Another round of vacation

Its holiday season in US. And since the software services industry in India caters to US, its holiday time for them too. No wonder my company came up with a brilliant idea of giving this whole week off on the expense of my eligible leaves.
This is good in the sense that I wouldn't have taken this vacation otherwise. And I still get 25 eligible leaves besides these which I feel are pretty much sufficient.
However, this does remind me of the Coolie Valley article once published on the indian software industry.

I doubt that india will ever have a silicon valley. So it will always be a second grade place to work for geeky people like me.

Anways, for now I would stop thinking in these lines and wish everyone Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year. I am off to vacation and will come back in the new year (which someone has said is a rooster year and I am a rooster too. Don't know if that means anything :)

Firefox rocks

A lot of people have said this before. Why am I saying this? Because of this setting.
Who is the default handler of URLs? The browser. So who should decide how an URL should be opened, the browser or the application which contains the url?
In my opinion, this right belongs to the browser. Now all the URLs I access open in the same way (New tab window in Firefox) no matter from which application I access them from.

I have been using alternate browsers since more than 2 years now and I have tried Opera v7 to 7.5 and Firefox 0.93. But it took this feature this feature of Firefox to make this browser my "default" browser.
Opera has this feature to save the last open windows on exit and open them again on browser restart. A killer feature, and I would love to have it in Firefox.

Najanay Kyoun

Strings is one of my favourite bands and I was pleasantly suprised when I first noticed this song in Spiderman II OST.
Taking another look at the lyrics of the song, It shows the helplessness of an individual against luck or bhagya. How conditions have suddenly turned against him and there is nothing he can do other than to wonder why.
In this sense, this song goes well with spiderman's life as he is always stuck with things he doesn't have control on.
I perceive similar sentiments in the In the end post by Gullu.

Dekho kaise parbat se badal gaye, barsenge yeh ab kahan
Dekho kaise phoolon se khushbu gayi, mehekenge yeh ab kahan

sukh ban gaye sapne
sab kho gaye apne

dil bujh gaya, ghar jal gaya
najanay kyoun najanay kyoun
yaadon ka phir aachal udha
najanay kyoun najanay kyoun
najanay kyoun najanay kyoun

dekho kaise haaton se jugnu gaye
chamkenge yeh ab kahan

Kyun so gayi shaame
kat na saken raatein

dil bujh gaya, ghar jal gaya
najanay kyoun najanay kyoun
yaadon ka phir aachal udha
najanay kyoun najanay kyoun
najanay kyoun najanay kyoun

Back to work

I am back to Delhi after spending more than half of November on vacation in Jaipur.
Normally when I am away from work for such a long time, I feel refreshed and enthusiastic when I return and enjoy work for some days atleast. However, this hasn't been the case this time. I guess delhi's winter could be the reason which brings back my ages old problem of cough and cold. In contrast,
I had fewer problems of cold in Bangalore although I did have some cough problems due to allergy because of the humid weather.

Life has been directionless of late. I have been trying to organize my thoughts to find some direction but as of now, I don't know what I want to do.

Appraisal

This week has been pretty hectic for me as I had to stay in office till midnight twice. Interestingly, my stay-in-office-till-midnight-count before this was 4 before this week in more than 2 years of experience.
I certainly do not like to stay in office for an extra minute as it reduces my hourly pay-rate drastically. Secondly, office is not exactly a fun-place for me and I believe in following a strict 9-6 routine and delivering all my deliverables within that. I feel that following this routine will make me better at time-management and will help me two years down the line by which I would probably get married.

Also, I had my first performance review and my manager has been pretty happy with my work. Its been the first time when I have been recognized for the work I have done with my manager calling me "a valuable resource to the company". This have made me particularly happy considering that certain not so good incidents happened 2-3 months ago. This also proves that my beliefs and current path are helping me find the balance my professional and personal life better, something that I have been thriving to.

Is it me or is it that I am going too personal in my last few posts? Or I have always been like that??

