imaginati0n.com

“Images and words collide in my mind to create meaningless words of infinite importance.”

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Unknown to you

In the back of your mind, where thoughts seldom go, Silence meets Eternity.

Life is Elsewhere

Dreamless nights, Hopeless days, Wasted hours.
Broken thoughts, Silent eyes, Empty mind.

When all you do is work, Life takes a backseat.

Shopping malls must be banned!

Ever since, the “forum” shopping mall opened its doors, I have become poorer by many a thousand bucks with not much to show for it.

Why oh why, did I buy an Ipod ! I tried hard to resist, mind you. But the persuasive charms of the pure white Ipod finally did me in. I just had to buy it. There was no escaping.

I guess, I better look at the positive side. Music on the go, whenever, wherever. Jagjit Singh has never sounder better :)

Another noteworthy accomplishment in my otherwise dull life was the opening of a gmail account. Google does tend to do things differently. Once you get used to it, you wonder how you ever lived without it.

If you guys don't know it already, our very own sreekanth has quit TCS and is now studying at IIM, Ahmedabad. He got into all six IIMs which I guess is not very surprising. He didn't have to try very hard, I am told :)

Office work keeps me busy most of the time, these days. A certain numbness sets in when you are working 12+ hours day in day out. Wonder whether it is worth it.

Yup, thats the cue for me to stop. Before I start rambling about life, I must make a move. Too many of these pages already have far too much of my ramblings on life :)

Life etc

When you look back, events seem to take a different meaning. Seemingly trivial incidents tend to stick around in the back of your mind. Stuff you never deemed important are sometimes the one you can never forget.

Before I get involved in yet another long winding description of a life gone past, let me stop.

My current preoccupation is a hunt for a new home. Over the next few months, I expect my room mates to get married and that is when I get kicked out. So need to find someplace at the earliest. Not the easiest of tasks especially when coupled with my general lethargic attitude. We will see how it goes.

The India Vs Pakistan series should provide for some good entertainment. Still remember the first ball yorker of shoaib taking tendulkar's middle stump.

The ongoing NZ Vs SA series is turning out to be a nail baiting contest. The last two matches were decided in the final over and how. Any description would fail to capture the mood in those last overs.

More entertainment is guarenteed from the general elections. Things in the media space look different from the last time over. A lot more channels and they are going to try and do everything possible to attract eyeballs. Should be a lot of fun to follow them.

As for my political preferences, I don't have any. I do like Vajpayee & Jaitley on a personal level. Whoever comes should get an absolute majority. Thats all that I wish for. A lot is at stake for India in the next few years. Can't have governments fighting among themselves and derail the economy on the whole.

Lately, I have been hearing from my classmates about burnouts. The stress of an IT career is beginning to show atleast on some of them. Some plan to retire early while some plan to move into a different stream altogether. I would like to do the same but not knowing anything other than coding, I might be at a disadvantage. Ofcourse, I have my share of alternate professions lined up in my daydreams. But then they are not called dreams without a reason :)

So then, after spending yet another sunday at the office, let me start on the way back home wondering all along whether life was meant to be like this.

Igniting India's mind By A.P.J. ABDUL KALAM

“Words like 'vision' and 'dream' are back in currency. For long, they were inhabiting the manifestoes of political parties and the lexicon of the student who wanted to make a name in elocution. The common man did not believe in these words.

Now, suddenly he does. Many factors have contributed to this recharging of meaning. One is a President, who, by virtue of not being a regular politician, has caught the imagination of the nation. His dream of India becoming a superpower by 2020 has become the people's dream.

But between the idea and the reality falls a shadow, as the poet said. In a series of articles beginning with one penned by President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam himself, we do a reality-check on this dream. Experts ranging from Bharat Karnad and M.S. Swaminathan to K. Kasturirangan and Arun Shourie give their concrete proposals on how to turn these ideas into reality. So that dreams do not remain daydreams.

The 21st century belongs to the knowledge age, where acquisition, possession and application of knowledge are the most important resources. To India, knowledge is not new. Ancient India was an advanced knowledge society with a continual process of intellectual renaissance through inspiring contributions by saints of many faiths, philosophers, poets, scientists, astronomers and mathematicians. There existed great universities like Takshasila and Nalanda where students not only from India but also from far-off countries came to study diverse subjects. Many scholars have said that India culturally conquered and dominated China for 20 centuries without sending a single soldier across the border.

However, invasions and colonial rule destroyed these institutions and robbed them of their core competence. People were systematically degraded to lower levels of existence. By the time the British left, India was at its nadir. Now, it has the challenging task of rediscovering itself and become a knowledge superpower by 2020. For this India first needs to transform itself into a knowledge society. Let us see the genesis of such a society, its characteristics and how India can transform itself into a knowledge power.
”

Read more.

