The Doors

Even after hundreds of millions of years, I still find myself confused. I am still looking for change. Another door has opened and another one has closed, and I still can't let go of the last one. Just can't forget what I dreamt was outside that door. A whole new world I would never be able to feel now that another door has taken it's place. And by the time, I can see what is outside the new one, and much before I move to enter it, it will close on me. Like the ones before it, and like the ones after it. The world is moving ahead everyday, and I'm sitting here, staring at my doors, praying that I choose the right one. Not that it really matters to me. I could say this is the perfect search for perfection, but I know it isn't. The world is moving ahead, a door at a time, and I'm struggling to make that first move. Waiting to see the light outside. Maybe it's just another room like this one. Maybe it's a beach all for myself. But I like it here too, and I really want to go there too.

I switch on the TV, and I see people trying to sell me stuff. But they are really not people, just something which makes noise and replaces the need for real people to be standing there. And if I want to get any of the things that I see there, there would be nobody to help me get it. I will call up and talk to a call center guy, who's struggling through life, working at nights, and knows shit about what I am really looking for.

I call up old friends, and they are all struggling too. They seem to know the answers, they open each door as if it were their last. And they walk right in, without emotion. But sometimes, you can feel the emptiness inside them too. Your voice echoes back to you when you talk to them. I am sure they feel that with me too. It's like a million people talking to each other, and hearing their own voice, amplified by the vast hollows inside other men.

I switch on some music, move to the song that thought I used to love the most, and I can't feel the rhythm. It's like somebody walked inside one of my doors and stole it, right under my eyes, while I was busy dreaming about the door, which closed on me. Now even the music echoes inside. And it keeps getting louder. And I keep shrinking. Maybe I should realize that my choice wasn't good enough for myself. Do I need somebody else to pick my music for me. Like I chose somebody else to tell me what to do with my life. Like I asked somebody else to decide how to talk to the strangers I meet, how to act when in front of them. Like I gave somebody else the right to run my life, and chose to be the slave. Why did I do it? I do not know, ask him who asked me to do it. Or ask him who asked him. We are all just sheep maybe.

It's like a giant conspiracy to hide the hollowness inside ourselves. The most successful ones are the ones who are the most hollow, because when you talk to them, and you voice does not come out, and you believe it's because they don't share your vices, but then suddenly you realize you were wrong, the voice comes back later, much later, much louder, and you are thrown to the ground, broken into pieces, like the shiny new glass you dropped, when you were drunk.

It is a pity that most of us believe in the world our eyes show us.

It is just a story, like in a movie, and you will be out of it one day. And nobody would remember the sad part. Nobody would remember the dirt. All they will know, is the greatness of your glorified life, not the hollowness within your souls.

And while I write, I realize that another door is closing, and nobody seems to replace it. The older ones are cracking and the cold wind is blowing inside the rooms. I can now even absorb the light inside my heart. And I'm shrinking, under the power of my own will. And I will keep shrinking till I explode. And when that day comes, I will see the light.

I know I will, because I have been there before.

Who am I?

I'm not a fucking IT Professional, I'm a Software Engineer. Maybe even an entrepreneur soon.

Saddam Hussain

I rooted for Saddam when Iraq was invaded. And I still don't feel I was wrong. Show me another man, who is any better.
BBC: Iraq

A New Constitution

The government wants to draw up a new constitution before democracy can be restored, and a special drafting committee is now in place, which should mean the constitution is ready in about six month's time

How long before India gets to a situation like that.

BBC : Thailand

Betting on CAT Results

It is that time of the year again, when the institute which churns out super efficient managers, call some more people to join their race. And not surprisingly, they seemed to have extended the deadlines without prior notice. After all, the IIM's have been troubled to no end this year by changing reform policies and what not. And this is their chance to get back at the people.

But I have other plans. For in every problem there is an opportunity.

Starting next year, I plan to start up a website, call something like www.betthecat.com. The idea would be to charge everybody Rs 10, and let them guess the exact time at which the CAT results would be out. I am working on the business plan, so that I can convince the venture capitalist.

Now, the costumer base is close to 2 lakhs. And if you add in say a large number of parents, and teachers, and institutes, the final base should be close to double that. Since it would cost just rupees ten to get involved, I am sure, at least half of them would bet on it. More so, because in that one week, there is nothing more interesting that people like to do. In schools and offices across India, people are talking about the same thing.

