Ourvie.ws

It was early 2000. The recession was months away, the markets were at all time highs and techies were generally a happy bunch.

We had just done a major release and were waiting for fresh work from our client. Waiting is never an easy task, especially when one has had a busy phase just before that. IE and Outlook kept me engaged on otherwise boring days.

On one such day, I remember getting a mail from Vijay asking me to check out a new language called Ruby. Being a programming language junkie and having nothing else to do, I downloaded and tried writing a few basic programs. It felt different and programming was fun again. In the coming months, I wrote automated test solutions with Ruby and cut down the time it took us (and our client) to test our releases.

Years passed. I occasionally visited the ruby language website. Always left with a tinge of sadness, sad at the lack of popularity of this wonderful language among the programming masses.

Sometime last year, things started changing. Came by way of a strange name => rails. Been following the buzz for a while now. Extremely happy for ruby for it deserves the attention.

Finally got tired of being just an observer. Took the plunge a few days back and whipped up a small bookmarking tool. Put in a bit of AJAX as well to be buzzword compliant ;)

Will be doing more if time and work permits.

India bridges digital divide

“THEN THE Information Age arrived on her doorstep. Life hasn't been the same for Sakkarai, or her village, since.

Scouts from a communications company approached the teenager last year, when she was working one day a month as an accountant for a village credit cooperative, and asked if she was interested in opening a computer-equipped information kiosk in the village, which at that point didn't even have a telephone.

Sakkarai was apprehensive. I told them, I really don't know if I can do this, she recalled. So they turned around and asked, Do you have faith in yourself? I said yes. They said, Okay, then the rest we can do for you.

Today the 19-year-old runs a thriving small business, charging modest fees for services that range from Internet browsing and e-mail to daily computer classes to weekend screenings of Tamil-language films by means of her computer%u2019s CD-ROM drive. Perhaps most important, she acts as a kind of village ombudsman, brokering e-mail exchanges and even videoconferences %u2014 again, for a fee %u2014 between semiliterate villagers and the government bureaucrats who still control many aspects of their lives.”

Read more.

Impressed.

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.

An excellent Boys review

Go here for the complete review.

“Inga panam illaama irukara ovvoru payanukkum padippu kedaikanum,
Padippu ezhaingalukku etta kaniyakida kudathunu thaan sir naan ippadi paninen - Gentleman

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Naattaiye azhikera oru governor irundha enna illana enna - Kadhalan

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Podhupanithurai, Pokuvarathuthurai, Kalvi, Sugadhaaram, Minsaram ippadi
ella thurailayum lanjam vaangi vaangi naatai seer kedhututeenga - Indian

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Indha America cosmetics ellam nekku pidikaathu. enakku therinchathellam thallaikku seiyakkai, udambukku manjal thool. Please itha ellam edhutundu poidungoo - Jeans

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Enakku thevayellam ettu mani nera thookam, poo pola naalu idli, pudhina chatney, mansakku niraivana vellai, appa ammavoda oru kai rummy, pooncholai kiramathilai oru azhaghana ratchashi - Mudhalvan

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And now BOYS.

Completing half-a-dozen movies successfully with BOYS is the whiz kid Shankar. Brought up in the neighborhoods of Chennai and having done his schooling and college in Chennai, this is shankar's wish to celebrate the coming of the age of adolescence. His boldness to describe BOYS as they are has helped him to come out of his pedestrian fantasy movies.

Keeping out the controversies of the media to the end of this review, Boys is a movie with no false pretensions, no intended puns and a no-nonsense movie. Even if you have the smallest nail in the world, I can write the story on it. Five guys and a girl find their hidden talents due to unforeseen situations and take an elevator to their career. The thread that unites them is friendship and love. What begins as a small time eve teasing ends up in a relationship that displays a spectrum of emotions, debacles and re-unions.

Sidharth playing the quasi-hero, leaves a distinctive influence of a typical lover boy in us. Harini playing the full-time heroine is the most natural of all the characters. To use an often used cliche, amazingly brilliant performance. Not a typical heroine to just run around those lavender farms. To our surprise, she often gives a FINGER. Good one.

The other BOYS have done their best and 'natural acting' comes so easily to them. That innocent looking Kumar has given a flambuyoant performance. Vivek as Mangalam sir is a typical drunkard whom we find in every other bar in Chennai. He has downplayed his comic sense to match the character. The surprise is senthil's cameo role. It is a sure shot shankar punch to explain Information is wealth through a most unassuming character of senthil. Glimpses of classic characterization.
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India & China will fight it over to become the next America

“He was the first to predict the massive downsizing of organisations and the increasing emergence of self-employed professionals. In fact, back in 1981, when Charles Handy said that the huge corporations that were the pillars of employee life in the twentieth century would be superseded by small independent operators, people chose to not listen. But prediction after prediction turned out to be prophetic, and the world tunes in to Handy now. So listen to him as he predicts a new world order: Fifty years from now, I see India and China fighting over which will be the next America, he told Corporate Dossier in an exclusive interview.”

