you know ... the one thing i love about these tech. companies is the coffee vending machines and the water cooler..... they are the kind'of oasis in the desert....where life grows with all its vigour ....these innocent looking corners are the hub of all the ideas... plots ..gossips .. intrigues... that go about in a typical tech. company.....in these endless discussions around these machines ..some topics are as old as the sun... old rants about the company ....kind'of work and the other company down the other end of the street....but occasionally there are intresting discussion that crops up and keep you busy for days apart ...sample this ....what we had been had we not been into software... hmmmmmmm ....well its a difficult ask ....and i guess i don't know how to answer this.....But surely if you were given a chance to re-live your life all over again ...what will you choose ..?? people come up with all type of ideas and thoughts ....but tell you one thing .... and this is true in most of the cases ... atleast in my case...people would make the exact same choices they had made...One friend of mine said he wants to be a truck-driver who earns a ton....this is frivolous ...no truck-driver earns that much...vikas (my-to-be-reborn-truckdriver-friend) i could better that ...i want to be a shepard who manages a flock of yak in the forbidden lands of tibet....a shepard with a GPRS-phone and email ...how about it...but jokes apart...my ideas of doing something different with my life changes with the passage of time ... but i guess thats true with the kind'of influences and distractions one is exposed to these days ...these days i think of being reborn as a rock-star in the sixties .. how about...a 'famous five' instead of 'fab four' .... boy i love those years... i really do ...even if i dont not become a rock-star ....living in those radical and turbulent years ...years that represented a new state of consciousness, the questioning of authority, a sense of empowerment, the intense idealism and the experience of community , time of cultural and political movements and ....i want to relive the magic of the sixties.
so what was the the sixties all about ... outside of great music ...The era of the sixties was marked by an expansion of consciousness ...people alienated with materialistic comforts embraced a new kind of spirituality. ..i.e. experiences involving non-ordinary modes of awareness 'transpersonal' ....psychedelic drugs like LSD played a significant role in that movement ....rightly expressed in as ....."Get out of your head and into your senses!" also expansion of social consciousness, triggered by a radical questioning of authority....the American civil rights movement demanded that blacks be included in the political process, the free speech movement in universities throughout the US....the very vocal anti-war campaign by students and peace loving citizens against the horrific war in Vietnam and Indo-China and the movements and marches against the Soviet occupations of the eastern europe countries....watergate ... nuclear weapons ...communism...greens ...cultures and counterculture...drugs...there was also a strong sense of community.... people wore long hair, colorful and individualistic clothes, flowers, beads, and other jewelry. ... we call them hippies these days ...who can forget the Beatles lovely voice .. the Bob Dylan lyrics ... the Rolling Stones exuberance....Jimi Hendrix stage histronics ...... the LSD influenced Pink Floyd psychedelic rock....the sounds of Led Zeppelin ...and the innocence of Jim Morrison ...The rock and culture of the sixties found its ultimate visual expressions in Woodstock 1969 ....boy ...who doesn't want to live in those desperate times...
finishing off with some lines from Johnn Lennon 'Imagine'
You may say I'm a dreamer,
but I'm not the only one.
I hope some day you'll join us
and the world will live as one.
More Than Words
Everytime i go home .. dehradun i.e ..which is usually rare given how stingy these tech. companies can be ......in those moments of careless abandon .....basking in the winter sun ....far from the maddening "big city life" ..and those technology essentials that we have become so used to ...I spend some time with the books ... good books..war novels ..world history.. buisness magazines et al. ...anything that keeps you mind occupied and enchanted...In these busy times I always relish two short english novels that have kind'of influenced me ...
The one that i like most is Eric Remarque's "All Quiet On The Western Front". This is an epic war novel ..'anti-war' to do justice to the book .. it is the story of a group of young men fighting for Germany in those last desperate days of the WW-I. The mood of the book is rightly put in these few lines ...."its a story about group of men who though may have escaped the shells, ...but were destroyed by the war"...It describes the horrors of that war and the deep alienation from civilian life felt by men returning from the front..The protagonist is Paul Bäumer who joins the germany war effort on the western flank with the group of boys who have just finished high school. He volunteered for the war when his instructor in school, urged the class to join up for the glory for Germany. But as soon as the first shells explode ,Paul and his friends realize everything is a lie. ..As Paul's friends slip away one by one through death, disease,desertion, and injury, Paul begins to wonder about his own life and whether he will survive not only the war but also a world without war. Remarque's book brilliantly exposes all of the insanities of war especially the things that were used on such a mass scale for the first time ... like poison gas,tanks,aircrafts and horrible trench warfare.The book is cold, brutal,depressing yet brilliant ....but then every war is cold and death...
