Monday, January 30, 2006

youthful colors

Sunday was a good movie day. Thanks to pre-planning by Sri, got to see a good bollywood movie after quite sometime.
"Rang De Basanti". Colorful, vivid, vibrant. The actors had done a good job of portraying the carefree attitude of the youth. The english lady was interesting (?). The music was of course phenomenal and very engaging. While the whole plot was captivating till after the intermission, a better ending could have been shaped. It was almost as if the director ran out of time while making the movie and decided to call it the end, no matter how the movie ended. Towards the end of the movie, everyone in the audience were guessing the moves, more out of curiosity than out of interest. Aamir Khan's acting was again out of the world. I was really moved in the scene where he breaks down to the english lady after he and his friends clash with the police. The only other scene that had moved me so much was enacted by him in DCH (a religion for a few of us) where he breaks down to his dad giving up his ego.

In all, the director had done a fantastic job of bringing India so close to us. The movie reminded me of a lot of things that are so unique, wonderful and sooo Indian. It reminded me of the colors we see there and we so much take for granted, of different traditions and customs, of the smell of mud and dust :), of movies filled with songs, of mother's cooking, of government (for staying politically correct, I refrain from explaining this), of public transportation, of railways, of my college life..I lived in India for those 3 hours and was transported back! Great job!

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Google Again!

Boy o boy..how many times would I write about this company. Time and again, I am proved right! There is a conspiracy theory that Google plans to accquire New Zealand and produce the movie Lord of the Google that would eventually win an oscar. Pah!
What makes me wonder is if this is truly fresh, new enthusiasm or just recycled energy? We have been having Microsoft around for coupla decades. I remember revering MS for the tools and the technology that it simply seemed to spew. Then came a new dimension - the Internet. Google seems to be doing pretty good job of getting all of us kicked about its new products/ideas.
I do not wish to be a party spoiler now and say that WSJ "feels" the same way about Google as it "felt" about MS, but look what is threatening MS now. Frankly, isn't it immature to see no limit to the magic tricks Google can conjure. I am not buying it, not this time. Somehow, I feel we are standing again on a huge bubble with a sword(my oh my!) hanging just above our head. I don't wish to make it sound this dangerous, but I see the truth in this.
Atleast, for now, the employees are all happy and never hungry, their brains tick more than twice that of mine, somehow there is a youthful exuberance in the company. Hopefully, more tricks or treats are in store!

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

35 hours per week?

Call it the influence of the French Culture, but I strongly support the idea. I was in for a pleasant surprise to see my views being supported by Bertrand Russell in his book "In Praise of Idleness". He managed to justify 4 hours of work per day is all a man needs to run his living. I think that is probably a little too less. I favor a little more - 6 hours of work (is perfect). Neither too long nor too short. It is like sitting through two indian movies :). That simple.
To effect this, the systems must be automated to shut down after 6 hours of work. It would be interesting to observe if people perform more efficiently under this system. Even in a typical 8 hour day, we spend 1 hour at lunch and 1 hour taking tea breaks b/w our 3 hour meetings. Err..efficiency?
Plus, think about this: The saddest thing of the current lifestyle we lead now is that we never see the sunshine, the landscapes and the beauty of the world we live in. I mean, we should be gifted to get so much of sunshine, guys. Think of the souls that work in the Scandanavian zones. So go out and hug the sunshine.
But then again, decision: On one hand you have life which can give you experiences of different shades and tones. On the other hand you have work for which you take the same route, sit in the same office, perform the different kind of activities to solve the same kind of problems.
And like all good things, life is less in hours and you are always planning to go through it, while "real life" walks past you.

