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Monday, December 24, 2007
Friday, November 09, 2007
Homer And Jethro - I'm My Own Grandpa
Finally after hibernating for so long for some reason this particular song came to my mind. Go through it and you will yourself understand why I always find it amusing.
Many many years ago when I was twenty three,
I got married to a widow who was pretty as could be.
This widow had a grown-up daughter
Who had hair of red.
My father fell in love with her,
And soon the two were wed.
This made my dad my son-in-law
And changed my very life.
My daughter was my mother,
For she was my father's wife.
To complicate the matters worse,
Although it brought me joy,
I soon became the father
Of a bouncing baby boy.
My little baby then became
A brother-in-law to dad.
And so became my uncle,
Though it made me very sad.
For if he was my uncle,
Then that also made him brother
To the widow's grown-up daughter
Who, of course, was my step-mother.
Father's wife then had a son,
Who kept them on the run.
And he became my grandson,
For he was my daughter's son.
My wife is now my mother's mother
And it makes me blue.
Because, although she is my wife,
She's my grandmother too.
If my wife is my grandmother,
Then I am her grandchild.
And every time I think of it,
It simply drives me wild.
For now I have become
The strangest case you ever saw.
As the husband of my grandmother,
I am my own grandpa!
Many many years ago when I was twenty three,
I got married to a widow who was pretty as could be.
This widow had a grown-up daughter
Who had hair of red.
My father fell in love with her,
And soon the two were wed.
This made my dad my son-in-law
And changed my very life.
My daughter was my mother,
For she was my father's wife.
To complicate the matters worse,
Although it brought me joy,
I soon became the father
Of a bouncing baby boy.
My little baby then became
A brother-in-law to dad.
And so became my uncle,
Though it made me very sad.
For if he was my uncle,
Then that also made him brother
To the widow's grown-up daughter
Who, of course, was my step-mother.
Father's wife then had a son,
Who kept them on the run.
And he became my grandson,
For he was my daughter's son.
My wife is now my mother's mother
And it makes me blue.
Because, although she is my wife,
She's my grandmother too.
If my wife is my grandmother,
Then I am her grandchild.
And every time I think of it,
It simply drives me wild.
For now I have become
The strangest case you ever saw.
As the husband of my grandmother,
I am my own grandpa!
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Tour De Hospital
Eighteen years of my life I have lived under the protection and care of my parents. Like any other young one belonging to any species I grew up without a care, taking for granted that my well being is the headache of my parents. My duty was to keep them worried. I ate from roadside shop, got wet in rain, moved without warm clothes during winters and did everything possible within my powers to keep them anxious round the clock. I think many of the crusades of mine to make myself ill were actually successful ensuring the complete misery of my parents. After 12th I moved out from the comforts of my nest to Delhi – from a capital to a capital. Bringing with myself the careless attitude to a place which was knew to me. So the inevitable eventually happened, I got sick. Fortunately I had some relatives in Delhi to trouble during these times. Till the time I was in St. Stephens i.e. my first year of my stay in Delhi my visits to the epitome of medicinal treatment for anybody sick had been limited. If you are unable to think about the place I am talking about then let me reveal it. I am talking about hospitals. Yes my friends the place which can induce reactions like fear, serenity and so on.
You might be wondering what I have to write about hospitals in my post. Truly speaking, in between the process of penning down my thoughts I was also wondering, What the hell am I writing about? But after a little battle inside my head I was finally able to put into writing the things I wanted to reveal about hospitals. After a year in Delhi I shifted my base from a room in North Campus/a room in south-ex/ a room infiit-jee hostel to a room in the nilgiri hostel, IIT Delhi. This is the place from where my journey begins. The journey which I have never wanted to be a part of, but I guess life has a way to teach make you experience even about things you wish you never had been a part of.
IIT Delhi had an in house hospital more popular by the name of sick bay. One thing good about this hospital was that it was free. Free in not only in the consultancy charges but it also gave free medicines prescribed by the doctor. I guess they provide each and every person living in the campus with a medicine booklet in
which the entry of diagnosis and medicine is made. I had a strange experience with this hospital. Being free I guess the consultants over here were never shy of giving you hoards of medicine. I did not have a very good personal experience as once I got treated for a disease which I never had and I got well only when I reached home. I guess providing a free facility has its own pros and cons. After having experience of this hospital once we (my friends and myself) never got ill. This was more so because of the fear of going to this hospital than a better immune system. As someone said “Johota hai acche ke liye hota hai ”, thus having a hospital with such a bad reputation had its benefit in its own way. No doubt this hospital was definitely able to heal and cure plenty but somehow I remember it more because of its fault () and probably most of us (IITians) who have visited that place would agree wit it and enjoy a few chuckle here and there at its behest.
After my stay in IIT I got a a calling from Bangalore and here at this place I had a total experience of hospital. If I sum together the number of hospitals I have visited then probably it will be more than the total number of visits of my life before this place. Bangalore has very many hospitals and if you have money to spend then you will be able to buy the best of care. They have a concept of getting all at one place but my observation tells me that this holy institution has got too commercialized over here. I will jot down some of the experiences I had in Bangalore. The first one was because a friends sister who had got ankle fracture. She admitted herself inHosmat (one of the best places for orthopaedics in Bangalore) where she got operated and was admitted. I guess being one of the best it must have a good place for treating your bone injuries. Then I supposeMallaya Hospital visit was unavoidable for a company sponsored annual health checkup. I guess it was more of a holiday than a generally tension filled hospital visit. This wasbecause of the fact that it gave us (my colleagues and myself)to bunk one half of the day in office and we were probably the only giggling group in the hospital. As usual the checkup was not so bad as we did not wait for too long for anything because of the appointment which we had done beforehand. Then came the two biggies which is the driving factor behind this post. The first one was my friend who at the middle of the night and in the middle of a party in which I was in got sick and needed immediate medical care. That same evening I along with some other concerned people had taken her for checkup in Mahavir Jain hospital. Unfortunately the same night she had breathing problems and we got her admitted to Medizone an affiliate to jain hospital. In this hospital the stark differences between a big and a small hospitals came into fore. Although this hospital had consultants from big hospital but we had to wait for the specialist to come for a long time(in fact a day or two). So it was frustrating for us attendants to see her suffer in the absence of proper care. Proper care came only when the specialist came. This incident made me think of the poor that how difficult might be for them to get proper care in the absence of monetary back up. I wish hospitals would never have been commercialized but the irony is that money talks and it talks well. After 4-5 days of staying in the hospital I was happy to leave the hospital with my friend into her own old self but somehow after this visit I became more sceptical as well as philosophical on the situation of hospitals today. A bad taste in mouth I expected to have least contact with such places anymore but somethings are never according to your wishes.
I did not had to wait for long for another visit to a hospital. It happened so that on the way to my friends home I had to see his encounter with his destiny which would confine him in his home for long. He was riding a jet black Karizma and me a red pulsar. And it so happened that when you test your fate by drinking and driving you manage to defeat it. But the so called fate has its own way of getting back and mocking you in your face. And more often than not when the accident happens you will not be drunk and it will mostly be the faultof the other person. So this fateful or not so fateful night the inevitable happened and that friend of mine met an accident with me watching all the fateful moments in slow motion from behind (from my own bike). This resulted in me visiting two different hospitals in Bangalore. Immediately we took him to the nearest hospital which was CMH hospital where his initial needs were taken care of and after contemplating a lot about which hospital we should get his operation done we zeroed down onsagar apollo hospital. Their he went under the knife and has become a partial robol after that with plates and screws inside his leg. Nevertheless the care taken in apollo was nice but I guess it was more so because they could charge him anything and take the money from the medical insurance he had. One good thing of having this insurance is one can go to any hospital and everything will be taken care of and more over the concept ofeverything will be taken care of was well implemented in apollo. I guess money really talks even in the noblest of profession such as medicine.
Ahhhh....after writing so much I am still thinking why am I writing this. I guess its only to broadcast that don't worry if anything ever happens to you in Bangalore and you know feel free to ping me cause I now can dare to say that "Hey I know inside out of hospitals ;)"
You might be wondering what I have to write about hospitals in my post. Truly speaking, in between the process of penning down my thoughts I was also wondering, What the hell am I writing about? But after a little battle inside my head I was finally able to put into writing the things I wanted to reveal about hospitals. After a year in Delhi I shifted my base from a room in North Campus/a room in south-ex/ a room infiit-jee hostel to a room in the nilgiri hostel, IIT Delhi. This is the place from where my journey begins. The journey which I have never wanted to be a part of, but I guess life has a way to teach make you experience even about things you wish you never had been a part of.
IIT Delhi had an in house hospital more popular by the name of sick bay. One thing good about this hospital was that it was free. Free in not only in the consultancy charges but it also gave free medicines prescribed by the doctor. I guess they provide each and every person living in the campus with a medicine booklet in
which the entry of diagnosis and medicine is made. I had a strange experience with this hospital. Being free I guess the consultants over here were never shy of giving you hoards of medicine. I did not have a very good personal experience as once I got treated for a disease which I never had and I got well only when I reached home. I guess providing a free facility has its own pros and cons. After having experience of this hospital once we (my friends and myself) never got ill. This was more so because of the fear of going to this hospital than a better immune system. As someone said “Johota hai acche ke liye hota hai ”, thus having a hospital with such a bad reputation had its benefit in its own way. No doubt this hospital was definitely able to heal and cure plenty but somehow I remember it more because of its fault () and probably most of us (IITians) who have visited that place would agree wit it and enjoy a few chuckle here and there at its behest.
After my stay in IIT I got a a calling from Bangalore and here at this place I had a total experience of hospital. If I sum together the number of hospitals I have visited then probably it will be more than the total number of visits of my life before this place. Bangalore has very many hospitals and if you have money to spend then you will be able to buy the best of care. They have a concept of getting all at one place but my observation tells me that this holy institution has got too commercialized over here. I will jot down some of the experiences I had in Bangalore. The first one was because a friends sister who had got ankle fracture. She admitted herself inHosmat (one of the best places for orthopaedics in Bangalore) where she got operated and was admitted. I guess being one of the best it must have a good place for treating your bone injuries. Then I supposeMallaya Hospital visit was unavoidable for a company sponsored annual health checkup. I guess it was more of a holiday than a generally tension filled hospital visit. This wasbecause of the fact that it gave us (my colleagues and myself)to bunk one half of the day in office and we were probably the only giggling group in the hospital. As usual the checkup was not so bad as we did not wait for too long for anything because of the appointment which we had done beforehand. Then came the two biggies which is the driving factor behind this post. The first one was my friend who at the middle of the night and in the middle of a party in which I was in got sick and needed immediate medical care. That same evening I along with some other concerned people had taken her for checkup in Mahavir Jain hospital. Unfortunately the same night she had breathing problems and we got her admitted to Medizone an affiliate to jain hospital. In this hospital the stark differences between a big and a small hospitals came into fore. Although this hospital had consultants from big hospital but we had to wait for the specialist to come for a long time(in fact a day or two). So it was frustrating for us attendants to see her suffer in the absence of proper care. Proper care came only when the specialist came. This incident made me think of the poor that how difficult might be for them to get proper care in the absence of monetary back up. I wish hospitals would never have been commercialized but the irony is that money talks and it talks well. After 4-5 days of staying in the hospital I was happy to leave the hospital with my friend into her own old self but somehow after this visit I became more sceptical as well as philosophical on the situation of hospitals today. A bad taste in mouth I expected to have least contact with such places anymore but somethings are never according to your wishes.
I did not had to wait for long for another visit to a hospital. It happened so that on the way to my friends home I had to see his encounter with his destiny which would confine him in his home for long. He was riding a jet black Karizma and me a red pulsar. And it so happened that when you test your fate by drinking and driving you manage to defeat it. But the so called fate has its own way of getting back and mocking you in your face. And more often than not when the accident happens you will not be drunk and it will mostly be the faultof the other person. So this fateful or not so fateful night the inevitable happened and that friend of mine met an accident with me watching all the fateful moments in slow motion from behind (from my own bike). This resulted in me visiting two different hospitals in Bangalore. Immediately we took him to the nearest hospital which was CMH hospital where his initial needs were taken care of and after contemplating a lot about which hospital we should get his operation done we zeroed down onsagar apollo hospital. Their he went under the knife and has become a partial robol after that with plates and screws inside his leg. Nevertheless the care taken in apollo was nice but I guess it was more so because they could charge him anything and take the money from the medical insurance he had. One good thing of having this insurance is one can go to any hospital and everything will be taken care of and more over the concept ofeverything will be taken care of was well implemented in apollo. I guess money really talks even in the noblest of profession such as medicine.
Ahhhh....after writing so much I am still thinking why am I writing this. I guess its only to broadcast that don't worry if anything ever happens to you in Bangalore and you know feel free to ping me cause I now can dare to say that "Hey I know inside out of hospitals ;)"
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
The Day When The Smile Became Involuntary
Laziness is one thing which is slowly and steadily becoming one of the most important aspects which defines me. I had never doubted the existence of such a thing inside of me but the ignorance of mine has allowed it to overtake my everyday functionality in such a way that it has started to affect my better judgment. Oh! Before you start thinking that I am getting remorseful, I would like to tell you to hold your thoughts. Do not get ahead of yourself as I do not even feel ashamed. Instead I have started using it proudly in my lame excuses like the one I am going to make now. I blame my laziness (over which I like to think I have no control) for the time lag between my last post and this one. To give myself a little bit of self esteem I always like to close such arguments on a philosophical note such as ‘it’s better late than never’, ‘all’s well that ends well’ etc.
Anyways enough have been said by me on the topic of my laziness which you do not even want to read about and are not even slightly interested in knowing. So moving on I would like to tell you about the two concerts which I attended recently. Actually they are not so recent but still you will know about them via myyyyyyy post (notice ‘my’ has been stressed) now only so I dare to call them recent.