Jindagi ek Jung

Last weekend and this week have been more leisurely for me due to an easily manageable workload in office and my not going to my hometown last weekend for a change.
Hence after a long time, I have been watching some TV. Saw old movies spiderman and meri jung again.

Among all the comic heroes, I find spiderman most interesting because of two reasons. One is the science fiction and technology involved which are relatively realistic. The other reason is the dilemma that spiderman has and the "with great power comes great responsibility" tag. How the same powers can be his boon and curse at the same time. In my opinion, even with a small power comes great responsibility.

Meri Jung also echoes similar sentiments with title song
Jindagi har kadam ek nayi jung hai
Jeet jayenge hum tu agar sang hai

I was pretty much a happy go lucky person till entering my final year of college. Getting almost everything without much of fight, I had a carefree attitude and smiling face. However, the final semester of college and professional life has brought out the fighter out of me. After lots of depression periods big and small, I feel that I am coming in terms with life. Also, I have been able to fight out some happiness and stability for myself. This gives me a sense of achievement and the confidence to tackle other problems in hand.

Life has to be taken with a strong mind and smiling face. And every little moment of joy should be enjoyed to the fullest.

Writer's block

Lots of new things have happened in past sometime. A lot to write about, but somehow I have not been able to pen my thoughts. In an attempt to break this block, I would summarize few events and few thoughts .

I shifted to a another rented house sometime ago and life has been more peaceful after that. Now after more than six months since I left bangalore, I feel little bit stability in both my personal and professional life. Being a tauras, stability is the first priority of my life , lacking which I am unable to concentrate on any other task.

Its PR revival time and I have started working on it. Also its time to start thinking new ideas and start working on the old ones whereever required.

Also, my brother's wedding is on Nov 22 so all the readers take note of this date in their schedulers. I would be sending across invitations soon.

P.S. For a writer's block, does one needs to be a writer?

Almost Dhoom

Dhoom machte machte rahe gaya. How many times has this happen a hindi movie that it starts pretty well, increases the expectations and then falters at some point. This movie fits perfectly into the "good, but could have been better" classification.
Good concept, good bikes, a decent abhishek bachchan and john abrahim. While most hindi movies have 2-3 simultaneous stories running, this sticks to its one and only story.
But the starcast otherwise could have been better. There could have been more than just one big bike chase. The high energy "Dhoom Machale" song could have been choreographed on someone having more energy than esha deol.
So many coulds. Well, still the verdict should to given on the effort and I call it another step towards hollywood.

Kyun ho gaya naa

Saw Kyun ho gaya naa yesterday. The only reason why this movie finds a mention in this blog is because the last movie I saw before this was more than 1.5 months ago.
Right from the start I knew that this is going to be one bad experience. Maybe that's the reason why I didn't find it as bad as expected. Good and bad are relative terms, relative to expectations. This is why we fights with our loved ones even on a very small issue while choose to ignore strangers.

The good thing about the movie was this photography. However, as this happens with most movies of aishwarya, the movie at times looked more like a photo session of aishwarya.
I have beginning to dislike aishwarya in the past few days when it comes to acting. Everytime I see her, I feel like she is carrying a great burden of showing the world the face of the cultured, all good indian woman, and she has lost her natural expressions because of this. All expressions that come on her face apart from her smile look made up. She makes heavy-weight emotional scenes out of nowhere. Com'on girl, look like a human, not like some great romantic poem/goddess/most emotional person on earth.

I didn't find anything worthwhile mention in this movie having nothing that I can call storyline.

2 years of software engineering

Today I complete 2 years in the software industry. I still remember 10th August, 2002. I received my B.Tech degree in the convocation ceremony and in the evening I left for Bangalore to join Infy on the 12th of August, 2002, exactly 2 years ago.
Now as I look back, I feel that things could have gone better. I have not be able to meet the professional targets that I have set for myself at that time. At the same time. I also feel that things could have gone much worse. Hence I would settle for a job reasonably well done.
Personally, I didn't have many targets 2 years ago. I have taken up whatever came up on my stride. So there should not be any no question of dissatisfaction there.
Targets have changed, Target types have changed, lets see how the life goes.