Read more.

I hope, I will be alive fifty years from now to see all this happen :-)

Anyways, for some time now, I have been interested in our economy. Readers might have noticed a dramatic increase in business related articles posted here and over at netlife.

For as long as I can remember I have been interested in business, probably sparked off by an amazing rags to riches story I read in my high school about Dhirubhai Ambani. Lately it has assumed obsessive proportions wherein I have been reading everything I can about our economy and even ended up updating the wikipedia page on the Indian Economy. The fact that media is ripe with positive stories about our economy helped quite a bit in this regard.

I can see that I am not only one interested in business these days. The fact that youth of the country seems to prefer anil ambani over sachin and shah rukh as the MTV youth icon of the year, says a lot about the aspirations of the current generation.

Now if you have been following up on the economy, you would know that comparisons between India and China are the favourite pastime for economists world over right now. People just cant get enough of them and they all end up giving different predictions.

It is indeed quite difficult to predict the winner. The explosive inorganic growth achieved by china via the FDI route suggests it might be the winner. But then almost all of china's manufacturing units are owned and operated by outsiders, making many say that china is nothing but america's economic colony. The fact that almost all the leading economies of the world are moving away from an industrialized to a service dominated economy is not helping china either.

That is where India comes in. India already is a service dominated economy ( 50% of GDP as per last year's figures and growing rapidly). Further, we are much more of a domestic oriented economy with exports as percentage of GDP being quite small. This essentially ensures that our economy is virtually shock proof from external factors unlike other leading asian economies like singapore & thailand wherein exports form a significant portion of the GDP.

Indians have traditionally done well when given the right platform which is seen by the fact that the Indian population in US has a per capita income higher than the national average of US !

Finally, after decades of inertia, the conditions are becoming favourable for Indians at home. This when combined with the fact that a significant amount of our population is young as against the rapdily aging population of Japan, Germany and US gives us a great advantage over them.

How well we make use of all these remains to be seen.

But for now, the readers of this site will have to bear with me as I continue posting all the business related articles that I find interesting.

Happy Birthday

It was the october of 2001.

Our client, a small internet based startup, had already been hit hard by the late 20th century collective madness , the dot com boom ( and the subsequent bust ). 911 proved to be the killer blow for our project and we parted ways saying solemn good byes. Faced with nothing to do, our situation was something like that of soldier pulled out of a gruesome war and put in a budhist monastery. We just couldnt take the silence and lack of work.

After days of tea time terrorism discussions and idea generation sessions, we invented creative methods to spend time like network roadrash races and chatting.

Now ever since Internet was introduced in the late 90's by VSNL, I have been online. Those days, you had to fill a form, send to VSNL chennai office and then wait for a good amount of time before VSNL send you back the connection details. Over the last so many years I have done most of which can be done on the net except for one thing : Chatting.

Why ?

Right from my childhood days, I have been this shy silent guy whom you will more often find in a corner reading a book than in the centre of a crowd talking. This has changed considerably over the years but still in many ways I remain such a person.

So chatting was not something that came to me easily. But when it came to text chatting on a computer, I had a small advantage. It is my belief that I am a better writer than a talker. So armed with a keyboard I was a wee bit more confident than I would be otherwise. Using a combination of instant poetry and fancy icons, I managed to build huge friend list in my messenger within a short time.

It was during this period that I met the person for whom this post is being written. The first thing that stuck me is the unabashed joy of living seen in the person.

I need to digress again and detail a personal quirk. By the by, a complete listing of my personal quirks might take more space than my host provides :) Anyway this one details my friends. A long time back when I was an antisocial nerd ( I still am in a small way ), I had oh so serious friends, People who find it easier to quote Nietzsche than wear a smile on their face. Luckily this guy stepped in and more or less changed the way I used to go about life. Ever since, I have been fascinated by people who are genuinely happy. Pretty soon, my craze for chatting died a natural death but my friendship with my new friend endured.

Thus in the strangest of circumstances started this special friendship. Now I have a couple of friends who could perhaps one day start a new cult among them with the title, “The Joy of Living” :-)

Today is my little friend's birthday and so here comes the wish for which the whole post was written.

Happy birthday, my dear friend.

Sun sued.

If anyone was under the mistaken impression that america is a freedom loving country where there is no discrimination based on nationality or color, read this slashdot discussion. Set the threshold levels at -1 lest you miss the racist comments.

A country which believes in capitalism, a policy wherein everything is governed by the price at which you sell, is now seeing the perils of the same. Interesting.