Another book that i love is J.D. Salinger’s " The Catcher in The Rye" .This book is based on the teenage Holden's experiences in the days following his expulsion from the school...The book seemingly has disjointed ideas and episodes that comes across the young boy. There are various underlying themes in the novel .....interpretations are fractured. The underlying theme is "phoniness.".... He feels surrounded by dishonesty and false pretenses, and throughout the book is frequently picking out the "phonies" he sees around him....He wants to protect the young and innocent minds of young children from the “horrors” of adult society....He hopes to freeze the children in time, as wax figures are frozen in a museum.When his sister asks him what he wants to do with his life he said he wants to be "Catcher in the Rye" .....i.e. he wants to be the person that keeps children from falling off a cliff. That cliff symbolizes the transition from childhood to adulthood, and he wants to keep them as innocent children, not phony adults.....Another theme in the book is obviously his strong desire to be an adult and live in the adult world, though he is not yet ready and doesn't succeed, to his immense frustration. He repeatedly tries to fit into adult society...but being rejected, Holden's response is an even stronger rejection of the people he was trying to fit in with a few seconds ago......The novel is incredibly depressing yet the protagonist's self-destruction over a period of days forces one to contemplate society's attitude toward the human condition. Salinger's portrayal of Holden, which includes incidents of depression, nervous breakdown, alcohol abuse,impulsive spending, sexual exploration, vulgarity, and other erratic behavior, have all attributed to the controversial nature of the novel....Impressive yet too dark and tragic.
Both the books just make you think that things are not always as simple as they look to be and behind this veil of calmness on the human face lies our deepest fears and frustrations.....Right now I am reading another brilliant novel William Golding's "Lord Of The Flies" ..which shows the exploits of a band of young children who make a striking transition from civilized to barbaric.Its a pessimistic.... and shows that man is inherently tied to society, and without it, we would likely return to savagery....
~The End of Innocence~
The one that i like most is Eric Remarque's "All Quiet On The Western Front". This is an epic war novel ..'anti-war' to do justice to the book .. it is the story of a group of young men fighting for Germany in those last desperate days of the WW-I. The mood of the book is rightly put in these few lines ...."its a story about group of men who though may have escaped the shells, ...but were destroyed by the war"...It describes the horrors of that war and the deep alienation from civilian life felt by men returning from the front..The protagonist is Paul Bäumer who joins the germany war effort on the western flank with the group of boys who have just finished high school. He volunteered for the war when his instructor in school, urged the class to join up for the glory for Germany. But as soon as the first shells explode ,Paul and his friends realize everything is a lie. ..As Paul's friends slip away one by one through death, disease,desertion, and injury, Paul begins to wonder about his own life and whether he will survive not only the war but also a world without war. Remarque's book brilliantly exposes all of the insanities of war especially the things that were used on such a mass scale for the first time ... like poison gas,tanks,aircrafts and horrible trench warfare.The book is cold, brutal,depressing yet brilliant ....but then every war is cold and death...
Another book that i love is J.D. Salinger’s " The Catcher in The Rye" .This book is based on the teenage Holden's experiences in the days following his expulsion from the school...The book seemingly has disjointed ideas and episodes that comes across the young boy. There are various underlying themes in the novel .....interpretations are fractured. The underlying theme is "phoniness.".... He feels surrounded by dishonesty and false pretenses, and throughout the book is frequently picking out the "phonies" he sees around him....He wants to protect the young and innocent minds of young children from the “horrors” of adult society....He hopes to freeze the children in time, as wax figures are frozen in a museum.When his sister asks him what he wants to do with his life he said he wants to be "Catcher in the Rye" .....i.e. he wants to be the person that keeps children from falling off a cliff. That cliff symbolizes the transition from childhood to adulthood, and he wants to keep them as innocent children, not phony adults.....Another theme in the book is obviously his strong desire to be an adult and live in the adult world, though he is not yet ready and doesn't succeed, to his immense frustration. He repeatedly tries to fit into adult society...but being rejected, Holden's response is an even stronger rejection of the people he was trying to fit in with a few seconds ago......The novel is incredibly depressing yet the protagonist's self-destruction over a period of days forces one to contemplate society's attitude toward the human condition. Salinger's portrayal of Holden, which includes incidents of depression, nervous breakdown, alcohol abuse,impulsive spending, sexual exploration, vulgarity, and other erratic behavior, have all attributed to the controversial nature of the novel....Impressive yet too dark and tragic.
Both the books just make you think that things are not always as simple as they look to be and behind this veil of calmness on the human face lies our deepest fears and frustrations.....Right now I am reading another brilliant novel William Golding's "Lord Of The Flies" ..which shows the exploits of a band of young children who make a striking transition from civilized to barbaric.Its a pessimistic.... and shows that man is inherently tied to society, and without it, we would likely return to savagery....
~The End of Innocence~
Disposable Lives
since Times Unknown .. since the time Humans have walked on the face of this earth ... we Human follow a certain pattern .. a pattern of unbrindled consumption. This endless facination with the desire to all the things all the time has seen some good times ... and some bad times but still we desire for more and more.