Note Chapne ki Machine

Gullu has always been one of the greatest performers I have seen when it comes to academics or profession. So when he says that there is more to life than grades and a plum job, I can't help but wonder if he is trying to not be a part of my new sadistic defination of IITians.

As per this defination, all IITians are nothing but Note Chapne ki Machine ... All their life they do nothing but sit on a table with a xerox machine printing out currency. People come, take the currency and leave to do whatever they want. In return, they give you food, clothes, shelter and sometimes love. This is somewhat similar to the rat race described in Rich Dad, Poor Dad.

I shouldn't take all the credit for this sadistic thought. It came out a few days ago when I was talking to 2-3 friends of mine (Mota, BKP and Vikas). Mota is being placed in Bareilly by his employer where he has nothing but the xerox machine. So now you know where the thought originated from.

So if I know all this, then why am I not doing anything to make life worthwhile. Well, I am trying for sure. Kyonki Fighter hamesha fight maarta hai.

A tribute to friendship

My general opinion on Friendship day (or any such day for that matter) is that these days have been defined by Greeting Card companies to promote their sales.
However, I have been pretty nostalgic in the past few days remembering the good old days of college and bangalore. Maybe because delhi still doesn't provide me the same home feeling as I used to have in these two places.
The tragedy of my kind of life is that we keep on moving, changing places and in the process, go far away from the great friends we make.
Time once gone never comes back, but I am happy to say that I spent the best days of my life so far during IIT and Bangalore and I am proud that I have such great friends.
A big thank you to all of you my dear friends ... Hail friendship and hail Shakti for being so much more lucky than Sanjay.

The legend of Zelda

I have been pretty involved one of the video games from The legend of Zelda series, namely The Ocarina of Time. An adventurous game, I have already spent 3 weeks on it and I have not yet reached half stage.

This game was made for the Nintendo 64 console in 1995. Even though made almost a decade ago, it has decent graphics and the sound effects and music are just fantastic. It still remains one of the most popular games for N64 console.
Thanks to certain good N64 emulators and walkthroughs (and less work load in office ;-), I have been able to enjoy it on my pc.

This added with the fact that there have not been any good movie releases since lakshya, there is really not much stuff to blog.

Main aisa kyun hoon

Finally saw Lakshya. Based on the Kargil war, I found the movie pretty decent to watch. For once, I didn't find performance by any actor exceptionally good or bad. Though I did feel that while amitabh bachchan looked good without his frenchie, he looked a bit old for the part of commanding officer.

There are two things that I liked about the movie. Firstly, the photography. There were some great scenes of the himalayas and the leh route. The scenery is beautiful. Then there is an exceptional sequence of rock climbing in the himalayas.
Second is the song Main aisa kyun hoon. While I have never been the biggest fan of the actor Hritik, I think he is one of the best dancers the industry has ever produced. The song and his dance on it has a freshness attached with it. And Hritik has not done badly with acting either.

Two points on the character of Preity Zinta. One .. Hritik runs away from military training. She says that she doesn't want to meet him again. Two .. she is engaged to another guy. She wants to go to Kargil but this guy doesn't want her to go. Guess what, she returns her engagement ring immediately and goes to Kargil. Is this what they call love?

The Unforgiven

I am not much into rock and Metallica in general. I just listen to two compositions by Metallica, namely "Nothing Else Matters" and "The Unforgiven".
Fews lines from "The Unforgiven"

they dedicate their lives
to running all of his
he tries to please them all
this bitter man he is

throughout his life the same
he's battled constantly
this fight he cannot win

a tired man they see no longer cares
the old man then prepares
to die regretfully
that old man here is me

I have not yet been able to find a fault in the old man.