Go get a copy of the week's latest issue immediately!

The matrix explained

Asatho Maa Sad Gamaya,
Thamaso Maa Jyothir Gamaya,
Mrithyo Maa Amritham Gamaya.

(
Lead me from untruth to truth,
Lead me from darkness to light,
Lead me from death to immortality.
)

Thus ends the Matrix revolutions, with a prayer for moksha from the eternal cycle of birth and death.

Much has been written about the trilogy. Popular opinion seems to be against the sequels. Too many seem to have gone to the theatres to find answers to the tantalising questions posed by reloaded. Perhaps, the greatest triumph of the trilogy is that there were no answers. Only an interesting way to look at life and ask questions that the vast majority would never think of.

It wasn't perhaps the easiest of films to understand. Everyone seems to have interpreted the film through the filter of their own beliefs mostly religious. The fact that the brothers chose to derive from multiple belief systems makes every interpretation seem correct.

Here is my interpretation.

Humanity has been enslaved by the machines to generate energy for them to run. The fact that skies have been scorched by a nuclear war prevents them from using the sun as the source. Now to keep the humans alive and interested, the machines plugged them into an illusory world called the matrix.

The architect, the program responsible for the creation of the matrix, created a perfect world in its first avatar. But he soon saw that perfection was not acceptable to humans. Indeed humans rejected this world ( Smith says humans define their existence through misery ) and this led to the crash of the system. The architect then devised a program with a lesser mind, a more intuitive one if you will, the oracle to understand human behaviour and build a system which will last longer. The oracle understood that humans needed to believe that they have choice even if there was really none. This arrangement worked out well for 99% of the humans. But a 1% of the humans still saw through this illusory world and felt something was not right. Now it was the oracle's responsibility along with Mr.Smith to “control” this few people and ensure that they don't go out of hand.

The oracle did this with prophesies which led to the creation of zion and the human resistance. At the end of every cycle, there would be a war between the machines and humans with the One required to make a choice : Whether to return to the source and reload the matrix or to go back to the matrix and risk complete anihilation of humanity and the machines. For five times, Neo has chosen to return to the source reloading the matrix and picking the 23 people who will lead the human resistance in the next cycle. It is not Neo but the oracle which makes the choice for him everytime.

The oracle got tired of this endless cycle of creation and destruction. She wanted a way out, a peaceful way out.

She played a game, a dangerous one. She introduced a new variable into the system. Love in the form of trinity.

She hints to trinity even before she sees Neo that she will fall in love with the one thereby ensuring she does.

When the time comes for Neo to make the choice, for the first time he choses to go back into the matrix. Indeed he doesn't need to make the decision. Like the architect says, the decision has already been made by the oracle when she made him fall in love. All he needed to do was to understand it.

Smith is again different this time around. Neo entered him at the end of the part one and changed him to become his antithesis. Now smith is a program with “one like” powers. This ensures that he goes beyond the matrix to the other world thereby taking a step beyond the machine's control.

Seraph, the oracle's bodyguard is ofcourse a previous incarnation of the one and the one which caries the program code of the one which the oracle uses to create the one in every cycle.

Cut back to the sixth cycle. Love makes neo re-enter the matrix to save trinity. He brings her back from the dead at the end of reloaded. Remember she did the same thing to him at the end of part one.

The war between the machines and the humans start for the sixth time. Smith meanwhile has found his way into the real world and engages in a battle with Neo blinding him in the process. With his eyes blinded, Neo is able to see for the first time. Neo and trinity go back to the machine world into the heart of the machine city. The machines attack and trinity dies relieving neo of the final attachment he had. Now Neo understands his true karma without the distraction of love.

Neo goes on to make a deal with the machines. Peace in return for the killing of Smith who had gone beyond the control of the machines. Smith and Neo engage in a battle of titanic proportions reaching nowhere since they are both equally powerfull.

At the very end, Oracle speaking through smith shows Neo the way out. The death of neo is the purpose of Smith's life. Smith will die the instant neo dies. The solution is clear. Like christ, neo dies for humanity by carrying the burden of their sins ( Smith stands in for evil ) for them.

If you have read till this, you would have seen I have not chosen to comment upon the little girl sati. Indeed her presence puzzles me. What does she stand for ? The next generation of programs able to feel emotion ? An elaborate take on Shiva's wife Sati who commits suicide by burning herself and being reborn as parvati ( Trinity being reborn as Sati ?? ). Or is she the next oracle ? Or the next One ? Or the next architect who defines a matrix born out of love ?

Still a long way to go before I understand the matrix. If you have any thoughts, jot them down here.

Early retirement

It is something that has been in the back of my mind right from my college days, yes even before I started working :-)

Once you take out work from your life, you have an endless supply of time in your hands and life suddenly seems teeming with possibilities. The promise of doing something new every single day is tantalising, dont you think ?

