Reflections

Logging back into blogger after ages. I found this note saved in my drafts. I don't know why I started it and I don't know what to do with it. I thought of calling this note incomplete but then stopped short for I realized I didn't know what is complete! I leave it to you to decide. I entered a maze several years back. I have come a long way and now there is no going back. The burden of my mistakes has grown over the years. Lost opportunities, missed paths which could have taken me there earlier.. there are X marks all over the place! Ah but it is not over yet! I still have time to get there and I want to make each day count.

Logging into Blogger after ages thanks to Viral fever which has kept me occupied for a couple of weeks now. This one strangely is a kind of prayer coming from me out of the blue, maybe it's the viral fever that's doing this to me. Give me knowledge to set me free Give me the passion to fulfill my duties Give me love to light up other's lives Give me the power to wipe out suffering Give me humour to make others laugh Give me the maturity to laugh at myself Give me character to stand through tough times Give me the courage to stand by my principles Give me success that is not hollow Give me the heart to lose with grace

There are two reports of hooliganism around the 60th Republic day of India Violence in a Mangalore pub against women by a group called Ram Sena http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20090081377&ch=633686650503048750 Violence in Nashik by Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) against North Indians in a school celebration http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20090081498&ch=633686661721816250 While the big question remains as to whether our politicians will give up their fear for votes and take a stand on such religious outfits, who take law in their hands and do moral policing in the name of religion and tradition, I have another question which was triggered by a response from one of the Mangalore police officers to the media. How does the media come to know of these things and arrive at the scene prompt with their video cameras and shoot all these incidents unattacked? While the media is focussed on creating scoops out of such incidents and public...

It has been raining for the past few days here. Rain always reminds of a few fond memories. Some happy moments that I have got embedded in my mind and associated with rain maybe in the subconcious mind. My attempts as a child to make a paper boat float on the water collected on the road outside, futile attempts I should say but all the same fulfilling and unforgettable. A cold rainy day in Bangalore in the 1980's spent visting all the parks that Bangalore is famous for, amazed at the beauty of the vast greenery around. A joyous ride on a rickshaw along the marina beach on a windy day, protected by a plastic sheet hanging from the top but yet fully drenched, returning to home early because of a cyclone warning. What a wonderful feeling it is, as a child, to return early from school, that too unexpectedly. Rain also reminds me of one particular place, a city that I have visited quite often, Belfast. Belfast greets me with rain almost everytime. I have seen several people associate ra...

You must have noticed that I have added AdSense to my blog recently. This is how adsense works. For every click made by a reader on the ads displayed, AdSense pays the person owning the blog a percentage of the amount that it gets from the partner companies. AdSense reminds me of a website called "pointclick.com". I am not sure if you have heard about it. It was one of those dot-com companies that came up when the internet was booming around year 2000 and crashed immediately in the dot-com crash. The concept was quite simple. You just had to register yourself in the website and after that for every click on the ads displayed in the website users would get 1 cent. The balance would be accumulated and the user had an option of either taking cash or spending the money on partner sites. If spent on purchasing products from partner sites like amazon each click would be worth 2 cents. The idea is very similar to AdSense. However AdSense is a lot more well thought out. Ads are disp...

Today is Martin Luther King day. I had the fortune of listening to Dr.King's famous speech "I have a dream today", courtesy youtube. This is definitely one of the landmark speeches in the history of mankind. This speech is credited to have prompted the 1964 civil rights act. You must listen to the way it is delivered and the choice of words. It is simply amazing. Dr.King for sure had a sense of his place in history. You can watch the video, which contains the full speech, here: I have a Dream speech America has come a long way from the time a black woman, Rosa Parks, was arrested for refusing to move out of a seat in the section reserved for whites, in a Montgomery bus. That was the event in 1955 which triggered Dr.King's civil rights crusade. Nearly 54 years later an African American is less than 24 hours away from taking oath as President of America. King's dream has atleast been realised partially. America has come to a stage where people are not judged by th...

News about the Satyam fiasco is all over the place. Ramalinga Raju has given the media the much needed scoop after 26/11. Almost every news item and debate is around Satyam. At the same time Ramalinga Raju is cooling his heels in a jail, supposedly after refusing VIP treatment but using his political clout to keep away from the law. While the Satyam fiasco has come as a rude schock and raised questions on corporate governance in India and the credibility of Indian IT companies, I think it is good one way. It has given a chance to revisit the laws and put in measures to enforce regulation and compliance. After all while it is great to remind oneself of all the feathers in his cap and keep flying high, one also does need some thorns once in a while to prick and bring back to reality.