The Douchebag Poster

Someone posted this poster which appeared on my Facebook timeline. It is so hateful that I wrote a parallel to it.

(click the image to see full glory)

Here is the parallel version:

I have read this douche-bag poster on my friends wall. It is full of cliche and vomits full of "I am so nice. I am so caring." Screw it. I have written a parallel.

WARNING: not for faint hearted, retarded, show offs. Politically correct people may carry wet paper towel with them. NO. SERIOUSLY!! (don't grin like a monkey)

Turn off your TV, leave your house:
> It's fucking 3AM in freezing winter night, back home to find you were robbed.

Know your neighbors:
> Got punched in face for asking if he can tell you some about gardening, apparently he did not want people to know that he grows weed.

Look up when you are walking:
> Fell flat on face because you did not notice a fucking dog sized boulder

Greet People:
> when they are in the most awkward situation?

Sit on stoop:
> back in house your milk is boiled and overflowing; your newly born fell off the bed, into cat litter, face down

Plant Flowers:
> So that your neighbors' kids can burn them at night, and shout, "die, devil! DIEEE!!!"

Use Your Library:
> which has stinky smell, you are alone in it. Librarian hates you because now he cannot watch porno on free broadband.

Play Together:
> You buy the ball, you arrange the schedule. You arrange the transport. You are the one who searches ball when it get lost. When you find it, everyone has already gone.

Buy from local merchant:
> who sells half the quality available on Internet, at a price double than it says on the carton. Threatens you when you tell the truth.

Share what you have:
> It never comes back

Help a lost dog:
> it has three legs. Owners' decline to take it. You end up feeding it. And it killed your cat.

Take chidren to garden:
> Parents sue you for child abuse. You pay them with all your savings.

Garden Together:
> Your neighbors' grow weed, they plan to kill you and bury under those weeds. (You are anyway an useless person)

Support Neighborhood School:
> They decline to take your kid, because you were sued for child abuse. Though they knew you were innocent, because they were the ones who sued you to buy a Lamborgini.

Fix even if you did not break it:
> Because everyone blames you if something is broken. If you disagree they would sue you.

Have Potlucks:
> Because no one like to eat remaining of dog food of a three legged dogs that is lost and you have it.

Honor Elders:
> Because they are the ones who are organizing the community wide hate operations against you. If you don't, prepare for another meeting the court.

Pick up litters:
> Else they will be thrown to your face.

Read stories aloud:
> At 3AM, reading Fifty Shades of Grey near your hottest neighbor porch, will cause another jail.

Dance in the street:
> Another jail, for disrupting traffic

Talk to the mail carrier:
> Who known you are a loser.

Listen to the birds:
> because no one talks to you. You are a jobless, honorless, egoless, pathetic loner have plenty of time to listen to... whatever.

Put up a swing:
> which no one likes, because there are already tens of these and no one want to come close to a creep. You better use the ropes to hang yourself.

Help carry something heavy:
> Because you are suffering from arthritis and already survived two heart attacks... heavy lifting is all you should offer to help your 200 pounds weighing gym going gorilla like neighbor.

Barter for your goods:
> Exchange your voice activated home theater cum music station for coming Sunday church service, where community priest forces you to confess all the crimes that you never did; which he later spreads in the community with added shameful events that never happened, and you never told.

Start a tradition:
> that has only one follower: you!

Ask a question:
> never get answered; or heard.

Hire neighborhood:
> and gets into jail for harassment charges. Sell your furniture to settle outside.

Young people for odd job:
> 3 year olds for radio active experiments to nuke the neighborhood with exposure value greater than 30 Gray, without lead shields.

Organize a block party:
> and invite party pooping neighbors, who play with food.

Bake extra and share:
> Gets fed to receivers' pet. Who on planned death of the pet sues you.

Ask for help when you need it:
> And no body helps.

Open your shades:
> to let photograph you when you are naked and put it up on community wall.

Sing together:
> except the fact you are singing alone, and your three legged dog died because it could not bear it.

Share your skills:
> except that you have none.

Take back the night turn up the music/turn down the music:
> You have gone officially cuckoo. Everyone wish you die.

Listen before you react to the answer:
> because that's the only thing you can do.

Mediate a conflict:
> and get beaten by both the parties

Seek to understand:
> an asshole, a retard, a psycho, your dead dog...

Learn from new and uncomfortable angle:
> Pull out your Seven-six-two millimeter. Full. Metal. Jacket. This is your rifle, this is gun. This is for fighting this is for fun. Keep it next to your toilet seat.

Lace yourself with .223-caliber Ruger Mini-14 semi-automatic. Time to understand things from an uncomfortable angle.

Know that no one is silent, though many are not heard, work to change this:
> Come blasting out of your house, spray fire to anyone in vicinity until all your ammunition exhausts. Go back to your toilet. Know that no-one who is not dead is not silent. It's so cacophony that many are not heard. You have changed the community.. forever. Congrats!!!

Take your rifle next to the toilet. Put the barrel in your mouth. Feel how clean and cold it is. Press the trigger.

– Nishant

The Road Ahead or the Road Behind

This is an inspirational poem I have taken from the TED talk "The Difference between Winning and Succeeding" by John Wooden. One of my favorite.

John Wooden: the difference between winning and succeeding

I think the fates must grin

as we denounce them and insist,

The only reason we can’t win

is the fates themselves have missed.

Yet, there lives on the ancient claim-

We win or lose within ourselves,

The shining trophies on our shelves can

Never win tomorrow’s game.

So you and I know deeper down

There is a chance to win the crown,

But when we fail to give our best,

We simply haven’t met the test

Of giving all and saving none

Until the game is really won.

Of showing what is meant by grit,

Of playing through not letting up,

It’s bearing down that wins the cup.

Of taking it and taking more

Until we gain the winning score

Of dreaming there’s a goal ahead,

Of hoping when our dreams are dead,

Of praying when our hopes have fled.

Yet, losing, not afraid to fall,

If bravely we have given all,

For who can ask more of a man

Than giving all within his span.

That giving all, it seems to me,

Is not so far from VICTORY.

And so the fates are seldom wrong,

No matter how they twist and wind;

It’s you and I who make our fates,

We open up or close the gates

On the Road Ahead or the Road Behind.