A country which has benefited the most from globalisation is now feeling the heat at its own doorsteps. Who would have thought ?

People do ever so often ask why america is so rich.

Well, America had a huge geographic advantage and a small population when it started off. It was “born” at the right time for it to be at the forefront of the industrial revolution with absolutely no problems inherited ( for there were no ancestors but for a few native indians ). India, at the same time, were being brutally exploited by the britishers and by the time they left, we had enough problems so as to not to be able to think beyond survival.

Very often, Japan is cited as a country which was reduced to nothing by the end of the world war and yet managed to rise so fast in so little time. This has a lot to do with the fact that Japan is small, inherited very little by way of problems and had a small population. Often when you are small, you can grow very fast. Growth ofcourse becomes quite difficult when you are a giant beset with problems.

But our time will come. I will wait for the day.

NOTE : I am no economist but the above are thoughts which strike me as plausible reasons for the current scenario. I might be wrong but this is what I think. If you know better, then let me know as a comment.

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 ?

Exams

Two of my best friends are having exams. Must say I am enjoying being able to watch TV while suresh is studying in the next room. Personally, I cannot see myself going for higher studies any time in the future.

Now coming to India's test loss. Australians have different One Day and Test teams. I guess, We need to have different teams based on the playing conditions. No point in making a ganguly or a sehwag play on seaming tracks. Pick them when there is a flat batting track. Else pick people like Shiv Sundar Das who have a decent technique and can survive on such pitches.

Will be going to TVM this weekend :-) Will be there for the whole of next week. Been a while now. So looking forward to it.

Did a small re-design of tamizhan.com. Just played around with the colors a little bit. I am trying hard to do an orange design but it aint easy for a person like me who prefers dark colors :-)

I am planning to enter the stock market again since it seems to be in a bullish mood. I have decided to pick either pharma or banking stocks this time around. If any of you have any good tips for me, please share them with me :-)

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.

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.

Mamallapuram / Mahabalipuram.

Since the current design of tamizhan.com revolves around a photograph of arjuna's penance from Mamallapuram, I thought I would share some information I collected on it during the process.

from the indiamart pages,

Name.
The proper name of the site is “Mamallapuram”, after Mamalla, an honorific of the Pallava king, Narasimha Varman I (630-668), who created the earliest of its monuments. But it is popularly called “Mahabalipuram”, or “The city of Bali”, whom Lord Vishnu chastised for his pride and of whom there is a relief in one of the excavated temples here.

About Mahabalipuram
The history of Mahabalipuram dates back to two thousand years, it contains nearly forty monuments of different types including an “open air bas relief” which is the largest in the world, for centuries it has been a centre of pilgrimage, it figures in the early annals of the British search for the picturesque in India in the 18th century, today it attracts shoals of foreigners in search of relaxation and sea bathing, and most strange of all, it has an atomic power plant for neighbour. A small library has been written on it.

Over its history and that of its monuments a number of scholarly controversies rage. Mahabalipuram was already a centre of pilgrimage when, in the 7th century Mamalla made it a seaport and began to make temples fashioned of rock. It was through Mahabalipuram that many Indian colonists, who included sages and artists, migrated to Southeast Asia. Sri Lanka's national chronicle, the “Mahavamsa” testifies to this fact.


from the TTDC site,
This skilfully carved rock is the largest bas - relief sculpture in the world. It gets its name from the figure of an ascetic who is believed to be Arjuna, the hero of Mahabharata, doing penance to obtain a boon from Lord Siva. However, there are others who think that the figure is actually Bhagiratha who entreated Siva to let the river Ganges flow over the earth.

Among the other carvings on the rock are animals and heavenly beings witnessing the descent of the Ganges from the Himalayas and some episodes from the Panchatantra tales.


from the roamin-aboout site,

One of the most spectacular carvings is the “Descent of the Ganges”also known as 'Arjuna's Penance'. The carving tells the story of pious Arjuna who persuades Shiva to use his hair to break the fall of the River Ganga. The large cleft between the boulders is the where the Ganges descends.
Around him is a crowd of animals, gods, and ascetics watching the saving of the world as the river descends.


from the jetairtours site,

TOURIST SPOTS IN AND AROUND MAMALLAPURAM :
Caves : There are nine rock-cut temples. The Mahishasuramardhini cave, depicting the goddess fighting a demon on one side and Lord Vishnu's cosmic sleep on the other, is a particularly remarkable one.

Krishna Mandapam : A bas relief, notable for its realistic representation. The panel relates to one of the stories of Lord Krishna.

Arjuna's Penance : This is the world's largest bas relief measuring 27m X 9m. This huge whale-backed rock contains figures of gods, demigods, men, beasts, birds and almost all of the entire creation. And, this is easily the pride of Mamallapuram.