I want you to be ...

Just remember a TV ad. A baby is born, his mom says I want you to be born.
He grows up,I want you to study.
grows up more, I want you to go to college, I want you to work, We want you to get married beta, I want us to have a baby, I want I want I want ...

The guy finally says "I just want to be ....... me"

When would I be me?

Gmail

Google started Gmail on 1st April, 2004 with a big bang but a handful of test users. Now after two and half months, they have started rapidly increasing their userbase through invitations. Being a gmail member since quite some time now, I am getting gmail invites almost everyday since past few days. This makes me feel that the final release of Gmail is not very far away now.
The whole concept of 1 GB mailboxes triggered a revolution. One one hand, sites like AventureMail and SpyMac tried to take the initial advantage by providing the same or higher disk space before gmail goes public and thus increase their userbase.
On the other hand, existing portals like Yahoo and Rediff have also increased their disk quotas.
However, my personal opinion is that Google will still emerge as the leader with Yahoo as closest competitor. The primary reason here is because google's technology is far more superior than others. They have developed something called Google OS, great technology for backup and failure recovery. On top of it, They provide a great UI. Gullu has already written a review from a user's perspective.
Yahoo will remain because of its spam filter(which is the best I have seen so far), messenger program and other portals like photos, briefcase, yahoogroups etc. But other sites don't have much to offer. Reminds me of Netscape and IE war.

P.S. Ping me in case anyone needs a Gmail account :-)

A weekend in Noida

I have been living in Noida for like 2 months now. But it still remains a No-idea-what-to-do place for me during weekends. One reason for this is that I spend 3 weekends out of 4 in jaipur, my hometown.
This weekend was different. Went out on all three evenings, watched Dev, met Shikhar and Vipul and found out that Vipul also stays in Noida.
Dev deals with 2 cops, 2 friends, both have suffered the same trauma, but while one has gone against extremism, other has gone against a community. Sadly, most people I have seen are like Tej, who target a community for all problems rather than extremism.
Amitabh Bachchan is brilliant as Dev. As a rational minded cop supplemented with karma, he preaches as well as works towards it. Dialogue delivery is fantastic, and though the subject of movie is pretty heavy, it rarely goes heavy on the viewer.
Om puri also lives upto his reputation as Tej. Fardeen is okay and Kareena is not worth a mention.
There are 2 dialogues of Dev worth mentioning:
There have been communal riots and lots of people have died due to neglect of police. Dev is angry, Tej tries to console by saying that this is just collatoral damage.
Dev Says "hum aur tum kaun hote hai yeh decide karne waale ki kisko jeene ka haq hai aur kisko nahi"
Another place where Dev has put a politician behind bars and CM asks to release him, Dev refuses. On this, Tej later tries to explain Dev that he shud know how to talk to these guys and accept whatever they say or else woh bach nahi payega
On this, Dev replies "Tum bach jaoge Tej"
It takes an Amitabh to deliver such dialogues.

Fanaah

means complete destruction.
My profession has caused me to put many restrictions on myself. No staying awake late on weekdays. No movies, come back home early.
Last evening was fanaah of all rules and routine. Anuj and me went out for dinner and then saw the late night show of Yuva. It has a song which preaches:
hone do dil ko fanaah ... hone do dard ko dawa ... udhne do har ek woh tamanna
Unlike most critics, I liked the movie though I felt it was a bit too long.
After finally having both Hum Tum and Yuva in my kitty, I can now claim my movie lover tag back :-) which got lost after leaving bangalore.
I am feeling pretty sleepy since morning but who cares ... Hone Do Fanaah

Sinusoidal Curve

I always believe that life is a sinusoidal curve. Life is normal, then it starts becoming good, goes on to a peak, starts dipping until it can't do more bad and then things start improving again.
But what if the time-period becomes very short. When the low moment comes before we fully enjoy the high moment. And worse, when it comes even before we start enjoying the peak.
I am terribly confused. One part of me wants to think abt the peak of the curve and be happy, the other is thinking abt the trough it has created.
How do I describe my state of mind right now. In simple mathematical terms, a peak and a trough cancels out and puts life on zero axis. Kaaash ...