WTF is Karaoke?

It's been 15 years (since 1997, when we got first cassette player) that we have learned this word Karaoke. We always assumed that it's an English word. Today, Rajat was fiddling with my new Sony Walkman mobile phone, and found this feature, 'find Karaoke for this song on YouTube'. Quick witted response was, "Karaoke? Japanese are obsessed with Karaoke." (given the fact that Sony is Japanese). "I am sure that Karaoke ain't a English word, it's Japanese."  He continued.

Well, indeed it is. Wikipedia has it.

MediQ: Elixir to Medical Management

AIIMS Delhi, March 31, 2012 11:30AM, NRD and I were looking at multiple gigantic queues -- Queues to get appointments to doctors of their concerns, or to get some sort of medical help. What even more surprising was, that some of these guys were queued for more than 8 hrs – since 3AM!

Varanasi, Dr Hatwal, known expert of Thyroid related problems. He has a unique system. Patients write their name on a paper and put it under the brick. A Friggin Brick! The brick is not guarded by anyone. On a windy day, an innocuous lift of brick, to put one’s paper-slip, can just literally blow everyone else’s application. Come on doctor, you can do better. He wouldn’t hear, or at least pretended not to.

Saraswati Heart Care, Allahabad. I call in from Varanasi to get an appointment, three days in advance. I can’t. I will have to come to the hospital – be physically present there in the morning to get the appointment; which, the receptionist says, wouldn’t be much trouble as everyone does that. I, be assured, will get the appointment for the day.

In India, we are use to of queues. Starting from our college days – queues for fee deposit, queues for admission, queues for food, queues for enquiry, queues for deity, and queues for shitting – literally. While some queues are cut short by advent of information technology (IT), most of them are not. The queues – that are solved by IT, are mostly profitable entities for upper/medium upper classes – movie tickets, club tickets, air tickets, train tickets… off the top of my head.

Why can we not have a universal queuing system for medical/doctors’ appointment and patients’ history keeping? Let’s call it MediQ (yeah, I have googled and this domain name is not available and already owned as a firm’s registered name.)

The Story: I like to think in stories. So, let me tell you a story of a Mr. Hardbody. Hardbody did not have a healthy life as most stories’ protagonists do; but he is a smart person. For last three days, he had this chronic pain in his eyes. So he requested an appointment to his eye doctor from his smart phone which turned out to be a week ahead. He thought he could wait. But suddenly the next day, he had so excruciating pain that he just looked into MediQ for the nearest available eye doctor with closest open appointment, reserved it. It was in next 30 min, a 7 min drive from his home. The doctor made some temporary relief to Hardbody but suggested a surgery as soon as possible. Hardbody called his insurance agent who sympathetically declined that the particular procedure was not covered in the insurance, sorry. Hardbody will certainly loose a major fortune if he paid for the bills. So, he searched for the lowest cost surgery over MediQ. It turned out to be a doctor in India. He looked at the recommendations for that doctor, and talked to the patients who had recently undergone through the surgery by him. It was a good deal, affordable including flight costs and little tourism. He requested the doctor in India to look for his case, over MediQ. Doctor promptly replied, since all the reports from pathology and previous doctor were automatically available to the doctor. Hardbody packed his stuffs and left. He had gone through surgery successfully. The doctor, looking at previous history of Hardbody on MediQ, figured out that some medicine’s causes him acidity, so he prescribed the alternatives. MediQ analyzed the post-surgery medicines were available in stores in nearby Hardbody’s house. Hardbody came back home happy. Posted a review of the surgery and provided his rating for the doctor over MediQ. He can be found in MediQ discussion groups with people having similar issues. And his history is updated in MediQ.

Fundamental Requirements: These features are the core of the idea. It can’t be compromised. MediQ must

1. reliably manage appointments
2. be free on the patients’ end

Functions:

1. People can make appointment to doctors via internet, via smart phones, or via SMS
2. There is going to be only one appointment list. So, any appointment made by calling the doctor, or by going physically to the clinic, or by any means that is not mentioned in #1, has to be entered in the MediQ by the operator/receptionist.
3. On unavailability of slots on request date and time, MediQ should automatically suggest the closest available appointment schedule.
4. MediQ should also manage cancellation of appointment by the doctor or by the patient.
5. MediQ should manage doctors’ schedule, so that it does not allot appointments on the doctor’s day off.
6. MediQ should be able to make two way communications between doctors and their patients so that patients can be communicated about the upcoming appointment X hours ahead, or a sudden cancellation by a patient should push the candidates behind, one slot ahead, or an emergency request shot up to top priority irrespective of its position in the queue.

Roadblocks:

1. Like any new system, doctors – specially, the government hospitals, the biggies, would not embrace MediQ with open arms. So, we need some ground work done beforehand, in convincing people.
2. Awareness – people should be aware of the system so that they can request appointments by themselves; ask for appointment number when appointment made by physically going in or over phone call.
3. Funding is a minor roadblock, but it is as real as it gets.

Nice to have:

1. Medical History: MediQ should manage patients’ history.
   
2. e - Clinic: Things that do not require patients to be physically present to doctors can be taken care over MediQ. This includes upload of reports, and suggestions by doctors.
   
3. Integratability: This is revolutionizing. An integrated system which is hooked with pathology labs, emergency systems, medical stores, various doctors and research centers, and with people having same form of illness.
   
4. Sociable: MediQ creates a society of people connected over internet. People can talk with others with same symptoms; doctors will have millions of case studies to go through.
   
5. Location tied – Location Free: A search will get you to nearest available doctors and closest available appointment slots to them. You can get medical expenses that might cost for a surgery anywhere on the globe. So, if you find that your insurance does not cover laser eye surgery, and it costs a fortune to you in USA, while the same treatment with equally good doctor in India is much cheaper (including your air ticket) – just make an appointment. 

Firefox is slow in Ubuntu?

It's probably working OK for you, but not for me. I've seen Firefox as awesome, in Windows -- could not bear slow Internet for millions of pages I browse everyday. So, I googled around and there were way too much confusion but most of them were pointing directly or indirectly that the culprit is IPv6 . I have found a easier fix (somewhere on the Internet).

