tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-92763972024-03-13T02:25:43.772-07:00Know Prashant Some things are best left unsaid... I'm one of those things!Prashant Singhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10079032946958487411noreply@blogger.comBlogger147125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9276397.post-68927565772528988102014-03-04T07:31:00.003-08:002014-03-04T07:36:07.419-08:00Stranger in a Strange Land<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Anybody can look at a pretty girl and see a pretty girl. An artist can look at a pretty girl and see the old woman she will become. A better artist can look at an old woman and see the pretty girl that she used to be. But a great artist — a master — and that is what Auguste Rodin was — can look at an old woman, portray her exactly as she is… and force the viewer to see the pretty girl she used to be…. and more than that, he can make anyone with the sensitivity of an armadillo, or even you, see that this lovely young girl is still alive, not old and ugly at all, but simply prisoned inside her ruined body. He can make you feel the quiet, endless tragedy that there was never a girl born who ever grew older than eighteen in her heart…. no matter what the merciless hours have done to her. Look at her, Ben. Growing old doesn't matter to you and me; we were never meant to be admired."</div>
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"Because the world has gone nutty and contemporary art always paints the spirit of its times. Rodin died about the time the world started flipping its lid. His successors noted the amazing things he had done with light and shadow and mass and composition and they copied that part. What they failed to see was that the master told stories that laid bare the human heart. They became contemptuous of painting or sculpture that told a stories — they dubbed such work 'literary.' They went all out for abstractions. Jubal shrugged. "Abstract design is all right — for wall paper or linoleum. But art is the process of evoking pity and terror. What modern artists do is pseudo-intellectual masturbation. Creative art is intercourse, in which the artist renders emotional his audience. These laddies who won't deign to do that — or can't — lost the public."</div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.200000762939453px; text-align: start;"> Robert Helinien in </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stranger_in_a_Strange_Land" target="_blank"><b>Stranger in a Strange Land</b>,</a></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">prashant</div>Prashant Singhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10079032946958487411noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9276397.post-29112128331929049222013-12-19T20:09:00.000-08:002013-12-19T21:36:50.811-08:00Why There Is So Much Cynicism Toward AAP ?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I realise fully that at this moment I <strong>am </strong>as futile as <strong>Howard Roark. This is my Stoddard Temple—my </strong>first and <strong>my </strong>last.</blockquote>
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Dominique Francon in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fountainhead" target="_blank">Fountain Head</a> </div>
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I am not a political person . Till date I have never exercised my vote. My stand on politics is very similar to my stand on religion . Informed, appreciative but agnostic. Agnostic because I couldn’t relate to any of the option available to me .Both religion and politics were good concepts but they have been mutilated beyond recognition .I come to hate the entire system in which this skirmish is played out .</div>
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But fortunately something interesting was happening in Indian politics for past few months . The Rise of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Its Head Mr.Arvind Kejriwal . Its interesting observing the reaction and response of political parties . They dismissed them . They dismissed them with a self righteous arrogance . Than they changed their tone after election.</div>
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The same set of people who used to call them everything from Chaar Aadmi Party to Chillar Party before election. After the election they invited them to form the govt .</div>
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The same guys who referred to Arvind kejiriwal as everything from hopelessly romantic to stupidly naive to someone with ulterior evil agenda . Were holding him morally responsible for not forming govt and having a hung assembly .</div>
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The same set of corrupt jokers who robed Delhi for decades were worried about the burden of re election on Tax payer .One congress leader had even called them DOG . Now congress is the one wagging their tail to AAP.</div>
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Honestly never before I have seen a bigger show of hypocrisy in broad day light . This is like eating the crow even by political standard . This is EPIC and will be part of history books illustrating how bunch of spineless weasels react to a worthy adversary .</div>
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But this post is not about these weasels . they are probably doing what they know best . At some level their tactics are understandable .</div>
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More interesting thing to observe in this drama is the reaction of common people . The same people who would be ruled ( and may be exploited ) by elected govt. I see a surprisingly high level of cynicism amongst them. They are holding AAP to a level of scrutiny which is bordering paranoia . This AAP bashing reached its crescendo couple of days back when AAP called for a referendum.Asking people to share their opinion on govt formation .This was un precedented in Indian politics. A step toward a participatory democracy which bought public involvement in democratic decision making to new level. For the first time public voice was a factor outside of election. In a rational , sane world this should have been welcomed by the people . The same people who stand to become ultimate beneficiary of this trend. But sadly and <strong>surprisingly</strong> a big section of people are uncomfortable with this and they are holding AAP responsible for asking them for their input . Whats more astonishing is that its not the case that AAP is introducing this direct referendum idea now. They talked about it before also .See this <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6I3Rda6TBk" target="_blank">video</a> at 1 hour mark . Aarvind talked about direct democracy and referendum long before he won election . Still people are cynical . Still People don’t trust him .</div>
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It begs the question <strong>WHY </strong>?</div>
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<strong>A Childhood Story :</strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Surprisingly as I was observing these events I couldn’t help remembering an incident from my childhood . Back in the day my grandfather used to give me a lot of religious story books . In one of those book their was a story by name of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gajendra_Moksha" target="_blank">Gajendra Moksha</a> . Its a story of an old elephant who, when He was about to be killed by a crocodile called out god for help and god intervened and rescued him from the Jaws of crocodile.</span></div>
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There was another story of A king named <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harishchandra" target="_blank">Harishchandra</a>. Harishchandra had two unique qualities. The first being, he kept his word and never went back on what he uttered as a promise. The other being, he never uttered a lie in his life.These twin qualities were tested heavily in his life by various circumstances . All these test were crafted and orchastrated by our gods to test Harishchandra .</div>
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Now here is an interesting aspect of these two stories which most of us fail to notice. When bad guy( crocodile ) was going after the good guy ( elephant) Good guy had to specifically call the God to help . God never intervened on his own . But when God noticed that a Good guy ( Harishchandra ) is going around doing good work . It was too much of a pain for god to stay out of it and let him do his work. On the contrary our God went out of his way to create circumstances where Harishchandra was put to test . From snatching his kingdom , to making him homeless to killing his son . God orchestrated all those scenarios where his resolve to do good work and live an honest life was put to test . <strong>In plain english Harishchandra was harassed by god for doing exactly the right Thing . Nobody invited god . God acted suo moto .</strong></div>
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Think of it.</div>
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<em>When bad guy harasses the good guy , </em><strong><em>good guy need to call god for help</em></strong><em> god do not come on his own but when Good guy do good thing god </em><strong><em>jumps in uninvited to test him to death</em></strong><em>, harasses and make life hell for the good guy . Its pretty evident that our god is also very cynical. In fact one can make a case that in doing so god is incentivizing his followers to be bad guys or( worse) to be passive guy who do no good or no bad . Just don’t take any stand .</em></div>
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I shared this observation with my grandfather once , His answer was “<em>you can’t understand GOD’s way by applying logic . You can only understand it by having faith .God knows whats best and he will take care of you”</em>. I am sure my grandfather is not the only one to think like that. We are a society indoctrinated by this idea . Its often said that god created man in his own image .Now man has perfected the ways of god . Congratulations! We have become god like in our approach. We want good guys to exist only in books as a theoretical construct . Every time we see a good guy inreal life we go after them with vengeance .AAP and Kejirwal are just an anomaly trying foolishly to fight the forces of god . They will go away . We will trivialise them and drive them out to the point of irrelevance . Who the hell they think they are ? Harishchandra ?</div>