The first concert which I am going to talk about is about a musical by Fiddlers on the Hoof who are probably one of the best (as far as I know) stage performers in UK. I have a doubt on it being a musical rather it was a collection of English classic which they were performing on stage. Not many people in my age group or shall I say across age will have the taste for such kind of music. A receptive ear is what is very important even if you are not so familiar with the music and fortunately I had a friend who has such a receptive ear. I haven’t been a loner in the sense I need at least a company to enjoy anything and I was so thankful that my batch mate cum flat mate was also interested in going. I was even more so grateful because of my longing desire to go to that particular concert and experience what it is all about. In a concert such as these where one doesn’t have much experience to expect anything in particular the general feeling is to expect the unexpected without any high expectation. With the comfortable environment of a great theatre the show started. My observation tells me that the concert was divided into two sections. The first one more dark and emotional and the second one was more light hearted and had music which were fairly new in the sense that I had heard some of them. The rendition of the soulful music was across various soundtracks such as that of Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, Les Miserables, Fiddlers on the Roof , Alladin, Lion King and many more. I have attended or have tried to attend as many concerts in Bangalore as possible but have never come across an experience which was as holistic as the one I had that day. As a stage performer they were not only acting and putting life into the story behind each songs but were able to communicate the feelings inside each song so that even an unfamiliar person was able to go through the same intensity of emotions as any other knowledgeable person present in the theatre. But the most significant part of their performance was their rendition of the various songs. Never before in my life had I heard such rich, deep and soul stirring baritones. It can be crudely and literally be said that a hand (representing their voices) went straight done my throat and shook whatever was their inside in the form soul. I was unable to make goose bumps go away for quite a while. When the concert got over we were so ecstatic and were thanking our lucky stars for giving us such an opportunity. On the way home on the auto my friend and me were discussing about the concert. Actually we were not discussing anything instead we were just smiling without being able to conceal the joy on our face and that summed up how high we were on the music we had just listened to. The only words which we were able to manage to speak were that “There are few things in this world which makes one feel good about oneself, good about one’s own life, good about one’s existence and this concert was definitely one of those thing.” I hope someday you all may also get an opportunity to enjoy such music then probably you will be able to appreciate the feeling which I am trying to express right now.
Contrast is what has defined my life for long. I am a voracious reader, listener and what not. This adaptability, acceptability and hunger cultivated by me over a long period of time, has given me sensitive ears to a varied genre of music. This has provided me with unlimited opportunities to listen to various artists live as the city in which I am share the same kind of enthusiasm in embracing their presence with open hearts. The concert which I am going to write about next belongs to another realm. From classical English number to ghazals by Ghulam Ali and Jagjit Singh. The context switching algorithm has been perfectly embedded in my mind to help in making this transition. It so happened that I managed to land up in this concert with a colleague of mine. The catch over here is that the colleague belongs to opposite sex. How I managed such a coup is another story in itself and the resulting flak I received is even more interesting but I will let this story be with myself for some another time. Moving on ..the show started almost on time (a pleasant surprise) by Jagjit Singh. I believe that Jagjit Singh is more palatable to my generation especially to the group I belong as most of us have been through a lot of alcoholic depressive nights with Jagjit Singh. After him came the hard core stuff of Ghulam Ali who was much more interactive than Jagjit Singh and in the process he sometimes also use to discipline the audience by scolding them into silence. In a ghazal concert the pleasure do get driven by the music and the song we hear, but it is more so driven from the beautiful and meaningful ornamentalization of the words to produce an impact compared to none. The beauty of Urdu as a language comes to the fore in such a concert. The only way in which I can describe the experience which I had is ‘different’ and ‘heavenly’. The only regret I have that I was way back and lost in the sea of crowd gathered instead of being right in front. Nevertheless the enjoyment and the satisfaction received even after being at a distance from the stage was comparable to none.
That’s it folks no matter how much I praise, it wont be enough. But I have to end my blog somewhere and would like to end it now hoping of being able to share a part of the pleasure which I experienced.
Anyways enough have been said by me on the topic of my laziness which you do not even want to read about and are not even slightly interested in knowing. So moving on I would like to tell you about the two concerts which I attended recently. Actually they are not so recent but still you will know about them via myyyyyyy post (notice ‘my’ has been stressed) now only so I dare to call them recent.
The first concert which I am going to talk about is about a musical by Fiddlers on the Hoof who are probably one of the best (as far as I know) stage performers in UK. I have a doubt on it being a musical rather it was a collection of English classic which they were performing on stage. Not many people in my age group or shall I say across age will have the taste for such kind of music. A receptive ear is what is very important even if you are not so familiar with the music and fortunately I had a friend who has such a receptive ear. I haven’t been a loner in the sense I need at least a company to enjoy anything and I was so thankful that my batch mate cum flat mate was also interested in going. I was even more so grateful because of my longing desire to go to that particular concert and experience what it is all about. In a concert such as these where one doesn’t have much experience to expect anything in particular the general feeling is to expect the unexpected without any high expectation. With the comfortable environment of a great theatre the show started. My observation tells me that the concert was divided into two sections. The first one more dark and emotional and the second one was more light hearted and had music which were fairly new in the sense that I had heard some of them. The rendition of the soulful music was across various soundtracks such as that of Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, Les Miserables, Fiddlers on the Roof , Alladin, Lion King and many more. I have attended or have tried to attend as many concerts in Bangalore as possible but have never come across an experience which was as holistic as the one I had that day. As a stage performer they were not only acting and putting life into the story behind each songs but were able to communicate the feelings inside each song so that even an unfamiliar person was able to go through the same intensity of emotions as any other knowledgeable person present in the theatre. But the most significant part of their performance was their rendition of the various songs. Never before in my life had I heard such rich, deep and soul stirring baritones. It can be crudely and literally be said that a hand (representing their voices) went straight done my throat and shook whatever was their inside in the form soul. I was unable to make goose bumps go away for quite a while. When the concert got over we were so ecstatic and were thanking our lucky stars for giving us such an opportunity. On the way home on the auto my friend and me were discussing about the concert. Actually we were not discussing anything instead we were just smiling without being able to conceal the joy on our face and that summed up how high we were on the music we had just listened to. The only words which we were able to manage to speak were that “There are few things in this world which makes one feel good about oneself, good about one’s own life, good about one’s existence and this concert was definitely one of those thing.” I hope someday you all may also get an opportunity to enjoy such music then probably you will be able to appreciate the feeling which I am trying to express right now.
Contrast is what has defined my life for long. I am a voracious reader, listener and what not. This adaptability, acceptability and hunger cultivated by me over a long period of time, has given me sensitive ears to a varied genre of music. This has provided me with unlimited opportunities to listen to various artists live as the city in which I am share the same kind of enthusiasm in embracing their presence with open hearts. The concert which I am going to write about next belongs to another realm. From classical English number to ghazals by Ghulam Ali and Jagjit Singh. The context switching algorithm has been perfectly embedded in my mind to help in making this transition. It so happened that I managed to land up in this concert with a colleague of mine. The catch over here is that the colleague belongs to opposite sex. How I managed such a coup is another story in itself and the resulting flak I received is even more interesting but I will let this story be with myself for some another time. Moving on ..the show started almost on time (a pleasant surprise) by Jagjit Singh. I believe that Jagjit Singh is more palatable to my generation especially to the group I belong as most of us have been through a lot of alcoholic depressive nights with Jagjit Singh. After him came the hard core stuff of Ghulam Ali who was much more interactive than Jagjit Singh and in the process he sometimes also use to discipline the audience by scolding them into silence. In a ghazal concert the pleasure do get driven by the music and the song we hear, but it is more so driven from the beautiful and meaningful ornamentalization of the words to produce an impact compared to none. The beauty of Urdu as a language comes to the fore in such a concert. The only way in which I can describe the experience which I had is ‘different’ and ‘heavenly’. The only regret I have that I was way back and lost in the sea of crowd gathered instead of being right in front. Nevertheless the enjoyment and the satisfaction received even after being at a distance from the stage was comparable to none.
That’s it folks no matter how much I praise, it wont be enough. But I have to end my blog somewhere and would like to end it now hoping of being able to share a part of the pleasure which I experienced.
Friday, June 29, 2007
Junoon: Dil Nahin lag raha + Kyun Pareshan hai tu
Sufi music is,was and always be inspiring. It has the ability to shake up your soul. I have been listening to two of the songs by Junoon over and over again. A song can be true, sad, inspiring: all at the same time. All of such characteristics can be found in these two songs, the lyrics of which I posting.
Dil Nahin Lag Raha
Had se barne laga, Zulm ka silsila
Dil nahin lag raha, Dil nahin lag raha
Us ne ehwaal poocha, To mein ne kaha
Dil nahin lag raha, Dil nahin lag raha
Sheh'r mein to mere, Jitne bhi yaar hain
Sab giraftar hain, Sab giraftar hain
Kis ko ma'aloom ho, Kaun ho kab reha
Dil nahin lag raha, Dil nahin lag raha
Mein bhi paaband hoon, Woh bhi paaband hai,
Raastein band hein, Raastein band hein,
Ab to mumkin nahin, He koi raabta,
Dil nahin lag raha, Dil nahin lag raha
Had se barne laga, Zulm ka silsila
Dil nahin lag raha, Dil nahin lag raha
Us ne ehwaal poocha, To mein ne kaha
Dil nahin lag raha, Dil nahin lag raha
Kyon Pareshan Hai Tu
Kyun pareshan hai tu
Kyon pareshan hai tu
Kahi jahan aur bhi hein
Kitne haseen aur bhi hein, aur bhi hein
Kyon pareshan hai tu
Tere ishq mein shor machae
Man charkha ghomta jae
Pas bulaen, pas bulaen
Kyun pareshan hai tu
Kyon pareshan hai tu
Kahi jahan aur bhi hein
Kitne haseen aur bhi hein, aur bhi hein
Kyon pareshan hai tu
Koi tujh bin aanso bahae,aanso bahae
Kisi karwat so nahin pae
Pas bulaen, pas bulaen
Kyun pareshan hai tu
Kyon pareshan hai tu
Kahi jahan aur bhi hein
Kitne haseen aur bhi hein, aur bhi hein
Kyon pareshan hai tu
Tu hi apna log parae, log parae
Koi kab se aas lagae
Pas bulaen, pas bulaen
Kyun pareshan hai tu
Kyon pareshan hai tu
Kahi jahan aur bhi hein
Kitne haseen aur bhi hein, aur bhi hein
Kyon pareshan hai tu
Dil Nahin Lag Raha
Had se barne laga, Zulm ka silsila
Dil nahin lag raha, Dil nahin lag raha
Us ne ehwaal poocha, To mein ne kaha
Dil nahin lag raha, Dil nahin lag raha
Sheh'r mein to mere, Jitne bhi yaar hain
Sab giraftar hain, Sab giraftar hain
Kis ko ma'aloom ho, Kaun ho kab reha
Dil nahin lag raha, Dil nahin lag raha
Mein bhi paaband hoon, Woh bhi paaband hai,
Raastein band hein, Raastein band hein,
Ab to mumkin nahin, He koi raabta,
Dil nahin lag raha, Dil nahin lag raha
Had se barne laga, Zulm ka silsila
Dil nahin lag raha, Dil nahin lag raha
Us ne ehwaal poocha, To mein ne kaha
Dil nahin lag raha, Dil nahin lag raha
Kyon Pareshan Hai Tu
Kyun pareshan hai tu
Kyon pareshan hai tu
Kahi jahan aur bhi hein
Kitne haseen aur bhi hein, aur bhi hein
Kyon pareshan hai tu
Tere ishq mein shor machae
Man charkha ghomta jae
Pas bulaen, pas bulaen
Kyun pareshan hai tu
Kyon pareshan hai tu
Kahi jahan aur bhi hein
Kitne haseen aur bhi hein, aur bhi hein
Kyon pareshan hai tu
Koi tujh bin aanso bahae,aanso bahae
Kisi karwat so nahin pae
Pas bulaen, pas bulaen
Kyun pareshan hai tu
Kyon pareshan hai tu
Kahi jahan aur bhi hein
Kitne haseen aur bhi hein, aur bhi hein
Kyon pareshan hai tu
Tu hi apna log parae, log parae
Koi kab se aas lagae
Pas bulaen, pas bulaen
Kyun pareshan hai tu
Kyon pareshan hai tu
Kahi jahan aur bhi hein
Kitne haseen aur bhi hein, aur bhi hein
Kyon pareshan hai tu
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Everybody’s A Racist
Yes my friend's. The topic of my post may draw several criticism from the world which tries to be politically correct. It may receive strong opposition from people claiming to prove otherwise. But I claim give me a person and a few days with him/her I can prove that the person is racist is one form or the other. The reason for writing about this is a simple harmless incident which happened last weekend. The incident was all in good humour but I grabbed it as an opportunity to write my new post especially during the time when I was in search for things to write about. The incident goes on like this. My elder sister actually my friends sister but I have been at the receiving end of her words of wisdom (gaalian :) ) for so long that I feel she is more of my own bigger bossy demanding but cute and protective sister. In between she has got a new hairstyle which makes her look her sexiest best since the time I have known her. If ever she come across this post my apologies cause I know what will happen after reading this post of mine. You guessed it right a little more of her words of wisdom which by the way will always be welcomed. Coming back to the incident, one funny morning she brought her hand close to mine and starting comparing the skin colour and started laughing. My immediate reaction was to accuse her of being a racist. What could I have done when I am not with the skin colour on the lighter side. The scene created by me was to my satisfaction but when I was recalling and amusing myself by pondering over this incident, the question which flashed across my mind was "Is everybody a racist?". After debating for a while with myself I came to this conclusion that actually everyone is a racist. So I am penning down the thought process which led me to this conclusion.
