Growing up..

Gone are the days when we had some one taking care of us all the time, protecting us and looking out for danger. Our only task as kids seemed to be to ask questions, whine if unhappy and learn by imitation. Every now and then you would be told to behave, which means your imitations skills are little off target - you need to learn to be " normal". Another very important thing is the lack of self image - you questions are usually stupid but you never hesitate to ask, wrestling in the mud, playing with paint/watercolor and making clothes dirty - having sheer fun with no sense of regrets.

We stopped asking questions - feeling bad about sounding stupid. This is the first stage where some one stops learning. We feel insecure not to know things, shameful in acceptance of it. This is probably why most of our leaning happens during childhood. After a point, we base our future findings on the ones we already know.. most times this works but brings a kind of closed-ness in our thinking methods. Once you are in secure job and get a handsome salary every month, the need to learn vanishes completely.

Somewhere along the line, as we try to "fit-in" the society around us, we start loosing the sense of awe and adventure with everything around us. We start thinking about other's opinions on our actions. We are concerned about being judged. This starts very early - every thing you do is being judged upon and it is ultimately rewarded or punished. Prejudice has to be taken in account - if you had a reputation of being mischievous, you got to try doubly to get appreciation for even your best efforts. You start living for others, trying to satisfying others. You got your parents, teachers, friends, your love, your boss, your kids to satisfy - at one point, you satisfy no one and end up wondering how you never did what YOU wanted to do!!

Martial Art Movies

If you ask any one who stayed with me long enough, they will unanimously declare this Genre as my favorite. I like this genre due to a lot of reasons. The sheer physical effort going into the fight scenes, high octane action, the risks involved, a lot of flying around (especially Jet Li movies), unnecessity of a story line (though a nice story is always a plus), transcending of language barriers - It doesnt really matter what they talk, we are there for the fights!!

Stars like Bruce lee, Sammo hung, Chia-Liang Liu, Gordon Liu, Jackie chan, Jet Li, Michell Yeoh - the list goes on. I like the old school movies . I have tried to compile a few ever green hits -apart from Bruce Lees, whose every movie was a hit. Here it goes -

Spiritual Kungfu, Drunken master 1 & 2, Snake in the eagles shadow, Fearless Hyena, Project A, Shaolin wooden Men, Dragon Lord, Snake and Crane Arts of Shaolin, Police story(sequels), Mad monkey kungfu, Deadly Mantis, Drunken Monkey, Knockabout, Invinsible Armour, Heroes of the East AKA Shaolin challenges Ninja, Eight Diagram Pole Fighter, 36th Chamber of shaolin, Challenge of the Masters, Hero, Tai chi Master,Shaolin temple, Once upon a time in China 1,2 and 3, Fearless, Iron Monkey, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Heroes of shaolin, Two heroes of Shaolin, Prodigal Son, Dreadnaught, The Incredible Kung Fu Master, Five fingers of death, Street Fighter, Lady Street fighter, The Iron-fisted Monk, Ong Bak 1 & 2

These will be top 30-35% of all the martial art movies I have covered in past 18-24 months :) Hope that will give you my appetite for movies. This is apart from the hundreds of others in various genres like comedy, Sci-Fi, drama, courtrooms, thrillers etc.

Budding India-China relations

This is a link to an article in rediff :

http://in.rediff.com/news/2008/jan/15guest1.htm

Rich language and unbiased content

Selflessness

Is there someone who is totally selfless? Selflessness has a boundary, a self imposed circle, a limit which is difficult to exceed. Just by living your day to day life, you are making the life of many others miserable.

Some one who works selfless for his family, neglects people outside that circle. A vegan who says he save animal killings is building hotels and resorts in their habitats. An company's CEO cant care less about his competitors welfare and people whom he puts out of job. A software engineer outsourced with jobs is biting on the local job market. A soldier at the edge of the battle field saves all these selfish people who are behind the line. Even an angelic figure like mother Teresa who helped improve the living standards of the poor and the sick, is considered selfless only in terms of humanity. May be one of the people whom she saved - or their descendants can be the next Hitler or the scientist producing future WMDs!!