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Deep in our heart we want them to fail. We want our heroes to be corrupt so that we can feel good about ourselves . So that we reconcile our own miserable , spineless existence . So that we can live with ourselves and look at our own face in the mirror every morning . For If Kejriwal and AAP are allowed to exist.We will be faced with this question everyday ? Why ,Where and for what did we betrayed our own inner kejriwal ? This is not an easy question to live with .</div>
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<strong>Parting Thoughts :</strong></div>
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In The Fountainhead , Howard Roark builds Stoddard Temple :A Temple of Human Spirit. Where he want to show people what human spirit is capable of achieving and how pure it can be . It annoys enough people and their idea of God and Human that they get a court order and get the temple bulldozed. Let me say it in no uncertain terms . <strong>AAP is the Stoddard Temple of contemporary India and we are trying our best to destroy it. </strong>We need to save it not for Kejriwal but for ourselves . For our inner kejriwal which we betrayed at some point long long back.</div>
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As the story progress in Fountainhead , The protagonist goes on to be subjected to a lot of hardship and betrayal but eventually gets his due recognition and rightful place in world. I don’t know what will become of AAP and Kejriwal . But I hope for our own good that we realise what he stands for and do it before its too late . I doubt if my appeal will make any difference to the indoctrinated ears of my fellow people.<em> I realise fully that at this moment I </em><strong><em>am </em></strong><em>as futile as </em><strong><em>Howard Roark. This is my Stoddard Temple—my </em></strong><em>first and </em><strong><em>my </em></strong><em>last.</em></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">prashant</div>Prashant Singhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10079032946958487411noreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9276397.post-77223898262360743472013-02-24T00:14:00.004-08:002013-02-24T00:14:59.132-08:00Wrath Of Gods <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Picture above is poster of invitation to a religious ceremony in india . As a statutory warning it says that whoever will try to move this poster will probably have bad luck coming his way . My friend paras posted this on facebook yesterday . Since they used the term "probably" and since product we are building at Signals deals with prediction and probability so I thought I should give it a shot to predict the probability of someone getting cursed with bad luck if He/ She try to remove /Flip this poster .<br />
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<strong>P( Bad luck/Flip ) = [P(Flip/Bad Luck) X P(Bad Luck) ] /P(Flip)</strong></div>
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<strong>P( Bad luck / Flip)</strong> : Probability that you will have bad luck , Given the fact that you fliped the board . </div>
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<strong>P(Flip/Bad Luck)</strong> : Probability that someone who is unlucky has flipped the board . since not all the unlucky person got to see the board so this probability is very low . </div>
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<strong>P(Bad Luck)</strong> : Probability that any random person will have badluck . Since most people in world think that they are unlucky so this will be very high . </div>
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<strong>P(Flip )</strong> = Probability that some random guy will flip the board . this will be low initially since most people don’t give a shit . one way or another . but if you expose it to enough number of stupid people ( like the author of this post ). they will try it just to see if it works . but initially it will be very small. </div>
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so now we have this situation </div>
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<b>P( Bad luck/Flip )= [small number X Large Number ] / (Small number which can be large ).</b></div>
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<strong>Conclusion :</strong> </div>
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There is a high probability that if you are amongst the first one to flip it God almighty will punish you. but if you are the 1000th person to flip it than may be it wont be that big a deal for god almighty . </div>
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Jai Mata Di</div>
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Photo Credit : @paraschopra </div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">prashant</div>Prashant Singhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10079032946958487411noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9276397.post-77387962665946154082013-01-12T13:39:00.001-08:002013-01-13T05:52:58.257-08:00Remembering Aaron <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Before I started this blog I used to spend a lot of time on <a href="http://reddit.com/" target="_blank">Reddit</a> . One of my key motivation behind starting this blog was to write something which make it to the home page of <a href="http://reddit.com/" target="_blank">Reddit</a> . It's taking a little monger than my initial estimate. I discovered Reddit through a amazing blog <a href="http://aaronsw.com/weblog/" target="_blank">Raw Thoughts </a> .Author of that blog was co founder of Reddit. He was and still is one of the smartest guy and one of the most insightful blogger I know . His name was Aaron Swartz . A teenager in USA who wrote specification of RSS. Worked <a href="http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/mylifewithtim" target="_blank">along side Tim Berners Lee</a> . He co founded Reddit and after selling it to Conde Nast he became a full time political activist . sometime back he was in news for cracking into MIT Network and putting entire JASTR library in public domain .</div>
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<b> He committed sucide today . </b></div>
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I was busy working in my office. Enjoying warmth of direct sunlight on my back when I saw <a href="https://twitter.com/nileshtrivedi/statuses/290035791793618944" target="_blank">a tweet by Nilesh</a> My heart sunk . It was like someone has punched me in my guts . It was hard to believe that Aaron Swartz is dead ,that he is not between us anymore . What is harder to believe is that he chose such a cruel way to say good bye . I went out for a walk,read some tweet till I couldn't read them anymore . I saw that Larry Lessig and Corry Doctrow has written something about him . There is a story in NY Times too . World will gradually wake up to the news . I went back to work . In the evening I went for dinner with friends . I was cracking jokes and it was a fun evening . I am back in my apartment now and I was expecting that I will have courage to read those post now . I was wrong . I still can't look at them . I am writing this as much to distract myself from the objective finality of his demise as to share what I am feeling . sharing part is secondary .This will take sometime to sink in . I don't know how to deal with it.</div>
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I am not such a avid reader of Reddit any more. I moved on to slashdot, Hacker News and now I spend an awful lot of time on Quora . But till this day Raw Thoughts is my fave blog . the simplicity and depth of his <a href="http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/fullarchive" target="_blank">writing</a> is simply out of this world . Achieving such depth at an age of 25 is superhuman . I owe somuch of my learning to Aaron that loosing him seems like loosing your favorite teacher . you thought you had all your life to learn from him but one day ..boom ...he is gone . you are alone in this sea.your lighthouse is vanished .</div>
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I won't lie I looked upto him with a bit teenagers-ish enthusiasm and reverence . When I had long hairs I used to comb it like him . I followed <a href="http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/morebooks" target="_blank">his advice</a> on book reading and it helped me in reading more than 50 books in a year . Like <a href="http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/books2010" target="_blank">him</a> I also posted annual review of books . I must confess that I used to be a bit uncomfortable around gays and homosexuals. Though I respected them as individual and their choices but i was still uncomfortable . It was Arron's <a href="http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/notgay" target="_blank">post</a> which helped be understand and deconstruct my thoughts . Today I have few gay friends and I am totally comfortable around them . His post about smart folks helped me understand why <a href="http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/soundsmart" target="_blank">smart people are smart</a> and His post about <a href="http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hotgirlsyndrome" target="_blank">Hot Girls</a> made understand why my dating life sucked . His interpretation of <a href="http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/batmanbegins" target="_blank">Batman Movie</a> and <a href="http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/toystory3pol" target="_blank">Toy Story</a> make you look at them in entirely different light . His most recent series <a href="http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/rawnerve" target="_blank">Raw Nerves</a> was amazing . I can go on and on here . Its not necessary . All I can say is that you should read his blog archive <a href="http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/fullarchive" target="_blank">here </a>. you won't regret it .</div>