Here is what you should do.

1. Open Firefox and type
   

   about:config

   in address bar, hit enter.
2. Scroll down until you see a line like this
   

   network.dns.disableIPv6 = false

   
   
3. Double click on this line so that it becomes
   

   network.dns.disableIPv6 = true
   

Now, try opening a new web-page. You should see the status-bar, it is connecting to the website quite quickly.

PS: This is the solution that worked on my machine. There might be other issues related to network that might cause page load latency. This is just one of the solutions.

Dodgy Common Sense

I received this mail from our apartment authorities to remove dogs because they cause noise pollution and unhealthy environment. I replied to their mail, quite honestly, what I think about this. Here it is

This is rather funny and stupid in some sense. I do not own a pet neither going to. And I am a cynophobic as well (see here). But you should realize the fact that 1. People really love their pets, and what's suggested here is to kill your dog as immediate effect. 2. Dog causing noise pollution. This is the most lame excuse that anyone can ever give. Tomorrow, they will come and file a petition that birds' chirping is deafening them. At the same time, they can sleep like a baby when 120 dB loud music is played in Thiruvella or loud music sessions that happens randomly in nearby areas. This is crazy. Get real, people. If something you can do -- stop using plastic bags, avoid power wastage, file petition for slip-disk cases that bad road can cause. Barking dogs are not real problem, unavailability of freely available drinking water is. - Nishant (Tulip - 4)

Court directs removal of dogs from residence in Coimbatore

Staff Reporter

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has held that as a matter of right, no one is entitled to keep dogs or other animals in a residential area, which create public nuisance.

Justice S.Tamilvanan, who confirmed the order of a Sub-Divisional Magistrate/ Revenue Divisional Officer, said it was the duty of the authorities and municipal administration to remove the nuisance, in order to regulate the same, in public interest.

The case pertains to D.Vikram, a resident of Circuit House Road, Coimbatore, holding a large number of dogs without obtaining licence for commercial purposes and causing noise pollution and an unhealthy atmosphere in a residential area.

The impugned order had directed that the activity of keeping any dogs be discontinued and that the dogs be removed forthwith.

His neighbours, who were affected by the barking and howling of over 30 dogs at odd hours, had filed a complaint that he was violating Section 352 of the Coimbatore City Municipal Corporation Act.

--
Thanks and regards.
Some Bozo, President.
Another Bozo, Secretary

Facebook Badge does not Work?

Facebook badge is what I wanted to put in place of static "About Me" provided by Blogger. The problem is, Facebook badge does not work! I hit the wall. Experimenting with the embed code provided by Facebook, I realized that badge.facebook.com does not work. It returns 302 (Moved Permanently), 301 (Moved Temporarely) or 400 (Bad request). Changing the CNAME from "badge" to "www" worked.

Here is what I did.
Changed this

<a href="http://www.facebook.com/nishant.neeraj" target="_TOP" title="Nishant Neeraj">
<img alt="Nishant Neeraj" style="border: 0px none ;" src="http://badge.facebook.com/badge/677811901.1700.326749801.png" />
</a>

to this

<a href="http://www.facebook.com/nishant.neeraj" target="_TOP" title="Nishant Neeraj">
<img alt="Nishant Neeraj" style="border: 0px none ;" src="http://www.facebook.com/badge/677811901.1700.326749801.png" />
</a>

- Nishant

Re-Vamped !

Dec 2008, I thought that I would upgrade my blog to look more genuine and not to look like one of the Blogger's standard template. Plus, I almost hated the top bar that includes search and next-blog button. But, it never happened -- in-fact, the idea to change the looks was too intense that I stopped blogging until I change it - a pseudo pressure. The reason was, I was too afraid to touch CSS and HTML tags were nightmares to me.

Suddenly, in July 2009, one day I was caught in Catch-22. I had to design a web-page from scratch for our Muton site, and I realized probably the next good thing is vamping up my blog. Played with CSS, HTML tags on N2O and pasted the CSS on this blog. Done! Phew!

I changes the colors and looks from docile and goody-good to more declarative and rebellious. Hope you'd like it.

See old blog's image here
See the new blog's here

Also, this is a pre-Google acquisition blog. So, does not have some of the hottest widgets and sharing capability. I am planning have all those badges, libraries, Tweet and share on Facebook very soon.

And Let's have a regular weekly post from now on. :)

Enjoy.
Naishe.

Quick Quote: SOAP

I started looking into SOAP. I loved that developers need not to be all nerdy. Here is an interesting quote here that I found during research. I loved it. (Since I've seen the movie umpteen times)

Here it is

In the movie Fight Club, Brad Pitt and Edward Norton play alter egos -- opposite ends of the psychological spectrum -- two guys trying to communicate with one another and having a tough time making it work. Interestingly enough -- and without giving away the punch line -- much of the action in the film revolves around the production of soap, an activity that seems to bind the characters in unique and unexpected ways.
By: Tom Clements

Tipping Point 2: The Unusual

Tipping Point Part 2: The Unusual
This story runs into two parts. Click here for part 1.

My Plate – Your Plate: I noticed this before reading Tipping Point. There is this hotel next to our office where tables are full with working people during lunch hours and a common food ordered by everyone – Mini Meals. I am not the biggest fan of monotony. The tipping takes place like this.

All the tables are cramped with hungry, sweat drenched, Axe-laden males and rare females. They are really not in love with the sultry weather – neither the super-tired fan (ceiling fans!). They want to fill their bellies and run back to their air conditioned offices, they do not have time to be creative but a quick suggestion will do. When waiter comes, you need to shout at the top of your voice to get his attention. Everyone shouts – what else – “Mini Meals”. I try twice but the waiter does not find me a subject for mercy and moves away. He is now far away (still in the hotel) from me… I feel embarrassed, and I shout like a guy who is embarrassed, “Hey waiter! One Masala Dosa (another type of food), please” and it tips.

I feel happy to find early adopters by the time my order comes and by the time I leave, I can see a mature market for Masala Dosa.

I am cold. Me too! This phenomenon is same as the lunch tipping, the difference here is, that the people are constrained by the thinking that they might be contradicting other people’s wish. I am talking about night train journeys in sleeper class at in mild cold season when most of the people feel cold while fan is running but they do not take any step to switch the fan off thinking that they are the only who is inconvenienced by the fan.