So our expenses would be something like this.
Buy domain name - Rs 500
Buy hosting service - Rs 5000
Building the website - Rs 0 ( I'm usually out of work, so I guess I can make it )
Fixing up with Paypal - Rs 5000

After that all that would remain, is to find out the exact time at which the results came out on the website. That might be possible by c0nverting the website to a RSS feed and noting the time when the results section is added to the website.

Now, assuming a lakh people are intereted in paying ten bucks, we could raise Rs 10 lakh in a single week or so. Add to that the income from advertising. Google adwords would allow us to get in $500 ( or Rs 25,000) and institutes which advertise, would allow us to raise another 5 lakhs.

The final balance sheet would look something like this
Expenses - Rs 10,500
Income - Rs 15,25,000

Profit - Rs 15, 14,500

With profit margins like that, I could give out prizes worth Rs 5 lakhs.

Now, about 1,00,000 people are participating. In the one week, people can choose from 10,080 minutes to find the correct value. So on an average 10 people would bet on any given minute value. Assuming the number of people who bet on the right minute is 10 times the average, we could give out prizes close to Rs 5000 for each of the 100 winners.

So, all in all, Rs 5000 if you guessed the correct time at which the results come out, on paying just Rs 10. Would you be interseted...

The Good Year

I started the new year by getting drunk and getting rid of old baggage, both literally and hyperbolically. It wasn't exactly the best I could hope for, but there are times when you challenge everything you think you are, and there is nothing you can do about it. History keeps repeating itself, and you keep failing to learn your lessons.

But all is not lost. The battle will go on as long as we're alive, and we will never be able to see the final score. In the meantime, there is more to drink, more baggage to collect, and more to learn.

Wishing all of you, a sanguine new year.

Ranting about the bottle

It has been over a month, since my last post. Life has not exactly been entertaining in the last one month. No ups, no downs, just free flowing. I have started working as a consultant. I wake up whenever I feel like, take an off whenever I feel like, and start drinking whenever I feel like, but still there is that sense of dissatisfaction which prevails. The project is going smooth, yet there is an awful lot I haven't really understood about it. I have been drinking much, but haven't been drunk really. Except a few times ofcourse :)

But there is still hope. The next cheque will come tomorrow, and along with it will come, a lot of glasses of beer at toaks. So the new year should get interesting, at least for a few days at a time.

Anyways, wishing everybody a happy new year.

Job Searching

Maybe I want to be a security guard too (link)

The Next Leader

Is this the face of our next prime minister?
(Who cares?)
Link

Executive v Judiciary

The Executive comes up with a trump card against the Judiciary in the form of this. So now unlike the politicians, each judge would be answerable for his decisions, good or bad. It should have been implemented the other way around, but well who makes the rules?

Hey Dey, Whadday, Badday

Even before I've completed the first few paragraphs, I know this article was written by Atanu Dey. Mr Dey, please tell me why is everybody an idiot? (link)

The only problem is that the bugger makes sense. (The listen to daddy link)

Closing Bell

Have you ever had a chance to watch Closing Bell on CNBC anytime? Well I see it everyday, and not because I am really interested in what is going on in the market, but becuase it has a hot anchor.

I find it quite breath taking to watch a beautiful woman rant about bulls and bears, and other convoluted financial terms. Like the other day she was grilling some bald, ugly, middle aged financial expert on why some stock he had chosen was going down. I couldn't really make out (umm is this the wrong way of saying it) what they were talking about, and I was asking the rest of the people what was that hot woman doing there?

Anyways, it might seem odd, but if everything goes to plan, then someday I would be the bald, ugly, middle aged expert. (No I am not working on being bald and ugly. I am trying to become the expert, the rest would automatically follow).

I believe in talking shit

Sheila Dixit wants the tax payers to pay for the supposed misfortune of the owners of the illegal shops. Why not ask Bangladesh for aid too? Link

First of all, please ask them who is going to pay for the DTC bus they burn everyday.

From the moment they started constructing it, they knew it was illegal. This isn't a new rule, this isn't a natural calamity. This is your own mess.

Besides, all this talk about traders misfortune, and the traders power, the stock market seems to be shooting up, so nobody will real money thinks that the sealing issue is of much importance.

Anyways, the government is going to pay for it now (by losing their much beloved seats), and they deserve it. Though they are also trying that the babus too pay for it (link). But who is going to check if the babus are declaring assets, more babus maybe. Atleast it would provide an equal black income to all babus.

Career Planning

In one of his latest posts, Gautam Ghosh declares that career planning is a waste of time. He rather suggests his eight point memo for furthering your career.