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In his post on how to believe that you can bring a change in world and in yourself . He mentions this<br />
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Growth mindset has become a kind of safe word for my partner and I. Whenever we feel the other person getting defensive or refusing to try something because “I’m not any good at it”, we say “Growth mindset!” and try to approach the problem as a chance to grow, rather than a test of our abilities. It’s no longer scary, it’s just another project to work on.</div>
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Just like life itself.</div>
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Sadly He himself couldn't hold the faith and left us alone. In a post on this blog<a href="http://knowprashant.blogspot.in/2010/02/randall-munroe.html" target="_blank"> i had mentioned that i wanted to meet him whenever i visit USA . </a> I went to US last year and I dropped an email to him but he didn't responded . I thought may be we will meet some other time . Life is long . I was wrong . Life is uncertain . I won't be meeting him now in this life . I will have to leave one item unchecked in my bucket list .</div>
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Thank You Aaron . I am a better person because of your work . You were my hero and I learned a lot of things from you . Goodbye My friend. May your soul Rest in peace . </div>
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PS: I wrote this post directly in Blog editor and without any co herence of narration or structure . so excuse me if it seems like a rant to you . I choose not to write about role of alleged harassment of aaron which drove him to commit suicide . Am I angry ? Yes But All this seems so meaningless now . </div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">prashant</div>Prashant Singhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10079032946958487411noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9276397.post-5291213841948559992012-12-07T21:03:00.000-08:002012-12-07T21:03:10.970-08:00Spirit Indestructible<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Watch this video and ask this question to yourself<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">What the Fuck is your excuse ? </span></b></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">prashant</div>Prashant Singhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10079032946958487411noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9276397.post-84632204799770885742012-09-22T11:06:00.001-07:002012-09-22T11:08:28.848-07:00कस्तूरी<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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वो ही प्रसाद की कामायनी , वो ही बच्चन की मधुशाला </div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.8;">वो</span><span style="line-height: 1.8;"> </span> ही दरवेश का मदमस्त नर्त्य , वो ही है रूमी का प्याला . </div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.8;">वो</span><span style="line-height: 1.8;"> </span> ही सूरज की उषण किरण , वो ही बरखा का घन काला </div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.8;">वो</span><span style="line-height: 1.8;"> </span>ही है पथिक की म्रगत्रष्णा , और उसके परौं का छाला </div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.8;">वो</span><span style="line-height: 1.8;"> </span><span style="line-height: 1.8;"> है मन की वो कस्तूरी , जो व्याकुल मुझे कर जाती है </span></div>
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है क्षतिज पार जो स्वपन लोक , <span style="line-height: 1.8;">वो</span><span style="line-height: 1.8;"> </span><span style="line-height: 1.8;">उसकी कथा सुनाती है </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.8;">मेरे मन की इस सीपी में ,</span><span style="line-height: 1.8;"> </span><span style="line-height: 1.8;">वो</span><span style="line-height: 1.8;"> स्वाति बूँद बन आती है</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.8;">अब</span><span style="line-height: 1.8;"> </span><span style="line-height: 1.8;"> बूँद बन रही </span><span style="line-height: 1.8;">है</span><span style="line-height: 1.8;"> </span><span style="line-height: 1.8;"> मोती , अब मुझको कुछ वर्ष तड़पना है</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.8;">कभी नींद नहीं टूटे जिसमे , देखा मैंने वो सपना है </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.8;">है स्वप्न सृजन कुछ करने का , जिसका पहले अस्तित्व ना हो </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.8;">जो खुद पहचान घड़े अपनी , जिसमे </span><span style="line-height: 1.8;"> "</span><span style="line-height: 1.8;"> कर्ता " का भी व्यक्तित्व हो </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.8;">पर देख स्वप्न के रस्ते में , कितने कंकाल लटकते हैं </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.8;">जो </span><span style="line-height: 1.8;">हैं</span><span style="line-height: 1.8;"> निद्रा से जाग चुके , वो स्वप्न द्रष्टा भटकते हैं . </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.8;">आगे ना जाने देते </span><span style="line-height: 1.8;">मुझे</span><span style="line-height: 1.8;">, वो मिल कर </span><span style="line-height: 1.8;">मुझको</span><span style="line-height: 1.8;"> </span><span style="line-height: 1.8;"> खीच रहे. </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.8;">है चकित मेरे दुसाहस पर , निज कायरता पे खीझ रहे</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.8;">है द्वंध हो रहा दोनों में , मेरी इच्छा , उनका अनुभव </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.8;">देखें जीते रचना मेरी , या हो विजयी उनका </span><span style="line-height: 1.8;">भवितव </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.8;">कस्तूरी मुझ से कहती है , ना विचलित हो कोलाहल से </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.8;">जगती ने तेरे पथ कंटक , सीचे "अनुभव " हाला हल से .</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.8;"> ये सब जो तेरे शुभ चिन्तक , जो बता रहे हैं जग की प्रथा </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.8;">है ज्ञान नहीं , है सत्य नहीं , वो है बस उनकी आत्म कथा </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.8;"> </span><span style="line-height: 1.8;">वो</span><span style="line-height: 1.8;"> </span><span style="line-height: 1.8;">अहंकार के घुड़सवार , वो सुर सरिता में तर ना सके</span></div>
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था <span style="line-height: 1.8;">बंद </span><span style="line-height: 1.8;">उनका ह्रदय कलश , जीवन का रस वो भर ना सके .</span></div>
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तेरा साथी इस पथ पर , तेरा प्रेम है , तेरा समर्पण है </div>
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जो खीच रहा हम दोनों को , ये वो अनजाना आकर्षण है . </div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.8;">कस्तूरी कहती " ओ सर्जक ! तू संग </span><span style="line-height: 1.8;">मेरे ही </span><span style="line-height: 1.8;"> रमण करना , </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.8;">में देखूं राह क्षितिज पे तेरी , तू आके मेरा वरण करना " </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.8;">में चला जा रहा क्षितिज और , में आपनी धुन में मतवाला </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.8;">ना चुभते मुझको पथ कंटक , ना दुखता पैरों का छाला </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.8;"><b> खड़ी मुस्काती दूर गोधूली में , वो देखो कस्तूरी बाला </b></span><br />
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pic credit : <a href="http://ekta25.wordpress.com/2011/06/24/a-woman-finding-herself/" target="_blank">Ekta</a> </div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">prashant</div>Prashant Singhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10079032946958487411noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9276397.post-73686145462073188882012-09-15T08:41:00.001-07:002012-09-15T08:41:18.425-07:00Signals <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Dear Readers<br />
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This is a long overdue post . some updates are due from my end . I am on to a new adventure. I am finally doing my own startup . Last month, I along with two of my friends co founded this tiny little company named <a href="http://thesignals.net/" target="_blank">Signals</a>.<br />
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We have big ambitions for our venture. We are trying to build something magical for your smartphone. If you are interested in smartphone and cloud services than I suggest you should sign up for our beta .<br />
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We will be documenting our journey at signals at our official blog <a href="http://blog.thesignals.net/" target="_blank">Signal Flow</a> . This space will continue with its regular theme of rants , chants and a little bit of wisdom. <br />
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Cheers<br />
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Prashant Singh<br />
Co-Founder , Signals . </div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">prashant</div>Prashant Singhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10079032946958487411noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9276397.post-50466185374416300532012-05-17T08:58:00.001-07:002012-05-17T08:59:42.612-07:00भोर का सपना : Dawn ,Dream & Dream Girl<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/shoken/2176836127/" title="We are choosing hope over fear. (my first sales! acquired by Carlos Santana) by sharaff, on Flickr"><img alt="We are choosing hope over fear. (my first sales! acquired by Carlos Santana)" height="320" src="http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2281/2176836127_b81ed135cd.jpg" width="500" /></a>