Some more of Hum Tum

There is a scene in Hum Tum I liked in particular (though most people wont have same feelings here)
Saif is trying to do something good for Rani but things somehow gets messed up, some fighting and rani is in tears whle saif ends up drinking. Saif hasn't said that he is in love with Rani at this stage.

After he drinks a lot, he says "Aanson uske nikalte hai aur dard yahan hota hai(pointing to his heart)yeh kaisa insaaf hai" ... then suddenly correcting himself ... "arre yahi to insaaf hai, agar aanson bhi uske hote aur dard bhi uska to insaaf thore hi hota" .. and then the conclusion ... "arre sahi insaaf to yeh hota ki uske aanson bhi yahan hote aur dard bhi yahin"(pointing to himself again)

Though I feel most people would find it an overdose, this is one of the scenes where I noticed Saif's talent to do emotional scenes.
Also, this is the first time in the movie where he clearly shows how much he really loves rani and where his character gains my empathy. Cheers to Karan Kapoor.

Visitors on this page

Surprise surprise ... in just 5 days of blogging I have already got a comment from someone other than Gullu. I am not counting Gullu because I myself told him about this page. A small vote of thanks to him and bindu, the first visitor (okay okay .. this is the last time)
On the photo on my profile, this is a digital passport size photograph I got in my final year at college to apply in various comapanies in campus. I got 25 photos but due to some great luck, 2 photos were sufficient for me during the campus recruitment. Since then this photo has been my most used and at most varied places. I dont have any hard copies of it left now but still have this softcopy which makes it my most used photo on the net also.
I like this photo mainly because I seem a bit more fair in it than I actually am.

Template Changed

Picked up another template from blogger and this one is looking. Finally have been able to put my pic on my profile. Looks like things are shaping up well.
Blogger also provides an atom formatted RSS feed for the blog. But this is not displayed in any of the default templates. Looks like I will have to add it myself in the template. If you don't know what rss feeds are, check out this simple explanation by Rediff.

Inspiration

Vishal says that he believes in freedom to copy.
I also believe in the same provided that one acknowledges the original author and provided that one is not causing any losses to him, monetary or otherwise.
Hence I would like to acknowledge here that Vishal has been my "inspiration" for writing my own blog and as it can be noticed, much of this blog's look and feel is also inspired from his.
P.S. This certainly does not mean that I would acknowledge my every inspiration ;-)

Kumaon 98 Collage

This collage was created by David (Anuj Dhawan). All the images are of my hostel batch mates (same hostel && same batch). All kumaon tigers who were cubs in 1998.

Why omniscence

Why did I name my blog omniscience. As dictionary.com says, omniscient is one having total knowledge, something unachievable by a mere mortal. Hence omniscient also means god, the almighty.
So the uninitiated would say that this title simply depicts my extreme arrogance and immaturity. To be frank, a small part in me does agree to him.
However, the larger part, which can never criticize me, does come up with an explanation(We all come up with explanations, dont we). It says that the meaning of omniscience here is knowledge-savviness and depicts that mission of my life is to be knowing everything. And having a mission that is unachievable is important as thats what makes me keep on living.
I have still not been able to put my image on my profile. So much for omniscence ;).

Hum Tum

Watched Hum Tum yesterday ... Enjoyed it a lot ... though a typical yash chopra/shahrukh material of men not understanding women and vice versa, the freshness of saif ali khan created magic. This was the best of Saif I have seen so far.
A must see among the current lot if you are a hindi movie fan.

Setup

I always wanted to write a blog but somehow couldn't start. Finally after much time and some inspiration, I am setting up the account and trying out the various features offered. Lets see how things shape up.