

”The speed with which India is catching up is due to its own efficient deployment of capital and China's inefficiency, symbolised by all the money squandered on SOEs (state-owned enterprises). And China's misallocation of resources is likely to become a big drag on the economy in the years ahead.“

Most importantly, the authors say it's wrong to get distracted by the big picture.

”Statistics,“ they argue, ”tell only part of the story — the macro-economic story. At the micro level, things look quite different. There, India displays every bit as much dynamism as China.“

There have been comparisons between India and China before. But this study comes at a time when the Indian economic story is suddenly looking more impressive than it has for years.

It would be rash to say we're on the threshold of a giant economic boom but there are promising signs.

For a start, take a look at the feverish construction around the country. More than 24 million sq ft of office space will be added in the next 36 months.

That's the equivalent of six Nariman Points.

At the same time some 250 malls and multiplexes are going up around the country. About 2.9 million sq ft of retail space is being added in southern cities like Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad alone. There's also a housing boom and the government's road building projects are in full swing.
A great deal will depend on software and business process outsourcing industries that will be employing about 2 million people by 2007, according to forecasts. About 80 per cent of the office construction is for the software or BPO industries.

Other industries too are accelerating sharply. More cars are being sold than ever before. Newly listed Maruti has just announced profit growth of 971 per cent. So is India about to take the Great Leap Forward?
It may not be evident when travelling down the country's potholed roads but Khanna and Huang seem to think so.”

Read more.

Google ROCKS !

I guess, It is obvious. Everyone knows it. Any other company would have been content to lay back and rest on their laurels. But they are not that kind. No Sir. They keep coming up with fantastic ideas like Google news and the latest one about which I will be talking about.

I signed up yesterday for their latest product : Adsense.

What is it ?

It delivers targeted advertisements to your website. For years, online advertisers have been talking about targeted ads but nobody has ever really delivered. And google has. In a big way.

Just take a look at the ads on this page about kerala. The ads are about kettuvallam houseboats and the karakathi beach house ! That is how targeted it can get. And I didnt have to do a thing. Google understood the content of the page and delivered the best ad for it. Infact, the ads were so targeted that I felt very tempted to click them myself ! In the end, I did a google search and learned more about them :-)

This page about a US VISA bill affecting indians has ads about green cards and immigration.

When I saw these, I knew Google had a winner on their hands. This will change the online advertising industry in a way nobody could have thought about. And it came from the most unlikely direction.

Ofcourse, there are still a few issues. This site's home page is not getting very targeted ads. I read in a forum that a page listing download mirrors was getting ads about lady's mirrors :) But I am confident that google will solve them sooner than latter.

And finally, we will have ads which are related to and enhance the content of the page. Way to go !

So if you have a website and want to make some money, go ahead and partner with google.

Anbe Sivam

When I started this journal a few months back, I had but a vague idea about what to write on these pages. The idea was to mostly write around the two topics close to my heart : Philosophy and Movies. Now Philosophy was a recurring theme during the early days of this site. But strangely other than just passing references to films, It was mostly relegated to the background.

Why did this happen ? It was not as if I was seeing fewer films. Infact, ever since we bought our VCD player, We have been absolutely living on films. The real reason was the fact that I did not see a single film which was worth writing about.

That changed last week.

I happened to see a film which was a perfect blend of philosophy, realistic acting and the fine art of film making. I am talking about the latest kamal - madhavan starrer Anbe Sivam.

Now, I am not a big fan of kamal. Never was. The arrogance so clearly etched on his face is a major put off for me. But ever so often, Kamal makes me admit ( albeit grudgingly ) that he is the best at what he does.

The philosophy of the film is best explained by the words of the title song,
...
Aathigam pessum adiyaarkelaam sivamme anbaakkum,
Naathigam pessum nallavarrukko anbe sivamaakkum.

Yaar yaar sivam ?
Nee naan sivam.

A rough translation goes something like this,

For the theists, God is love.
For the good among the atheists, Love is God.

Who here is God ?
You and me.


The story is written by Kamal as is the screenplay. He has sung a couple of songs as well out of which the haunting title song stands out. Madhavan is but a tool in kamal's hands which he uses effectively to his advantage.