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<span style="font-size: large;">याद तुम्हारी, भोर का सपना ,उन्नींदा अलसाया सा </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">रजनी के पिछले पहरों में ,चुपके से वो आया था </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">आते देख उसे बगिया में ,पक्षी कलरव करने लगे </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">प्रस्फुटित होने लगी कलिकाएँ , भ्रमर पराग रस भरने लगे </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">~~~</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">अरुणोदय की किरण प्रथम वो , पर्दे से छन कर आई थी </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">सपने में ली तुमने जब , मादक सी अंगडाई थी </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">आधे खुले नयन ढकने को ,जब चादर को खुद पे खींचा था </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">सिंदूरी लाली से तुमने ,क्षितिज रेखा को सींचा था </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">चादर की अल्हड सलवट वो , प्राची उषा से धुलती गयी </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">निशिगंधा धीरे धीरे ,तेरी खुशबू में घुलती गयी </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">तुम ही बनती खुशबू सुबह की , इस अलौकिक रासायन से </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.8;"> स्पर्श मात्र से जग जाता हूँ , तुम आती जब वातायन से </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">~~~ </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">जब मैं खोलूं नयन अपने , चंचला विलुप्त हो जाती है </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">दिखती नहीं किसी और मुझे , हर ओर नजर पर आती है </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">मैं आँख मीच ,कोशिश करता ,सपने को जारी रखने की </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">सपने में दूर कहीं सुनता ,ध्वनी , मैं उसके हसने की </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">~~~
</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">" है बात मेरे मन में कोई , पर आज ना तुम्हे बताउंगी</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">तुम जाओ , दिवस व्यतीत करो , कल सपनो में फिर आउंगी "</span></div>
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Photo Credit : <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/shoken/2176836127/" target="_blank">Sharaff</a> </div><div class="blogger-post-footer">prashant</div>Prashant Singhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10079032946958487411noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9276397.post-7902776785650813002012-05-04T07:40:00.002-07:002012-05-05T04:01:03.976-07:00परिणय प्रश्न<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-size: large;">परिणय निर्णय ,कर भी लो अब , कहते हैं परिजन हमको </span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">प्रेम मिलेगा , साथ मिलेगा , मिलेगा उष्ण भोजन हमको </span></div>
<div style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">उम्र हो रही , कमर खो रही , दिखने लगी सफेदी है </span></div>
<div style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">ये बकरा कब कटेगा आखिर , पूछ रही बलि वेदी है .</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">मित्र कह रहे , कर भी ले अब , अच्छा खाता पीता है </span></div>
<div style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">जलन हो रही क्यूँ तू आखिर ,इतने सुख से जीता है .</span></div>
<div style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">नहीं आमंत्रित करते मुझको ,उत्सव और त्योहारों में </span></div>
<div style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> याद मुझे करते हैं जब , जाना होता है बारो में </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">सुख </span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black; text-align: -webkit-auto;">चिन्तक </span> पूछते मुझ से , " क्या , तुझको किसी से प्यार है ? " </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">" All your Exs got Married " , किसका <span style="line-height: 1.8;">तुझे </span></span>
<span style="color: black; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-size: large;">इंतज़ार</span></span> <span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 1.8;"> है ?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.8;">करलो शादी ,अभी समय है , योवन की तुम </span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black; text-align: -webkit-auto;">पर</span> </span><span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.8;">दृष्टि है ,</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.8;">करो संतति , वंश बढाओ , ऐसे ही चलती </span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black; text-align: -webkit-auto;">स्रष्टि </span> </span><span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.8;"> है . </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.8;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.8;">निशब्द हुआ सुनता </span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black; text-align: -webkit-auto;">मैं</span> </span><span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.8;"> उनके , प्रवचनों , सुझावों को </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">और </span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">तोलता</span> हूँ </span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black; text-align: -webkit-auto;">मैं</span> , अपने जीवन के </span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">अभावों</span> को ,</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 1.8;">" खो रहा परम सुख जीवन का </span><span style="background-color: transparent; text-align: -webkit-auto;">मैं </span><span style="line-height: 1.8;">" वो ऐसा मुझे बताते हैं </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">किन्तु निस्तेज नयन उनके , कुछ और ही कथा सुनाते हैं .</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 1.8;">उन्हें नहीं है </span>
<span style="color: black; text-align: -webkit-auto;">रूचि </span> <span style="line-height: 1.8;">तनिक </span><span style="background-color: transparent; text-align: -webkit-auto;">भी,</span><span style="line-height: 1.8;"> </span><span style="line-height: 1.8;"> सुबह शाम की लाली में </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.8;">कोयल के</span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 11px;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">संवादों</span></span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.8;"> में , गुलमोहर की डाली में </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.8;">जीवन के ध्येय की जिज्ञासा , बेकार के बातें लगती है </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">उनकी </span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black; text-align: -webkit-auto;">विषैली</span>
<span style="color: black; text-align: -webkit-auto;">व्यवहारिकता</span> , हर बात में मुझको डसती है </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">कोई तेज़ नहीं जीवन में उनके , सब कथा कथानक सूनी हैं .</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">किराने <span style="color: black; text-align: -webkit-auto;">की दुकान सा </span>जीवन ,<span style="color: black; text-align: -webkit-auto;">और </span> सपने <span style="color: black; text-align: -webkit-auto;">भी </span> परचूनी हैं . </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">अपनी निष्क्रियता का कारण , वो गृहस्थी को बतलाते हैं </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">साथी को ठहरा अपराधी , खुद त्याग मूर्ती बन जाते है </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">थकते नहीं हैं </span>
<span style="color: black; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-size: large;">ज़िन्दगी </span></span> <span style="font-size: large;"> निबाह कर के वो ,</span></div>
<div style="color: #222222; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">चाहे भी अगर तो जाये कहाँ चाह कर के वो , </span></div>
<div style="color: #222222; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">कहते नहीं मुख से कभी ,पर हम को है पता , </span></div>
<div style="color: #222222; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black; text-align: -webkit-auto;">सोचते हैं </span>फस गए , विवाह कर के वो .</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.8;">मेरे जीवन के चिंता में , जो खोये अपनी सुध बुध हैं ,</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.8;">क्यों नहीं समझते , मेरे इस निश्चय की , एक वजह वो ही खुद हैं </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Please Note: This poem was written in part
frustrated and part whimsical state of mind. A friend's loose remark ignited
this .I don't intend to be judgmental. My apologies in advance if you feel
offended. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div><div class="blogger-post-footer">prashant</div>Prashant Singhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10079032946958487411noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9276397.post-52690929162103866972012-02-06T08:55:00.000-08:002012-02-06T08:55:10.453-08:00Video Interview @ Nokia World<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: left;">I attended Nokia World 2011 last year . It was good fun and a lot of learning .This video below is from the interview i gave to Nokia Dev relationship Crew. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/2dE7JCKud7E" width="560"></iframe></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">prashant</div>Prashant Singhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10079032946958487411noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9276397.post-4959728608371176892012-01-10T02:15:00.000-08:002012-01-10T02:18:56.508-08:00Accepting you for What you are<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvHllfxqkB_VNb3JlSBneirQmMtdIBZh-fXD2idJUhTvMCxTB0dXqPwXrc_qDFYxMKQKTSxUIZzZrwog-Gj2fBedGTF4J1SDxH-2Bpa6oDbbuJwxP0Q4Kc5mZf1YzD37uvAsma/s1600/gapingvoid-nobodycares.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img border="0" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvHllfxqkB_VNb3JlSBneirQmMtdIBZh-fXD2idJUhTvMCxTB0dXqPwXrc_qDFYxMKQKTSxUIZzZrwog-Gj2fBedGTF4J1SDxH-2Bpa6oDbbuJwxP0Q4Kc5mZf1YzD37uvAsma/s320/gapingvoid-nobodycares.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">We grew up on stories about fight of Good Vs Evil. There is a good guy , there is a bad guy ,somewhere in the story they collide ,Good Guy fights the bad guy and good guy always win. Right ? I guess so . For the most part we tend to base our code of conduct from these folklores . Problem with these stories are that BAD guys in these story always know that they are BAD. From Captain Hook in Peter Pan to Joker in BatMan ,From Dragon who Gaurd the Princess in Mario to Agent Smith In Matrix Trilogy.All those</span><span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"> </span><span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">SATAN worshiper , Saber toothed evil souls with a Dark cloak floating behined them</span><span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"> </span><span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"> were convinced of their evilness and they were proud of it .