Thursday, February 23, 2006

Going Onsite?

Load of stuff has been posted about the questions the single people face when attending a wedding, especially the weddings of relatives. The true and tested formula to irritate them are the questions (it’s mostly followed by a nudge and sly look… like they share are sharing a big secret with us, something no else had even thought up of asking) “Next is your turn isn’t it?” Or “So your route is cleared now”. Sure yeah we were waiting with bated breath for our father’s cousin’s aunt’s twice removed nephew/niece to get married, just so we could get married… Aargh!
It’s especially irritating when we have to face the same question from every elderly person we meet there (and all of them with that same conspiring look on their face) …:-)

But if u r a SWE, Horrors!!! , the interrogation does not end there it continues with “So when are u going to onsite?” , “U have been to onsite right?’ “Nooo??” “My God! U have been working for more than a year right?”
“Almost 2 years and still not been onsite? Maybe u should change the company”

Yes m’am, I shall immediately tender my resignation. How dare they not send me onsite as soon as I join the company? Of course we don’t care about the project requirement? Not at all uncle, it’s ok if its one of the leading companies in the nation and I am getting a nice pay too …

After 10 -15 times of answering the onsite question, one starts to wonder if maybe we are doing something wrong, maybe we should really quit the company… I swear we will get a complex by then.

If the aunt/ uncle has a son/daughter in the IT industry, and God forbid! If she/he is in or going to onsite in the near future and even worse, is younger than u… u r a goner…
They do know something about the industry and are eager to let us know ALL about it with a corresponding sneer and condescending attitude.

When I had just joined my company, a colleague friend of mine used to feel very bad about not having gone onsite yet. And I used to be amused. I could not realize, then, what kind of pressure he was in. But buddy!!! I really do understand what u were trying to tell me then. In fact I am there, right next to u, on the same boat.

:-)

Monday, February 20, 2006

Good One

Hey I came across an article in another blog.
This guy generally writes good blogs.... and i believe he is a reporter for The Hindu
But this I would want u all to check out... something like my blog on India... but more positive :-)

Guard God

We were travelling in the highway-bypass connecting Tanjore and Trichy and we were rushing along as it was already late, when suddenly our driver careened to the shoulder of the road and stopped behind a lorry.

"Oh God! Not another flat tyre..." was the frantic thought in all our minds.
We had just got a flat tyre a half hour back and so did not have any spare and we were in a big hurry.
The driver hopped out and went running around the lorry parked in front of us..Curious by his behaviour we all got out and peeked around the lorry ... and there was a tiny temple.
A rather frightening looking guy, with holy ash all over and huge mushtache and red eyes sitting on the temple step,was giving away more holy ash...guess he was the priest there.

The driver prostrated in front of the deity, got some ash and came rushing back. We all dutifully piled back into the car again only to find that our driver had still not got in. He was busy applying it on all the four tyres, the bonnet etc. He then jumped in , applied some more on the steering wheel and started the car.
By this time we were obviously bursting with curiousity. Turns out the temple is for a "Kaval dhaivam" or a Guard God :-) and all vehicles stop there and pay homage before continuing.It is believed that the God there saved the vehicles from accidents, and He expected the drivers to pay their homage or else...

Skeptical that people would actually believe this, We turned back to see the temple... and true enough there was a queue of vehicles... each stopping before the temple before continuing.

Funny how like the sheep, we are in so many aspects of life, blindly following wherever the person in front of us go. But still it was kinda sweet.

Thursday, February 09, 2006

By the people, Of the people and For the people

Americans are known to be some of the dumbest people. Don’t believe me? Ask any person working for a BPO or call center. Despite that they all have an amazingly huge superiority complex for being an American. Which also means that they look down on any person who is not an American. For them US is the world and nothing much exists outside it.
And can u really blame them? I mean they are so feted and favored by Indians everywhere too. Seeing as to how we are the second most populated country on earth, that is a lot of feting and favoring indeed.

Everything they do is approved of. Every time they are hit, millions of Indians cry. Remember the impact of 911 in India? Agreed! Many people had relatives there. But seriously the tears and sadness was over done, since I am sure all of them did not have relatives who worked in and around the WTC. Just couple of weeks before 911 there had been another attack on the kashmiris by the terrorists there. I am very doubtful if anyone here had even noticed it.

Bush annihilated Afghanistan, but hey that’s ok. It was after all done by the US. Thousands of innocent children and families, who probably did not even know who Osama was, were brutally murdered. But that’s only right, as an afghan was responsible for the WTC crash. If we cannot find him, then let’s destroy his country.
But kill one Pakistani and the self same people will be up in the arms against the violent Indian behavior.