The laws are such that someone's happiness is invariably someone's grief. But withing the circle that you are selfless, you will always enjoy a lot of respect and goodwill. Being selfless is hence very good - just try to expand that circle so that you have more friends at the end.

Thought Chains of an IT guy

Some chains of thought...

• Over work -> Completed work -> Expecting Hike ->Get more work -> Get lesser time!
• Promotion time -> Hello Mr Nobody, were you working here? -> Resignation time -> Hi Mr.Indispensable, how can you do this?
  
• Falling in Love -> Talking what you think, all the time -> Getting married -> Thinking about talking, occasionally
• Pursuit of a girl-> Proposal -> Pledge of matrimony -> Pursuit of Peace
  
• Life is Cool -> Study Hard -> Get a job -> Make all the money -> Life is still cool -> Only you are older by 50 yrs
• Coming to US -> Hate US life style -> US is not so bad -> Yo, this is home!!!
  
• Settle in US -> Kids grow up American -> They are the American Born (ABs)-> You are the Confused Desi (CDs)

One And Only Osho

I have seen this same content in other forwards but I believe this is the guy who said it first. I hope no body is offended.

My Right

Write always what is right. That will right the wrong who wrong the right.

For example, the right is right is most countries(traffic system). Though right is wrong is some places, how can right be wrong? simply because anything right cannot be wrong. Left may be righter than right here but we leave it out and hence it is left, rightly so.

Marriage is a rite. Writing about this rite as right, infuriates the married. If right people are married in a rite, writing about it rightly is my right. If wronged, to right that wrong, to re-write history you need another right - a divorce. A right amount check to the right lawyer will get your right back on track for your next rite.

Right handed people are rightly named right handed. Writing with right hand does not make what you write as right. The left handed cannot be left out as they may be more right than the right handed in writing about rights. But the right to write is common - whether you write right or you write wrong. You feel like you are wronged, write about it - I am with you to right your wrongs!!

Nathuram Vs Mohandas

Ghodse and Gandhi met in each other in their after life and had a brief conversation - here is probably how it will go. I believe they were men who caused each other's death -radical but true..

Nathuram: Good morning Bapu..
Mahathma: Good morning Nathuram
N: So how do you feel, now that you are dead and that I am almost as famous as you?
M: You are famous only because I was, and you killed me. Nothing more..
N: Ironically, I am a great admirer of yours. Remember we supported you with the non-cooperation and anti-British rallies that you organized?
M: Then why did you have to shoot me?
N: Many reasons. But let me assure you that someone would have done it sooner or later..
N: To begin with, you took a back seat once we got our independence. You were idle when Nehru and his party colleagues accepted the partition. Indirectly you ordered the death of millions of Hindus
M: So thats your problem. Religion. For me both Hindus and Muslims were equal. Since Jinnah was advocating for a separate state, I believed they have a right towards it. Remember that even Muslims were getting killed...
N: Either ways, a man of your level of political wisdom, should have thought about the repercussions and the riots. Moreover, I felt that you should have joined mainstay politics and steered the nation - except for your Pakistan loving part.
M: Well I was greatly saddened by the deaths. But what could I do? These are people who were enrage by loss of a loved one - emotionally unstable - just like you!
N: May be that was a sign of you inability - due to the lack holding a political post to apply any kind of control.
N: The one that invigorated the people most was your struggle for giving Pakistan the Rs.55 cr after all that bloodshed and massacre. With your repute, there was not doubt that the government will finally buckle
M: Don't be biased in your opinion, they needed that money and I wanted them to have it. As an act of good will.
N: On second thought, may be you orchestrated the whole partitioning - to create a Muslim minority India for the Hindus - Thanks to that. Even so, the number of killings, looting and rape that the process triggered is just unjustifiable.
M: Sonny, I was never a threat to any religion. I am a devout Hindu and all life I have been fighter against social differences - never religious ones. May be your killing me was a personal outrage than an act of common good.
N: I salute you tactfulness speech there. But feel-good-factor with people who killed Hindus was simply unacceptable for me. Believe me, there was an entire team out there and I was fortunate to have killed you.
M: Well I think we can continue this conversation - as we will be staying in the same place - which we both call heaven!!

