What A Life!

What is so striking about India, as a country is that there are very strong pros & cons in everything. Just about anything can become an opportunity as well as a misfortune, almost anything can have its own benefits and in anything to everything, there are hidden advantages for some life. There is a "latent" demand existing for each and everything that one can think of and which is why there is no dearth of opportunities possibilities, solutions, answers for some, as much as there is dearth of the same for others!

I was going around for a walk with Bruno, my 3-year old beagle when I was not liking the grass grown beyond limits, all around stinking due to rains and the roads literally cut in many different shapes making it absolutely impossible to drive without the fear of a puncture in the tyres.

I hate putting this picture on this blog as much as I love pondering over it :-)

While I was walking with this feeling sinking into me to a lot of depth and while my analytical brain starting to think of any possible solutions and the judge in me trying to curse the government and the authorities, I found a pig sleeping in this mud water (the water must have been there for about a week now!). It was in the most sound sleep, feeling like heaven, enjoying the sleep to the fullest!  Now that's what I call boon for someone whereas a curse for someone else!

It was a pleasure watching that creature having so much of pleasure & enjoying its own little world to the fullest! The population of pigs have multiplied to 4 times in the past 1 year around our residential area and so is the dirt around - the unwanted trees grown up beyond limits, the rainy season bringing in a lot of unhygienic air around and what not!

It is these amazing trade-offs that we live with, in our country, at every stage and that's what probably makes us more flexible, tough to hold on to any situation, versatile to think beyond a structured approach & processes, adaptable to any situation around us, being self-dependent to find out solutions for any problems that we face and so on... and so forth!

Was the world awaiting 'Google+'?

Google+... Yes, it is there, all over - again!

As I keep reading the reviews, I somehow get a feeling that the entire world was just awaiting for Google to launch something like this. [There was (or is) Orkut, I myself would put it 'dogs' in the BCG Growth-Share Matrix.]

Honestly, I have a lot of respect for the company & I would want to always see it remain the internet giant on all platforms possible - so why lose out on one platform? I never liked when I seeing the failure of orkut. I wasn't convinced that it wasn't capable, or as some comments say 'social networking is not what Google can do', but I was always wondering why wasn't it trying to improve orkut. May be it didn't want to. Well, now I know there was a purpose in not running behind orkut or just out of the blue launching a social networking product.

I see the purpose behind Google+ is not just to get into social networking too, but a much higher strategic initiative to benefit the users, again! I somehow see a deep breath taken by the entire world in seeing this initiative - they know they are going to be benefitted, in many ways which may not be thinkable as of now. 'Why can't Google launch just this one thing?', was probably the question the entire world was asking the internet giant for long now, and here is the answer by the company that puts users first and yet another initiative to 'to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful'.

Again I want to say - What A Company!

The 'ugly' face of Gujarat!

Parzania was a movie which I wanted to watch for quite some time now. I knew no matter how much the director would try to get the public to get a feel of what happened in the Gujarat riots, he would be unsuccessful. However, the thorough effort made to make the movie should be commendable. I still remember the cover page of the India Today issue during the riots!

27th February 2002, I was in Ahmedabad (આપનો અમદાવાદ - Our Ahmedabad, ગરવી ગુજરાત - Proud Gujarat) my parents' place, the place that has made me to what I am now, the place where people like to be in peace, the place of complete freedom, the place of least fear, the place I love the most and claim to be the best city in India; around 4PM when the news floated all around that the Sabarmati express was set ablaze in Godhra railway station, it was horrendous to hear more and more details about the incident. Later, people discussed about the bodies coming to Ahmedabad and everybody almost was sure that things would get worse and it would result in a communal violence - how long? how strong? Whether it would be of similar intensity of the one in the early 80s? No one knew...but all knew that the coming few days or weeks would be far from peaceful.

28th February, 2002 - all expected and unexpected unpleasant things started to happen in full swing, curfews imposed in almost all of Ahmedabad, the entire air of complete freedom turned in air of extreme fright. I went up the stairs of our building to the terrace to see actually what the city is like - there was smoke seen in all 4 sides & 4 corners of the rectangular terrace that I was standing in, of different shades of black and grey all around, - depending on the intensity of the fire, depending on what was burnt or how much was burnt or how many were burnt may be! Almost every known place was in the news to have got burnt - the very own Topaz restaurant, Kabir restaurant, the Paldi area, the Vasna area and more, and more - almost the entire city & the entire state actually!