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Hot Spicy Fact

I always wonder if I would ever be likeone of those chefs on tv. These people seem so confident with their ingredients, their process, touch of this, dash of that and top it all up with whipped cream..whoppa!
Cooking and me?Well, first I do a survey of what I have in hand. Then, I decide if it is going to be a dry dish or a gravy one. And then just add the ingredients I have, big bang approach. The spices that I add pretty much depend on what I "feel" does good. So, somehow in this process, one day it dawned on me that I could procedurize my show (cooking for the mere mortals) and started following "Food Network". Even today,I can remember the ingredients (vaguely), I can remember the process(not too clearly) and remember the outcome(foggily). Here is one thing that I think I seriously learnt well:
1. When it comes to chillis, the smaller they are, the hotter they are
2. Younger chills are hotter than older ones -> green chillis are hotter than whatever other colours they come in.
3. Sharp end chillis are hotter than round end ones.
Now I would atleast watch out for the shapes when I add these to my creation.

ps: Sorry Sweethearts of 54 FQ, now I know why my pieces of creativity were always saltier and hotter.

aay oo monsieur

While the last posting was about a ghost who I think might come back to haunt me, which I really don't want, this posting is about this particular interesting friend who I seem to have lost in the pages of blogging, scroll bars through emails, screens of chatting. Would you be there in trash?

Friday, January 13, 2006

Ghost?

Ever felt like everyone around you is moving forward, away, far while you are in the same job, same apartment, same clothes (where did this come from?), same thoughts, same (new?) experiences?
I was visiting Hotlanta and boy, this time, it was everything but hot. Every trip to this city has been pleasure. I never seemed to have enough time between "hi"s and "bye"s to everyone I wanted to meet.

When I travel, I watch my old friends turn new, new friends become old and friends who are in between old and new, move to one of the groups. When I meet these friends, I am always surprised at the new things they have to share with me..starting from "I am moving to Seattle, I got another exciting offer" and immediately jump into a complete description of the entire process to plain silence. While I initially started writing this blog with the idea of talking about how everyone has something new in life. Then a "new" experience born out of a trip to a friend's place to watch a movie changed the perspective of this piece.
Things hadn't been smooth between me and this particular friend of mine. After avoiding few of his calls and invitations, I decided to be mature and show up to one of the events-a movie. It is not the complete and detailed description of every event I missed that surprises me. It is the silence that follows "so..whatz up?" that does. I could actually see the chord of friendship snap and I saw it happen this time.
Which leads me to an interesting questions: When do friends stop being friends? When we find the special person in our life, do we spin cocoon around the two of us that we become totally oblivious to the happenings in the rest of the world?How can two friends, who had so much in common in the past, suddenly go out of topics to talk about?What is with this sudden "Hi Stranger" feeling that brews in the coffee pot instead of a warm cup and tons of news to exchange?So what happens to these relationships that just wither away and just hang around as memories tucked in our minds?
I wouldn't particularly consider myself a feminist when I say this: I was under the impression that women loose touch with friends after the big W and the even more bigger event-a new arrival. I wasn't comfortable loosing such good friends to a simple reason: lack of time. I am sure lot of my friends would have the same thing to comment about me. But as usual, Life had a surprise package for me; men do two!!(misspelled on purpose).
As I sit here in this situation, during the wee hours of the morning, wondering about relationships that wither, wilt, would bloom..bla bla bla: I can see two roads to choose from:

I can maturely acknowledge the fact that we have just "fallen out of friendship" and move on or I can continue to brew coffee pots with hi's and bye's but serve it to the ghost-as a friend I knew, is no longer him.

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

strange activities with Y! msgr

I am recently encountering strange messages from people not at all in my messenger. The messages don't say much, just ask me to check out this online game with the link provided. I mean, these people couldn't be related to me even if I wish to go through eight degrees of separation!Is everything ok Y!?

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Rumors

More about companies, what is coming out with what, who is going to perform a magic trick that would let you view the photos sitting in your home computer on your cell phone through a free wireless network making sure that your IP is not listed, who would send out an email of a new voice message on any of your phones, sort email messages based on your relationship with them(huh?)..the new gossips circle around what is Google going to come out next with, what is Y! going to do to rival that and why is Microsoft silent through the whole process like a tiger crouching before a strike..Is there a bubble imminent again? As a company, I have enjoyed following Google, read and analyzed cases about it, tried betting what the next move would be..like so many others around: always impressed :). Yahoo! does better in a different dimension by providing a wide array of services through one portal. Microsoft, I wouldn't comment on much. I haven't used MSN a lot. Somehow, these rumors seem more spicy than who broke up with whom, who is pregnant or not?