N: May be I would like to call it Hell...

Indian Defense News

Here is a blog which I follow for the various defense related news regarding India..

http://livefist.blogspot.com

It is a pretty good read - in case any of you are interested in defense procurements and milestones. Got a few links there to other defense sites too. Happy reading !!

Comedy Countdown

Thinking a lot about what to write. I felt like listing down some of the slapstick comedy flicks I have seen. Some of them are the best in the genre. I have tried to avoid movies which are

10. Mean girls - college comedy in the girls world - very good effort
9. Harold and Kumar go to Whitecastle - pure fun
8. Just my luck - the luckiest girl and the most unlucky guy have their luck swapped when they kissed!!
7. Dodgeball - dont expect any story - watch it for sheer fun
6. American Pie series - of course ever one knows about the notorious American pie series. 1,2 and 5 are my favorites.
5. Just Friends - School time best friends trying to get back together as life partners. Awesome
4. Waiting - This movies about the people working in restaurant business. Pretty gross at times - user discretion advised.
3. Office Space (1999)- a movie about software professionals who are pissed off with their lives - top of my list
2. As good as it gets - Jack Nicholson's says the exact wrong things at the right time! beautiful comedy for all
1. Van Wilder 1 & 2 - similar college comedy like american pie but I give it the number 1 in all these movies. I like part 1 better, though both are pretty good.

I have tried to avoid older movies - except may be office space - which is too good to be left out :)

Fundas

This is a very Indian word. The short form of "fudamentals" which is used to denote any basic concept or self made theory or opinion about something.

Some people have this habit of throwing their opinion, when none is asked for. Providing free advice - because it is one thing that people enjoy giving than taking! I may not agree that it is entirely bad to throw fundas around - at times, it helps. BUT, when majority of these people are put in the same situation, they seldom use their own advise. This is where there is a confusion. Do they consider their fundas so useless that they distribute it free? or is this a well planned act of testing their theories on a live specimen?

What more? their timing of these fundas are impeccable, if you are in a lot of trouble/anxiety, your thinking hat is off for some time and you are most vulnerable. Thats when even a crappy idea will sound wonderful. So take care against free advise - remember nothing comes free in this world!!

(Per request from couple of my frnds, trying to reduce by posting size)

Aliens

Almost every science fiction novel or movie I have seen on aliens conquering the earth, ends in humans winning the battle - by chance or design. Why is that? because we can not digest the idea that anything more intelligent? or cannot accept the concept of defeat or enslavement? To hell with Aliens. Out of the Billions of stars and zillions of planets that orbit them, why the hell will they come to earth and capture you and me? Are we of so much material value or experimental value that some one travels millions of light years to get (to) us?

Hope you have seen these star wars, star trek, farscape and other serials. Aliens always walk on two feet, look like humans, have an over sized head, weird ears, different skin color and texture and two antennae on their heads. why the f*ck cant they be like some shape less amoeba or something like an eight legged walk-topus or fish swimming in air? why not microscopic - millions of them drilling holes into your head? May be our imagination is pretty limited when it come to size and shape. It will be as limited when it comes to weapons and technology.

We humans have been trying to find another intelligent life for past 40-50 years without results. If someone finds us before we find them, they will obviously have a higher intelligence. You cant figure out what they are thinking. If they want to take us, we are taken. So just relax - look at the sheep, cows and chickens lined up for slaughter - do they get ready to fight humans? No, because they know they cannot do much about being eaten. Same goes with humans and some other species much smarter/stronger. You cant even battle it out with a lion or tiger without proper weapons, how do you know that your weapons will work with aliens - whom we haven't even seen.