Since the term itself is highly controversial and hotly debated I started looking for the definition of this word. When I googled “define:racist” various definitions popped up but the one liked most and the one which I think covers the widespread application of this word was the one given in wikipedia . The definition goes like this “Racism has many different definitions. Historically, it has been defined as the belief that race is the primary determinant of human capacities, that a certain race is inherently superior or inferior to others, and/or that individuals should be treated differently according to their racial designation. Sometimes racism means beliefs, practices, and institutions that discriminate against people based on their perceived or ascribed race…”. Because of the definition mentioned above which conforms with the notion I have, I was able to conclude that indeed everyone is a racist. Let me elaborate a little more with the few examples which I still have in my mind. For examples I won’t go back to history which can prove the existence of racism beyond any doubt but will draw out inferences from present and that too from a normal human’s life. To completely appreciate the logic which I am going to mention a person has to have an open mind. Let me start of by stating the fact that everyone likes beautiful things. No matter where you go, no matter which walk of life you belong to, you are bound to like the thing which makes you feel good, you are bound to like the thing which looks good and even if you may not actually dislike the thing which is not beautiful but any given day if you have a choice you are bound to favour the one which is good looking. A lady will always be preferred to a man because of course she is better looking. Even among the ladies you are bound to give higher priority to those who look the best. Haven’t you seen a girl surrounded by guys willing to do anything for her. Now let us move on to kids, isn’t it true that a better looking kid is more often than not given more appreciation along with love for the little thing he/she may do. The same doing which may be proved annoying by some is overlooked for some. Having said enough about ladies and kids shall we move on closer home. Aren’t we all as human beings suppose to be bounded by the concept of brotherhood or sisterhood? Then why we give our own family members more priority than any one else. No matter what happens we prefer to see our own kid, our own blood to move higher in this competitive world. Under such circumstances where does the concept of equality vanishes. Some of us may have the habit of boasting about the ability to judge a person in the first meeting itself. Looking on the other side aren’t those decisions and inferences influenced by the way that person looks and carries him/herself. Differentiation based on skin colour has been widely documented in history. If this is so wrong then why there is such a rush to become of fairer skin. If you contest this idea I counter by telling you to look at television. Sit an evening in front of television then you will realize the number of beauty products which is their in the market. Is it just because that fairer skin has been ruling the world for so long or there is a reason which is much more darker and sinister, the truth which we prefer not to acknowledge. Isn’t it because of the fact that somewhere at the back of our mind we have accepted the ruling classes and dream of becoming as one of them. Moving on to prevailing caste system in India. How often do you hear discrimination based on caste system in the land of Gandhi. Even if we ignore the discrimination part how can we ignore the fact that half of our friends in love struggle to get married because of the different caste they belong. Now you may say it’s the family member belonging to medieval periods who resist. Even then I say that how many of them had the courage to revolt and take a stand. Remaining just a spectator in the game in which they should have been involved makes them a person who accepts the concept of this form of discrimination. Moving on to the rich and the powerful. Is it not true that person with richness and more power draw out more respect and awe automatically from the society. Isn’t it true that we pride ourselves in saluting such personalities even though their might be no reason for you to be close to that person and know him/her well enough. Isn’t it true that no matter how well educated a person may be the dowry system still prevails and the rich and well educated is embracing it. An IAS officer value in marriage market is an example in itself. Aren’t discriminations based on gender, looks, caste, colour, money, power all form a part of a racist society. I am not saying that I do not belong to that society. But the question which I would like to raise is it just because of the freedom we have today we have become too comfortable. Shouldn’t we as a responsible human being should carry on the struggle for freedom which should get defined differently under the new darkness which have clouded the minds and hearts of today. Shouldn’t their be a Gandhi or Martin Luthur King Jr in the hearts of everyone. Haven’t they done enough to teach us the horrors of racism or do we require another breakdown of the society to teach us the lesson.
I may go on and on giving examples of discrimination in one form or the other but what is the point when even I don’t know how corrupted I am by the evil of racism. All I could say actions done by me is because of the choices I have made and only thing I could do is pray and hope that it is the right thing to do. But the thing which Martin Luthur King Jr said in his famous “I have a dream ” speech keeps on coming back to me again and again in its skewed form relevant for me and probably relevant and significant for everyone. I have a dream that one day I will live in a nation where I will not be judged by the colour of my skin or my look, but by the content of my character.
Since the term itself is highly controversial and hotly debated I started looking for the definition of this word. When I googled “define:racist” various definitions popped up but the one liked most and the one which I think covers the widespread application of this word was the one given in wikipedia . The definition goes like this “Racism has many different definitions. Historically, it has been defined as the belief that race is the primary determinant of human capacities, that a certain race is inherently superior or inferior to others, and/or that individuals should be treated differently according to their racial designation. Sometimes racism means beliefs, practices, and institutions that discriminate against people based on their perceived or ascribed race…”. Because of the definition mentioned above which conforms with the notion I have, I was able to conclude that indeed everyone is a racist. Let me elaborate a little more with the few examples which I still have in my mind. For examples I won’t go back to history which can prove the existence of racism beyond any doubt but will draw out inferences from present and that too from a normal human’s life. To completely appreciate the logic which I am going to mention a person has to have an open mind. Let me start of by stating the fact that everyone likes beautiful things. No matter where you go, no matter which walk of life you belong to, you are bound to like the thing which makes you feel good, you are bound to like the thing which looks good and even if you may not actually dislike the thing which is not beautiful but any given day if you have a choice you are bound to favour the one which is good looking. A lady will always be preferred to a man because of course she is better looking. Even among the ladies you are bound to give higher priority to those who look the best. Haven’t you seen a girl surrounded by guys willing to do anything for her. Now let us move on to kids, isn’t it true that a better looking kid is more often than not given more appreciation along with love for the little thing he/she may do. The same doing which may be proved annoying by some is overlooked for some. Having said enough about ladies and kids shall we move on closer home. Aren’t we all as human beings suppose to be bounded by the concept of brotherhood or sisterhood? Then why we give our own family members more priority than any one else. No matter what happens we prefer to see our own kid, our own blood to move higher in this competitive world. Under such circumstances where does the concept of equality vanishes. Some of us may have the habit of boasting about the ability to judge a person in the first meeting itself. Looking on the other side aren’t those decisions and inferences influenced by the way that person looks and carries him/herself. Differentiation based on skin colour has been widely documented in history. If this is so wrong then why there is such a rush to become of fairer skin. If you contest this idea I counter by telling you to look at television. Sit an evening in front of television then you will realize the number of beauty products which is their in the market. Is it just because that fairer skin has been ruling the world for so long or there is a reason which is much more darker and sinister, the truth which we prefer not to acknowledge. Isn’t it because of the fact that somewhere at the back of our mind we have accepted the ruling classes and dream of becoming as one of them. Moving on to prevailing caste system in India. How often do you hear discrimination based on caste system in the land of Gandhi. Even if we ignore the discrimination part how can we ignore the fact that half of our friends in love struggle to get married because of the different caste they belong. Now you may say it’s the family member belonging to medieval periods who resist. Even then I say that how many of them had the courage to revolt and take a stand. Remaining just a spectator in the game in which they should have been involved makes them a person who accepts the concept of this form of discrimination. Moving on to the rich and the powerful. Is it not true that person with richness and more power draw out more respect and awe automatically from the society. Isn’t it true that we pride ourselves in saluting such personalities even though their might be no reason for you to be close to that person and know him/her well enough. Isn’t it true that no matter how well educated a person may be the dowry system still prevails and the rich and well educated is embracing it. An IAS officer value in marriage market is an example in itself. Aren’t discriminations based on gender, looks, caste, colour, money, power all form a part of a racist society. I am not saying that I do not belong to that society. But the question which I would like to raise is it just because of the freedom we have today we have become too comfortable. Shouldn’t we as a responsible human being should carry on the struggle for freedom which should get defined differently under the new darkness which have clouded the minds and hearts of today. Shouldn’t their be a Gandhi or Martin Luthur King Jr in the hearts of everyone. Haven’t they done enough to teach us the horrors of racism or do we require another breakdown of the society to teach us the lesson.
I may go on and on giving examples of discrimination in one form or the other but what is the point when even I don’t know how corrupted I am by the evil of racism. All I could say actions done by me is because of the choices I have made and only thing I could do is pray and hope that it is the right thing to do. But the thing which Martin Luthur King Jr said in his famous “I have a dream ” speech keeps on coming back to me again and again in its skewed form relevant for me and probably relevant and significant for everyone. I have a dream that one day I will live in a nation where I will not be judged by the colour of my skin or my look, but by the content of my character.
Monday, June 18, 2007
Silhouettes
The song speaks in itself......
SMILE EMPTY SOUL :Silhouettes
Silhouettes above the cradle
Hold me down
They won't let me go the wrong way
My mother taught me all the fables, told me how
In the end all the sinners have to pay
But...
I don't wanna live like my mother
I don't wanna let fear rule my life
and I don't wanna live like my father
I don't wanna give up before I die
He worked so hard his bones are breaking
He wore them down but long ago he lost the feeling
His good intentions leave me shaking, show me how
I don't ever want to end up like he did
And...
I don't wanna live like my mother
I don't wanna let fear rule my life
and I don't wanna live like my father
I don't wanna give up before I die
when I have kids
I won't put any chains on their wrists,
I won't
I'll tell them this
There's nothing in this world
That you can't be if you want it
Enough
And...
I don't wanna live like my mother!!
I don't wanna let fear rule my life!!
And I don't wanna live like my father!!
I don't wanna give up before I die!!
I don't wanna live like my mother
I don't wanna let fear rule my life
and I don't wanna live like my father
I don't wanna give up before I die
SMILE EMPTY SOUL :Silhouettes
Silhouettes above the cradle
Hold me down
They won't let me go the wrong way
My mother taught me all the fables, told me how
In the end all the sinners have to pay
But...
I don't wanna live like my mother
I don't wanna let fear rule my life
and I don't wanna live like my father
I don't wanna give up before I die
He worked so hard his bones are breaking
He wore them down but long ago he lost the feeling
His good intentions leave me shaking, show me how
I don't ever want to end up like he did
And...
I don't wanna live like my mother
I don't wanna let fear rule my life
and I don't wanna live like my father
I don't wanna give up before I die
when I have kids
I won't put any chains on their wrists,
I won't
I'll tell them this
There's nothing in this world
That you can't be if you want it
Enough
And...
I don't wanna live like my mother!!
I don't wanna let fear rule my life!!
And I don't wanna live like my father!!
I don't wanna give up before I die!!
I don't wanna live like my mother
I don't wanna let fear rule my life
and I don't wanna live like my father
I don't wanna give up before I die
Monday, June 04, 2007
A Strange Weekend: (Barista, Bowling, an overcrowded Aerosmith concert, sutta, beer, styx, a college friend, getting approached by a guy & the safai)
Yes it was a weekend full of action. So many emotions, feeling and experience shrunk into a small window of time i.e. from Friday evening to Sunday late night that I can look back only in wonder.
Of late no work days has started to become a norm in my office. I am suppose to be in a team which has the most critical and taxing work in my office. But unfortunately and probably it’s because of the work our team has already done we are most of the time free. We were suppose to enjoy the fruits in the form of time which we now had. But hey it’s me and I got to have a different reaction to this situation also. To me this free time every day is annoying. I would rather prefer a taxing day to really appreciate the value of the time I am provided. To really cherish and utilize that time to the fullest I need to have a period in which I long for those times which I am unable to have. Now instead of utilizing the free time I have, I am rather killing it. I now feel that I have entered a vicious loop of waiting. As soon as I enter office I wait for the evening to arrive and when I finally get myself out of the office I wait for the next day. This cycle goes on and on and on and on.
Friday (2nd June) was no different. I was getting frustrated with the free time I had and was itching to get out as soon as possible. But the problem is that the group with which I generally move around on a weekday is distributed across different companies. How much I dislike waiting till 7 pm for everyone to assemble I cannot do away with it. Now our group comprises o few guys (the usual’s) and a girl. This was interesting, a girl in the group to which I belong. Now if you are thinking that somehow that poor creature happen to be in our group then you are thinking right. The circumstances were such that she belonged to the same team in which I am and because of that she and I happen to be in the set of people who go out sometimes. But the surprising part is that till now we haven’t managed to scare her away. It seems with age my skills of putting the fear of my presence into opposite sex is fading. In between I wonder sometimes to what length I can be self deprecating…hmmmm…..Well carrying on I want to bring out two set of thoughts from this great Barista time I had. Recently I bought (actually my friend got from US and I haven’t paid him back yet :) ) a digital camera. So more often than not I carry it with me and immortalize (hehe big word) the moments/gatherings into time by taking snaps. I thought it is a cool thing to do and it’s good that one can document various parties via the pictures I take. It has become a habit for me. Now the question which I want to put on floor for discussion is why girls hate getting snapped. I will never understand the chain of thoughts which made the girls feel so. If I try to look for a reason I am able to find only suggestions which gets me nowhere near to the explanation. Let’s ponder over a few of them. 1) The girl reads a lot of beauty magazine so as someone said if you read beauty magazine it will only make you feel ugly. 2) Some people simply hate getting snapped anytime and anywhere like celebrities :) 3) She is skeptical of the intention of the snapper (ahemmmmmm). She never knows what might happen with her pictures with news of morphing flying thick and fast. It makes we wonder where the concept of the trust has gone today. It’s a thought which cannot be overlooked but it will definitely pain a person accused of something like that if his/her intentions has never been that. But then again is their a solution to this problem. I would say the girl from the group belongs to 2nd category of girls rather that is what I want to think so as not to degrade myself even further (:)). The 2nd observation from this Barista chit chat was that if you belong to a group which has only 1 girl and you do not have the habit of having one in your group. The jokes get categorized into two categories. The first kind are those which can be said front of the whole group and the other which gets articulated in the subgroup which doesn’t include the female. So more often than not , in spite of all your conscious effort you tend to slip up. There will be times when someone or the other will flounder and barge out something which would have better remain unsaid. Once such thing is said one is at the mercy of the lady that how spirited is she.
So after barging out something or the other and taking potshots at each other better sense prevailed and we moved on to bowling. This is one of the games which I will never be able to appreciate. Who the hell invented this game and what for. You keep on throwing a ball which is heavier than it looks at the nine pins in front of you. More often you are more interested in getting rid of the ball as soon as possible so as to avoid crushing your own feet because you know that you are prone to goof ups. Moreover the ball seems to be its own master. It likes the gully so much that no matter what you do it always manage to avoid all the nine pins saying that ‘why are you so cruel Mr. Thrower that you want me to crush my brothers standing in a group of nine’. Passing this message it shows me the finger and happily strolls towards its destination only to come back again to haunt me with the same message. So the immediate question which arises is that why do I keep on frequenting amoeba(a game zone in Bangalore) for bowling. I can answer this question with another question then what the hell are we suppose to do in Bangalore. As if we have choices other than eating, drinking, watching movies and bowling. “Beggars are not Chooser” is the perfect quote for the situation I am trying to describe. But I think people go to bowling more to have a time in a group rather to compete. Of course some of my friends would disagree but I think it’s basically for the good times. My way to have a good time in a bowling alley is to watch other people reactions and observe that how happy they can be by just throwing a ball at the nine pins. Oh!!! if only somebody can confirm that they really feel happy and not just for the sake of it I would have recommended a bowling alley for all (:)). And of course in a group taking pot shots at each other anywhere and everywhere is a healthy way of enjoying yourself.