Today we are living in times of "consumerism" .This maddening pace of instant gratification ... desire to own all the expensive... not necessarily good things wether we deserve/require them or not has led us to a state where "Desire" has erroded the "Want" or "Need". Material gain and social status become all-consuming, and relationships and ideals are considered disposable to materialistic gains.
The crux of this behaviour is not that half of the world population still cannot afford decent two-square meal but that when these good times are gone our disposable lives will make us the "garbage" of our times.
This may sound a la...Che Guevara .. revolution... believe me I am as strong supporter of laissez faire as the IMF. but this explosion of media aided frenzy of conspicuous consumption kinds of unnerves me .. where does this lead us .. where do we go from here .... are we mature enough .. our relationship mature enough to deal with this "right-here,right-now" phenomenon..Behind this hedonistic and sumptuousness behaviour lies a father who doesn't have enough spare time for his child .. a youth who just forged a credit-card .. a young lady who needs to "feel higher" after her fight with husband .
There can be be no "Wal-Martification" of India. We can not be a country governed by "mammons" ...or "kleptomaniacs" ... because behind this seemingly calm of opulent India lies the bitter reality and that India has no "desires" it only has "wants" and "needs".
~The Land Has Eyes~
Today we are living in times of "consumerism" .This maddening pace of instant gratification ... desire to own all the expensive... not necessarily good things wether we deserve/require them or not has led us to a state where "Desire" has erroded the "Want" or "Need". Material gain and social status become all-consuming, and relationships and ideals are considered disposable to materialistic gains.
The crux of this behaviour is not that half of the world population still cannot afford decent two-square meal but that when these good times are gone our disposable lives will make us the "garbage" of our times.
This may sound a la...Che Guevara .. revolution... believe me I am as strong supporter of laissez faire as the IMF. but this explosion of media aided frenzy of conspicuous consumption kinds of unnerves me .. where does this lead us .. where do we go from here .... are we mature enough .. our relationship mature enough to deal with this "right-here,right-now" phenomenon..Behind this hedonistic and sumptuousness behaviour lies a father who doesn't have enough spare time for his child .. a youth who just forged a credit-card .. a young lady who needs to "feel higher" after her fight with husband .
There can be be no "Wal-Martification" of India. We can not be a country governed by "mammons" ...or "kleptomaniacs" ... because behind this seemingly calm of opulent India lies the bitter reality and that India has no "desires" it only has "wants" and "needs".
~The Land Has Eyes~
Blogger First Day Out
Hello ... !! Hello .... !! Is any body out there ... anybody listening or reading ...
After much of spending office bandwidth on surfing ... i decided to do something new ....
So here i am now .. blogging on office bandwidth ....
So exactly WHO AM I ..... ?
another bored technology worker fed up with the same old desktop , same client , same work ....
Boy ... I need something new .. something vibrant ... exciting ... anything that brings out the best in you ...except the work ..... i guess !!
How do i describe my self ? Thats a difficult one ....
A S/W Engineer ... single ... spends lot of time in front of the box .. works with a premier Indian tech. company (no puns intended) .... listens music (classic rock baby .....!!) love Pink Floyd , reads by the free time .. now blogs also ...
is confused .... very confused ....and has an opinion on everything ...a la everything u name it and u have an opinion .. from economy ... Jessica Lal .... Iraq .. global warming ......
Not kind of communist or chip of old block belives in free economy ..... kind'of center of right ....
if there is such a political category ....
impressed by ayn rand "capitalism - an unknown ideal" ....Bob Dylan lyrics ..... The Matrix ....kind'of change the world
I guess i need to go back to my work .... this neo-exploitation is killing me ...
~Keep on rockin’ in the free world~
After much of spending office bandwidth on surfing ... i decided to do something new ....
So here i am now .. blogging on office bandwidth ....
So exactly WHO AM I ..... ?
another bored technology worker fed up with the same old desktop , same client , same work ....
Boy ... I need something new .. something vibrant ... exciting ... anything that brings out the best in you ...except the work ..... i guess !!
How do i describe my self ? Thats a difficult one ....
A S/W Engineer ... single ... spends lot of time in front of the box .. works with a premier Indian tech. company (no puns intended) .... listens music (classic rock baby .....!!) love Pink Floyd , reads by the free time .. now blogs also ...
is confused .... very confused ....and has an opinion on everything ...a la everything u name it and u have an opinion .. from economy ... Jessica Lal .... Iraq .. global warming ......
Not kind of communist or chip of old block belives in free economy ..... kind'of center of right ....
if there is such a political category ....
impressed by ayn rand "capitalism - an unknown ideal" ....Bob Dylan lyrics ..... The Matrix ....kind'of change the world
I guess i need to go back to my work .... this neo-exploitation is killing me ...
~Keep on rockin’ in the free world~
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