Monday, December 31, 2007

naansense begins...

Triple convergence of work: (Title Copied from World is Flat by Thomas Friedman)

Today, in IT industry there are three kinds of people at work. Conversely this does not necessarily mean that there are three types of workers.

Type1 – Developers, testers and programmers kind who do the work;
Type2 – Leaders, specialists, coordinators kind who make the work done by Type1 workers; and,
Type3- Managers, consultants, associate-in-charge kind who advise Type2 workers how to make the work done by Type1 workers.

Work, like everything else, has evolved from being pristine and individualistic to being civilized, sophisticated and ritualistic, where it is difficult to identify what work really is, who really does it, and whether it is really done or not.

For such sophisticated competitive environment International Institute of Idle Techies has come up with a survival kit for IT professionals.


Survival Kit for an IT professional:

At Office:

1. Internet enabled work stations.
2. gtalk/yahoo-messenger/gmail/meebo.
3. Orkut enabled proxy.
4. Ear/head phones and a music collection on some shared location.
5. If 4 not found then iPOD/mp3 player.
6. If 4 and 5 not found then Camera, mp3 enabled mobile phone.

At Home:

7. Laptop/Desktop.
8. Internet connectivity.
9. Maggi packets.
10. Cigarettes (Optional).
11. Pizza hut/Dominos/Subway contact numbers.
12. Cooler/Air conditioner during summer.
13. TATA sky connection with NEO Sports (for males).
14. Porn Interesting movies collection (for males).

Naansense ends!

Wishing you happy new year!

Sunday, December 30, 2007

signs, scare & seemabaddha...

Trust me! When one is living alone in a 3 BHK apartment, one should peacefully have dinner and go to sleep by 10 in the night. Especially one must not watch late night M Night Shyamalan’s movies at any cost. They can be creepy and can affect the secretion of melatonin from pineal gland which will leave the person making himself or herself coffee all night to get out of what he or she just saw. It’s not that those movies are outright scary. They don’t scare you right away, but they bring that anticipation of fear in you which is far horrid than the fear itself. “There is no terror in a bang, only in the anticipation of it…” I learned the meaning of these words by Alfred Hitchcock only last night when I was watching ‘Signs’. Wooohoo! Movie is not that scary if you watch in broad daylight. But in the night, when you are alone, you know… (Another thing that scared the crap out of me this weekend was History channel’s Double F about this person… this was scarier than 'Signs'... May be because this was REAL!)

But fortunately I didn’t spend my night making myself shots of black coffee. Because the next movie I saw was Satyajit Ray’s Seemabaddha
(Company Limited). This was my first Satyajit Ray movie and I was spellbound by the imagination, narration and direction of Ray. Sharmila Tagore was as gracious as ever, and so was the story line. I must say, with all profound awe & respect, that Ray was far ahead of his times in his vision. The way movie started unfolded and ended; and the background music (again by Ray… awesome…)… you just cannot expect that from any Bharatiya director of those times (except of course a very few), who were more inclined towards conventional sing-song, hero-villain-fight-for-leading-lady kind of movies, leaving the message and society in constipated fiction. Satyajit Ray! I salute you.

And for those of you who would like to watch Satyajit Ray’s classics, tune into Zee Studio on Saturday nights after 10 PM movie or Sunday 1500 hours. Movies are in Bengali, but they come with English subtitles.

Yawwwwn...
! Nothing much. Life’s going as usual… lazy, aimless and chaotic, as was designed to be… Happy new year… I wish the intended resolutions hold this year…

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

mosquito, my enemy…

Merry Christmas all… Hope Santa Clause finds you and gives you your expensive cherished gifts.

Last night, I got inspired by the mosquitoes of my room. And I am so overwhelmed that I am compelled to share this with all you people on the other frail ends of optical fiber. Before that let me tell you that I am anti-mosquito-repellent activist, i.e. I don’t (and because I cannot) use mosquito repellents (coils, chemicals…) because they set my head into dizzy motions. And at the same time, I discourage everyone to use them, because they are not only
not-good and not-healthy for the hexapoda-insecta-culicidae, but also they are not-good and not-healthy for the bipoda-chordata-homosapiens.

So, to safeguard myself from bites of the six legged insect, one day I got myself one mosquito net for 105 rupees. And trust me; this small one-time-investment is far and far better than 45 nights (void) guarantee given by those mosquito repellents in the shelves of the super market. So…I take this net home and tie it above and across my bed. Voila! Not a single mosquito in the 6-by-3-by-3 cuboid fortress of mine. I sleep well for a week.
But after a week, mosquitoes *somehow* found a way to enter the chamber! Now you see… one side of this cuboid chamber remains vulnerable because I also have to enter it through this side. So after releasing extra blood to my left brain, I see that all mosquitoes are perched on *this vulnerable side* now, that too at the very bottom where the edge of the net meets the bed. They bloody knew that once I lift it to enter, they get a
chance to enter too! Damn! They are genius, they adapt, and they are not as dumb as I earlier used to think they were.