Ofcourse, boredom is a highly possible outcome. The trick is to keep yourself occupied, this time around doing something you enjoy rather than something you get paid for.

Social service will be the first thing I take up. To be able to make a difference, however small, in someone's life is the intended redemption of a human life. This will most likely involve teaching. I used to teach a good number of my classmates and have been given fairly good reviews of my teaching capabilities. So teaching is definetely on the cards.

Sreekanth and I must have talked endless hours about how with a little effort you can change a lot of things you despise around you. Hopefully, at some point in our lives, we will be able to do something about this rather than keep talking.

Other stuff that I will be doing include,

Travel. First the whole of India and a few choice destinations around the world. Travel is ofcourse expensive and would most likely to remain an unfullfilled dream in the back of my mind ( It must be getting crowded in there :) ).

Learning a musical instrument is something that I have always wanted do.

It is a sad fact but I really do like sitting in front of a computer for endless hours, browsing, reading and occassionally writing. I am perhaps too addicted to the internet to let go completely. I mean where else can someone like me get to be a fashion designer ;-) At some point in the future, I would like to close down all my “for profit ventures” and create something which is informative and usefull.

The word “Family” is ofcourse an unknown variable in this equation. Being a bachelor is investing in time. Getting married is investing in love. Hopefully, I can get a fair dose of both :-)

More than anything else, I would like to slow down my life. I am tired, very much so, of the constant hurry burry of the daily life. Images of a slow calm life, somewhere along the banks of the backwaters of alleppey is a recurring image in my dreams. Someday, I want to open my eyes and find it to be true.

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.”

India's one billion population could leverage growth'

“R.K. Somany, president of the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham), revealed that what struck him most during his recent visit to China was the fact that "Chinese look upon its growing population as their biggest strength. So why should we look at our population as a drag?"

The experts stressed that with the changing concept of business and the knowledge economy driving growth, there was a revival of the "direct equation with the customer".

This has led to the era where the human mind and not machines dominate, said Rajendra S. Pawar, chairman of NIIT Ltd., one of the country's leading computer training and software development companies.

"The knowledge economy is bringing back the best tradition of communication. With it the dependence on human mind is coming back," said Pawar.

According to Pawar, the need today was for "leaders to perpetually create dreams and inspire people to keep the process going".

Jalan supported this view by citing the examples of Japan, South Korea and Israel, which have inspired its people to withstand adversities and lack of natural resources to become a thriving economy.”

Read more.

Goodbye

It was one of those days which stick in your mind no matter how old you grow.

It was the 17th of August, 1998.

I hadnt slept well the night before. Not without a reason for Wipro was scheduled to visit our college for a campus interview that day.

With a mind rapidly oscillating between tension and anticipation, I remember driving down to college that day dressed in a white van heusen shirt (for the first time in my life :)) already feeling a bit lost and out of place.

Seeing the same “I am scared but I wont show it on my face” look on many of classmate's faces, I eased up a little.

The written test was much easier than I had expected and I settled for a long wait for my interview which was scheduled at 9:30 PM in the night.

I have had several extruciating waits in my life but that one must rank among the most painfull. I waited and watched quite a few of my classmates enter and leave the room displaying a wide range of emotions a kamal hassan would have been proud of :)

In the end after what seemed like an eternity, I was called in. With trembling hands and a heart beat faster than schumacher, I remember entering that room. What followed was a surprisingly pleasant conversation instead of a nightmarish situation I had conjured up in my mind.

By the time, I came out, I was back to my confident best almost sure that I would be selected.

It took another 3 hours for Wipro to announce the result. I still remember sitting of the steps in front of my class room talking about my dreams and the life ahead with a friend who goes by the name Vishnu. Both were selected but he has left wipro long back for pursuing higher studies in the states.

What is clearly etched in my mind about that night is the drive back home on my trusted kinetic honda. If there is one moment in my life worthy of the song,

aaj mein upar,
aasman neeche,
aaj mein aage,
zamana hai peeche,

it was that.

The cold wind running through my hair, the biggest smile possible on my face, the empty roads ... It was a surreal moment alright :-)

The smile on my mother's face when she heard is yet another moment etched on my mind.

So why I am writing all this ?

Tomorrow is my last day at Wipro. After 3 and a half years, I will be going to a different companynext monday onwards.

How does it feel ?

A little bit of nostalgia. A little bit of sadness. A little bit of happiness. A cocktail of emotions is perhaps the best description.

Wipro was fun. I had some of the best colleagues a man could ask for. In the end, nothing lasts forever. I had to move on lest I run the risk of being stagnant proffessionally and financially ;-)

So if you have been mailing me at my wipro email id, send them for the time being to anand at this particular domain. I will update you when I get the new one.