I noticed this many times. What happens is as soon as I start feeling cold, I ask the person closest to switch to fan-switch to turn it off… It involves shouting and repeating the intention. In following minutes I hear people asking the same in neighboring compartments… and it is successive enough to feel like triggering chain reaction.

Fire Walk: Recently, I went to a seminar where organizers claimed that they will make people (ordinarily available bipedal human being) walk on broken glass and flaming fire. I thought it is doable, but did think that they will pump a lot of funda, boosting talk and some technique. But they did not. I went there thinking a long session of platonic talk to divert our brain from concentrating on the real danger of burning and cutting, but all they did is, they placed a seven feet bed of coal, poured gasoline heavily, flamed it and said casually, “walk!”

I got crazy. 30 seconds of burning fire, no one walked, and all were cold feet [he he … this phrase does not suit here]. Now, the coals has become real red rubies and I, for a split second, though to just run through and finish this drama but consciousness was on denial. And, I guess everyone had this surge of thought to go through in a quick movement and end it (and be the burnt feet hero).

45 seconds. And one of them got surge and could not hold… ran through. There was no need of organizer to encourage, it had already been tipped. People went through in succession. They added more and more gasoline (when I walked the first time, flames were coming up to my lap) but once tipped the suppressant like this did not work. The same thing happened with ‘walk on broken glass’ and ‘stand on nail bed’ events.

This story runs into two parts. Here is part 1 >>

Tipping Point 1: Usual Tipping

Tipping Point Part 1: Usual Tipping
This story runs into two parts. Click Here for part 2.

Marla Singer. I, once again, got reminded of Marla Singer. But I resisted playing Marla this time. I was standing opposite to Bangalore City railway station and I needed to cross the road to make it to the station. In less than two minutes, more than twenty people gathered at either sides of the road and they were in the same mindset – “jump cross the road as soon as rush of speedy vehicles gets a break.” And it never happened.

Few more moments of wait and someone decided to commit suicide and started walking casually – well, the suggestion worked, everyone joined him and it tipped –a momentary halt in racing vehicle as if there was a red signal.

Power of Suggestion makes it possible to tip an event – Tipping Point says so. I have some non-utterly-boring incidences where I think I can relate what I read in the book, Tipping point. They all point to power of suggestion part of the book.

Uncontrolled Traffic: There are quite a few very deadly crossroads on Poonamallee High Road, Chennai with overloaded traffic, self-assumed-smart vehicle drivers and thinking-over-smart pedestrians and this phenomena tip almost in every 4 of 10 red signals.

Red signal is yet at 35 second in down timer, at this moment there was a momentary slack in orthogonal traffic and a daring self-assumed-smart bike rider zips through it – A suggestion. Now tipping point, every one joins the bike rider and crisscross, honk-honk, shout-shout…

The same thing happens at 09:50 onward at night but with one difference, the suggestion is a commonly known fact that traffic lights will be in yellow-mode (that means see-and-cross, decision is yours) at 10 o’clock. And 09:50 PM is the tipping time for all non-major traffic signals.

Real Boring Habit can Tip: I lived 10 months dwindling in different private hostels in Chennai. The arrangement is like this, the hostel is nothing but a 2 bedroom, one hall, one kitchen (basically all except restrooms are converted to bedroom) apartment which is so strategically situated that no one wants to buy this or accept as rent. People who stay have one of the two main reasons to accept this. One, they do not have money and two, they have one or more attributes like they are ultimate lazy, totally unplanned, short stay or have no friends in Chennai.

No matter what the reason is, once in hostel they realize that they have been paying more for less, feel cheated. So, how to recover? Simple, utilize resources to the maximum – watch TV 24 hours, take bath two times (well, that’s a requirement sometimes), over eat et-cetera.

I read book occasionally. Reading anything was assumed to be most miserable thing to do in hostels – people become sympathetic to you. The other activity that we used to do, when not wasting resources, was, to talk – and we talk a lot. During one of the discussions, I kept on quoting different books wherever required. For some unknown reasons, people really liked it. And within a week, TV hours reduced, people started going to Landmark (bookshop) with me, borrowing books and most of them started a book. Phenomena tipped. The readers in the hostel had shot from one occasional reader to one occasional reader plus five enthusiasts, from 12.5% market share to 75% market share.

The reverse happened as well. Enthusiast dropped as quickly as they adopted. It happened something like this. I paused reading for one very busy month. I could see no one’s bookmark had shifted a page. I, finally, shifted to a new place and whenever I go back to the hostel – the bookmark still stays where it was, when I left the place.

This story runs into two parts. Part 2 >>

RWNV 3: Roaming Rameshwaram

Rover, Wanderer, Nomad, Vagabond Part 3: Roaming Rameshwaram
(This article runs into 3 parts. Links to PART 1, PART 2)

Rameshwaram: Ramarnatham is a holy place for Hindus. It is one of the four tirth, mythology says visiting all the four reserves a seat in Hindu heaven. (I have already visited two, yay!)

Rameshwaram is a lovely coastal place. It is a normal tier III Indian city, with people having only two sources of income fish and tourism – and this fact was repeatedly injected in my mind by our driver. When we were there, there was no rush we got nice economic hotel room, reserved a car for city site seeing at reasonable rate, toured around half of the day and came back to hotel.

The Ramarnatham temple is big and spacious. Being off season and weekday, there was no people overload – in fact, it was mostly empty. You need to take bath 27 times (I am not sure whether it is 27, but it is close) at 27 different wells which are assigned names of holy rivers or Gods. The idea is to be super clean by taking bath from all the holy waters in India before doing the holy work.

Then there was small queue to see god. See God, pray for your earthly needs, and walk in famous 3^rd corridor. Take pictures.

I liked this. I liked this thousand times more than Balaji. It was open and accepting, unlike Balaji which is closed for normal people, wrapped in illusion of security and ego and denial as the first response. Or perhaps, I was fortunate in Rameshwaram.