But anyways this was a challenge to my egotistic-(-accidental-)-engineer-self. I collect data… I observe… I analyze… I find solution… So now I block this side permanently and start entering from the other side. The entry side will be interchanged every week given the adaptation time horizon of mosquitoes is one week. And this strategy will be reviewed every night based on the number of enemies entering the cuboid fortress. If at all any unfortunate mosquito enters the chamber, he loses his life! Ahh! I am a genius… a stochastic savant!


Kuchh bhi ho…
After seeing this, I became a fan of this seemingly insignificant blood-sucking manifestation of life. Now I give these mosquitoes a stature of my annoying neighbors and respect of my enemies. In their honor I leave with these words by Mr Bashir Badr:

Saturday, December 22, 2007

matar-paneer & more...

Matar-Paneer is my favorite. Not only for eating, but also it is favorite dish when my cooking instincts take over my eating emotions. Oh yeah! Yours truly cooks and is only a few steps and recipes away from being called a great chef… trust me… no??... Tch!… ok, may be a hundred steps… Well… whoever has eaten what I cooked, none of them complained food poisoning… So at least that’s first step towards being a great chef, isn’t it… :P

When a person gets infected by the pest of philosophy he starts thinking philosophy everywhere – be it lavatory, observatory, cemetery or even a kitchen. So, forgive me for what c
omes next. Asking ‘What is cooking?’ is the question similar to asking ‘What is life?’ Cooking is not just about putting matar and paneer in the pressure cooker with right mix of water, spices and salt, and getting appreciation from the matar-paneer-eaters. It’s lot more than that!

Cooking is an art. Cooking is a
science. Art – when practiced, science – when perceived. It is not about just knowing the ingredients of the mouth-watering dishes; it is about knowing one’s own ingredients. It is about knowing one’s hunger and the emptiness. It is about understanding what one has and what one lacks, what one needs and what one wants. It is about trying to understand and appreciate the fact that after eating, the tomato becomes the blood, rice becomes the flesh, the carrot becomes the cornea, paneer becomes the pelvis and matar becomes the muscle.

From cutting of vegetables to washing of utensils, every aspect of cooking is important and tells something about the life. And cooking, just like life, is never complete!


Hope you are still hungry :P...! So... When can I experiment my matar-paneer on you?

Bon Appétit!

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

on the run...

Life has become lazy like the misty winter. Leaving behind this small piece of writing from old pale pages of my lost diary...

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

on the run...

There is no internet at home currently. Though the address says Hi Tech City on one of the lines, there is nothing Hi Tech around and about it. Optical fiber hasn’t reached there and communication towers seem to shy away from showering their radio waves around the area. That obviated even the option of having an expensive USB plug and surf device. And without internet at home, blogging is no more exciting.

Though office has 24 by 7, 100 mbps broadband connection, it does not have a conducive surrounding for blogging, especially when there are so many beautiful things to look around and after! I mean… oh! You understand that don’t you!

Meanwhile, I am keenly following the ‘My Brilliant Brain’ series on Nat Geo these days. Apparently the left side of my back head has started showing the signs of impact it suffered two years ago. May be that’s the reason my logical brain doesn’t work much! ;)… The documentary will be aired at 2200 hours on NAT GEO every day till Dec 21st. There will be four people from India, out of those two will be from Hyderabad. Konkona Sen Sharma will be hosting the show for India's series.

So for now, I take leave with the following words by Mr Nidah Fazli:

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

dolce far niente...

Note: Embedded in "italics" are the quotes by Robert Frost.

I wish I knew how to be idle with dignity.


The best way out is always through.


Even though I try to somehow keep my brains occupied, still some moments of void and vacuum remain untouched, which suck the sanity off my existence. Though it is inevitable one day or the other to face the breathlessness of that vacuum, yet there is this disease called ‘hope’ which keeps one away from accepting the inevitability. One day everyone’s got to learn how to keep their mouths and brains shut.


The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work.


You are given everything. Your basic needs are satiated till the extreme of saturation. Still you are left with more resources to dispose off. That’s when ennui cr
eeps in with its worst horrors. Indiscipline and ennui are the worst diseases of mind. They enter your life like ‘common cold’ and later turn into incurable lumps of existential cancers.

The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office.


Last few days have been total chaos - shifting the house, filling application(s) and sending packet(s) to university(s). Big fight was to adapt to the mosquitoes of new house and the ‘stray dog’ which woke up 4 o’clock in the morning and started barking just below the window of my room. So, this morning when the canine singer started bhau-bhauing with his natural alarm mechanism, I took one small lemon from the kitchen and let the gravity do the rest. ‘Saala ‘kutta’ ab kabhi subah subah bhaunka to me will throw watermelon this time…’ As per mosquitoes, I have a mosquito net now – an impregnable wall of perforated clothing to prevent the ‘Anopheles Arabiensis’ from sucking away drops of my hemoglobin.

Love is an irresistible desire to be desired irresistibly.


I realized how poor I am at talking and how good at writing. The proof - ladies not able to spend even two minutes with me talking vis-à-vis, while the same ladies spend hours chatting tête-à-tête on messengers!


A poem...begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. It is a reaching-out toward expression; an effort to find fulfillment. A complete poem is one where an emotion finds the thought and the thought finds the words.

As I set my feet on the ground, the earth beneath me starts trembling... (This one's mine ;) )