I don’t condone violence, but my point is why this blind following? Why cry when someone else is hit and ignore when our own head is bleeding? How can we forget our centuries old culture and heritage and ape west so blindly, especially when they are trying to ape east? How can we forget that when we were building towns and roads and indulging in business in Mohenjodaro and Harrapa, they were probably clubbing each other on their heads and living in caves.
How can we talk about the clean roads in other countries, even as we spit on our roads?
Why cannot we feel proud of our country and want to work for it?
If India is corrupt, then so is US or any other country on earth. But if it is corrupt it is ‘coz we are ready to be corrupted, do we even stop to think about it?
If we feel the same way about India as Americans feel about their country, no one can stop India from being Numero Uno.

The Indian democracy was built by the people, for the people and of the people. But the same people are too busy finding out what else they can ape from the west, to think for themselves. Ask any kid what his plans for the future are. It will go this way – “Finish school, get into engineering, write GRE and go to US and settle”. This is almost a standard reply.
Recently I heard someone say “India is going to the dogs”, well seeing as to how dogs have more loyalty, I can’t help but be glad.

Got this pic as a forward, it somehow it seemed apt for this post

PS: All the above comments are my own and all that blah blah…
Its one of my favorite topics to crib about, and so here it is.

Monday, February 06, 2006

Save the planet? – What a joke!


I am a fan of Michael Crichton and I love the amount of research he puts into every book and the way he makes even the layman understand the complex concepts without sounding condescending. The past weekend I was reading his Jurassic Park and The Lost World for the Nth time. Ian Malcolm, my favorite character in the books is a Chaos theory expert, (For the uninitiated Chaos theory is a part of Mathematics which helps in predicting the unpredictable.) He keeps predicting gloom and doom through out the book and is proved correct at almost every turn of the story.

One of his statements, though, made me sit up and think. It was such a simple statement and so very profound (as simple statements generally are).

We keep talking about saving the planet. Who are we to save the planet when we cannot even save ourselves? And laughably does the earth even need us to save it?
Earth is 4 billion years old and was alive and well long before we came and will be alive and well long after we are gone. If all the creatures that now pervade the earth are removed then another set of beings will, no doubt, emerge.
There have been four or five great extinction of animals in the annals of earth’s history as we know it, Even in the eras of the Dinosaurs, I am told , there was extinction of a large number of mammals, after every era (such as Triassic and Jurassic) and not every extinction was caused by the collision of an asteroid.

Couple of billion years ago, there were small single celled organisms and they were flourishing in the prevalent environment of the then young earth. But when the hot core of the earth cooled it caused cracks in the surface and an extremely poisonous gas got emitted. This gas almost annihilated those living creatures, and this gas was Oxygen. But other creatures that thrived on oxygen slowly emerged until earth became the green world we see today.

The earth keeps changing with various conditions and adapts and accepts whatever challenge is thrown its way and is almost impervious to the damage done by us. After all what are we in the grand scheme of things? Not even a speck worth mentioning.

Maybe, as Ian Malcolm says, the homosapiens were created to clean the earth so as to pave the way for the newer batch of creatures. After all we do such a good job of it!

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Aaj ke shaam Shayari ke naam

Here are some shayari's I got thro' SMS


hum dosthi ka farz yoon hi nibathey rahenge
vakth be vakth aapko yaad karte rahenge
dhoova karo uumar lambi ho hamari
nahi tho Bhooth bankar aapko darathe rahenge

aisi dosthi ho hamari ki thum har raah, har dagar, har safar, mein milo
mar bhi jaoon agar, tho bhi dosthi ki kathir thum bagal wali kabr mein milo

koi pathar se na maro mere deewane ko
koi pathar se na maro mere deewane ko
bandhook aur bum ka zamana hai
oodathey saale ko :-D

phoolon se koobsoorat koi nahin
sagar se gahra koi nahin
ab aapki kya thareef karoon
dosthi mein aap jaisa nalayak koi nahin :-)

arz kiya hai...
mohabbat ki deepak jalakar tho dekho
zara dil ki duniya sajakar tho dekho
thumhe ho na jaye mohabbat tho kahna
zara humse nazarein milakar tho dekho
...wah wah wah

kuch fool humpe gire
kuch fool unpe gire
fark ithna tha, ki
woh duniya basa rahe the
hum duniya se ja rahe the

dosthi ka wadha kiya hai marthey dhum thak nibhayenge
moth aaye tho thum se pahle hum jayenge...
marke bhi thum ko na bhool payenge
isliye thumko bhi saath le jayenge :-)

arz kiya hai....
aapki muskurahat ne humein behosh kar diyaa
apki muskurahat ne humein behosh kar diya
hum hosh mein aane hi wale the
ki aapne phir se muskura diya :-)

dil ki hasrath zubaan par aane lagi
thumne dekha aur zindagi muskurane lagi
yeh ishq ki imthehan thi ya meri diwangi
har soorath mein soorath teri nazar aane lagi

har kadam pe imthehan lethi hai zindagi
har vakth nayi sagmein dethi hain zindagi
hum zindagi se shikayath kaise kare
aap sa dosth bhi tho dethi hai zindagi!


Aadabh!!!