THE END
PART 1, PART 2

RWNV 2: Thirupathi Thrills

Rover, Wanderer, Nomad, Vagabond Part 2: Thirupathi Thrills
(This article runs into 3 parts. Links to PART 1, PART 3)

Thirupathi Balaji: A god for fat rich people. Don’t get me wrong, it is one of the wealthiest (yeah, in terms of revenue) temple loaded with behemoth overhead of security and people management (damagement, I would say). The process to get a look of the god is so inefficient that you may not get a chance to see god, even if you have 8 hour time window.

Last time, me and my cousin, S , reached there at morning 10. And – no surprise, there was no information center (or our heuristic search didn’t get one) and officials and dudes do not believe in possibility of a non-Telugu language. We assumed our methodology was wrong and we should have learnt Telugu.

This time, with non-coherent knowledge from different sources that includes experienced guys, internet searched and travel agencies, I was clear about one thing that I was not going Balaji the next time (even before journey starts). No, yeah, I agree they have tried to facilitate people but it fails miserably. So, there are number of tickets issued by the temple authorities that are mysteriously available in some unknown temple in T. Nagar, Chennai. All the persons, who are going to Balaji, have to be there at ticket booking center to get a bar-coded tag with visitor’s finger print stamp [1]. I never get one, they are volatile, supposedly.

Since, this is a high-tech (?!) temple they have on-line ticket that ranges next 90 days for booking. I had enough time to plan (around 40 days). It was weird to find out that ticket has been already booked for all the future 90 days. Out of curiosity, the next day morning (9 o’clock) I checked availability of ticket on 91^st day, no surprise, no room. I started checking this site frequently; it was always full – less mysterious, more doubtful.

Finalized, I booked a bus ticket from a travel agent that ensured a Darshanam (glimpse) of the God. We started six in morning from Chennai and were there in an infinitely long queue for Daarshanam. We were happy that even if the queue was actually 4 KM long, if we kept moving and 5 hrs (at the worst) in the queue and we would get a glimpse of the God.

Running over and below people’s feet, we reached to a monkey cage. Where they made us (500 people) stay and get bored for six long hours, the only thought I had was to escape from there even if it means no Darshanam (I wasn’t eager from start, either) [2]. And the truth was – no matter what God feared people say – everyone was getting more and more frustrated, restless and anxious. The effect of this pressure building resulted in a stampede as soon as the cage opened. People hit iron bars, got squeezed, rubbed and gone under other physically painful sufferings. People started shouting, cursing, pushing, slanging and doing all kind of panic activities.

The result of this rat race was a coupon for sweet that you are ‘eligible’ ONLY IF you have done Darshanam and you are back in another cage. Now, in this cage, people had become verbal. They started calling (requesting) officials to open the door or asking when the cage is scheduled to open etc. – all unanswered. Rumor starters had fun there, if there was a rumor that gate 3would open, people run from gate 1 to gate 3 (earlier rumor was for gate 1); four more hours for monkey descendents in the cage, and then opening of the gate at 10 o’clock at night.

It was very long, empty and silent corridor. And suddenly, there was an eruption. Everyone was happy; I am more than sure it was happiness of freedom. It was less a willingness to get Darshanam and more an urge to return home which was driving people to run and run-over.

The main temple had a tiny entrance, one person at a time. When the entrance pushed by the mad mob, I felt my ribs were going to collapse. People were shouting, using all the dirty slangs on fellow visitors and pushing each other, while entering. The passage way was narrow, many people with accessories like earrings, handkerchief in their hand and similar, had lost them because the pressure was peeling skin off. A lot of people got hurt. I have got a powerful push which made my heel bone to hit a corner stone leading a deep cut that bared the bone. I was already less faithful, I became even lesser.

It was quarter a second glance before security person pulls people by their arm and throws out of the area where the God is visible from. I couldn’t see anything; neither did I have any wish. I completed my Darshanam even before a quarter of a second, in fact, I ran the zone of the queue where people wait and see for 250 milliseconds before getting forcefully thrown.

We came out bought some stuffs for memories, I already had got something permanent on my body for memory – a solid wound which would leave a mark forever.

We ran back to bus, reached home at 4 AM.

[1] There is a hack for this system if the persons visiting Balaji are not around. The trick here is your security/non-transferable band has gender and fingerprint only, the barcode is just a cross-check to validate that it was issued from appropriate authority.

Now, if there are x men and y women are planning to visit Balaji and for some reason (small time window of visit, busy schedule etc.) they cannot go to ticket counter in Chennai. So, to hack this system, you just collect x men and y women of any age, get tickets issued. It is less likely that fingerprint is ever going to be verified at the temple.

There is no or very superficial checking on Balaji – unless you are damn unlucky you will not be caught.

[2] Yeah, they provide some free food, free water and toilet facility; which is a good idea. The problem is every time they bring food people rush to choke the food center and since they take more than what they can consume, there was big wastage of food and a lot of people never get food. The other good thing is cleanliness; hourly cleaning people come and clean the place.

CONTINUED…
PART 1, PART 3

RWNV 1: Kabala of Kabini

Rover, Wanderer, Nomad, Vagabond Part 1: Kabala of Kabini

(This article runs into 3 parts. Links to PART 2, PART 3)

Travelling is not my hobby. I have high inertia – even the thought of travel makes me feel bad in my stomach. But to maintain sane image, I rarely deny a proposal of an adventurous trip offered – no matter how bitterly I loathe the idea of carrying my dead body up to the hill. So last six weeks I was either busy in planning and organizing tour or touring.

Life was calm and crappy as usual in 7 bar 1* – the only round the clock shit-smelling paying guest house of ours, until I had got an enthusiastic call on June 17, 2008 from home that they were planning to visit me in Chennai. I was missing my mom too, but the amount of work involved in making their comfortable stay in Chennai was daunting, especially when you are a bachelor and your options are constraint by limitation on expense. I made few shameful excuses, few facts about availability of a proper staying place – It came out that they were ready to manage by their own. I realized that I shouldn’t let them down. And I started searching a rental place to accommodate my family. It turned out a costly deal to me, but I was happy that, at least, pre-requisites were done.