That was Friday the day which we will always be thankful for. Beginning of the Saturday (3rd June) was sober and serene. With my family members visiting me the next week most of the first half was spend in shopping and cleaning so that they may have a comfortable stay at what you can call a decent enough bachelor’s home (of course from my (a bachelor’s) view point). But all the effort was because I knew I was going for Aerosmith concert in the evening. Thanks to another friend that I was able to see this concert (you guessed it right he bought the tickets). So as to avoid all the work getting piled up till the last minute I was putting in all the effort. The experience of previous concerts had taught me enough to take the costliest ticket and not to be too early when the sun is shining bright. Getting inside the arena is an interesting story in itself. But before I tell you that story I would like to tell you that another of my friend came from Hyderabad that day. He came to give an exam(CFA) but I had corrupted him enough (from our talks on phone)to enthuse him to come to the concert. After his arrival he became skeptical on the chances of getting tickets at the venue. Let me tell you one thing if there is a concert in Bangalore and that too in Palace Ground their will always be tickets available at the venue. Unfortunately he took the wiser option and even I did not pester him much. A wiser options in the sense that who will have the energy to give an exam the next morning after a grueling international rock show. This proves I can be good and wise sometimes :) . My argument I did not pressed hard enough. Oh it feels good if you do something wise ;). Carrying on with our journey towards the arena. Now we were four guys going to the rock show. Hey this is me how can you expect a girl in the group (exception’s does not recur). Four guys and two bikes and the tickets were with the guys on other bike. So we started off towards our destination. Making our way through a heavy Bangalore traffic on a Saturday evening, towards Palace Grounds and that too on a concert day. A person living in Bangalore can imagine the harassment one is going to face because of the traffic. Now if we don’t know the route to palace grounds then one of us getting lost in the traffic (that too on a concert day where we were eager to reach) was something inevitable. So one friend and myself managed to reach the ground but the other bike behind was nowhere near to be seen. Nevertheless they managed to reach the venue half an hour after us. If you are thinking that it was not so bad then hold on. The series of unfortunate incidence does not end over here. Somehow and just somehow this concert managed to have two different entrances and we had to be on two different entrances with the other guys having the tickets. Irony was that the entrance we reached hardly had any crowd whereas the other entrance overflowing. Thankfully the notion which was developing due to us being on the hidden entrance, that only a fistful of people were coming to the concerts was undone by this realization. So we carried on with the only thing we were able to do that was to wait for the other guys to come to us for which they had to cross one entrance.At last but not the least after an hour or more of waiting the guys with tickets managed to reach us and all of us got into the arena. One thing to be noted in a concert of a famous band howsoever late you are you will always manage to get into the arena before the band comes up and play. Artists struggle for artistic freedom but what best could define that freedom than the power to make ten thousand or more people to wait for you for three long hours before you show up on stage. Hence the fact that Aerosmith were the celebrities got reaffirmed (as they were the last one in the arena to show up) in spite of the conspiracies cooked up by so called fate to make us the last. Inside a stand up concert there is a usual jostling for space especially if you have someone in the group who wants to see the concert from a point nearest to the stage. Following on the footstep of that person (rather the leader) we endured the usual push and pulls and the usual sneering comments in between, to reach a point from where their was no way further up. Fortunately when a concert starts people around you who are crossed with you because of you taking away their advantage point tend to forget and forgive your misadventure in the process of enjoying the show which is on. There is one thing good about a concert like that of Aerosmith-who play blue rock and have more love song(or rock numbers on the softer side) to their credit(at least in my country) then the hard core rock numbers. The thing which is good in a concert like theirs is that the number of beautiful girls who come to listen to them. So being surrounded by such beautiful creatures should give you a good feeling (:)). That’s what the normal thought process should be…Right??.. .With me their has to be a “BUT” which is always inevitable. It’s all right if you are surrounded by a group of creatures categorized as females. It’s all right if they jump around you and constantly keep on falling on you. But for a while …Yes my friends it feels good only for a while after that it becomes a headache. A simple person like me who in spite of having attended concerts before feels clueless on the way to behave under such situation. Then in a concert you get more interested in avoiding such collisions occurring due to reasons not under your control. To ensure that you do not get wrong notions about me let me explain a little further. Imagine that you are a person of short height and you are surrounded by ladies of various shape and sizes. Now if a girl of your height or smaller is their then you feel for her as she is facing the same problem as yourself. Still seeing her jump around with a spirit of her own makes you appreciate her and you try to give space to her so as to avoid any discomfort to her (heheh …what to do I try to behave as a gentleman…don’t you). Now consider another scenario in which you have girl of much greater height (bwaaah.. :() jumping around. She is so much engrossed in the things going around on the stage that she does not care what is happening around her. Now adding to the situation imagine she is just a little behind on the left and she manages to crush you with her you know what (:d). That’s a scenario under which different people will have different reaction but that was a situation which made me too uncomfortable. I don’t know whether I would mind getting into the same situation again but there is a level of discomfort and may be .. just may be…some of you may agree or some may not..any kind of comment from your side will be welcomed. Coming back to the concert which was electrifying as an Aerosmith concert should be. These bands know how to connect with their audience and make their presence felt when on stage. But one thing which they always manage to forget that they are playing in a different country where people will know only their popular songs and in one such song where the lead was expecting the audience to finish of his lines, he got pin drop silence instead. One grievance which most of the people had from this concert that they did not play few of their most popular songs like Crazy, Pink, Dude looks like a lady, Ja… got a gun, nevertheless for me their was one more band which I got to see and it was worth all the effort and pains which I along with my friends had to undergo. So the day ended with us eating at hotel empire, koramangala (probably the only place open at night in Bangalore) after failing to get a place at its church street branch. Reminiscing on the time we had and relishing the great food we were having we were just pondering over one thought that if..only if….metallica also comes to India…will their be shortage of tickets unlike all other international rock concert in Bangalore. All of us unanimously agreed that their will no place to stand in their concert.
That was Saturday ‘the concert day’ and then came the beautiful Sunday (4th June). The day my mission was to get my house in proper state so as to make it livable for my family members who were coming the next day for a week. Now if you have any kind of habit which you cannot do in front of your family member then the knowledge of being unable to do it in near future makes you overdo it. So I smoked and smoked and smoked (not more than a pack …don’t worry) along with the intense cleaning and shopping. After I have started earning I miss those shopping days when you had to work hard for things moreover to get things at cheap prices. These days with my purchasing power it’s more like just picking up things at my own whims and fancies. But this trip made of my family members gave me the opportunity to relive those days and I was happy to realize that you can still bargain and that too in a city like Bangalore. Another thing which took most of my Sunday was the so called ‘safai(cleaning)’. Even though we have a Bai to clean the house but she is different. We call her the SUPRA-BAI (distorted form of of super bai). She comes in the morning, more often than not she finds us sleeping, she watches, she does something and then goes away. We are generally amused and speculate did she ever come in the morning or are we recalling something that had occurred several days ago. Tweaking the metaphor a little ‘woh toofan ki tarah aaye aur aandhi ki tarah chale gaye’ rightly describes her short stay in our house. I can find layers of dust everywhere but who cares as long as no one visits us. Removing those layers and hiding the footprints of our(my) doing (the cigarette butts and the bottles) was tiresome; nevertheless the end result was good. So after a long days work guess what I needed. You guessed it right “the beer” and what better way to have a beer than to have with a college friend who also enjoys and appreciate heavy metal. The friend who had come from Hyderabad got over with his examination and our meeting point was fixed at Styx (a niche pub for heavy metal rockers). We were enjoying the ambience at styx to the fullest until a strange thing kept on recurring. What happened scared me a little (the next day of course that day I was too boozed to realize) but my friend took this opportunity to enjoy it to the fullest. A guy out of nowhere kept on coming to light my cigarette. Oh Man…I know I haven’t been able to get so called steady girl friend. But I never realized that this can happen with me, I never knew that one can get hit by guys on a harmless guys night out in pub. I can only pray that somebody save me from this big bad world. Thankfully my back was toward this guy (should I be thankful….ahemmm….) otherwise I would have run from the pub that very instant. My friend facing him was very sure of his intention and thankfully that guy was drunk enough for not troubling us in any other way except giving his services in the form of lighting my cigarette. Oh Man …. I can only cry out what did I ever do wrong. Anyways the night ended at my house with us recalling our great college days after an enjoyable rained journey back home.
That’s it folks that sums up the happenings of my crazy weekend. A weekend good enough to make me write about it so that I can look back and enjoy and I hope that you have also found out it to be interesting.
Of late no work days has started to become a norm in my office. I am suppose to be in a team which has the most critical and taxing work in my office. But unfortunately and probably it’s because of the work our team has already done we are most of the time free. We were suppose to enjoy the fruits in the form of time which we now had. But hey it’s me and I got to have a different reaction to this situation also. To me this free time every day is annoying. I would rather prefer a taxing day to really appreciate the value of the time I am provided. To really cherish and utilize that time to the fullest I need to have a period in which I long for those times which I am unable to have. Now instead of utilizing the free time I have, I am rather killing it. I now feel that I have entered a vicious loop of waiting. As soon as I enter office I wait for the evening to arrive and when I finally get myself out of the office I wait for the next day. This cycle goes on and on and on and on.
Friday (2nd June) was no different. I was getting frustrated with the free time I had and was itching to get out as soon as possible. But the problem is that the group with which I generally move around on a weekday is distributed across different companies. How much I dislike waiting till 7 pm for everyone to assemble I cannot do away with it. Now our group comprises o few guys (the usual’s) and a girl. This was interesting, a girl in the group to which I belong. Now if you are thinking that somehow that poor creature happen to be in our group then you are thinking right. The circumstances were such that she belonged to the same team in which I am and because of that she and I happen to be in the set of people who go out sometimes. But the surprising part is that till now we haven’t managed to scare her away. It seems with age my skills of putting the fear of my presence into opposite sex is fading. In between I wonder sometimes to what length I can be self deprecating…hmmmm…..Well carrying on I want to bring out two set of thoughts from this great Barista time I had. Recently I bought (actually my friend got from US and I haven’t paid him back yet :) ) a digital camera. So more often than not I carry it with me and immortalize (hehe big word) the moments/gatherings into time by taking snaps. I thought it is a cool thing to do and it’s good that one can document various parties via the pictures I take. It has become a habit for me. Now the question which I want to put on floor for discussion is why girls hate getting snapped. I will never understand the chain of thoughts which made the girls feel so. If I try to look for a reason I am able to find only suggestions which gets me nowhere near to the explanation. Let’s ponder over a few of them. 1) The girl reads a lot of beauty magazine so as someone said if you read beauty magazine it will only make you feel ugly. 2) Some people simply hate getting snapped anytime and anywhere like celebrities :) 3) She is skeptical of the intention of the snapper (ahemmmmmm). She never knows what might happen with her pictures with news of morphing flying thick and fast. It makes we wonder where the concept of the trust has gone today. It’s a thought which cannot be overlooked but it will definitely pain a person accused of something like that if his/her intentions has never been that. But then again is their a solution to this problem. I would say the girl from the group belongs to 2nd category of girls rather that is what I want to think so as not to degrade myself even further (:)). The 2nd observation from this Barista chit chat was that if you belong to a group which has only 1 girl and you do not have the habit of having one in your group. The jokes get categorized into two categories. The first kind are those which can be said front of the whole group and the other which gets articulated in the subgroup which doesn’t include the female. So more often than not , in spite of all your conscious effort you tend to slip up. There will be times when someone or the other will flounder and barge out something which would have better remain unsaid. Once such thing is said one is at the mercy of the lady that how spirited is she.
So after barging out something or the other and taking potshots at each other better sense prevailed and we moved on to bowling. This is one of the games which I will never be able to appreciate. Who the hell invented this game and what for. You keep on throwing a ball which is heavier than it looks at the nine pins in front of you. More often you are more interested in getting rid of the ball as soon as possible so as to avoid crushing your own feet because you know that you are prone to goof ups. Moreover the ball seems to be its own master. It likes the gully so much that no matter what you do it always manage to avoid all the nine pins saying that ‘why are you so cruel Mr. Thrower that you want me to crush my brothers standing in a group of nine’. Passing this message it shows me the finger and happily strolls towards its destination only to come back again to haunt me with the same message. So the immediate question which arises is that why do I keep on frequenting amoeba(a game zone in Bangalore) for bowling. I can answer this question with another question then what the hell are we suppose to do in Bangalore. As if we have choices other than eating, drinking, watching movies and bowling. “Beggars are not Chooser” is the perfect quote for the situation I am trying to describe. But I think people go to bowling more to have a time in a group rather to compete. Of course some of my friends would disagree but I think it’s basically for the good times. My way to have a good time in a bowling alley is to watch other people reactions and observe that how happy they can be by just throwing a ball at the nine pins. Oh!!! if only somebody can confirm that they really feel happy and not just for the sake of it I would have recommended a bowling alley for all (:)). And of course in a group taking pot shots at each other anywhere and everywhere is a healthy way of enjoying yourself.