Independence day movie was the greatest joke - some one deciphers an alien programming language, writes a computer virus and helps destroy a whole fleet of ships. First, check your programming skills, develop something with no bugs the first time - am waiting. War of the worlds was the other extreme - though the movie was a flop, the concept was acceptable - attackers don't have to be big - our bacteria E-coli, Vibrio cholorae etc finished the aliens off. How much ever we argue, the fact remains that we cant imagine of things better than us because we will BE that if we had imagined it already. So we are afraid of something which is unimaginable - which is pretty much logical. So go back to watching Sci-Fi TV serials and movies and enjoy life. When an alien wants you dead, you are anyways dead...

Ubuntu

Thought I would like to share my experience with Ubuntu Linux with all of you. People are generally averted to Linux, and rightly so. It is not yet ready for the common user - but they are quickly getting there. And Ubuntu is one of the most user friendly flavours around. They have tried to eliminate the package dependencies and added support to a lot of plug and play peripherals.



What you see in the video is an extra - some cool desktop effects after installing Compiz Fusion. Though most of it is eye-candies, few of them really improve productivity. Resource utilization is pretty limited - all these effects are possible on a laptop with just 512 MB ram. Ubuntu can be downloaded and burnt on a cd, run from the CD itself. If you want, install it as a second OS - with the same CD. You can configure a dual boot with windows or any other OS.

I have been using it for the past 6 months and would say after the initial configuration, it multiple times more fun than windows !

Rules for Women

We always hear "the rules" from the female side. Now here are the rules from the male side.

1. Learn to work the toilet seat. You're a big girl. If it's up, put it down. We need it up, you need it down. You don't hear us griping about you leaving it down.
2. Birthdays, Valentines, and Anniversaries are not quests to see if we can find the perfect present yet again!
3. Sometimes we are not thinking about you. Live with it.
4. Sunday = sports. It's like the full moon or the changing of the tides. Let it be.
5. Don't cut your hair. Ever. Long hair is always more attractive than short hair. One of the big reasons guys fear getting married is that married women always cut their hair, and by then you're stuck with her.
6. Shopping is NOT a sport. And no, we are never going to think of it that way.
7. Crying is blackmail.
8. Ask for what you want. Let us be clear on this one: Subtle hints do not work! Strong hints do not work! Obvious hints do not work! Just say it!
9. We don't remember dates. Mark birthdays and anniversaries on a calendar. Remind us frequently beforehand.
10. Most guys own three pairs of shoes - tops. What makes you think we'd be any good at choosing which pair, out of thirty, would look good with your dress?
11. Yes and No are perfectly acceptable answers to almost every question.
12. Come to us with a problem only if you want help solving it. That's what we do. Sympathy is what your girlfriends are for.
13. A headache that lasts for 17 months is a problem. See a doctor.
14. Anything we said 6 months ago is inadmissible in an argument. In fact, all comments become null and void after 7 days.
15. If you think you're fat, you probably are. Don't ask us. We refuse to answer.
16. If something we said can be interpreted two ways, and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, we meant the other one.
17. You can either ask us to do something or tell us how you want it done. Not both. If you already know best how to do it, just do it yourself.
18. Whenever possible, please say whatever you have to say during commercials.
19. Christopher Columbus did not need directions, and neither do we.
20. The relationship is never going to be like it was the first two months we were going out. Get over it. And quit whining to your girlfriends.
21. ALL men see in only 16 colors, like Windows default settings. Peach, for example, is a fruit, not a color. Pumpkin is also a fruit. We have no idea what mauve is.
22. If it itches, it will be scratched. We do that.
23. We are not mind readers and we never will be. Our lack of mind-reading ability is not proof of how little we care about you.
24. If we ask what is wrong and you say "nothing," we will act like nothing's wrong. We know you are lying, but it is just not worth the hassle.
25. If you ask a question you don't want an answer to, expect an answer you don't want to hear.
26. When we have to go somewhere, absolutely anything you wear is fine. Really.
27. Don't ask us what we're thinking about unless you are prepared to discuss such topics as navel lint, the shotgun formation, or monster trucks.
28. You have enough clothes.
29. You have too many shoes.
30. Foreign films are best left to foreigners. (Unless it's Bruce Lee or some war flick where it doesn't really matter what they're saying anyway.)
31. It is neither in your best interest or ours to take the quiz together. No, it doesn't matter which quiz.
32. I am in shape. ROUND is a shape.
33. Thank you for reading this; Yes, I know, I have to sleep on the couch tonight, but did you know we really don't mind that, it's like camping.