(* ‘7 bar 1’ was the place where I used to live earlier to July 1, 2008. ‘7 bar 1’ is nothing but the address of the place which is 7/1 Annanagar)

On July 1^st, I with Syed and Kannan had shifted to the new place, this shifting period of next 10 days were hectic. And, in the mean time, family visit plan kept on canceling and rebuilding. And finally, when they made a concrete plan to visit on 16^th July, 2008 – I realized that we have an official tour plan from 17 – 25^th of July. Family visit had been shifted to start from 27^th of July.

I am going to comment on places that I have visited. You should just ignore the stuffs that you do not like about the place because I don’t like travelling, anyway.

Kabini (Mysore): Kabini is a place close to Mysore - rich with natural diversities. 

We stayed in Kabini River Lodge – a government owned 24 hour stay picnic-cum-safari arrangement - quite good for people with fat wallet. It is like any other green jungle nearby a water pocket modified to get post-civilization humans a feel of jungle without losing civil-values (like, they exist!).

CONTINUED…
PART 2, PART 3

The Weaker Sex

The Weaker Sex (Earlier ‘Varanasi Revisited March 2008’)

“… They called their marriage ceremony off and returned groom back home without marriage because they were asking more dowry than they initially asked for. …”

Refer Indian Express 18^th May special edition news about 3 girls who returned grooms back home.
(Author’s Note: I always think what happened to them. This story reminded me three other stories that I have came across. In this post, I raise a question, not putting my point of view)

I had been wondering all through my education why there were always a section called “woman’s condition” whenever they describe a society in any age or under any ruling? Perhaps the reason is that if woman, the weaker sex, had better condition, then the people at the bottom of the pyramid are treated humanely. When history would read early 21^st century, it would say women were treated equally to men. The sad thing about history is it doesn’t reads below the layer and perhaps for good. See no evil, do no evil.

I find it very visible that female is still suppressed half of society specially after seeing these three real stories.

Story 1 [Bangalore]: An educated, born in respected family, software engineer who lives in a posh area of Bangalore and is a – so called – typical of gentlemen. A guru, supposed to have practical solutions to all real life problems from ‘how to clean carburetor’ to ‘how to find your real love.’ Let us call him Mr. Guru. This story, I found three months before leaving Chennai for Varanasi.

Mr. Guru cites this example of having happiest family life that “he” built. The example has big part as his initial marriage life which is full of frequent beating of his wife to straighten her out to make her follow his way. And when father-in-law interfered, he said that she was either a daughter or a wife, if father thought that she was his daughter take her to her paternal home, else – let him to handle her. One time in the story, Guru makes a comment that is rather explicit to mention here, where he says she liked beatings at some other times. And asks the audience why the father shied away when he mentioned this fact (Likely, this might be a fake to spice the story up)? At this moment, pupils (listener) make a laugh and agree. Supposedly, few months of beating made his wife a good woman. And they lived happily ever after.

Story 2 [Chhattisgarh]: This guy is a heavy drinker, almost lost his job due to alcoholism, once, but being in a government office no one expelled him. He was married eight years ago when he was presented as a responsible, educated and real shy guy from a very reputed family background. We will call this guy, the Drunkard.

The next month after wedding the wife of Drunkard reported his habit of drinking and occasional slapping and beating which were ignored by wife’s family as initial unsettlement. Then later Drunkard got notice of being expelled from office because of absenteeism (as the wife reported, it was due to husband’s alcohol love). Although that didn’t take his job away and he had started drinking heavily. The wife found out he had been a big drunkard and lazy even before the marriage. Beating was a daily routine now and more brutal.

Wife’s family, afraid of her life, took her back home; kept her happily for seven years. Now, she had become a social shame and financial burden to her parent. Moreover, second marriages are more a loose character issue than a symbol of ability to take strong steps in India. So no one would marry her. She went back to Mr. Drunkard.

I met her on the way to Varanasi. On asking how Mr. Drunkard behaves now, she replied this is a part of life all she hoped that he would stop daily beating, someday and she didn’t care whether he kept on drinking.

Story 3[Varanasi]: The guy is a philanderer, married at 32, a typical of UP guy, full of ego on nothing – a government employee. The relationship went smoothly with wife for almost six months until the girl wasn’t pregnant. Afterwards, the guy’s skirt chasing became visible to blind eyes. Call this guy, Womanizer.

Womanizer used to squander all of his money on women, took debts from friends and finally wife paid. This cycle went on until a big fight between the couple, the guy left home leaving his wife alone in last months of pregnancy. The girl didn’t call anyone until the condition became critical on the day of baby’s birth.

Girl brought back to paternal home for couple of months, the guy never showed up for next few months. After few months, the initial decision to leave the guy and live independently seemed to be against social security as well as social reputation. Remarriage was impossibility in UP and remarriage with a girl carrying a baby is next to impossible.

Now (when I was in Varanasi), my friend was describing that the girl’s parent and the girl were agree to send the girl back to Mr. Womanizer on his terms. The guy was tightening all the bolts to make sure that his side of business kept running.

The question is whether the glass is half filled or half empty? Are we correct when we say marriage is an institution - A custom that for a long time has been an important feature of some group or society? Aren’t we forcing to see half full glass? Is it possible that glass is actually half empty? Is it true, by our animal behavior, that female is, in fact, the weaker sex?

Reply: Uneducated Literates

Rarely you get a comment that is a mix of suggestion, criticism, answer and question. Here is one and I really liked it. Reply to this comment would be so explanatory and justified (may be controversial) that I could brainstorm in discussion for hours. Here is the comment posed on my previous post Uneducated Literates and follows my reply.

You went for nightouts for your projects, you studied and toiled with all reverence and you landed up doing a job where mere diploma-holders could suffice. Who asked you to do a job like this? Who stopped you from doing R&D? Who asked you to join the herd of sheep or that of penguins for that matter? The answer is simple dude, its "you"!! You could have sought a challenging career even as a photographer, you could have excelled as school teacher with all your knowledge. But no, you from the very beginning were after something else. And let me give you a simple suggestion my friend, very few places give you both of what you seek. So, stop cribbing about what companies are doing, because you yourself are in that very mess(i suppose). Go and join CERN if you want to do some high-level research and drill down your brain to the brink. You are talking about India as a country, look at yourself dude, "you" are India and so are all of us. Cribbing is the favorite sport for Indians. So let Mr.S be happy with what he is doing, rather stop your whole body from burning and do some good.