Now I'm no big shot management consultant, but I do have 24 years of experience and I can tell you this: Planning of any sort is a waste of time. Why? Because 97.23% of your plans do not work out at all, 2.76% of your plans go astray after the first minor milestone. The rest of them go beyond that level, but there are no statistics to prove anything after that. So basically all plans are destined to fail.

But then why plan? Because it's all in your mind. Planning helps you convince yourself, even though it is just one big illusion in the head. It just makes you feel well prepared. It's selling your ideas to yourself, which is why it is absolutely necessary.

(link)

Desi Big Brother

Big brother was a big hit in Australia back in 2005 when I was there and since reality TV has a history of going round, the next logical thing after the Indian Idol was a desi version of Big Brother. Sony Television, hoping to lead the way, has started Bigg Boss on the same lines. (Rakhi Sawant is in there too, if Mika is there too, then I'd watch) Anyways, if you ever had a chance to watch Big Brother in Australia, you would have known how absolutely useless the show was, but yet managed to draw audiences or pseudo audiences called TRP's.

All that is fine. But the interesting part is 'Big Brother Uncut', the part of the show which was edited from the prime time show, to be showed later on national television as free porn for the poor as it consisted mostly of people having sex on the sets. CNN-IBN supposes that it could come to India too, which is an interesting idea for sure but in a place like ours where channels pay huge fines for showing videos, I doubt if we would ever get as lucky.

Anyways, even if 'Big Brother Uncut' came to India, can you guess what would it be called??
India Uncut. hehe.

Link

It's a kind of magic

Here is a cool magic javascript that I found via indiapad. It makes the pictures go round. (link)

The way to see it work is this.
1. Open Ma, I Shot Something, or any web page with photographs.
2. Enter this code in the address bar.

javascript:R=0; x1=.1; y1=.05; x2=.25; y2=.24; x3=1.6; y3=.24; x4=300; y4=200; x5=300; y5=200; DI=document.getElementsByTagName("img"); DIL=DI.length; function A(){for(i=0; i-DIL; i++){DIS=DI[ i ].style; DIS.position='absolute'; DIS.left=(Math.sin(R*x1+i*x2+x3)*x4+x5)+"px"; DIS.top=(Math.cos(R*y1+i*y2+y3)*y4+y5)+"px"}R++}setInterval('A()',50); void(0);

3. And press enter.
4. Lo! and Behold!!

Jeev Milkha Singh

India is a land of few sportsmen, but there are a few men who have known no boundaries. One of them is Jeev Milkha Singh, the golfer son of the charismatic 'Flying Sikh' who has recently taken the world by storm, after winning the Volvo China Open and Volvo Masters. The victory, which came at the end of the season, brought him up to the 16th position on the order of the merit.

Life hasn't been all rosy for the man though. After a career best 50th place on the order of merit in 1999, Jeev suffered a wrist injury which took away his form for years. But six years hence, he seems to be coming back. Currently, he is one of the only two Indians who have won on the European circuit (The other being Arjun Atwal).

Currently, Jeev stands 73rd in the world golf rankings, and 2nd in the Asian rankings. (link)

Hindu

Followed

She seems to be following me everywhere. First it was Pune, now she's even coming to Delhi. (link)

I don't think my mom would like it very much if she came here, but well is there anything I can do to stop her.

Bad for the nation?

Scott Adams, justifies why electronic voting machines are good for the US.

There’s a 100% chance that the voting machines will get hacked and all future elections will be rigged. But that doesn’t mean we’ll get a worse government. It probably means that the choice of the next American president will be taken out of the hands of deep-pocket, autofellating, corporate shitbags and put it into the hands of some teenager in Finland. How is that not an improvement?

So damn right I say. Maybe they should get those in India too. I wonder who will hack them in Bihar. More so, the litracy rate might increase, because the government will spend more on educating the youth so that they can hack the voting boxes to get them back in power.

This is just what India needs.

Smart Cracker

Cracker, an alternative rock band, was kicked off the label by Virgin Records in 2003. Now this year Virgin released a best songs album by the band, but the band saw it coming. So they released it independently and on the same day. The latest sales figures show that the independent release has sold around 22,000 copies as compared to 66,000 by Virgin.

I don't know if their music is any good, but these guys sure are smart.

Link

Sanjay Kumar Jailed

An Indian CA goes to jail for securities fraud. Here is the news from NYT.

The former chief executive of Computer Associates International was sentenced to 12 years in prison today for orchestrating a huge accounting fraud at the world’s fifth-largest software maker.