</span><span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"> </span><b style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">In every case distinction bitween Good and evil was presented to us by narrator</b><span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">. Ergo .. Good guy's Job was very simple .He was never in two mind about what he is supposed to do . He is supposed to Kill them. Most of them killed the bad guy on their own but some of them took help from Bunch of Monkeys living in hills . But they killed them anyway . </span></span></div><div style="line-height: 16px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Real life is little more complicated than that . Often time its hard to decide what is Wrong and what is Right. Often time people doing wrong are not doing it intentionally . they genuinly belive that their actions are justfied . Your selfish relatives, your cheating friends , your mean neighbors, Person who belive that Women are not equal to men , Person who think that people who are not from IIT-IIM are not cut out to be CEO, Person peeing on street and spitting on pavement , who Jumped the Red Light and nearly killed you in process , the person who speak rudely to you in office without provocation, the girl who blame every thing on Gender bias of society, Spouse who exploit emotional dependecy of their partner, Boss Who Steal you ideas.List is endless . But if you examine their action in their shoes and look at their thought process you will see they have very rationale explanation for what they do . They have been shaped by their environment in to becoming who they are . Often time that make some of us forgive them or put up with their abuse . We think <b>" HE is like that only and HE can't change "</b> . M</span><span style="line-height: 16px;">ost of the time t</span><span style="line-height: 16px;">hats a Good way to look at the problem. For changing someone's thought process is a Herculean enterprise and since One got to pick his battle very carefully so most of us often Avoid or Ignore such trespassing in public , professional or political context . But what about such conduct in other sphere of life . </span></span></div><div style="line-height: 16px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 16px;">Unspoken truth is that this tendency often hurts us most in our personal Life . What to do if this transgression is being done by your best friend who take you for granted, by your wife who is rude , by your boy friend who is not sesitive enough.somewhere you know that they know that they are wrong and they are taking undue advantage of you but you want them to realize that on their own . But its not working out.. you have waited for long and you are wondering that at what point you should stop discounting their ignorance and say</span> <i><b><span style="line-height: 16px;">" </span><span style="line-height: 16px;">Intentionally</span><span style="line-height: 16px;"> or unintentionally You ARE Hurting Me and this is not acceptable to me</span></b></i> <span style="line-height: 16px;">" . Most of us say it too late and most of us regret saying it .</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 16px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Putting your foot down is essentially like renegotiating the power balance in a relationship . Most of people won't gonna enjoy this . They are in habbit of dealing with you in a certain manner , new equations alter that. it breaks their habbit . Older the habbit, bigger the inertia and resistance and More the Transition pain. I have gone through this drill several time in life . its ugly . But when you are in the middle of that Transition you are sure to get one response with unfailing consistency. At some point , other party will say </span><b style="line-height: 16px;"><i> " I am like this only .Accept me for what I am "</i></b> <span style="line-height: 16px;">. This is a VERY potent argument for the simple reason that it generate a conflict within us . Since we love these people (</span> <i style="line-height: 16px;">that's why we are negotiating and not walking away from deal altogether</i> <span style="line-height: 16px;">) and they are asking us to respect their Individuality (</span> <i style="line-height: 16px;">and Deep down you are asking for the same . Respect for you as an Individual</i> <span style="line-height: 16px;">) Most of us fall for this . And are often stuck in a sub optimal life . In our time demanding</span> <b style="line-height: 16px;">"Accept me for what I am "</b><span style="line-height: 16px;"> has became something like a carte Blanche for irrationality and whimsical nature. God Forbid if other party has read Steve Jobs Biography . They will think its the price you have to pay to be in company of Genius. These people make me puke , seriously, the whole god forsaken bunch of them .</span></span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDUWY5U21FioizSY-AEolZ4V2Ux3L4yA6Q8uoPi-dvovppbymfesIo4SsTKsSfLeLaIgKfCSToTdpzy3FjuaWcK7a_Zsyum1HdJt22xF2we7hFiJXZUDIbqJTMFW9VNUzpLhrO/s1600/20111229-400.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDUWY5U21FioizSY-AEolZ4V2Ux3L4yA6Q8uoPi-dvovppbymfesIo4SsTKsSfLeLaIgKfCSToTdpzy3FjuaWcK7a_Zsyum1HdJt22xF2we7hFiJXZUDIbqJTMFW9VNUzpLhrO/s320/20111229-400.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br />
</span></span></div><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 16px;">Let put his in Black and White . </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 16px;"><b><u>Your ignorance is not an alibi for the damage you do to people . Not being able to see other person's view point is fine but Not being willing to see it is EVIL . Periodic self examination is a necessary condition for being Good . anyone who refuse to do that is one step short of being evil</u></b></i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 16px;"> . </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">So what you do when some idiot throw this on you. </span><b style="line-height: 16px;">"Accept me for what I am " . </b><span style="line-height: 16px;">Before You Accept other person ( and pay the price ) Look inside and Ask yourself " <b>Who You Are and Does that person Respect that</b> " </span><span style="line-height: 16px;"> " </span><span style="line-height: 16px;"><b>What You Wanna to be ? Does this person think you can ? </b></span><span style="line-height: 16px;"><b>Will this person wants you to get there or </b></span><span style="line-height: 16px;"><b>[more importantly ] will he be an obstacle in reaching there</b></span><span style="line-height: 16px;"><b>? </b>"</span><span style="line-height: 16px;"> ,</span><span style="line-height: 16px;"> "</span><span style="line-height: 16px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 16px;"><b>Do you Admire them for their qualities or You are afraid of Lonesomeness & uncertainty ensuing if you part ways" . <u>HONEST</u></b> answers </span><span style="line-height: 16px;"> to these question will help you clear your head . once you have done that </span><b style="line-height: 16px;">"</b><span style="line-height: 16px;"><b>Don't ask for Apology or Hope of reform .</b></span><b style="line-height: 16px;">Remind your self that your Happiness is as important as him and Tell him to FUCK OFF"</b> <span style="line-height: 16px;">.</span><span style="line-height: 16px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 16px;">Trust Me You Won't Regret it . </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I will be doing it more often in 2012 . Thats my ( one of many ) Resolution for the year. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Pic Credit : Hugh from <a href="http://www.gapingvoid.com/" target="_blank">Gapingvoid</a>.</span></span></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">prashant</div>Prashant Singhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10079032946958487411noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9276397.post-40584343020663311172011-10-05T08:27:00.000-07:002011-10-05T08:29:56.341-07:00Once Upon A Time in October<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzZayqdeiP8Jh2qgTAYLSBOMY-xMNhyb1D1vdHJ7JF7afp8Iol5SGzr5hr6PF4Ls3eEDMsVYuNbnno47JqLd_xfWfxumSjrura3LnUY0gdqOwFJ4CLf03ucAhvp5xhpJEOzceX/s1600/traffic_lights_mist.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzZayqdeiP8Jh2qgTAYLSBOMY-xMNhyb1D1vdHJ7JF7afp8Iol5SGzr5hr6PF4Ls3eEDMsVYuNbnno47JqLd_xfWfxumSjrura3LnUY0gdqOwFJ4CLf03ucAhvp5xhpJEOzceX/s320/traffic_lights_mist.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 28px;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> घुटी घुटी थी सर्दियाँ , रुकी रुकी थी सिसकियाँ </span></span></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> बुने थे हमने स्वपन जब , कुल्लड में ले के चुस्कियां </span></div></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div><div><div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">है याद मुझको आज भी , वो उसका बाल खोलना </span></div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">आँखों से मुझको तोलना , फिर पुतलियों से बोलना ,</span></div></div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">जब में देखता था टक टकी , संभलती थी चुन्नियाँ </span></div></div></div><div><div><div><div><div><div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">है याद उसकी कपकपी , में पास आता था जभी </span></div></div><div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">वो दर्द दे के जाती थी , वो मारती थी कोहनियाँ </span></div></div></div></div></div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div></div></div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">हूँ देखता ये देख कर , उधर न फिर से देखना </span></div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">सखी सुने या न सुने , वो खुद से कुछ भी बोलना </span></div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">ऊँगली से लट टटोलना , पेरों से फर्श कुरेदना </span></div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">बिना वजह रूमाल पे , गांठ मार कर के खोलना </span></div></div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div></div><div><div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">वो