Kamal's character changes from that of a bumbling idiot in the first few scenes to a communist union leader with a artistic vein in the middle scenes to a god like figure in the last few scenes. In the last scene, as kamal walks away into the horizon, we are left with no option but to stand up and salute the indomitable spirit of a man from whom life has taken away so much but still manages to smile.

I wouldn't describe anything more about the story because any words that I can conjure up here wouldn't be enough. The film tells a philosophy that is best seen and understood.

When Love lives in your mind, you are God.

Vijay Chegu

It must be one of God's greatest gifts. To be able to smile always.

Suresh has it. Now meet another who has the gift : Vijay Chegu.

Chegu is my anti-depressant. Whenever I feel lousy, I just go and sit beside him. Within minutes, I would catch myself smiling and soon some of his happiness would have rubbed off on me.

In a world where being a cynic has aquired fashionable proportions, It is indeed great to see someone who is genuinely happy. In a world where lines like enjoy life to the fullest are freely tossed around, it feels great to see someone who actually practises it.

Someone who is technically proficient, Chegu is a big lover of films and music. Psst... Rumour has it that Chegu is searching for a life partner. So if you are a girl and looking, you know where to go to find a sensitive young man wih brains ;-)

Ladies and Gentlemen, Join me in welcoming Chegu into the blogging community.

Nucleus.

I am a big fan of nucleus ( which is what is used as the backend script for this site ).

Why ?

The first choice to be made when anyone looks for a weblog script is to decide whether to go for static publishing or dynamic publishing. Dynamic publishing can be a big overhead if you have a lot of visitors and the database chokes on the number of connections per second. On the other hand, static publishing can be a big pain if you change your templates or skins as frequently as I do.

I did play around with movable type for some time but found it incredibly slow. Again, the fact that 2.51 might be the last free version ( ? ) put me off. I didnt want to get stuck with something which will not move forward unless I pay for it.

I found nucleus to be a well-designed script with a really cool plugin interface which enables me to extend the script in whatever direction that I want without bothering karma :-)

I have been writing a few plugins for nucleus like the Macros plugin or the Ping pong plugin or a few others about which you can find more information here.

Today, I have coded up something which I wanted for a really long time. Click on the comments link and check out my new threaded comments plugin. This is alpha code. So please be gentle with it. If you come across any errors, kindly send me a mail with a small explanation of what went wrong.

Enjoy :-)

Dhirubhai Ambani

Small is not a word the Ambanis know, is it ? Just take a look at their Infocomm launch. When others think of rolling out services in one metro or at the most a state, this company thinks of rolling out the service for the entire country right down to 6,40,000 villages. Amazing.

I have always been a big fan of Dhirubhai Ambani. The classic rags to riches story. A man out of nowhere with just a few dreams in his head goes on to head the biggest company from India. It beats the wildest of stories imagined by our bollywood directors. And his sons seem intent on carrying on from where he left. Just amazing.

I own a few shares of Reliance just for the heck of it. Just wanted to be a small part of this extraordinary company ;-)

Here is wishing them all the best of luck in the coming year. I will be taking their service in Bangalore as and when it becomes available. What about you ?

The Bangalore Blogger's Meet.

It all started with a mistake.

Me and suresh went to the Prestige Meridien Coffee Day instead of the bombay store one :(. After carefully scrutinizing the crowd there, we came to the conclusion that the big fat guy smoking a cigarette and watching us intently was not Sathish :-)

It turned out that we were right for Sathish was patiently waiting for us on the steps of the Bombay store, with a warm smile on his lips. It is another fact that I ended up scanning him from top to bottom in the hope of finding a camera (which was what Arun was supposed to have in his hands) :-) Fortunately, Sathish indentified me correctly and so we got started on what was going to be a long night.

A few words about Sathish. An extremely warm and easy going guy, He is a pleasure to talk to. A genuine nice guy which is indeed the rarest of things in this kaliyug :-) We went about the first few minutes chattering about our jobs, blogs and what not. Soon it dawned on us that the others have not come yet. It is indeed frustrating to stand waiting for someone without knowing how the person whom you are waiting for looks like :( Anyway, at this moment, indra chose to make his entry. Since we know each other well, There was no problem in identification.