That was Friday the day which we will always be thankful for. Beginning of the Saturday (3rd June) was sober and serene. With my family members visiting me the next week most of the first half was spend in shopping and cleaning so that they may have a comfortable stay at what you can call a decent enough bachelor’s home (of course from my (a bachelor’s) view point). But all the effort was because I knew I was going for Aerosmith concert in the evening. Thanks to another friend that I was able to see this concert (you guessed it right he bought the tickets). So as to avoid all the work getting piled up till the last minute I was putting in all the effort. The experience of previous concerts had taught me enough to take the costliest ticket and not to be too early when the sun is shining bright. Getting inside the arena is an interesting story in itself. But before I tell you that story I would like to tell you that another of my friend came from Hyderabad that day. He came to give an exam(CFA) but I had corrupted him enough (from our talks on phone)to enthuse him to come to the concert. After his arrival he became skeptical on the chances of getting tickets at the venue. Let me tell you one thing if there is a concert in Bangalore and that too in Palace Ground their will always be tickets available at the venue. Unfortunately he took the wiser option and even I did not pester him much. A wiser options in the sense that who will have the energy to give an exam the next morning after a grueling international rock show. This proves I can be good and wise sometimes :) . My argument I did not pressed hard enough. Oh it feels good if you do something wise ;). Carrying on with our journey towards the arena. Now we were four guys going to the rock show. Hey this is me how can you expect a girl in the group (exception’s does not recur). Four guys and two bikes and the tickets were with the guys on other bike. So we started off towards our destination. Making our way through a heavy Bangalore traffic on a Saturday evening, towards Palace Grounds and that too on a concert day. A person living in Bangalore can imagine the harassment one is going to face because of the traffic. Now if we don’t know the route to palace grounds then one of us getting lost in the traffic (that too on a concert day where we were eager to reach) was something inevitable. So one friend and myself managed to reach the ground but the other bike behind was nowhere near to be seen. Nevertheless they managed to reach the venue half an hour after us. If you are thinking that it was not so bad then hold on. The series of unfortunate incidence does not end over here. Somehow and just somehow this concert managed to have two different entrances and we had to be on two different entrances with the other guys having the tickets. Irony was that the entrance we reached hardly had any crowd whereas the other entrance overflowing. Thankfully the notion which was developing due to us being on the hidden entrance, that only a fistful of people were coming to the concerts was undone by this realization. So we carried on with the only thing we were able to do that was to wait for the other guys to come to us for which they had to cross one entrance.At last but not the least after an hour or more of waiting the guys with tickets managed to reach us and all of us got into the arena. One thing to be noted in a concert of a famous band howsoever late you are you will always manage to get into the arena before the band comes up and play. Artists struggle for artistic freedom but what best could define that freedom than the power to make ten thousand or more people to wait for you for three long hours before you show up on stage. Hence the fact that Aerosmith were the celebrities got reaffirmed (as they were the last one in the arena to show up) in spite of the conspiracies cooked up by so called fate to make us the last. Inside a stand up concert there is a usual jostling for space especially if you have someone in the group who wants to see the concert from a point nearest to the stage. Following on the footstep of that person (rather the leader) we endured the usual push and pulls and the usual sneering comments in between, to reach a point from where their was no way further up. Fortunately when a concert starts people around you who are crossed with you because of you taking away their advantage point tend to forget and forgive your misadventure in the process of enjoying the show which is on. There is one thing good about a concert like that of Aerosmith-who play blue rock and have more love song(or rock numbers on the softer side) to their credit(at least in my country) then the hard core rock numbers. The thing which is good in a concert like theirs is that the number of beautiful girls who come to listen to them. So being surrounded by such beautiful creatures should give you a good feeling (:)). That’s what the normal thought process should be…Right??.. .With me their has to be a “BUT” which is always inevitable. It’s all right if you are surrounded by a group of creatures categorized as females. It’s all right if they jump around you and constantly keep on falling on you. But for a while …Yes my friends it feels good only for a while after that it becomes a headache. A simple person like me who in spite of having attended concerts before feels clueless on the way to behave under such situation. Then in a concert you get more interested in avoiding such collisions occurring due to reasons not under your control. To ensure that you do not get wrong notions about me let me explain a little further. Imagine that you are a person of short height and you are surrounded by ladies of various shape and sizes. Now if a girl of your height or smaller is their then you feel for her as she is facing the same problem as yourself. Still seeing her jump around with a spirit of her own makes you appreciate her and you try to give space to her so as to avoid any discomfort to her (heheh …what to do I try to behave as a gentleman…don’t you). Now consider another scenario in which you have girl of much greater height (bwaaah.. :() jumping around. She is so much engrossed in the things going around on the stage that she does not care what is happening around her. Now adding to the situation imagine she is just a little behind on the left and she manages to crush you with her you know what (:d). That’s a scenario under which different people will have different reaction but that was a situation which made me too uncomfortable. I don’t know whether I would mind getting into the same situation again but there is a level of discomfort and may be .. just may be…some of you may agree or some may not..any kind of comment from your side will be welcomed. Coming back to the concert which was electrifying as an Aerosmith concert should be. These bands know how to connect with their audience and make their presence felt when on stage. But one thing which they always manage to forget that they are playing in a different country where people will know only their popular songs and in one such song where the lead was expecting the audience to finish of his lines, he got pin drop silence instead. One grievance which most of the people had from this concert that they did not play few of their most popular songs like Crazy, Pink, Dude looks like a lady, Ja… got a gun, nevertheless for me their was one more band which I got to see and it was worth all the effort and pains which I along with my friends had to undergo. So the day ended with us eating at hotel empire, koramangala (probably the only place open at night in Bangalore) after failing to get a place at its church street branch. Reminiscing on the time we had and relishing the great food we were having we were just pondering over one thought that if..only if….metallica also comes to India…will their be shortage of tickets unlike all other international rock concert in Bangalore. All of us unanimously agreed that their will no place to stand in their concert.
That was Saturday ‘the concert day’ and then came the beautiful Sunday (4th June). The day my mission was to get my house in proper state so as to make it livable for my family members who were coming the next day for a week. Now if you have any kind of habit which you cannot do in front of your family member then the knowledge of being unable to do it in near future makes you overdo it. So I smoked and smoked and smoked (not more than a pack …don’t worry) along with the intense cleaning and shopping. After I have started earning I miss those shopping days when you had to work hard for things moreover to get things at cheap prices. These days with my purchasing power it’s more like just picking up things at my own whims and fancies. But this trip made of my family members gave me the opportunity to relive those days and I was happy to realize that you can still bargain and that too in a city like Bangalore. Another thing which took most of my Sunday was the so called ‘safai(cleaning)’. Even though we have a Bai to clean the house but she is different. We call her the SUPRA-BAI (distorted form of of super bai). She comes in the morning, more often than not she finds us sleeping, she watches, she does something and then goes away. We are generally amused and speculate did she ever come in the morning or are we recalling something that had occurred several days ago. Tweaking the metaphor a little ‘woh toofan ki tarah aaye aur aandhi ki tarah chale gaye’ rightly describes her short stay in our house. I can find layers of dust everywhere but who cares as long as no one visits us. Removing those layers and hiding the footprints of our(my) doing (the cigarette butts and the bottles) was tiresome; nevertheless the end result was good. So after a long days work guess what I needed. You guessed it right “the beer” and what better way to have a beer than to have with a college friend who also enjoys and appreciate heavy metal. The friend who had come from Hyderabad got over with his examination and our meeting point was fixed at Styx (a niche pub for heavy metal rockers). We were enjoying the ambience at styx to the fullest until a strange thing kept on recurring. What happened scared me a little (the next day of course that day I was too boozed to realize) but my friend took this opportunity to enjoy it to the fullest. A guy out of nowhere kept on coming to light my cigarette. Oh Man…I know I haven’t been able to get so called steady girl friend. But I never realized that this can happen with me, I never knew that one can get hit by guys on a harmless guys night out in pub. I can only pray that somebody save me from this big bad world. Thankfully my back was toward this guy (should I be thankful….ahemmm….) otherwise I would have run from the pub that very instant. My friend facing him was very sure of his intention and thankfully that guy was drunk enough for not troubling us in any other way except giving his services in the form of lighting my cigarette. Oh Man …. I can only cry out what did I ever do wrong. Anyways the night ended at my house with us recalling our great college days after an enjoyable rained journey back home.
That’s it folks that sums up the happenings of my crazy weekend. A weekend good enough to make me write about it so that I can look back and enjoy and I hope that you have also found out it to be interesting.
Friday, June 01, 2007
Sunscreen
Oh Man...Some body passed me the link and I had to have a link of this video in my blog. Its so different and meaningful. Its actually hard to describe my feelings after listening to this song. What I know is that it is strong enough to make the lyrics of this song present in my blog.
Video Sunscreen
Baz Luhrman Lyrics - Sunscreen Speech Lyrics
Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of ’99
Wear Sunscreen.
If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be
it. The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by
scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable
than my own meandering experience…
I will dispense this advice, now.
Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth;
oh nevermind; you will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded.
But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself, and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before
you and how fabulous you really looked….
You are not as fat as you imagine.
Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as
effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum.
The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind;
the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.
Do one thing everyday that scares you
Sing
Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts, don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.
Floss
Don’t waste your time on jealousy;
sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind; the race is long,
and in the end, it’s only with yourself.
Remember the compliments you receive, forget the insults;
if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.
Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements.
Stretch
Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life…
the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives,
some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t.
Get plenty of calcium.
Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone.
Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t,
maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t,
maybe you’ll divorce at 40,
maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary…
what ever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much
or berate yourself either – your choices are half chance,
so are everybody else’s.
Enjoy your body, use it every way you can,
don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it,
it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own..
Dance…even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.
Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.
Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.
Get to know your parents, you never know when they’ll be gone for good.
Be nice to your siblings, their your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.
Understand that friends come and go, but with the precious few you should hold on.
Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle because the older you get,
the more you need the people you knew when you were young.
Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard;
live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.
Travel.
Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will philander,
you too will get old and when you do you’ll fantasize that when you were young
prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.
Respect your elders.
Don’t expect anyone else to support you.
Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse;
but you never know when either one might run out.
Don’t mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're 40, it will look 85.
Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it.
Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal,
wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.
But trust me on the sunscreen…
Video Sunscreen
Baz Luhrman Lyrics - Sunscreen Speech Lyrics
Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of ’99
Wear Sunscreen.
If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be
it. The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by
scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable
than my own meandering experience…
I will dispense this advice, now.
Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth;
oh nevermind; you will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded.
But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself, and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before
you and how fabulous you really looked….
You are not as fat as you imagine.
Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as
effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum.
The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind;
the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.
Do one thing everyday that scares you
Sing
Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts, don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.
Floss
Don’t waste your time on jealousy;
sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind; the race is long,
and in the end, it’s only with yourself.
Remember the compliments you receive, forget the insults;
if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.
Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements.
Stretch
Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life…
the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives,
some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t.
Get plenty of calcium.
Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone.
Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t,
maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t,
maybe you’ll divorce at 40,
maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary…
what ever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much
or berate yourself either – your choices are half chance,
so are everybody else’s.
Enjoy your body, use it every way you can,
don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it,
it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own..
Dance…even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.
Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.
Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.
Get to know your parents, you never know when they’ll be gone for good.
Be nice to your siblings, their your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.
Understand that friends come and go, but with the precious few you should hold on.
Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle because the older you get,
the more you need the people you knew when you were young.
Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard;
live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.
Travel.
Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will philander,
you too will get old and when you do you’ll fantasize that when you were young
prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.
Respect your elders.
Don’t expect anyone else to support you.
Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse;
but you never know when either one might run out.
Don’t mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're 40, it will look 85.
Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it.
Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal,
wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.
But trust me on the sunscreen…
Monday, May 28, 2007
Tell Me Why (Java/J2ee Interview Questions)
Interview : The word itself would draw out different kind of emotions. Some may get excited. Some may get challenged. For first timers it may bring pressure in the form of expectation. And of course their are some who would get scared.
The very fact that I am writing about this should be an indication in itself that my feelings are different from the usual written above. There are few people who are actually left confused by the interviews and I am one of them. After every interview I have given (of course in the software industry) I am always left wondering why the questions which were asked were ever needed to be asked at all. It is not that I knew the answer to all of the questions asked rather they were asked left me baffled. I have never been able to understand and appreciate the psyche of an interviewer. It is because of the respect which I have never been able to give to this form of evaluation, I have managed to flunk every time. I have only managed to scrape through one interview and that was for the company in which I am in right now (My first Job). That was more so because the interviewer (who became my PL later on) was asking questions more so about my project rather than the clichéd general interview stuff. These interviews have always left me with the funny feeling. I will try and elaborate using an example.
Let us say you have been inside the industry for a year and then you start working on a job switch. The arrogance of the knowledge you displayed during the first time interview you gave comes back and you start thinking big of yourself. You never realize that a year in the industry hasn’t given you much experience in the eyes of the interviewer and you would rather be asked the same level of question as you were asked before. The only difference being the language on which you will get evaluated will change from c/c++ to java/j2ee. Hasn’t it happened with you if not then probably I am an exception. Even if I am it doesn’t matter, I would rather prefer thinking otherwise. Giving interview again after a year (rather a few months before) gave me the feeling of déjà vu’. The same frustration which I used to feel starting to come back but their was a difference this time. This time I was much more relaxed and was able to laugh at those frustration. I will try to explain the precarious scenario in which I was with a typical java/j2ee interview question and answers and the feeling which comes along with it.
A typical java/j2ee have a set of clichéd questions. And no matter how much one studies a normal human being will never be able to cover all of them. Java/J2ee is like an ocean and the candidate can easily be floored on the mat at any given point of time. It all depends on the person who is taking the interview. If the packages he like belongs to the set of one you like then probably you are safe. Otherwise you very well know that interviewers love to grind candidates and push them to a corner. I think every interviewer gets a kick out of demeaning the knowledge of the candidate. The knowledge neither the candidate nor the interviewer would have never used nor will ever used in the real world..
1) I have never been able to understand why does anyone ask about different packages and their implementation. How the hell is anyone suppose to know about the classes inside and their implementation. There are thousands of them and which one is your favourite Mr. Interviewer I never knew otherwise I would have studied and not make a fool of myself.
2) Now every class by default extends the object class. While writing the code did you ever care about it and moreover did one ever cared about the methods of the object class. Some of the favourite methods to be asked about are clone(), equals(Object obj), finalize(), hashcode() and a few other thread specific methods. Hashcode() Returns a hash code value for the object by converting the internal address of the object onto an integer. This method is supported for the benefit of hashtables such as those provided by java.util.Hashtable. Some of the properties of this method is that if two object is equal it returns the same hashcode. If not it returns different hashcode (Although not necessary it done to improve the performance of hashtable). The determination of object equality is done during the equal() method of the object class. Tell me one thing who uses object hashcode to create a table. Anyone creating an object will definitely have unique attributes which would form the key for storing them. finalize() another one of the crazy method called by garbage collector but did anyone ever override this method in their own class. If yes then you do tell me why. The purpose of other methods will get clearer later on in the rendition of my grievances.
3) Difference between == and equals another favourite of the interviewers. When two objects are compared using == it returns false whereas what happens if it is done via equals (obj1.equals(obj2)). Well if one hasn’t been using equals that extensively one might go back to strings and say Hey strings are objects , it works over there then it should work for any object. But hold on my friends this where the equals method of the object class needs to be overridden as an object can be made according to programmers whims and wishes so the equals need to be overridden for the method to work on our own customized classes. Well most of the time who cares about the equals method when the comparison needs to be done on a particular attribute only.
4) Collections: Probably one of the most favourite among the interviewer. The questions rather interrogation starts of lightly with interviewer expecting you tell him/her with the classes you are familiar with. Then question will go in the direction of the difference between a linked list and array list and when to use which. You say for that for faster access you will use the later but they have an answer already in their head which they want to hear. Yes they actually want you to say that for linked list you have exact memory allocation whereas an array list is growable array in which the array size increases dynamically by a factor of 1.5 + 1 with an initial size of 10. Tell me one programmer who took this into consideration. Its generally array list everywhere so you also start using the array list or any other storage structure which one is familiar with without thinking about the concept being discussed here . Then their may be other question on Set which cannot have duplicates SortedSet which is the sorted implementation of Set. Then they may ask some question on some legacy classes like vector which are synchronized.
5) Then there are good old legacy object oriented question but specific to java. Some of them are A) Difference between interface (which can have only abstract methods and static final variables) and abstract classes which may have self implementation of a method besides the usual abstract methods. B) Whether a protected method in base class can be declared as public derived class. The answer for which is no as we can only reduce the scope not increase it. Interviewers generally have the habit of tweaking a little here and a little there of the OOP concept and they feel glad to grill the candidates with them.