The Five Rathas : There are the five monolithic temples, each created in a different style. They are also known as the Pancha Pandava Rathas - and four out of the five rathas are supposed to have been carved out of a single rock.

The Shore Temple : This is one of the oldest temples. Unique about this temple is the fact that it houses shrines for both Lord Shiva and Lord Vishnu. This belongs to the early 8th century AD and it is a classic example of the first phase of structural temples constructed in pure Dravidian style.

The Government College of Architecture and Sculpture: Here training is imparted in the various branches of temple art and architecture, according to Silpa Sastra.

Crocodile Bank : Is situated about 14 kms. away from Mamallapuram. Over 5000 crocodiles representing 6 different species are maintained here. There are also numerous other types of rare reptiles.

Covelong : The remains of the fort have now been converted into a luxury beach resort which offers facilities for windsurfing and swimming, an ancient Catholic Church, a mosque and the  ruins of the fort make interesting viewing from this 5 Star hotel.

Tirukalukundram : This tourist spot has a small Shiva temple situated on the top of the Vedagiri
hill which is 160m high. Just before noon everyday, two White kites stop at the temple and are fed by the temple priests. Legend has it that these two birds are actually saints who daily make a stop to rest at the temple on their flight between Varanasi and Rameswaram.

There is also a larger Shiva Temple in the town below. At the South-East end of the town is a spacious tank whose waters are said to have curative powers. Once every 12 years, a conch is discovered in this tank and thousands of devotees flock to bathe in the tank at this auspicious time. A collection of the conches is displayed in the larger Shiva Temple.

Muttukkadu : This is an ideal picnic spot. T.T.D.C, runs a Boat House, where facilities for boating and wind surfing are available.


Sounds like a good place to visit ?

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.

24

Date : 17th April, 1978.

Time : 10:10 PM.

Place : a small hospital in a small city called Trivandrum.

Two little girls are sitting on a bench outside an operation theatre. The older girl is 7 years old : Last year, she was asked by her teacher at school what she would want to be when she grow up and she had replied without a doubt, “I want to be a doctor and cure people”. She would become a doctor 19 years later and then marry a doctor a year later. Her sister was 5 years old : She had started talking from the age of nine months onward and has not stopped to this day. Somewhere in Arizona USA, a patient husband is listening.

The two little girls were praying. They wanted a little brother to play with.

God heard their prayer and a boy it was.

Nobody was more happier than the father. He was an ordinary middle class government employee : the sort of unspectacular guy that you wouldnt notice if he were to walk past you. He had no great talent to speak of nor had acheived anything great in life. Yet he was something which very few are in this world. He was a nice guy. A genuine nice guy. And to the family of five, he was everything.

The little boy developed a habit very early in his life. He would just sit and watch his father and then try to imitate every action of his. From a very early age, he knew he wanted to be like his father. People used to call his father by the name “Swami” to show love and respect and whenever anyone called the boy “kutti swami”, he used to glow with pride.

In his seventh standard, the boy participitated in an essay writing competetion. The title of the competetion was “Who would you want to be and why?”. The boy wrote an essay saying “I want to be someone like my father”. He got the first prize. And that evening, the boy ran as hard as he could to his home and waited on the steps of his home till his father came. He showed him the essay and the prize. You should have seen the happiness on the father's face. That would remain in that boy's mind as the most beautiful sight he would ever see in his life.

The day before the boy went to college for the first time, his father would say a few words to him. “Son, the only difference between a man and an animal is the mind. People who are afraid of their own mind use liquor to numb it. You decide whether you want to be a man or an animal”. On countless trips and parties, all his friends tried to make him drink but all in vain. The boy would not touch a drop of liquor or a cigar ever in his life. The promise he gave to his father matterred to him more than a few moments of pleasure.

Years passed.

The family was happy and contended.It was as if God had given them everything. The father and mother were both very religous people and used to go to the nearby temple almost everyday. Little did they know that God had other plans. One day in January,1995 God took away from that family everything that they had. He took away the Father with him. The boy was shatterred. God lost a believer that day. That boy has never entered a temple after that ( unless compelled by his mother who still believes in a God who took away everything from her).

I am that boy and today, I turn 24.

Tonight, If you see a star shining more brightly than the others, that would be my father smiling down on me. And tonight as every other night, I sleep with the conviction that my father is awake somewhere up there and watching over me.

I love you,father and I miss you terribly. I know, I have a thousand miles to go before I become what you were. Still, I hope you are proud of what I am.

Love,

/.\ n a n d.

Blog of the day.

A small milestone in my short blogging life : I have been selected as blog of the day as can be seen here. Taaliyaan :)

This will surely inspire me to blog more .. Yeh dil maange more :)

Thanks Arthur : for the honour ...