We continued our chat for well over twenty odd minutes only to notice that the time was around 6:40 and none of the others were in sight. At this point, by mere chance, I happened to notice a canon camera in the hands of a tall bearded guy. I must admit that at this point, overjoyed at finally seeing arun, I ran towards him and shouting his name. I dont know what went inside his head but he took a step backwards :-) Soon though, we shook hands with him and harris and found out to our great dismay that arun and harris were standing at the other side of the store from 6:00 PM onwards. A quick phone call to ayesha confirmed the fact that she was on her way. Soon she made her entry with a beige colored bag, the color of which was fiercely debated upon during the whole night :-)

So started the Bangalore Blogger's meet.

The next few minutes were spend on top floor of the bombay store discussing varied stuff like the color of ayesha's bag and the interesting birth date of harris ( Dec 25th ). Unfortunately, Sathish had to leave early lest sooraj throws a tantrum at not seeing his favourite person in the whole world :-)

We continued a few moments there and then decided to move to a place where we can get something to eat. After a lot of thought, we settled upon the ICH. The waiters were not exactly pleased when they saw a bunch of people walking in towards closing time and made their displeasure known by scaring ayesha :-)

At this point, I must digress and say a few things about the others. I have already talked about Sathish and chose not to talk about Suresh and Indra ( good friends :-) ).

Arun is a tall, well built, bearded guy with a serious air to him. He exudes a quiet confidence and a serious manner. A measured talk, a deep voice and a silent yet strong presence marks him out. He was ofcourse the photographer for the night. With his skills, We are all bound to look like bollywood heroes :-)

Harris is someone who reminds me very much of vignesh. I am sure they will become best buddies if and when they meet up. The best word to describe him will be cool. A genuinely funny person, he was making us all laugh with his interesting comments and funny one liners :-) I must say that he was a tad pre-occupied with all those pretty girls walking past us but hey so was I :-) Towards the end of the day or should I say the night, We even had a decent technical discussion. All in all, A really cool guy, just like his blog :-)

And finally, a bit about Ayesha, the oldest member of the group at 27. She is a librarian which incidentally is something that I wanted to be during my childhood days :-) She comes as a intelligent person with a learned background and a lot of reading behind her. Unfortunately, Since we were at opposite ends of the table, we couldn't get much time to talk during the whole meet.

During the course of the dinner at MCH Arun, Ayesha and Harris expressed an interest in starting a community blog centred around indians. I expressed doubts at whether this will take off since I already had a failed community blog behind me :-) What do you guys think ? Is it worth starting one ? Any ideas on that ?

So after finishing a small dinner at ICH, we parted ways in front of the foodworld with solemn promises of keeping in touch and meeting again.

All in all, A night to remember and hopefully the first of many to come.

chit chat

Been blogging for over eight months now. A pre-occupation with design and frequent changes in the backend/host has meant that writing has taken a back seat.

Note to myself : write more.

Sreekanth, Please get back to blogging.

Bill Gates will be giving a speech at the wipro amphitheatre in ecity day after tommorrow. The thought of kidnapping him and asking a BIG ransom appeals to my criminal mind :-)

The one day series without sachin holds no interest for me, more so since the Indian bowlers seem to be in a genorous mood.

The ban on tamil movies in karnataka has meant that I am yet to see even a single tamil movie released on Deepavalli. Gotto to get my hands on a VCD soon.

The new ThumsUp ad with Akshay is cool. Finally brawn takes a backseat in a ThumsUp ad.

The Vaa Nila song in the latest rahman album, Kaadhal Virus, is groovy.

Time to get a snack.

MP3 Players.

When I went to the states, I had two things in my mind to buy for myself.

The first one was a laptop. But when the time came to buy one, I couldnt persuade myself to spend so much of money :(
The second thing that I had in my mind was a MP3 Player. What seemed an easy buy turned out to be quite a difficult one what with the various flavours of MP3 devices available like the Flash based devices, hard drive devices, MP3 CD players, MP3 Mini CD Players and even MP3 Mini Disc players.

I bought one of these after considerable dilly dallying but ended up returning it a week later :(

Finally, Just when it seemed that I may not buy another one afterall, I ended up buying two :)

The Muvo and the Samsung Yepp ( the one I bought is the next version with a much better design and a sleeker remote. Unfortunately, I am unable to find a picture of that on the net ).