6) Of course then their are some basic key word question which interviewers definitely like to grill you with. Falter here then it would be hard to impress them. The key words can be static, final, transient, public, private, protected, default etc. 'static' is for declaring class variables i.e. only one reference is created for static variables for multiple objects. final variables are constants, final methods cannot be overridden and final class does not make any sense for extension. transient variables are not serialized (i.e. when a object copy is created it gets initialized by its default value). private is for class specific variables and methods, protected variables and methods can be used by derived classes, default variables and methods are accessible within a package only and public variable and methods is accessible across packages. Now just one question is on my mind does anyone uses 'default' and unless one come across a scenario while coding that their is a requiremnet of such declaration for the design why would anyone even bother to think about it.
7) Coming to exceptions. Who the hell likes exception in the program. Every programmer would like to exhaustively handle all kind of exception scenarios. So much effort gets spend in identifying and handling those scenarios but any programmer would be able to leave a few. Thankfully we have certain classes to catch them. The Checked (which can be catched,subclass of Exception class)and Unchecked(which only gets caught at runtime, subclass of Runtimeexception class) exceptions are the two kind of exception in java. Now the most generic question to be asked under this category is the usage of finally block along with try and catch. Its basically for calling this block(generally to free resources) irrespective of try block is called or catch block. But this is not enough interviewers have a cruel way of confusing you by asking whether this block gets called if in a try block their is a return statement. The answer is yes but they ask in a way that you will definitely get confused and will struggle to get a reason why and then you try your luck. Their is another thing they ask that is the way to create ones own checked and unchecked exception. One can throw checked exception using throw new Exception() and unchecked exception using throw new RuntimeException(). Yes simple but to that person who generally uses unchecked exception but my guess and experience tell me if I want to throw my own exception I would throw a checked exception why should I require to throw an unchecked exception may be someone can explain. Something which I wont be able to catch within the program is a scenario I haven't come across.
8) Object clone(): Here is another one of the crazy concept if one doesn't not know one is bound to flounder. If one doen't know this concept one generally takes String as a reference and derive conclusion out of it. Here lies the inherant danger of the concepts getting totally screwed up because of the implementations provided in string. When obj1=obj2 is done obj2 reference gets passed to obj1. To create a new copy clone() method of the object class has to be used. Then again clone() can only give shallow copy that is a copy of the object but the references inside the object is not created. To get a complete copy of an object i.e. to do deep copy one has to make the object serializable and write it to (Byte)OutputStream and read it back from there. This is probably the only way to create a total copy of an object including its references. My Oh My ....Somebody save the candidates if they did not know about cloning.
My friends I have a long list following. I was able to write this much only. I will come back and update with a few more as I start recalling the typical clichéd questions.
The very fact that I am writing about this should be an indication in itself that my feelings are different from the usual written above. There are few people who are actually left confused by the interviews and I am one of them. After every interview I have given (of course in the software industry) I am always left wondering why the questions which were asked were ever needed to be asked at all. It is not that I knew the answer to all of the questions asked rather they were asked left me baffled. I have never been able to understand and appreciate the psyche of an interviewer. It is because of the respect which I have never been able to give to this form of evaluation, I have managed to flunk every time. I have only managed to scrape through one interview and that was for the company in which I am in right now (My first Job). That was more so because the interviewer (who became my PL later on) was asking questions more so about my project rather than the clichéd general interview stuff. These interviews have always left me with the funny feeling. I will try and elaborate using an example.
Let us say you have been inside the industry for a year and then you start working on a job switch. The arrogance of the knowledge you displayed during the first time interview you gave comes back and you start thinking big of yourself. You never realize that a year in the industry hasn’t given you much experience in the eyes of the interviewer and you would rather be asked the same level of question as you were asked before. The only difference being the language on which you will get evaluated will change from c/c++ to java/j2ee. Hasn’t it happened with you if not then probably I am an exception. Even if I am it doesn’t matter, I would rather prefer thinking otherwise. Giving interview again after a year (rather a few months before) gave me the feeling of déjà vu’. The same frustration which I used to feel starting to come back but their was a difference this time. This time I was much more relaxed and was able to laugh at those frustration. I will try to explain the precarious scenario in which I was with a typical java/j2ee interview question and answers and the feeling which comes along with it.
A typical java/j2ee have a set of clichéd questions. And no matter how much one studies a normal human being will never be able to cover all of them. Java/J2ee is like an ocean and the candidate can easily be floored on the mat at any given point of time. It all depends on the person who is taking the interview. If the packages he like belongs to the set of one you like then probably you are safe. Otherwise you very well know that interviewers love to grind candidates and push them to a corner. I think every interviewer gets a kick out of demeaning the knowledge of the candidate. The knowledge neither the candidate nor the interviewer would have never used nor will ever used in the real world..
1) I have never been able to understand why does anyone ask about different packages and their implementation. How the hell is anyone suppose to know about the classes inside and their implementation. There are thousands of them and which one is your favourite Mr. Interviewer I never knew otherwise I would have studied and not make a fool of myself.
2) Now every class by default extends the object class. While writing the code did you ever care about it and moreover did one ever cared about the methods of the object class. Some of the favourite methods to be asked about are clone(), equals(Object obj), finalize(), hashcode() and a few other thread specific methods. Hashcode() Returns a hash code value for the object by converting the internal address of the object onto an integer. This method is supported for the benefit of hashtables such as those provided by java.util.Hashtable. Some of the properties of this method is that if two object is equal it returns the same hashcode. If not it returns different hashcode (Although not necessary it done to improve the performance of hashtable). The determination of object equality is done during the equal() method of the object class. Tell me one thing who uses object hashcode to create a table. Anyone creating an object will definitely have unique attributes which would form the key for storing them. finalize() another one of the crazy method called by garbage collector but did anyone ever override this method in their own class. If yes then you do tell me why. The purpose of other methods will get clearer later on in the rendition of my grievances.
3) Difference between == and equals another favourite of the interviewers. When two objects are compared using == it returns false whereas what happens if it is done via equals (obj1.equals(obj2)). Well if one hasn’t been using equals that extensively one might go back to strings and say Hey strings are objects , it works over there then it should work for any object. But hold on my friends this where the equals method of the object class needs to be overridden as an object can be made according to programmers whims and wishes so the equals need to be overridden for the method to work on our own customized classes. Well most of the time who cares about the equals method when the comparison needs to be done on a particular attribute only.
4) Collections: Probably one of the most favourite among the interviewer. The questions rather interrogation starts of lightly with interviewer expecting you tell him/her with the classes you are familiar with. Then question will go in the direction of the difference between a linked list and array list and when to use which. You say for that for faster access you will use the later but they have an answer already in their head which they want to hear. Yes they actually want you to say that for linked list you have exact memory allocation whereas an array list is growable array in which the array size increases dynamically by a factor of 1.5 + 1 with an initial size of 10. Tell me one programmer who took this into consideration. Its generally array list everywhere so you also start using the array list or any other storage structure which one is familiar with without thinking about the concept being discussed here . Then their may be other question on Set which cannot have duplicates SortedSet which is the sorted implementation of Set. Then they may ask some question on some legacy classes like vector which are synchronized.
5) Then there are good old legacy object oriented question but specific to java. Some of them are A) Difference between interface (which can have only abstract methods and static final variables) and abstract classes which may have self implementation of a method besides the usual abstract methods. B) Whether a protected method in base class can be declared as public derived class. The answer for which is no as we can only reduce the scope not increase it. Interviewers generally have the habit of tweaking a little here and a little there of the OOP concept and they feel glad to grill the candidates with them.
6) Of course then their are some basic key word question which interviewers definitely like to grill you with. Falter here then it would be hard to impress them. The key words can be static, final, transient, public, private, protected, default etc. 'static' is for declaring class variables i.e. only one reference is created for static variables for multiple objects. final variables are constants, final methods cannot be overridden and final class does not make any sense for extension. transient variables are not serialized (i.e. when a object copy is created it gets initialized by its default value). private is for class specific variables and methods, protected variables and methods can be used by derived classes, default variables and methods are accessible within a package only and public variable and methods is accessible across packages. Now just one question is on my mind does anyone uses 'default' and unless one come across a scenario while coding that their is a requiremnet of such declaration for the design why would anyone even bother to think about it.
7) Coming to exceptions. Who the hell likes exception in the program. Every programmer would like to exhaustively handle all kind of exception scenarios. So much effort gets spend in identifying and handling those scenarios but any programmer would be able to leave a few. Thankfully we have certain classes to catch them. The Checked (which can be catched,subclass of Exception class)and Unchecked(which only gets caught at runtime, subclass of Runtimeexception class) exceptions are the two kind of exception in java. Now the most generic question to be asked under this category is the usage of finally block along with try and catch. Its basically for calling this block(generally to free resources) irrespective of try block is called or catch block. But this is not enough interviewers have a cruel way of confusing you by asking whether this block gets called if in a try block their is a return statement. The answer is yes but they ask in a way that you will definitely get confused and will struggle to get a reason why and then you try your luck. Their is another thing they ask that is the way to create ones own checked and unchecked exception. One can throw checked exception using throw new Exception() and unchecked exception using throw new RuntimeException(). Yes simple but to that person who generally uses unchecked exception but my guess and experience tell me if I want to throw my own exception I would throw a checked exception why should I require to throw an unchecked exception may be someone can explain. Something which I wont be able to catch within the program is a scenario I haven't come across.
8) Object clone(): Here is another one of the crazy concept if one doesn't not know one is bound to flounder. If one doen't know this concept one generally takes String as a reference and derive conclusion out of it. Here lies the inherant danger of the concepts getting totally screwed up because of the implementations provided in string. When obj1=obj2 is done obj2 reference gets passed to obj1. To create a new copy clone() method of the object class has to be used. Then again clone() can only give shallow copy that is a copy of the object but the references inside the object is not created. To get a complete copy of an object i.e. to do deep copy one has to make the object serializable and write it to (Byte)OutputStream and read it back from there. This is probably the only way to create a total copy of an object including its references. My Oh My ....Somebody save the candidates if they did not know about cloning.
My friends I have a long list following. I was able to write this much only. I will come back and update with a few more as I start recalling the typical clichéd questions.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Dance
The Bible
Ecclesiastes
To every thing there is a season,
and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant,
and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down,
and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn,
and a time to dance;
The question is Is their anything in your life which has given you pleasure which is unexplainable. The pleasure which gets you into trance. The pleasure which is in its purest of form. The pleasure untouched by the ways of the world. The pleasure which made you happy beyond your expectation. The pleasure which cannot be shared. The pleasure which can only be experienced. The pleasure which makes you feel closer to a higher entity. The pleasure which makes a believer out of an atheist. The pleasure which is actually not a pleasure but a state of your mind in which you have no boundaries. The pleasure which releases you from all the bonds. The pleasure which made you feel free in the actual sense. The pleasure which drove you to ecstasy and the ecstacy is what you have lost. The pleasure which you are always in the lookout for. The pleasure which has become a part of you. The pleasure which you had experienced years before. The pleasure which has now been lost in the world you are living. The pleasure which never fails to bring a smile when you think about it. The pleasure which made you calm and serene. Yes my friends such are the properties of the pleasure I am trying to define.
Actually their is no particular definition so I have tried to list out various properties of the thing which I am talking about. I hope that you are able to relate with the thing which I am trying to point towards. Looking at the things said above one (especially people like me who has just started into professional life)might find it difficult to relate it to any of the thing which one might be doing now . Probably if one will look hard enough into the past then a thing or two might come up. Dancing could be one of those thing as it is for me.
Dance is one of the purest form of expression of ones feeling. It can bring one joy which one is always in the look out for. Oh no Sir I am not talking about dancing just like that in party. I believe the state which I am trying to define is not achievable in those parties. It cannot be achieved by an hour or two of fun. It is not achievable in a party where you are dancing more so because of others than yourself. Rather I am talking about the dance which one enjoys for oneself. It is not driven to impress others nor it is driven to please others. The dance which I am referring to is an expression of freedom. This form of art lets one forget all the troubles in the world and gets one to a place which is unmatched by any in beauty . Have you ever tried dancing for 13-14 hours at a stretch. This state and form of dance was what I was able to achieve after 4-5 hours of continuous dance. This leads one to a state where ones body and the music becomes one in unision. The rhythm and beats is what drives ones movement. Then the music does not remain something which is played on a speaker rather it becomes a way to communicate to an unknown entity. The undercurrent of music then starts flowing through ones body and gets embedded in ones soul. Then even when the music stops one keeps on shaking oneself with the beat which is being emanated from one body. Now one might question that after such long hours of shaking ones body doesn't one gets tired. I say this is what is one of the effects of achieving this state of ecstasy. Instead of getting tired one feels doubly energised. Each beat of music then becomes a source of abundant energy. Such can be the power of the bodily movement called the dance. It has been rightly said by Martha Graham that "Dance is the hidden language of the soul". The artform which can be so passionate, intense and meaningful that it engulfs one with its beauty.
As I said before that their can be other things which actually effect you to get into a state of complete joy. Be whatever it may be, never be hesitant to enjoy it over an over again. Cause then may come the times when one has to regret of not doing that enough. So if it is dancing then let your hair down jive a little and enjoy it to the fullest
Ecclesiastes
To every thing there is a season,
and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant,
and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down,
and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn,
and a time to dance;
The question is Is their anything in your life which has given you pleasure which is unexplainable. The pleasure which gets you into trance. The pleasure which is in its purest of form. The pleasure untouched by the ways of the world. The pleasure which made you happy beyond your expectation. The pleasure which cannot be shared. The pleasure which can only be experienced. The pleasure which makes you feel closer to a higher entity. The pleasure which makes a believer out of an atheist. The pleasure which is actually not a pleasure but a state of your mind in which you have no boundaries. The pleasure which releases you from all the bonds. The pleasure which made you feel free in the actual sense. The pleasure which drove you to ecstasy and the ecstacy is what you have lost. The pleasure which you are always in the lookout for. The pleasure which has become a part of you. The pleasure which you had experienced years before. The pleasure which has now been lost in the world you are living. The pleasure which never fails to bring a smile when you think about it. The pleasure which made you calm and serene. Yes my friends such are the properties of the pleasure I am trying to define.
Actually their is no particular definition so I have tried to list out various properties of the thing which I am talking about. I hope that you are able to relate with the thing which I am trying to point towards. Looking at the things said above one (especially people like me who has just started into professional life)might find it difficult to relate it to any of the thing which one might be doing now . Probably if one will look hard enough into the past then a thing or two might come up. Dancing could be one of those thing as it is for me.