एक थी हज़ार में , थी छेडती बाज़ार में ,</span></div></div><div><div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">मुझ पे थी गेंद फेंकती , जब खेलती थी सतोलियाँ ,</span></div></div></div></div></div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">घुटी घुटी थी सर्दियाँ , रुकी रुकी थी सिसकियाँ </span></div></div></div></div><div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">बुने थे हमने स्वपन जब , कुल्लड में ले के चुस्कियां </span></div></div></div></div></div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">पनप रही जब प्रीत थी , तब जिन्दगी में शीत थी </span></div></div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">सघर्ष स्वर नेपथ्य था, वो जैसे प्रेम गीत थी ,</span></div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">मरुस्थल के ताप में , वो आती थी बन के कहकशां </span></div></div><div><div><div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">में फसा रहा था द्वन्द में , भविष्य के प्रबंध में </span></div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">वर्तमान गुजर गया और खो गयी वो धुंध में </span></div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">निशब्द प्रीत के प्रतिधवनी , है किस से पलट के आ रही </span></div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">है कौन याद कर रहा मुझे , क्यों आ रही हैं हिचकियाँ </span></div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">घुटी घुटी थी सर्दियाँ , रुकी रुकी थी सिसकियाँ </span></div></div><div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">बुने थे हमने स्वपन जब , कुल्लड में ले के चुस्कियां </span></div></div></div></div></div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
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photo credit :<a href="http://www.buzzom.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/traffic_lights_mist.jpg">Buzzom</a> </div><div class="blogger-post-footer">prashant</div>Prashant Singhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10079032946958487411noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9276397.post-26191430221466565822011-09-20T20:15:00.000-07:002011-09-20T20:23:39.561-07:00Control Conspiracies<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzHFZu3EkYj_Q5CRr3AK8SIfKgU0PuY4Kj2vQsLL3lQZ830kep0z8mI64OhE9SipIa1oaHHjcEkh5aZ9-mpZDbEnWqY1-XKqxyA4pT0Dvb6uhyphenhyphenvgtWP4B5dK7mrb9AzTYwSNS9/s1600/computer_key_Ctrl.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="188" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzHFZu3EkYj_Q5CRr3AK8SIfKgU0PuY4Kj2vQsLL3lQZ830kep0z8mI64OhE9SipIa1oaHHjcEkh5aZ9-mpZDbEnWqY1-XKqxyA4pT0Dvb6uhyphenhyphenvgtWP4B5dK7mrb9AzTYwSNS9/s200/computer_key_Ctrl.png" width="200" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: center;"></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">"This was it ..? " He said to himself as He watched her car disappear in the bend of street .."its over ...there is no two way about it . She must be on her cell phone by now . Chatting to one of her innumerable friends like him . solving all their problems like she often did for him . "<i>She is good at it ..she can do it effortlessly . She must be a very genuine person at heart ..may be thats the reason she is always so happy and ....</i>" . He couldn't think beyond the word happy .. Because He knew where it will lead . He knew that She was Not Happy and He also knew there was hardly anything he can do about it . She won't let him ...There was a strange existential anxiety about her being..... an unrest . He wanted to help her but , " <i>I want it for my happiness more than hers. though I will never admit it</i>". </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">He often doubted . He was not it doubt today . He wanted to get her out of it .. He wanted her to find her rightful place , her share of Effortless smile . After All He was her Friend and She was his best friend. That was least he can do and that was most he can expect from their relationship . But He also knew She won't Let anyone make her happy outside of her wish . They all made her unhappy in their own way , Most of them without realizing .</span></div><div><span style="border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">He walked toward the lobby of his apartment his heart heavy and steps slow . " <i>Is desire to have power to make anyone happy is just another manifestation of our fundamental desire to control? if so, is it violation of other person's freedom ? can essence of action changes if they are backed by good intentions ? can end justify the means " </i>These were the questions haunting him for a long time ,In fact every time He thought of her .<i></i></span><span style="font-size: small;">" <i>Everyone wants to be Happy . Right ? That's What we all want at the end of the day ?? </i>" He blurted out in Empty Elevator .. there was no one to answer He Smiled at his own stupidity as elevator reached fourth floor. He was serious again by the time he entered his condo . He switched on the lights . powered on his Laptop ,open the window and Lit a cigarette. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">"<i>This is going to be a long Night.....</i>" He whispered as he blew the rings of smoke . " <i>Lets get some work done ..To Focus or to distract</i> ". He said and smiled at the irony .He looked for the folder "office work "in list . He spotted it , but right above it was a folder named "<b>Light & Sound</b>" . He looked at that for a while , Smiled and busted his cigarette.<i><b>" </b>Looks like This is going to be longer than i expected</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"> " He said ...and started working on an unfinished story . He hasn't touched that for a last three years ....</span></div></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><div><div><span style="border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
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</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Vladimir Script";">§ ------ACT 2------§</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
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</span></div><span style="font-size: small;">Miles away ...She switched on the cell Phone as the car entered the villa . </span><br />
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</span></div></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><b>"</b>Why your cell was not reachable<b> ?"</b></i></span><span style="font-size: small;"> Her father asked .</span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><b>"</b>Might be Network Issue<b> "</b></i></span><span style="font-size: small;"> came a quick reply form Daddy's chirpy girl</span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">He smiled ..</span><span style="font-size: small;"> <i><b>"</b>What the deal with your eyes ? why they looks so tired ??<b> "</b></i></span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><b>" </b>I was awake late last night and was out whole day today , That explain I guess <b>"</b></i> </span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">they both knew she was lying but they both also understood the secret lingo they developed over the year to sense when enquirers were not welcomed .</span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"<i> Ok Go take some rest "</i> He said</span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">"</span><span style="font-size: small;"> <i>Good Night Dad </i>" She said and kissed her father ."</span><span style="font-size: small;"> <i>Look Pa ' I don't have to stand on my Toes to kiss you anymore. I am a BIG Girl now and you can stop worrying about me</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"> " she said as she disappeared in her room before her father noticed that she was wearing high heels . </span></div><div><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>"</i></b><i> Twenty Five Years and I don't know how to comfort her enough to make her loosen up. and i am her father. i just hope the guy she is with to would succeed where i failed. where all of us failed.</i>" He thought as he walked his way to bed. she will be fine, he knew that much , </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>" Thank God the guy care for her as much as we do . Old man like me can console himself in this . She is in Good hands " </i>But that was lame He knew , He knew from experience of 20 years , since the time she was five and started talking back to him, that her being in Any hand Good or Bad was part of the problem . He remembered a conversation he had with her when she was teenager </span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"> "<i>Care ? Care Pa?? , I think if you care for me you should first Trust me. you should trust that I can make decision for myself ,and give the freedom to make my mistake</i>" . She had said to him .</span><span style="font-size: small;"> <i>" ...and give me enough confidence that i can always comeback to you if i actually commit a mistake "</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"> She had thought but never said ..That would have too much to ask . </span></div></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>"How time flies he thought. She is a big girl now ... she was always grown up for her age ..I kinda didn't get that... i used to get worked up on her actions ..How i miss it when she is gone away and act like a good girl " </i> He sighed .</span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>" </i></b><i>Does this guy get that ??</i><b><i>"</i></b></span><span style="font-size: small;"> He wondered</span><span style="font-size: small;"> <b><i>" </i></b><i>I am sure they must be fighting on such things ... I am sure my little princess must be giving him a hard time .. Poor soul I am sure He must be pulling his hairs at times</i><b><i>"</i></b> He thought as he turned off the light . A Big amused smiled danced on his face as he pictured them fighting .