The Muvo is a small flash drive capable of storing only a limited number of mp3 files at a time. The small physical size of the device is a big plus though as is the “driver less pain less” integration with win2k upwards. I have been carrying this along with myself and been extremely impressed with it.

The Samsung Yepp, on the other hand, is a MP3 cd player. The plus points of this being that it has a cute little remote with a FM receiver in it. I have had nothing to complain about this either.

All in all, My MP3 Players have left me a happy man. Money well spend, for a change :-) And nothing beats listening to Jagjit Singh in Office :-)

Jagne cheena mujse,
Mujhe jo bhi laga pyaara.

Sab jeetha kiye mujhse,
Mein har dham hi haraa.

Tum haarkar dil apna,
Meri jeet amar kar do.

Sleeping On A Bench.

Yesterday, 6:45 PM.

The old school bus, doubling up as the AT&T shuttle bus in these difficult days, pulled into the parking lot of the usually deserted train station. The sole occupant of the bus, on his way out, exchanges a few pleasantries with the bored driver. He slowly makes his way to the Track no 2 to catch the New York bound train. It will be atleast 45 minutes before the train arrives.

In his hand, the young guy ( the sole occupant will be now onwards referred to as the young guy ) carried a plastic bag with a few sheets of paper in it. Extended waiting times at the train station had taught him to come prepared. It is his habit to print out a short story or two from the gutenburg site to read while waiting. However having exhausted most of the titles from the short story section, he had printed out a translation of the Bhagavad Gita on that particular day.

Having spend most of the day conducting training sessions for new developers taking over his project, the young guy was not in a mood to read. The wooden bench on the platform beckoned him to lay down his tired body in its lap and enjoy a few minutes of rest. Without a moment's hesitation, he streched his long lean body on the bench, using his bag as the pillow and closed his eyes for a small nap.

Unknown to him, on the opposite platform, a middle aged american picked a cellphone and made a call.

A couple of minutes later, a police car pulled into the train station. The young guy was woken up ( he was not really asleep in any case ) by the flashing lights of the car. He watched as a young clean shaved policeman came out of the car and looked around. The moment the policeman's eyes met that of the young guy, he started walking towards his direction. Not thinking much of it, the young guy continued in his horizontal position. When the policeman came and stopped in front of his bench, it dawned upon the young guy that the police man had indeed come to meet him.

This is what followed.

Policeman : “whats going on ?”.
Youngguy ( with a shrug ) : “Well, I am waiting for the train”.
Policeman : “I figured that”, with a cold stare.
Youngguy : “Well, why the question then ?”, with an attempt at a smile :).

The Policeman showed with an expression on his face that he was not in the least bit amused.

Policeman then asks, “whats your name ?”.
Youngguy : “anand”.

The Policeman's eyes drift towards the young guy's AT&T badge, pinned on his shirt, and find a different ( and in no way related ) name there.

Policeman : “Well, your badge here says something else”.

I ( now onwards the young guy will be referred to as I since as you would have guessed by now, he is me ) : “Well, Thats my real name. But since it is so long and difficult to pronounce, I use my nickname which is anand”.

The Policeman is not satisfied but still buys my argument.

Policeman ( now pulling out his notebook ) : “What is your home address ?”.

( I had recently moved from one apartment to a basement sharing arrangement with a friend. I only knew how to walk to my new place from my station and had no idea of the *actual* home address. )

I try to explain my above predicament.

Policeman ( getting annoyed now ) : “What is your home phone number ?”.

I did not have a phone for my personal use and had no idea about the owner's number.

Policeman : “Show me another id, Please”.

I did not have any other.

Policeman ( getting a bit frustrated here ) : “What is your Social Security Number ?”.

Me : “I dont remember :(”.

Policeman ( now getting really irritated ) takes a look at my plastic cover : “What is in there ?”.

I say,“Just a few printouts” and hand it over to him.

Policeman opens it casually to find the title on the first page saying Bhagavad Gita. Now getting increasingly interested in me, he says “Do you always carry the Gita with you?”

I say defensively, “I just printed it out to read while waiting for the train.”