Dance is one of the purest form of expression of ones feeling. It can bring one joy which one is always in the look out for. Oh no Sir I am not talking about dancing just like that in party. I believe the state which I am trying to define is not achievable in those parties. It cannot be achieved by an hour or two of fun. It is not achievable in a party where you are dancing more so because of others than yourself. Rather I am talking about the dance which one enjoys for oneself. It is not driven to impress others nor it is driven to please others. The dance which I am referring to is an expression of freedom. This form of art lets one forget all the troubles in the world and gets one to a place which is unmatched by any in beauty . Have you ever tried dancing for 13-14 hours at a stretch. This state and form of dance was what I was able to achieve after 4-5 hours of continuous dance. This leads one to a state where ones body and the music becomes one in unision. The rhythm and beats is what drives ones movement. Then the music does not remain something which is played on a speaker rather it becomes a way to communicate to an unknown entity. The undercurrent of music then starts flowing through ones body and gets embedded in ones soul. Then even when the music stops one keeps on shaking oneself with the beat which is being emanated from one body. Now one might question that after such long hours of shaking ones body doesn't one gets tired. I say this is what is one of the effects of achieving this state of ecstasy. Instead of getting tired one feels doubly energised. Each beat of music then becomes a source of abundant energy. Such can be the power of the bodily movement called the dance. It has been rightly said by Martha Graham that "Dance is the hidden language of the soul". The artform which can be so passionate, intense and meaningful that it engulfs one with its beauty.
As I said before that their can be other things which actually effect you to get into a state of complete joy. Be whatever it may be, never be hesitant to enjoy it over an over again. Cause then may come the times when one has to regret of not doing that enough. So if it is dancing then let your hair down jive a little and enjoy it to the fullest
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Criminal Minds...
Of late I have started to become a big fan of this serial. This crime thriller is very different from others as it tries to concentrate on the criminal rather than the crime. The plots are generally well written and the psycho analysis and profiling of the unsub revealing the insides of the mind which have committed the crime keeps one interested to the last. But the thing which I like most is that the episode starts with a an idiom setting up the context of the whole episode and ends with and idiom summarizing the episode or summarizing the lessons to be learnt from it(be it moral or any other virtue). What I will do is to try and list out all those idioms from each and every episode. A long drawn process but I think it is worth the effort. It has been able to have an influence on my mind and hoping it may have an effect on you to...So keep track of this post as I am going to update it after every episode I see..
Episode 1.1:
Joseph Conrad said, "The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary. Men alone are quite capable of every wickedness."
Emerson said, "All is riddle, and the key to a riddle is another riddle."
Winston Churchill said "The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see."
Nietzsche once said, "When you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks into you."
Episode 1.2:
Faulkner once said, "Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself."
Einstein once said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."
Episode 1.3:
Samuel Johnson wrote, "Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those who we cannot resemble."
Episode 1.4:
French poet Jacques Rigaut said, "Don't forget that I cannot see myself. My role is limited to being the one who looks in the mirror."
Rose Kennedy once said, "Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn't people feel as free to delight in whatever sunlight remains to them."
Episode 1.5:
Euripides said, "When a good man is hurt, all who would be called good must suffer with him."
Euripides said, "When love is in excess it brings a man no honor nor worthiness."
Episode 1.6:
Nietzsche wrote, "The irrationality of a thing is not an argument against its existence, rather a condition of it."
Shakespeare wrote, "Nothing is so common as the wish to be remarkable."
Episode 1.7:
Gideon: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
Episode 1.8:
Hemingway wrote, "There is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else.”
Carl Jung said, "The healthy man does not torture others. Generally, it is the tortured who turn into torturers.”
Episode 1.9:
Robert Oxton Bolt once wrote, "A belief is not merely an idea the mind possesses; it is an idea that possesses the mind."
Albert Einstein said, "The question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or the others crazy?"
Episode 1.10:
Eugene Ionesco said, "Ideology separates us. Dreams and anguish bring us together."
Sir Peter Ustinov said, "Unfortunately, a super abundance of dreams is paid for by a growing potential for nightmares."
Episode 1.11:
Harriet Beecher Stowe once said "The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone."
Episode 1.12:
"Measure not the work until the day's out and the labor done," Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
"The poet, W. H. Auden wrote, 'Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table.'"
Episode 1.13:
Roman philosopher Lucretius said, "What is food to one, is to others bitter poison."
Confucius once said, "Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves."
Episode 1.14:
Whosoever sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed. (Genesis 9:6)
Albert Pine said, "What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal."
Episode 1.15:
Norman Maclean wrote, "It is those we live with and love and should know who elude us."
Episode 1.16:
Nietzsche wrote, "The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe."
Episode 1.17:
Gandhi said, "Better to be violent if there's violence in our hearts than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence."
Gandhi also said, "I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary. The evil it does is permanent."
W. H. Auden said, "Murder is unique in that it abolishes the party it injures, so that society must take the place of the victim and on his behalf demand atonement or grant forgiveness.
Episode 1.18:
Diane Arbus once said, "A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you, the less you know."
Bernard Shaw once said, "An American has no sense of privacy. He does not know what it means. There is no such thing in the country."
Episode 1.19:
Anthony Brandt wrote, "Other things may change us, but we start and end with family."
Mexican proverb, “The house does not rest upon the ground, but upon a woman.”
Episode 1.20:
The author François de la Rochefoucauld wrote, "We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to ourselves."
The French philosopher Voltaire wrote, "There are some that only employ words for the purpose of disguising their thoughts."
Episode 1.21:
Albert Einstein said, "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as judge in the field of truth and knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."
George Orwell said, "In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
Episode1.22:
Writer Elbert Hubbard said, "No man needs a vacation so much as the man who has just had one."
Episode 2.1:
"The defects and faults of the mind are like wounds in the body; after all imaginable care has been taken to heal them up, still there will be a scar left behind." French writer François de la Rochefoucauld.
"It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone." Rose Kennedy.
Episode 2.2:
Theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer said "The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children."
Episode 2.3:
Mark Twain wrote "Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it."
Philosopher Kahlil Gibran wrote "Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars."
Episode 2.4:
"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth," Oscar Wilde
"The basis of shame is not some personal mistake of ours, but that this humiliation is seen by everyone," Milan Kundera
Episode 2.5:
Helen Keller once said "Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it."
Episode 2.6:
Plato wrote "We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light."
Episode 2.7:
Legendary basketball coach John Wooden said: "It's not so important who starts the game, but who finishes it."
"The ultimate choice for a man, in as much as he is driven to transcend himself, is to create or to destroy, to love or to hate." Erich Fromm
Episode 2.8:
Robespierre wrote "Crime butchers innocence to secure a prize, and innocence struggles with all its might against the attempts of crime."
Episode 2.9:
Elbert Hubbard once wrote "If men could only know each other, they would never either idolize or hate."
Mahatma Gandhi once said "All through history, there have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall, always."
Episode 2.10:
Dale Turner mused "Some of the best lessons are learned from past mistakes. The error of the past is the wisdom of the future."
Ralph Waldo Emerson said "In order to learn the important lessons in life, one must, each day, surmount a fear."
Episode 2.11:
T.S. Eliot wrote "Between the idea and the reality, between the motion and the act, falls the shadow."
T.S. Eliot wrote "Between the desire and the spasm, between the potency and the existence, between the essence and the descent, falls the shadow. This is the way the world ends."
Episode 2.12:
All secrets are deep. (sic) All secrets become dark. That's in the nature of secrets — writer Cory Doctorow.
Episode 2.13:
Aristotle said, "Evil brings men together."
Episode 2.14:
Condemned murderer Perry Smith said of his victims, the Clutter family "I didn't have anything against them and they never did anything wrong to me, the way other people have all my life. Maybe they're just the ones who have to pay for it."
Episode 2.15:
There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins. Ecclesiastes 7:20
Episode 2.16:
"From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate." Socrates
“The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living." Cicero
Episode 2.17:
"Our life is made by the death of others." Leonardo da Vinci
"If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace." Thomas Paine
Episode 2.18:
Robert Kennedy once said "Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide by which to live."
Episode 2.19:
"The torture of a bad conscience is the hell of a living soul," John Calvin.
Gandhi said "Live as if you were to die tomorrow, learn as if you were to live forever."
Episode 2.20:
An old Russian proverb reminds us, "There can be no good without evil."
"Happy families are all alike. Every unhappy family is unhappy in it's own way," Leo Tolstoy.
Episode 2.21:
The British historian James Anthony Froude once said, "Wild animals never kill for sport. Man is the only one to whom the torture and death of his fellow creatures is amusing in itself."
Episode 2.22:
"Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity, nothing exceeds the criticisms made of the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed." Herman Melville.
"Nothing is permanent in this wicked world— not even our troubles," Charles Chaplin.
Episode 2.23:
"I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellect." Oscar Wilde.
Episode 1.1:
Joseph Conrad said, "The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary. Men alone are quite capable of every wickedness."
Emerson said, "All is riddle, and the key to a riddle is another riddle."
Winston Churchill said "The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see."
Nietzsche once said, "When you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks into you."
Episode 1.2:
Faulkner once said, "Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself."
Einstein once said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."
Episode 1.3:
Samuel Johnson wrote, "Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those who we cannot resemble."
Episode 1.4:
French poet Jacques Rigaut said, "Don't forget that I cannot see myself. My role is limited to being the one who looks in the mirror."
Rose Kennedy once said, "Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn't people feel as free to delight in whatever sunlight remains to them."
Episode 1.5:
Euripides said, "When a good man is hurt, all who would be called good must suffer with him."
Euripides said, "When love is in excess it brings a man no honor nor worthiness."
Episode 1.6:
Nietzsche wrote, "The irrationality of a thing is not an argument against its existence, rather a condition of it."
Shakespeare wrote, "Nothing is so common as the wish to be remarkable."
Episode 1.7:
Gideon: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
Episode 1.8:
Hemingway wrote, "There is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else.”
Carl Jung said, "The healthy man does not torture others. Generally, it is the tortured who turn into torturers.”
Episode 1.9:
Robert Oxton Bolt once wrote, "A belief is not merely an idea the mind possesses; it is an idea that possesses the mind."
Albert Einstein said, "The question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or the others crazy?"
Episode 1.10:
Eugene Ionesco said, "Ideology separates us. Dreams and anguish bring us together."
Sir Peter Ustinov said, "Unfortunately, a super abundance of dreams is paid for by a growing potential for nightmares."
Episode 1.11:
Harriet Beecher Stowe once said "The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone."
Episode 1.12:
"Measure not the work until the day's out and the labor done," Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
"The poet, W. H. Auden wrote, 'Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table.'"
Episode 1.13:
Roman philosopher Lucretius said, "What is food to one, is to others bitter poison."
Confucius once said, "Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves."
Episode 1.14:
Whosoever sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed. (Genesis 9:6)
Albert Pine said, "What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal."
Episode 1.15:
Norman Maclean wrote, "It is those we live with and love and should know who elude us."
Episode 1.16:
Nietzsche wrote, "The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe."
Episode 1.17:
Gandhi said, "Better to be violent if there's violence in our hearts than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence."
Gandhi also said, "I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary. The evil it does is permanent."
W. H. Auden said, "Murder is unique in that it abolishes the party it injures, so that society must take the place of the victim and on his behalf demand atonement or grant forgiveness.
Episode 1.18:
Diane Arbus once said, "A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you, the less you know."
Bernard Shaw once said, "An American has no sense of privacy. He does not know what it means. There is no such thing in the country."
Episode 1.19:
Anthony Brandt wrote, "Other things may change us, but we start and end with family."
Mexican proverb, “The house does not rest upon the ground, but upon a woman.”
Episode 1.20:
The author François de la Rochefoucauld wrote, "We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to ourselves."
The French philosopher Voltaire wrote, "There are some that only employ words for the purpose of disguising their thoughts."
Episode 1.21:
Albert Einstein said, "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as judge in the field of truth and knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."
George Orwell said, "In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
Episode1.22:
Writer Elbert Hubbard said, "No man needs a vacation so much as the man who has just had one."
Episode 2.1:
"The defects and faults of the mind are like wounds in the body; after all imaginable care has been taken to heal them up, still there will be a scar left behind." French writer François de la Rochefoucauld.
"It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone." Rose Kennedy.
Episode 2.2:
Theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer said "The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children."
Episode 2.3:
Mark Twain wrote "Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it."
Philosopher Kahlil Gibran wrote "Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars."
Episode 2.4:
"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth," Oscar Wilde
"The basis of shame is not some personal mistake of ours, but that this humiliation is seen by everyone," Milan Kundera
Episode 2.5:
Helen Keller once said "Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it."
Episode 2.6:
Plato wrote "We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light."
Episode 2.7:
Legendary basketball coach John Wooden said: "It's not so important who starts the game, but who finishes it."
"The ultimate choice for a man, in as much as he is driven to transcend himself, is to create or to destroy, to love or to hate." Erich Fromm
Episode 2.8:
Robespierre wrote "Crime butchers innocence to secure a prize, and innocence struggles with all its might against the attempts of crime."
Episode 2.9:
Elbert Hubbard once wrote "If men could only know each other, they would never either idolize or hate."
Mahatma Gandhi once said "All through history, there have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall, always."
Episode 2.10:
Dale Turner mused "Some of the best lessons are learned from past mistakes. The error of the past is the wisdom of the future."
Ralph Waldo Emerson said "In order to learn the important lessons in life, one must, each day, surmount a fear."
Episode 2.11:
T.S. Eliot wrote "Between the idea and the reality, between the motion and the act, falls the shadow."
T.S. Eliot wrote "Between the desire and the spasm, between the potency and the existence, between the essence and the descent, falls the shadow. This is the way the world ends."
Episode 2.12:
All secrets are deep. (sic) All secrets become dark. That's in the nature of secrets — writer Cory Doctorow.
Episode 2.13:
Aristotle said, "Evil brings men together."
Episode 2.14:
Condemned murderer Perry Smith said of his victims, the Clutter family "I didn't have anything against them and they never did anything wrong to me, the way other people have all my life. Maybe they're just the ones who have to pay for it."
Episode 2.15:
There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins. Ecclesiastes 7:20
Episode 2.16:
"From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate." Socrates
“The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living." Cicero
Episode 2.17:
"Our life is made by the death of others." Leonardo da Vinci
"If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace." Thomas Paine
Episode 2.18:
Robert Kennedy once said "Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide by which to live."
Episode 2.19:
"The torture of a bad conscience is the hell of a living soul," John Calvin.
Gandhi said "Live as if you were to die tomorrow, learn as if you were to live forever."
Episode 2.20:
An old Russian proverb reminds us, "There can be no good without evil."
"Happy families are all alike. Every unhappy family is unhappy in it's own way," Leo Tolstoy.
Episode 2.21:
The British historian James Anthony Froude once said, "Wild animals never kill for sport. Man is the only one to whom the torture and death of his fellow creatures is amusing in itself."