-Anonymous Comment


I am not sure what you mean by 'cribbing', I use cribbing for copying. But from the context that you are talking about, I feel you mean 'frustration outburst' when you use cribbing. So, lets take one-by-one bottom up questons of yours.

First thing, I am not writting something that is a consequence of some 10 minute frustration and I shed it down on blog. Yes, I was frustrated at the very moment when Mr. S described, but afterthought made me realize that the dream he was running behind could have been achieved some three years back, plus he would have been a specialized in the work he was planning to do.


If he could have joined a NIIT J2EE Expert course, he could have been learning technology specifications for 2 years, a certification from Sun and we would have had a strong Java developer. He could have add-on more expertise during his career.


The problem here is career guidelines are hazy. We follow mob psychology, so if Mr. S's cousine did his B.E. in Civil Engineering then he joined Infosys, and now, after 3 years in Infosys, he is on on-site assignment in USA. We follow that path blindly without looking at inefficiencies in that. And, actually, that's justified for it is verified. But... had there been a open minded thinking over the process, you see a guy learnt Civil Engineering for 4 years, does some hefty swift course for a quater of a year that enables (and perhaps specially made to enables) him to clear Infosys interview process. Do you find it smooth? I do not.

The same could have been achieved in a better and effective way. People know that Civil Engineering isn't paying. And if paying, it's not the craze. It is not the one where mob push lies. And moreover, we have tracked path to USA with the guy's brother as example. I ask why would anyone bother trying anything new? (Although it saves few years.)

It itches when you see all these potential, who could have started adding values long-back, is doing interview passer courses that enable them earn 8000 INR/month. And then they wait clock to tick away 2 years so that, they can apply a job where they ask 2+ experience.
It is too procedural. It is boring. Are we having all these branches, engineering colleges estabilished and mashrooming up to produce software engineers? You cant deny the preciding statement. And if you agree, then I ask another question. Is it correct? Isn't it a removable inefficiency. All my post says why dont we have courses that creates software professionals by keeping courses based on real market demand, instead of openning engineering degree colleges that make Biotechnologists, Mechanical engineers who later become software developers.


Now let's take on why I stress people doing diploma in engineering instead of degree. I am not sure whether you are following or not Ranbaxy is in rumour for ownership change. There have been long debates about IP, about patents, R and D and about egnineering and pharma grads. The main thing out of this story, India is a developing country with lot of cheap labour and heavy natural resources. It is economically favorable to be a producer than being inventor, at least for the present times. To be a producer you do not need engineering grads, or at least, you do not need bulk of engineers because you are importing alrerady-in-use technology from some foreign country which is well verified and approved. The technology won't break on daily basis in a manner that need engineering skills, all it need diploma guys who can manage them efficiently without getting frustrated. And, if you want to know the truth, India's current biggest automobile manufacturer RnD unit is a joke.


Let come back to "me" being India part. You are correct that we are the youth of the nation - we drive the country. I have that realization. I did had childhood dream of having my own version of R2D2, could be easily achieved by joinind Honda or probably I may go for higher education, some heavy duty RnD. I like those stuffs. But it is hard to stay sane when see lies opening up. You go mad when you see the best of our country labs are miles behind the sophistication they claim. You break to find out some of really nice labs are as useful as Pandora Box because of several reasons.

It is frustrating to see misguided talents and at the same time to find out misused resources and bubble boasts. So, who told me work in mob's way? I reply, I decided. I chose not to work in an area where we aren't frontiers. I decided to accumulate talent and streamline them. I dream to make an invention driven, innovation mativated environment. I look for the next big thing. And that is why I decided not to go for CERN but to create another CERN. Are you with me?

-Nishant

SLOG: Uneducated Literates

SLOG: Uneducated Literates
SLOG means Small bLOG

Mr. S is my roommate, a nice guy, about to complete his bachelor degree in Electrical Engineering in next one month. One day during talk I asked how his project work was going. He replied that he, like other guys, had paid INR 18,000 to some company which would create a project for him, work on it and before the presentation; they would finish the project and give the software with document and presentation to him. All he would need to do is read through the presentation during the seminar.

On asking the knowledge of this fact to the professors he replied that everyone knows and all the students do this.

I had got burned from my top to bottom listening this, but after giving a thought I found out that this phenomenon is almost omnipresent in India. The education is just a tag; it is not a meter of knowledge. And for the developing country like India, it is job what matters at the end of the day. And for a job you do not need to perspire on a useless project that is, anyways, going to be assumed to be a fake owing to the massive fake CV culture.

We don’t have massive demand of technical guys at R and D level for the reason that we are not at technological forefront as a country, so we don’t have companies doing research. All we have is companies that buy the technology and they need technical guys who can just take care of the process as an inspector. For doing so, you don’t need a project to be done. In fact, you don’t even need a technical degree; a diploma would be just as fine. So what is the purpose of going through night outs for a lousy worthless project?

I do not understand why we have so many degree colleges, especially in technical fields when all we need is diplomas. We need persons who can understand technology and work on them effectively. This requirement is completely fulfilled by a diploma holder. And a diploma gives you early job opportunity. After your high school (std 10), go for a three year diploma course. Done, you are a jobseeker at the age at the age as low as 17 years.

I do not understand why even after knowing the reality we don’t change, why education is more like a blind man showing path to another blind man or rather it behaves like a herd of sheep or perhaps, thousands of penguins at the edge of iceberg.

SLOG: To Mr. Tharoor

SLOG: To Mr. Tharoor
SLOG means Small bLOG

March 30^th, 2008, in Sunday Times in his column, Mr. Shashi Throor writes a fiction, “An IIT graduate walks near a pond, gets a speaking frog that requests and then begs to kiss it so that it can turn into a real beautiful loving princes. The IITian guy replies that he has got no time for girls but a talking frog is cool.” [Rephrased from: Why some engineers become terrorist]

For your kind information, Mr. Tharoor, engineers are frustrated variety of human being. A kind of people, who get frustrated when everything is the way as they wanted, for the reasons why everything have to be in their way; and the other way, they have got reasonable reason.