</span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Vladimir Script";">§ ------ACT 3-----§</span></span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">She hasn't finished her glass of milk yet as her father had asked her to.. She hadn't taken her tablet yet As Her mother had asked her to.. She hadn't stopped think needlessly As Her Boyfriend had <strike>asked </strike>Requested her to . She knew she should be doing all of it . It was well past midnight and she was still awake . She couldn't sleep . She was anxious . it was her room ...that very room where she grew up .This was the only place where she was able to do what the world thought to be impossible to her : To Be Afraid , To Be Vulnerable , To have Guilt and regret , To know how it feels Not to know . She open the closet and pulled out her old pillow with mickey mouse cover . She used to slobber around with it as a young girl . for some reason Today as a grown up girl she need it more than ever . She clutched it and threw herself on bed . for no obvious reason her thoughts drifted to her birthday party long time back ". </span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">She was in her fave new yellow frock which her father had bought her for her birthday. Her friends were circling around her as she played violin for a game of Chair Race . She blew off the candles and</span><span style="font-size: small;"> cut the cake. Later in the evening she sung her fave song and everyone applauded her for her talent . Her parents were proud of her . It was a good day ... But only thing was that she wasn't able to enjoy eating as much of cake as she wanted to . That was the ONLY thing she wanted to do . </span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">Phone rang ..bringing her back to the real world . It was her boyfriend calling her . She looked at the greenish glow of phone screen and His name flashing on it . With every pulse of screen's back light she thought of the conversation that would follow if she choose to answer the phone now . She choose not to . She lowered the volume ,put it on the charging, Turned off the light and tried too fall asleep . She knew she couldn't sleep . She knew exactly what she need to do fall asleep . she got up , turned on the lights , Had her tablets , Drink the Glass of Milk her father has left for her , Put the pillow back at its old place . She was back in her bed . Her Eyes heavy ....She tried to think about her birthday party . </span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">" <i>Doing All this was so effort less back then . I don't know what happened in years that followed . I was a good girl . Or SO they used to say </i>" She murmured to her self as she drifted to sleep .</span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">There was a faint flickering of green light on her phone . It read</span><span style="font-size: small;">s <b>" 1 Unread Text Message "</b></span></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">prashant</div>Prashant Singhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10079032946958487411noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9276397.post-39522275234129237532011-07-03T05:23:00.000-07:002011-07-03T05:23:29.971-07:00Bade Acche Lagte Hain<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_1qFDjZGtmj-0k8wrmCUU0S2466y5sKvl3-i-FN3EbTBQ09NHNvDXSAdXzX00FtGN8WXi7_6qXF0YDBHiBpZTHldUMnmSU4h4b0Ytmx-kycHE9mBwio4b-cQ3hIizVA3m-HF5/s1600/250px-BALH.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_1qFDjZGtmj-0k8wrmCUU0S2466y5sKvl3-i-FN3EbTBQ09NHNvDXSAdXzX00FtGN8WXi7_6qXF0YDBHiBpZTHldUMnmSU4h4b0Ytmx-kycHE9mBwio4b-cQ3hIizVA3m-HF5/s320/250px-BALH.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
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</span></div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black;">Life for single guy is tough. It’s a never ending stream of explanation. You have to explain your decision to everyone and everyone has a piece of cautionary advice for you .be it your parents , family members , friends , colleagues, neighbors, landlord, house maid ,cleaning lady( you are single and ask me to mop your floor daily?? even married people do it alternate day ), autowallah and security guard in your housing society ( why you live in a 3 BHK sir ..You are not married). <o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black;"><br />
</span></div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black;">Couple of years back ,when all my friends were getting married in rapid succession and I was under great pressure I decided to take a stand that I won't tie the knot because of age and peer pressure and hold out for right one for me .At that time I grossly underestimated the hostility of people toward the very notion of single hood. Our society looks at being single not as an individual choice but as a societal anomaly. A denim patch on their satin smooth social fabric. I discovered that more often than not people look at me not as someone who is questioning The wisdom of their decision of getting married & passing a judgment . For the record that wasn't my intention ever. There were people who get offended with my so called stubbornness and than there are people who are genuinely concerned. Whatever their motives, both are a big pain in "you know where ". So during last couple of years many people had tried to convince me for getting married. I have been through the drill so many times that now I have a standard response to all their tactics & arguments. Here it goes..</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black;"><br />
</span></div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black;">Reason #1 <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Good Homemade Food</b> (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I am not looking for a catering arrangement, moreover please come to my flat for dinner someday and then open your mouth</i>).<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Acceptance in society</b> (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I am not really crazy about being accepted by bunch of bozos who can't think for themselves so spare me</i>).<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Sex</b> (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> what’s that ??</i> ) ,<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> who will serve you when you are old </b>(<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Don’t worry it won’t be you . you won’t be there probably <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>plus <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>right now I am more concerned about what to do when I am not so old</i> ) .<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Biological Clock </b> ( <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">tell that to salman khan</i> ) , <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">You are not salman khan</b> (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> yeah that’s why I am talking to you </i>) . <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">You are not a GAY...are you? </b>(<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">You really want a proof?</i>) (Btw just FYI, because of the very nature of enquiry<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>...this threat work on both sexes). </span>Anyway I was under the [false] impression that I have known all their tactics and I can deal with any adversary. As usual I was wrong , for past couple of weeks or so, that <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>whole god damn clan of my unwarranted well-wishers has added a new weapon in to their arsenal. A TV serial name "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Bade Acche Lagte hain</b> (BALH) “.</div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div data-mce-style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background: white; text-align: justify;"><span data-mce-style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;"><span style="color: black;">I am not a TV person. In fact my disdain for stupid TV soap operas is well known amongst my friends and family. so I was amazed when sometime back a college friend of mine called me and said that he remembered me after watching a TV serial . He suggested that I should watch it too. I said I will. Since then it has been a consistent stream of recommendation from every quarter.When I was in Singapore last week for a conference. A business associate asked me why my wife hasn't joined me for the trip. On learning that I am still single he recommended that I should watch "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Bade Aache lagte Hain</b> “. I cringed and decided I would check out what the Big deal about this show .</span></span></div><div data-mce-style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background: white; text-align: justify;"><span data-mce-style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;"><span style="color: black;"><br />
</span></span></div><div data-mce-style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background: white; text-align: justify;"><span data-mce-style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;"><span style="color: black;">So last weekend I spent couple of hours in watching first two episode of this serial on YouTube.</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span><span style="color: black;">I was surprised to know that it’s produced by Ekta Kapoor's Balaji Telefilms. More surprising was the fact that the <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>name didn't started with a "K" . I guess in that case the name would have been "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Kabaadi Acche Lagtee Hain</b> “. Other offbeat thing about the story was that it was dealing with a pre marital theme. Ekta Kapoor is not known for that kind of stuff. Her specialization is in stories related to post marital traumas involving" over dressed -sleep-with -jewelry" In Laws , scheming housewives and a perpetually living old lady named "Baa " . These elements were missing. At least so far. </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div data-mce-style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background: white; text-align: justify;"><span data-mce-style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;"><span style="color: black;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="background: white; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black;">Any way the story revolves around these two characters. A girl in her early thirties (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">33 if you really want to know, I was just being polite</i>) and a slightly oversized dude in his forties. Obviously both are single and not really crazy hot about getting married anytime soon. The guy is a millionaire who runs a business empire and buys private jet on the drop of the hat. I don't understand why all these stupid script writers who are probably <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>underpaid jhollawalas are so fixated with the idea of portraying the male protagonist as millionaire. Even in supposedly offbeat stories. It un necessarily raise the bar for rest of the men. Anyway back to the story; the girl on the other hand is from a middle class family who is supporting her family and ambition of her younger sister by teaching in a GRE TOEFL training center. Both of them are pretty much taken for granted by their respective families. Only reason why their family put up with them is that they bring in a hatful of dough every month. </span></div><div style="background: white; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black;"><br />