Episode 2.22:
"Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity, nothing exceeds the criticisms made of the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed." Herman Melville.
"Nothing is permanent in this wicked world— not even our troubles," Charles Chaplin.
Episode 2.23:
"I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellect." Oscar Wilde.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
For an addict, By an addict
This new post is relevant especially for those who are addicts. I hope that I would be able to connect to them as this post is by an addict for an addict. "Of the people" missed the bus because of my inability to put my thoughts into this category.
I would like to invite all the smokers, alcoholics or people suffering from any other form of drug addiction to read through and tell me whether I was able to throw some form of light on this particular topic or not.
Firstly I will have to confess that I am addicted to cigarettes. I started smoking in the summers of 2004 (3rd year of my college). Before I began smoking the opinion which I had was that drinking alcohol in controlled amount is classy and cool whereas smoking cigarettes is one of the most pathetic thing to do. I simply hated it. Moreover more often than not my folks at home use to suspect "me" of smoking than my friend who had actually smoked. But with me being financially independent for the first time during my summer internship in Bangalore I started to frequent pubs 3-4 times in a week. Hence came the pressure to support my affinity towards pubs and their rocking music and atmosphere with whatever little I was earning. Within a few visits I realized that one can stay in the pub as long as one is consuming something or the other from their menu. It doesn’t matter whether one is drinking the same first for an hour. What matters is you holding on to something or the other. So as to save money and to prolong my stay to enjoy the ambiance, a simple solution was clearly visible. The solution was to bring in a pack of cigarette ...drink less…smoke a lot…and enjoy the music as long the smoke last.
Like any other addict I started off small. Now you will say that a pack of smoke on a pub day is not small. But this routine was only applicable for two months. After that it was back to simpler life of my college. There is a reason why cigarettes, alcohol etc. cause addiction. Once a person has a taste of it then these items find their own reason to ensure their consumption. So back in my college after a small break their was no reason why I needed to smoke but as a mortal I got entangled in the web of temptation woven by the white and brown stick which was always eager to be consumed. Thus the reason was simple to keep myself awake in night and to convince myself that it was the right thing to do all I had to say that it is important for my studies to stay awake and what better way to do it than to smoke away your sleep.
I have come a long way from smoking alone in my hostel room to smoking 10-12 sticks a day. In my last year of college most of my friends and batch mates had started smoking. In the absence of three fourth of my batch mates who were doing 4 year course my cigarettes were able to make their own group of friends. Now I no more had to worry about not getting a smoke. If I did not have any, their were other suicidal cigarettes with my friends who were willing to be burnt alive by not only a single owner but multiple partners at the same. Slowly and steadily these sticks were able to increase their number because I think they prefer mass suicide. All their effort ,be it changing the brain mapping of their owner or making the owner borrow for their sake, goes into ensuring the success of mass suicide concept.
With college getting over and me finally getting the financial freedom these happy go lucky form of sticks were able to ensure that they had even more friends. So now from a smoke or two a day to 5-6 smoke a day in last year of my college I was smoking 12-14 cigarettes a day. With increase in frequency I started to feel its effect on my body. The effect was negative after all against any hope. 7-8 months have passed since then and I have to experiment with amazing results.
The experiments which I keep on doing on myself tests my will power. Sometimes I do not smoke for half a day. The results are amazing. I felt energetic and good about myself with better awareness of my surroundings. So if you want to know why I haven’t quit yet. The answer is simple its hard to quit. When I go back home whether for a week or two I don’t smoke. To me I feel the people around the addict have a bigger responsibility in making an addict quit his/her habit. Its a paradox though. On one hand one expects people who are closest to the addict to support unconditionally but more often than not it is very difficult for such a person. Such a person who has suffered because of his/her closest one addiction will break down at some point of other. So rather being supportive that person may turn accusative towards the addict. It’s a very delicate balance which has to be maintained between an addict and his/her loved ones and if the addiction gets prolonged over greater period of time then the support which may help an addict stand again is doomed to be withdrawn and leave the addict on his/her own fate. My friends these words are applicable to not only a smoker but alcoholics and all other form of addicts. This is not said by me just like that but from my own life experience.
Enough have been said by others responsibility but the first and foremost onus lies on the addict him(her)self. Admitting and accepting the problem is the first step. The second is the willingness to solve the problem. I know its very hard for an addict to do so , thus the requirement for the proper support system. I also feel that the health warnings can never restrict an addict. I can go to the extent and say its always the good which an addict feel about him(her)self can only help in quitting and never these doctors advice. These kind of threats can only work with a newbie but not with a person who have been addicted to a habit for a long time.Sleeping is the best way to quit an addiction and in absence of time it gets even harder to find out a way and rectify oneself. It’s a vicious circle which takes a very hard grip on an addict and its not easy to break free from it. But one day, with each small step it is achievable. I believe that and please you also believe so.
All I want to say is that “O my fellow addicts try quitting for a day and sleep the whole day. The energy and happiness experienced is comparable to none. Do it once, do it again and I know one day I will be able to free myself from this addiction and you will be able to do the same”.
I would like to invite all the smokers, alcoholics or people suffering from any other form of drug addiction to read through and tell me whether I was able to throw some form of light on this particular topic or not.
Firstly I will have to confess that I am addicted to cigarettes. I started smoking in the summers of 2004 (3rd year of my college). Before I began smoking the opinion which I had was that drinking alcohol in controlled amount is classy and cool whereas smoking cigarettes is one of the most pathetic thing to do. I simply hated it. Moreover more often than not my folks at home use to suspect "me" of smoking than my friend who had actually smoked. But with me being financially independent for the first time during my summer internship in Bangalore I started to frequent pubs 3-4 times in a week. Hence came the pressure to support my affinity towards pubs and their rocking music and atmosphere with whatever little I was earning. Within a few visits I realized that one can stay in the pub as long as one is consuming something or the other from their menu. It doesn’t matter whether one is drinking the same first for an hour. What matters is you holding on to something or the other. So as to save money and to prolong my stay to enjoy the ambiance, a simple solution was clearly visible. The solution was to bring in a pack of cigarette ...drink less…smoke a lot…and enjoy the music as long the smoke last.
Like any other addict I started off small. Now you will say that a pack of smoke on a pub day is not small. But this routine was only applicable for two months. After that it was back to simpler life of my college. There is a reason why cigarettes, alcohol etc. cause addiction. Once a person has a taste of it then these items find their own reason to ensure their consumption. So back in my college after a small break their was no reason why I needed to smoke but as a mortal I got entangled in the web of temptation woven by the white and brown stick which was always eager to be consumed. Thus the reason was simple to keep myself awake in night and to convince myself that it was the right thing to do all I had to say that it is important for my studies to stay awake and what better way to do it than to smoke away your sleep.
I have come a long way from smoking alone in my hostel room to smoking 10-12 sticks a day. In my last year of college most of my friends and batch mates had started smoking. In the absence of three fourth of my batch mates who were doing 4 year course my cigarettes were able to make their own group of friends. Now I no more had to worry about not getting a smoke. If I did not have any, their were other suicidal cigarettes with my friends who were willing to be burnt alive by not only a single owner but multiple partners at the same. Slowly and steadily these sticks were able to increase their number because I think they prefer mass suicide. All their effort ,be it changing the brain mapping of their owner or making the owner borrow for their sake, goes into ensuring the success of mass suicide concept.
With college getting over and me finally getting the financial freedom these happy go lucky form of sticks were able to ensure that they had even more friends. So now from a smoke or two a day to 5-6 smoke a day in last year of my college I was smoking 12-14 cigarettes a day. With increase in frequency I started to feel its effect on my body. The effect was negative after all against any hope. 7-8 months have passed since then and I have to experiment with amazing results.
The experiments which I keep on doing on myself tests my will power. Sometimes I do not smoke for half a day. The results are amazing. I felt energetic and good about myself with better awareness of my surroundings. So if you want to know why I haven’t quit yet. The answer is simple its hard to quit. When I go back home whether for a week or two I don’t smoke. To me I feel the people around the addict have a bigger responsibility in making an addict quit his/her habit. Its a paradox though. On one hand one expects people who are closest to the addict to support unconditionally but more often than not it is very difficult for such a person. Such a person who has suffered because of his/her closest one addiction will break down at some point of other. So rather being supportive that person may turn accusative towards the addict. It’s a very delicate balance which has to be maintained between an addict and his/her loved ones and if the addiction gets prolonged over greater period of time then the support which may help an addict stand again is doomed to be withdrawn and leave the addict on his/her own fate. My friends these words are applicable to not only a smoker but alcoholics and all other form of addicts. This is not said by me just like that but from my own life experience.
Enough have been said by others responsibility but the first and foremost onus lies on the addict him(her)self. Admitting and accepting the problem is the first step. The second is the willingness to solve the problem. I know its very hard for an addict to do so , thus the requirement for the proper support system. I also feel that the health warnings can never restrict an addict. I can go to the extent and say its always the good which an addict feel about him(her)self can only help in quitting and never these doctors advice. These kind of threats can only work with a newbie but not with a person who have been addicted to a habit for a long time.Sleeping is the best way to quit an addiction and in absence of time it gets even harder to find out a way and rectify oneself. It’s a vicious circle which takes a very hard grip on an addict and its not easy to break free from it. But one day, with each small step it is achievable. I believe that and please you also believe so.
All I want to say is that “O my fellow addicts try quitting for a day and sleep the whole day. The energy and happiness experienced is comparable to none. Do it once, do it again and I know one day I will be able to free myself from this addiction and you will be able to do the same”.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Victoria Boland
One hears Shania Twain, one hears Celene Dion, Tina Turner, Patsy Cline , Buddy Holly, Bruce Springsteen, Mike Jagger, Cher...the list may go on and on... People belonging to my psyche would devour any kind of good music. The side effect being the list of artists and songs of my liking has become infinite...Then I came across Victoria Boland and I realize that I really dont have to remember any of them but her.. With such a strong and versatile voice she is able to justice to all these singers and more at the same time. I am no critique to pass judgement on her performances but I know what I am now. I am a big fan of hers and I would leave you all to see and hear her and decide on your own. http://www.victoriaboland.com/ can be a good place to start your journey and I am convinced that at the end of it you will be fully satisfied.
Saturday, April 07, 2007
Who are Good (Blog) Writers...
I don't know why am I writing this but all I can reason out is that I have nothing to do on this beautiful weekend in Bangalore.
Their use to be a time when I was able to write from the heart. If I look back at my previous posts I find them to be lacking in fluency. Their seems to be a lack of flow exposing my limited knowledge of english language. Often when I write I struggle to express myself due to lack of words. Ultimately it gets boiled down to random thougths haphazardly condensed in a single post. My free time made me ponder over the question who are good blog writers. Who are able to web up an engrossing story. Who are able to keep the readers attention to the very last word.
Generally the argument for good writing skills falls in favour of those who have great command over their language. But I would ike to differ.
The opinion which I have is that anyone is able to write a good enough blog depending upon that person's emotional attachment to the subject. So its rather the strength of ones feeling than mastery of a particular language which determines the degree of so called "goodness" of ones blog. This has lead me to the conclusion that these emotions and intensity is where I am lacking at the moment. Sometimes I feel that I have lost not only my intensity and emotions but along with that my ability to dream. Dreams which makes one achieve anything this world. Dreams which keeps one alive and kicking.
Investigating furthur I found out that to have an opinion about anything in life one needs to have focus and a purpose to strive for. The presence of a purpose makes all other aspects and pieces to fall in place. This presence ensures that one enjoys and cherish other aspects of life. Its like a chain reaction. Its like an experience person trying to determine the time of his life which were the happiest and finding out it was those time when he was actually struggling towards a goal were the most satisfying.
Like when I was preparing for JEE I had a purpose. It was during those times I was living life to the fullest whether it was talking and chilling out with friends or watching television or celebrating festival. I use to cherish them all within the tight schedule I had.
But my baptism into the corporate world has sapped all my zeal towards life. I don't know whether it has happened to anyone else but i would like to believe I am not the only one. Since the passion is no more there ,its absence has neutralized any happiness which was obtained by the opinions I had. In the end I have reached a state in which I am excited about almost nothing. Probably thats why I envy those who are able to enjoy their work. Its not that I dont enjoy the technical aspects of work rather its motonous nature has put me off big time.
In the end my simple understanding makes me believe that the purpose and focus in ones life is what drives one to excel in anything one does. Whether its writing a simple blog ...or to excel in sports...In simple words...world then becomes a place for limitless opportunity
Their use to be a time when I was able to write from the heart. If I look back at my previous posts I find them to be lacking in fluency. Their seems to be a lack of flow exposing my limited knowledge of english language. Often when I write I struggle to express myself due to lack of words. Ultimately it gets boiled down to random thougths haphazardly condensed in a single post. My free time made me ponder over the question who are good blog writers. Who are able to web up an engrossing story. Who are able to keep the readers attention to the very last word.
Generally the argument for good writing skills falls in favour of those who have great command over their language. But I would ike to differ.
The opinion which I have is that anyone is able to write a good enough blog depending upon that person's emotional attachment to the subject. So its rather the strength of ones feeling than mastery of a particular language which determines the degree of so called "goodness" of ones blog. This has lead me to the conclusion that these emotions and intensity is where I am lacking at the moment. Sometimes I feel that I have lost not only my intensity and emotions but along with that my ability to dream. Dreams which makes one achieve anything this world. Dreams which keeps one alive and kicking.
Investigating furthur I found out that to have an opinion about anything in life one needs to have focus and a purpose to strive for. The presence of a purpose makes all other aspects and pieces to fall in place. This presence ensures that one enjoys and cherish other aspects of life. Its like a chain reaction. Its like an experience person trying to determine the time of his life which were the happiest and finding out it was those time when he was actually struggling towards a goal were the most satisfying.
Like when I was preparing for JEE I had a purpose. It was during those times I was living life to the fullest whether it was talking and chilling out with friends or watching television or celebrating festival. I use to cherish them all within the tight schedule I had.
But my baptism into the corporate world has sapped all my zeal towards life. I don't know whether it has happened to anyone else but i would like to believe I am not the only one. Since the passion is no more there ,its absence has neutralized any happiness which was obtained by the opinions I had. In the end I have reached a state in which I am excited about almost nothing. Probably thats why I envy those who are able to enjoy their work. Its not that I dont enjoy the technical aspects of work rather its motonous nature has put me off big time.
In the end my simple understanding makes me believe that the purpose and focus in ones life is what drives one to excel in anything one does. Whether its writing a simple blog ...or to excel in sports...In simple words...world then becomes a place for limitless opportunity
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