They are frustrated. If there is no work, they feel wasting life, if too much work then a slave. And in case there is good work-life balance, then they feel making no positive impact on the world by living like any other Tom, Dick or Harry.

Mr. Tharoor, frustration is the 47^th chromosome that an engineer adds up in its DNA during education. This chromosome pairs up with 48^th chromosome as terrorism in later phase of its life. Now, depending on dominating circumstances, either the engineer turns into more common spouse torturer or less common terrorist.

I am pretty much sure that you must have never been to pond for a walk. If you go, you may find some engineer catching every second frog and kissing to get a possible princess convertible frog.

-Nishant

SLOG: Dogs and Long Hairs

SLOG: DOGS AND LONG HAIRS
SLOG means SMALL BLOGS

Annanagar is a decent posh area of Chennai. Everyone, from people to dogs, is friendly unless you are weird in their sense.

I love walking on the wide and beautifully brighten dead late night roads of Annanagar. It feel good when cool wind blows against me, for the reasons it feels soothing and it feels nothing less than a Hollywood hero (who appears against dark horizon after having deadly fight with werewolves), when you see your shoulder blade reaching hairs waving in air without any constrain.

But, that was my description, a person who owns long hairs. For a decent and totally non-drug-addicted dog, it is stranger than fiction to find out a six feet long walking Hydra with his active one foot long tentacles being super excited to see living being dwelling around for a good dinner. This dog makes sure he wasn’t hallucinating and decides to save human race from this over grown Hydra. He follows me closely.

I, completely unknown to the dog’s psyche, feel something’s following and growling. I turn back to find out a dog, barely inches behind my leg with its jaw open. I start a panic run. The dog, now completely sure of the evil, runs behind me… and then I pick some pebble from road throws back to the dog that hits it in its ribs. It runs away. Phew…

Suddenly, it reappears out of nowhere, jumping on my legs to catch a fleshy part and pull down the villain. Now, I – out of my wits – also start jumping. I don’t know what to do and never remember afterwards what I did. But somehow three-four security guards appear from the nearby ATMs and I am saved – barely.

This is one of the three similar occurrences on that day. And that day was one of many similar days when I leave the office late without hair band.

Terror Trips: 2

Terror Trips – Bangalore Bruises (Part 2)
This story runs into 2 parts. Read Part 1>>

With my laptop in hanging side bag (hanging to left) and my airbag hanging to right, I started running up the flyover. At the top, I found it was barricaded. ‘Shit!’ I almost shouted watching I have lost one more minute and then thought that I wouldn’t go back via subway. I just jumped over the barricade. And then broke into a run.

It must have been very funny seeing a plump jelly bag running with two bags jumping by the side of it in perfect synchronization. A good example for a physics student to explain how forced oscillation works. But I was not in image makeover mood. The last thing I wanted this time was a phone call (not really, nature’s call could have been the worst). And it did ring. I cut it.

I was by the side of the road. (“Use subway.” you are not supposed to cross road here – the black painted words on yellow isosceles triangular board were barking on me.) ‘Now I need to cross the road, jump over high divider, then run through the parking, cross ticket booking counter, look at the electronic board for platform number, cross the over bridge to get to the appropriate platform. Get into any of the coaches. And the rest would be dealt later.’ I was straightening up the plan.

I was amazed by the speed I ran. It was 11:42 when I reached here.

I had got stuck now; vehicles on the road were not getting me any chance to cross the road. For a moment I thought I couldn’t do it because all I had was three minutes in hand and a job which was daunting for a spineless serpent. Then I recalled Uncle’s formula, ‘desperate conditions need desperate measures.’

You can call me extremely lucky because I ran through the road without even looking on coming vehicles. All I realized was Marla Singer from Fight Club (2002) movie was right and I should not follow these kind movies!

Now I was on the station side of the road and no big boundary to break, so I ran without caring who I bump into. It was 11:44, I was near information center. Surprise! All the information boards were black. No information about any train. Which platform should I go? Without wasting any other moment I ran to platform one expecting the display there would be working. Alas! Blank screen! “No, it cannot happen to me. I still have one minute in hand.” I was aggressive this time. (Which is the rarest of my emotions, for most of the time I am depressive.) I could see trains on platform 2 but cannot read the number of the train from platform one. I jumped climb over the flyover that connects platforms when I reached at the top I could see that trains were there on each of the platform 2, 4, 5 and 6. And no display was working on any of the platforms or on the flyover on which I was.

‘I cannot climb down each platform check and climb up until I get right train. If my train is on platform six, I would surely loose this way.’ I thought and I ran on the flyover and reached to a place right above platform two. I started shouting to people standing on platform two, ‘Hey! Hey you! Hey Man! Bro! Oye!’ No reply. I ran down to platform two to find out that it wasn’t the train I wanted. I asked one fruit vendor at the platform about the train. He thought for two or three precious moments and said, “may be on platform five.”

I was high on adrenaline, I had almost ready to do the most courageous task at the moment. It was 11:44 when I was on platform one, I did not know how much more seconds I had got before the train would whistle and depart. I didn’t have luxury to think and evaluate the risk associated with going via flyover (which may risk catching the train) and going through the rails, crossing one standing train which may move any second (which may risk my life). I chose the second one.

Jumped, crossed the rails with my head turning left to right frequently and horribly looking for any clue of any coming train. Then I crossed through the standing train. And here I was on platform five. The digital clock says 11:45. The train before me was 6221 Chennai Express. I asked Ticket Inspector, confirmed with travelers, and reached to my compartment. The birth was empty. I jumped over it and lied down. Curled myself in, perhaps, a perfect circle the way balances forces make perfect circle of a head to tail tied string when it is put into soap bubble to show tenth standard guys an example of surface tension. I started feeling pains and response from different parts of my body which was never ready for a Die Hard kind of adventure.

My thighs were thumping hard like drum skin, gut was wrenching. I found that I had smaller lungs than I needed at that time. I was breathing heavily. I was drenched in sweat and was dying of thirst. I was the least of the surprises of the day to find out that I forgot to take water bottle. I wasn’t angry rather I was very calm. Perhaps I was too happy with myself or perhaps I didn’t have enough energy left in me to be angry, whatever.

I think the next time I would plan Bangalore trip carefully.

---- The End ----