I found these at the site http://www.little.org/fun/heehoha/rules_men_wished_women_knew.htm

Moral Flexibility

In this day and age, those who adhere strictly to values,morals and rules are the sad ones. Over time, the probability of these individuals succeeding reduces to zero. Continuous frowning about other people, no compromise on their value systems, generally pissed about the progress around them etc make these elements un-productive and unsuccessful. You think they may have a lot more friends around to help them - they may too, but not the kind that helps. Since these people have a moral box, which they dont think out of, they have to learn it the hard way.

This title was inspired by a quote from movie "Thank you for smoking". A conversation between a lobbyist (for cigarettes) and his son goes something like this:
Son: dad, what is it that you do, exactly? ; Dad: I am a lobbyist, I talk for a living ; Son: Then why cant anyone do that? ; Dad: Because I required a certain amount or moral flexibility to advocate for Tobacco, which most people do not possess.

What a normal human brain realized is more opportunity when it sheds a few morals. Starting from the worlds oldest "business" till todays lawyers, politicians, businessmen and lobbyist (ignoring the people on the other side of law) are making much more money than an average citizen. All these men and women have to shed their moral inhibitions to best serve their client's interest. They have cover facts, speak lies, exaggerate truth, misuse their influence, disregard public good... the list goes on. We may not be able to realize the thousands of lives that they affect in the process. At some point they decide to give their immediate family a better life than others. Their thought is pure(selfishness) and action is intelligent and best thing is that they dont have any regrets.

These people may be cursed by the thousands, stoned to death, assassinated or may loose their social image at some points in life. But when they live, they are the happiest lot around. No concern what so ever, no worries if they are right or wrong, being filthy rich, enjoying better social circle and company etc. I am not advocating that everyone should be this ways. But let us realize that only few of us possess this ability to totally disregard values and still be happy inside. Though it gives you short term goodies, it may not work out on the longer run or with everybody. So better do good and reap good.

I strongly advice reader discretion about this article. I do not advocate, warrant any of the above said and do not accept any responsibility for your actions based on this post !! Just think about it and decide for your self.

Taare Zameen Par

If you have to describe this movie in one word - sensational!
Just when you look all the crap that Bollywood is spinning out for the past two years, here is a movie which is really a masterpiece - something which sets a very high standard in a completely new paradigm. This is going to go down as an evergreen classic. Kudos to directorial debut Amir Khan - hope to see more of this actor-turned-director.

You may have a very good theme - but to sell the theme to today's Indian audience, you have to decorate it wrap it in sex, violence and the image of a hero. The beauty of Taare Zameen Par is that it sans all this and still captivated every one so completely. Excepting Amir Khan, none of the other actors really big image. He too does an art teachers role which anything but heroic. Kudos to Amir Khan for getting the best out of all the actors - especially the kid Darsheel Safari (Ishaan Awasti)

The real hero of the story is this boy and the audience is given his view of this world, the problems he faces due to his dyslexia. Not able to read and write, or judge speed and distance, he is punished by teachers and does not make many friends. Adding to his woes, he is separated from his family and put in a boarding school -where the situation is no different. Along comes Amir who manages to recognizes the boy's problems. He goes to great heights to convince others. More importantly, he infuses the confidence in that kid to accept reality and start fighting it.

One person's trust and confidence in your abilities can do wonders - is what the story proves. Different story,very apt music, radical screenplay, amazing direction and quality acting - seems like more than a winning combination. The best thing I liked about it was there was no over doing on any of these fronts. Importantly, the trend is, movies like this show that some people still give the art of movie making more value than the business!

Amir Khan has pushed our expectations further. Well, keep an eye for his next creation..