I dont know what is in store for me in the new place. Life is best lived moment to moment and so will I.

Al vida. I will be back :-)

Damn it. There is a tear hidden somewhere behind my eyes waiting to come out ..

I guess, only when you walk out of something, you realise what you are losing ...

Been a while

Its been a while, I know.

As I sit down to write, I find precious little to say.

My life is at a standstill. If I were to blog about it, I would only write about the early morning trips to office, the countless hours spend in front of a machine, sipping caffeine, following the orders of someone sitting thousands of miles away ( will we ever be free ? ), the numbing mental lethargy at the end of the day, the countless hours spend wondering what the hell was happenning with my life and the uneasy sleep at the end of the day with unanswered questions waging a losing battle in the mind.

Life was not supposed to be like this. Not very long back, I still had the remnants of my childhood dreams with me. The child has long since disappeared into mists of the past, the dreams brutally suppressed by a society which moulds individuals into predefined roles.

CUT CUT CUT.

This is precisely the reason I was not blogging. Too much of pentup frustration inside. I could almost sense that I would fill up these pages with meaningless negativity, the sort seen above. I was keeping myself on a hold. It was not to be.

Anyway, for all those who wondered where I am, this is where I am.

Trying my hand at making money online.

At the least, it is an interesting deviation which will keep my mind occupied for a while. At the most, I will end up being rich which is not bad at all.

Most likely, I will earn precious little and lose interest before the winter sets in :-)

History

Tomorrow, I complete one year of blogging. It is only natural that I indulge in a little bit of nostalgia at this moment and look back at what led to the birth of this site.

Long back ago, during the time of the internet boom, there was a company by the name namezero which decided to give away domain names for free. Yes, you read that correct. Domain names for free. I must admit, a bit shamefacedly, that I took full advantage of this offer and ended up booking close to 50 domains :-) In addition to itismylife.com I had other interesting names like infosys.org and imaginati0n.com. But I never used them for anything other than vanity email ids. By the by, I used to get resumes from unknown people hoping to land a job at infosys !

This state of affairs continued for a long long time. At around this time last year, India was rocked by the Gujarat riots. In a mail to a classmate, I wrote up something which I thought needed a much wider audience. The idea of putting it on my website came to my mind and I searched for methods to do it. It was at this point that I came across the word blogging for the first time and immediately I was hooked. I signed up for a blogger account and published my article at blogspot.com.

The article was later on published at rediff.com.

Within a short time, I understood the deficiencies of the blogger system and jumped over to upsaid.com. I was with them for a long long time and it was a fruitfull association. Meanwhile, I was send to the united states for an assigment.

With a few dollars in my hand, I suddenly had an itch to move to a self hosted solution which is what I did, getting a new domain in the process. I also discovered the power of nucleus and ended up contributing quite a few plugins as can be seen at the forum.

Since then, Things havent changed much but for the entry of suresh.

So that in a few words was the history behind this site.

What lies ahead ?

I am planning to relaunch itismylife.com at some point in this month. The idea is to have a couple of niche blogs ie blogs targeted at a niche audience and highly specific to one topic. The pages here will continue to be the place holder for my general writings and link collections.

If all goes well, I will be writing a similar post one year from now :-)

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.

2003

Happy New Year.

Funny how things look different on days like this. It is a sad fact that the mind needs a reason to be happy. I wonder what it takes to be happy on all days. I guess, you have to be very young, a saint, mad or in love :-) Anyways, as long as there is a reason, let us go for it. Live it up this year, folks.

Here is hoping that a smile will be the only emotion that your face will wear all year.

I will leave you with a few lines from a lata mangeshkar classic,

Kaanton se keech ke yeh aanchal,
Tod ke bandan baandi paayal,
Koi na roko dil ki udaan ko,
Dil woh chalaa,
Aaaj phir jeene ki tamna hai.

Let us try this again.

Long back, I tried this little experiment. It was not to be. People are talking about it again. I would love to see this idea come alive.

In my opinion, the source code of blo.gs should be a good place to start.

As for the name, a couple of silly ones come to my mind for now, blogdurbar.com or humblog.com.

I am sure one of you can come up with a better name.

So what do you say ? Shall we try this one more time ?

December.

I am yet to come across a december which makes me happy about the year that just went by. Promises made to self are the easiest to break. Guilt is a momentary flutter easily forgotten.

Still, It never prevents me from looking forward to the new year with the eyes of the young kid who has just realised that so much can be done with the gift of life. SO MUCH.

For now though, I have to live out December and so for a month, this site will reflect the general dullness in the air.

When the new year comes, when my mind wakes up to the possibilities, so will the color scheme of this site.

Till then, This will be the color.

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.