Sanjay Kumar, 44, was also sentenced to 24 years of supervised release and an $8 million fine in Federal District Court in Brooklyn. Since pleading guilty to securities fraud and obstruction of justice charges, he faced 20 years in prison, though sentencing guidelines provided a maximum of lifetime imprisonment.

This guy had got a bonus of $330 million in 1998, and is also the owner of the New York Islanders hockey team.

Link

Preparing for CAT

The last time I heard, these guys were giving out free classes for CAT in pune. If you want to join them now, I guess you are too late. Hundreds of students seemed to be pouring in the first week itself. Anyways, if you like, you could make do with their blogs. The one on English is run by Ankur and Massey, and it's called Cat Verbalised. There is one on Quant called Cat Quant Simplified, which is written by Chandra.

Chandra, who is a 94 batch IIMC alumni, had quit investment banking to start teaching Quant. He has been at it consistently for the last 9-10 years, and has a huge fan following. Massey passed out of The Hindu College in Delhi about 5 years back, and has been teaching English forever. They say, he knows everything about English, one possibly could. Finally, there is Ankur Suryavanshi. A supposedly 2002 batch computer engineer from AIT, Pune, who defied the lure of software engineering to teach.

So if you are in Pune next year, and you want to take a good chance at the 1000 rupee lottery conducted by the IIM's, and you want personal attention for a not so personal fee, and you want a guarantee that you would be taught by the best guys so that you can get to the best colleges, join these guys. (no they haven't paid me yet, but I am hoping they would sometime). I know, I know, coaching classes for any exam are useless and I never go for them anyways, but if you are hell bent on going to one, then go to these guys.

PS. They call themselves takzhila (or something like that)

Also, for those who are not really interested in CAT, you might like to know where to find Charas in Manali.

Cross posted at Pune Bloggers

What say ladies?

I found this on India Uncut.

A study of the sexual habits, says that the age at which most people have sex isn't going down. (No they are not talking about horny people like you). But here is the interesting bit,

"A single woman is more able to negotiate safe sex in certain circumstances than a married woman," says van Look, who points out that married women in Africa and Asia are often threatened by unfaithful husbands who frequent prostitutes.

Any single ladies around, I'd be happy to oblige... (Married, I don't really mind)

Link

Child Labour

Shruti has a nice post about bannig child labour. Here is what I think about it.

A relative of mine teaches at a Government School in Haryana. If you ask her, she will tell you that on days the meals are being distributed, rather for those few hours, the number of kids at the school is almost three times the usual. The rest of them never attend school.

The Mid-Day meals have been there for quite some time, but Child Labour is still rampant.

You are right when you say that banning won't help reduce child labour, but the thing is that banning it is better than doing nothing. Your post for example, is nice, but doesn't give us any new answers, which is what we need.

I like Atanu's explanation on the subject.

The way out is to address the complex of causes which leads to the effect which is millions of children being denied a childhood. The rational solution would involve, first of all, implementing policies which prevent the birth of too many unwanted children. “Family planning” vigorously implemented. But then, no political party has the guts to do so. Next, make it a law that a child laborer has to be paid the same wages as an adult. This would give employers no reason to employ children when for the same wages they can have an adult worker. Third, provide schools and meals at schools (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) for all children. This would make schools attractive for those children who are poor enough to have to work for food. Finally, provide very poor parents a monthly stipend if their children attend school regularly. This would help them make ends meet without having to send their children to work. THEN, and only then, pass a law banning child labor.

Even here, family planning is almost here, meals are almost here too. But one important suggestion is to provide a stipend to poor parents whose kids go to school.

Now where might all that money come from? From stopping the utter wastage of funds by our useless politicians. (link). Then the millions which are going to be spent due to increase of seats due to reservation.

It really doesn't seem like our PM is an economist. Does it? Hope he didn't flunk.

Don

Once upon a time I used to like his blog, but today I really think he is a jerk. Especially after this (him loving Don for Shah Rukh Khan) and adding it to the fact that this guy writes movie reviews (which is not bad in itself) for business-standard (but this is crazy). And by the way, he doesn't even understand what does one mean by 'style over substance'. If you try to remember, my boy, once upon a time, you had some of it (yes yes substance).

PS. He's even linked to the sardarji who teaches English. People say he's amazing, and well so do I, but these days he's just got too much time you see, even he's writing about Don.

Update: I'm out of a job sirji, ofcourse I have all the time in the world. hehe.