I heard, saw and read about Narendra Modi being involved in this most remarkable incident in the history of Gujarat and India. Modi, is an icon I respect very much, admire very much - when his speech comes on television, I and my entire family make sure that we watch it and we feel good listening to him. I have witnessed the development of Ahmedabad - the roads in and outside the city (when you see flyovers constructed to accomodate 4 times the current traffic, when you drive on NE-1 which is a part of the 5,806 km long Golden Quadrilateral and reach Baroda from Ahmedabad in just 1 hour), the other facilities (absolutely no power cuts, various transport schemes like BRTS and so on to put forth)!

I never denied Modi's involvement in the 2002 happenings but I always thought someway if it wasn't true. I was reading through the Tehelka reports 'Operation Kalank' and watched a couple of videos (do read through and you would feel fearful churning in your stomach), wherever there was Modi written along with Gujarat riots 2002, I would hope it wasn't something that I don't want to see. But I wish it wasn't true. I don't trust any politician for that matter and everyone would be involved in some or the other happening like this, and more may be. It is probably just that Modi's was proved to be true? And rest weren't proved yet?

To all those who drove the massacre, shame to be called humans, forget about appending the adjective 'civilized'!

If only there was no gravity!

I am into my 2nd week of the yoga classes. Okay, it is tough!

After a couple of minutes of stretching hard exercises in sitting position, the instructor commands to lie down in shavaasan & relax. What a relief!

Then another command follows - "lift your left leg up, 10 degrees above the ground - well I think it is practically impossible to lift it just about 10 degrees above the ground. But I keep the Mathematics teacher in me not pop up these ideas into my head and try to follow, lifting up my legs trying to keep the measurement precision as high as possible.

And the instructor wants us to hold that position for 20 seconds - first, lifting the legs up without any support of your hands is a challenge, and the 10 degrees and then holding the position - isn't that quite too much! Everytime, I am trying these postures, I feel Oh God! All this only because of one thing - gravity? It only this concept wasn't there - no overweight problem, no running after exercising options to shed those kgs (actually pounds!), and no pain inflicted on ourselves trying to maintain these postures fighting to defy the gravity :-)

And, what would have been in Ramdev baba's plate if gravity wasn't there at all!

Now, that is Addiction!

Sometime in early Q4 2010 - when I was traveling in the cab, this song happened to play in the radio. I radio signal was quite bad and I just could hear very few words - 'amplifier', 'woofer'... and a few beats. 'Oh God! What a song!', reacted my cab-mate. She meant, 'what a pathetic song!' And when she explained me what the lyrics mean, I just didn't know how to react to this, I just felt how can someone write such lyrics!

A few days later, one very dear colleague of mine pinged me the YT link for this song & said 'hear this!'. I opened the song and the amazing scenes and the ferrari were fine, but the music overtook the attention. I played the song - once, twice, thrice - and the entire day for more than 10 days, a month, and more! It was then when I realized YT doesn't have a 'Repeat' button :)

A couple of months later, I downloaded the entire album of Imran Khan from songs.pk website. I didn't hear the songs for a month after the download except the Amplifier again. Then one fine day, I felt like playing the songs just to explore how they sound to the ears. It was then, and now - I do hear songs everyday, old Mannade, Kishore Kumar, Mohd. Rafi and new ones of Mohit Chauhan, Vishal Shekhar and so on. The work goes slow, then I feel, 'Ok, now let me put the trump card on' - and I put on the album Unforgettable of the one and only Imran Khan...what a sense of fulfillment!

It is then when I write the most complicated Excel formulae, to make the best of the slide formats, and complete most of my work, and write my blog posts too :-)

Now, I want to call it Addiction!

The best of the songs I like are - Aaja we Mahiya, Gora Gora Rang Tera and of course Bewafa because I like the lyrics - but Bounce Billo, Hey Girl and all others are too good too, if lyrics are ignored, and it doesn't matter!