Policeman asks me many more questions during the course of which I blurt out ( quite honestly, I must add ) that I am flying from JFK next week.

The three letters, JFK, had an electric effect on the Policeman.

He walked a few steps away, pulled out his walkie talkie and called ( presumably ) his superiors.

I ( watching this scene from a distance ) was getting a wee bit worried. My position definetely looked bad.

A couple of minutes later, a bigger police car made its way into the now slightly crowded parking lot. A big fat guy and an old wise ( the reason for him being called a wise guy will become clear in a few lines from now ) guy got out.

A few more questions later, We still dont reach anywhere. There is nothing on me to prove who I am and nobody nearby to tell them I really am what I claim I am.

The three men start an internal discussion at a small distance from me.

The young policeman says “We must detain him until we can verify his id.”.

The old wise guy takes a look at me and says, “He doesnt look suspicious”.

All three look at my direction. I put on my best smile and try to bring an expression onto my face which says that I am the nicest guy on planet earth :-) The three men realising that I have overheard their conversation walk away a bit further with a sheepish grin on their faces.

An even longer discussion ensues with a lot of shaking heads and gestaculating hands. I watch in rapt attention while three men discuss about who I really am.

Finally, the three men walk towards me with the old guy leading the way.

He asks me a strange question. “Where you sleeping on the bench ?”.

I reply in the positive.

He replies with a weak attempt at humour. “People dont do that in these places.”

I raise an eyebrow and say nothing.

It seems a gentleman ( the middle aged american on the other platform ? ) had called in to report a suspicious character. With a friendly warning to carry an id with me whenever I go out, he wished me good night and walked away with the other two.

and I turn back and walk, in the land of free, unable to sleep on a bench.

you and me.

11:00 AM monday morning.
I am sitting in a small room in the farthest corner of a big office. Work is waiting for me with the quiet confidence of a mistress waiting for her lover. I ignore her for the time being. She smiles, fully aware that I will be hers quite soon.

I look around. The empty room stares back at me. We lock eyes for a while and then i turn back to my screen. I can hear Paranoia waiting outside, biding his time. He has already send in his twin minions, silence and loneliness. Now he is waiting for the right time to attack.

I decide to do something fast to snap out of this mood. I come online to hang out on my site. I find nobody. I can see depression approaching from behind. I dare not turn back. I stand still and utter a silent prayer for someone to talk to.

and then you come.

I search inside and put on the brightest smile i get from my heart's closet. With a thumping heart, I approach you without the slightest hint of what I am going to say.

You get a little scared. An abundance of interest from a stranger is always a cause of worry. You step back a little and wonder whether you should run. You decide to give the guy a chance to talk. You never know unless you give the other a chance.

I come and stand before you. Not knowing where to start, i manage a “hi, i am anand”. I struggle for words knowing well that your time is limited and I have to make an impression fast.

Realising the state i am in, you put on an encouraging smile and say,“anand, Tell me .. What shall we talk about ?”

I feel a little relaxed. I look inside and take out my beloved topic. I say,“Well, normally, I talk about God and Philosophy on these pages ... ”

You get scared. You wonder, whether you are wasting your time here. Still, you decide to stick around a little more time. You say, “God is for the old, the dying, the desperate and the poor. Let us talk about something else, naa ?”.

I can hear Paranoia laughing somewhere in the distance. He knows me better than anyone else. I struggle to maintain my composure as I search within my bag of topics. I pick out Psycology and show it to you with a weak smile. You start to shake your head and begin to walk towards the URL exit. Now I can feel the cold breath of the fast approaching Paranoia. I frantically search and pull out a couple of old poems. You glance through them and find that they talk mostly about lonely souls and unrequited love. With a final shake of your head, you click your way through the URL exit with your key(board). Moments away from paranoa, I still have the time to notice your pet mouse clicking away in your hand as if mocking me.

I now resign myself to my fate. I turn back and walk towards Paranoia. In the distance, I hear the approaching footsteps of another visitor. I hesitate to turn around and talk, knowing fully that I will make a fool of myself ( yet again ). The alternative is to have myself for company accompanied by my ever present companions, silence, loneliness and paranoia.

I stand there, trapped between you and me.