</span></div><div style="background: white; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black;">As typical to Ekta Kapoor stories both of the protagonist defies every law of genetics and behavioral inheritance known to mankind. The guy's father is dead 10 year back but before old man died He was married twice (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that alone explain why the dude is still single, he learned from mistake of his father</i>). So our hero is now living with his step mother, who in some other life could've been a good candidate for him to date. She looks hot for age if you really want to know. Anyway what makes it funny is that how come someone who is horny enough to marry twice and manages to find a pretty hot girl even in old age has a son who is not keen to marry even once and from the look of it gives an impression of having a terrible sex life. Even his personal secretary looks more like a fugitive nun from some catheradel. Poor bastard. I kinda feel sorry for him.</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="background: white; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black;"><br />
</span></div><div data-mce-style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span data-mce-style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;"><span style="color: black;">Anyway the case of girl is more intriguing. She is proverbial girl next door. She believe in love and gives a mushy lecture on “meaning of love “to her student. Though hers is not a case of step mom, evil sister and all that snow white crap but her mother is a loud mouth, self promoting lady <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>who reminds you 10 times in two episodes that she was Miss Bhubaneswar. The younger sister of our homely babe is an aspiring model who has won a beauty pageant recently and she is at her bitching best while dealing with her sis. But our homely babe has got an Heart of Mother Teresa and she takes it in her stride and ignore it on account of the fact that they are all in a family .Big deal.</span></span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div data-mce-style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span data-mce-style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;"><span style="color: black;"><br />
</span></span></div><div data-mce-style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span data-mce-style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;"><span style="color: black;">Looking at the contrast of characters that apparently grew up in same family makes you doubt the wisdom in all the things you learn about genetics and stuff in your high school science course.Both girl and boy has got someone who understand what they are going through ,feel pity , feel sad about them but for some strange reason never muster enough guts to stand up and tell those people that they are not being nice to his /her friend . For the guy it’s a dude in office who is his sidekick and for girl it’s her father. Fellow victim of same disaster: his wife. </span></span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div data-mce-style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span data-mce-style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;"><span style="color: black;"><br />
</span></span></div><div data-mce-style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span data-mce-style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;">Then there is drama: In the two episodes I saw on you tube. Both girl and boy keep on running in to each other but they never really realize how often their path had crossed. Some students in girl's class were reading a business magazine with a cover story about guy .Girl's sister ends up applying in a company managed by guys’ sister and finally epic of drama when Guys bangs his car into girl’s car. I guess our underpaid script writer at Balaji Telefilms took the metaphor of "crossing the path” a bit too literally. Anyway they still don't meet. than destiny( or Ekta Kapoor ) throw them in a situation where guy meet the girl in a "perfect stranger " situation in a hotel and pour his heart out on slightest of provocation .He tells her " how lonely he is ? how he longs for someone to understand and accept it and stuff like that .." . Of course they can't see each other and go separate ways guy feeling light after making a confession and Girl feeling light after hearing it . Both of them were looking so light in that sequence that A still photo from that shot could have easily be used in the advertisement of <a href="http://www.dabur.com/Export-Health%20Care-Isabgol">Dabur Nature Care</a>. There is soothing background music to set the mood. You got the idea right? I could narrate you rest of the story but you will probably end up puking if I did.</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div data-mce-style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span data-mce-style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;"><span style="color: black;"><br />
</span></span></div><div data-mce-style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span data-mce-style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: black;">Though the show is still on air but story line is more or less obvious. Eventually dude and girl will meet. followed by denial, followed by accidental discovery or eternal love which was always there, followed by resistance from family members ( <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">who till yesterday were very hot for them to tie the knot , go figure </i>)eventually the wedding and happy ending and stuff . They might throw in sex in between somewhere to make it more interesting.</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div data-mce-style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background: white;"><span data-mce-style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: black;"><span style="color: black;"><br />
</span></span></div><div data-mce-style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background: white;"><span data-mce-style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: black;"><strong>So what’s the Big Deal : ?</strong></span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div data-mce-style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background: white;"><span data-mce-style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;"><span style="color: black;"><br />
</span></span></div><div data-mce-style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span data-mce-style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;"><span style="color: black;">Ekta Kapoor is a business person and a very smart one at that. So in that sense her choosing to make a daily soap on such a supposedly offbeat topic of singlehood validates the fact that there is a big enough audience for the same. In short me and my folks are not the only one around who are dealing with this issue. Number of people is grappling with this issue of not being able to find right companion is big enough to warrant some media attention. but as it often happen with media , they pick up a fairly serious topic and botch it by treating it in a immature and sometime downright stupid manner. BALH is yet another example of the same. Its very shallow in treatment .they are still relying on tested formulas. It’s nowhere close to what happen in real life. </span></span></div><div data-mce-style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span data-mce-style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;"><span style="color: black;"><br />
</span></span></div><div data-mce-style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span data-mce-style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;"><span style="color: black;">For example take the core issue of why the guy (or girl for that matter) is not able to find the right match. The story seems to suggest that this happen accidentally. As if one day they wake up and discovered that they are middle aged .Modern day <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rip_Van_Winkle">Rip Van Winkle</a> or something. I don't think that’s how it happens. People do make a <b>CHOICE</b> to stay single. It can be forced, implied or conscious choice but <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>there always is an option involved</u></b></span></span><span data-mce-style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;"><span style="color: black;">. Specially in India where arranged marriage is a norm.</span></span>So logical question is that what are the factors which are feeding this trend? I don't know the right answer but I think I have some ideas about the factors at work. I am listing some of them below.</div><div data-mce-style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibgaLH_otCB1zipQANIJRNqbTQS5FqxmjWNuh98Dz8Iqq_N9qzy_C0P-eYnoeYfPgt-ATJKU9O6stXi6y8nBABzTh5BDqJXAOLqlhtrCHhbz4ZELzvWrKkKwQtmNd27oIoHgbz/s1600/commitment.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibgaLH_otCB1zipQANIJRNqbTQS5FqxmjWNuh98Dz8Iqq_N9qzy_C0P-eYnoeYfPgt-ATJKU9O6stXi6y8nBABzTh5BDqJXAOLqlhtrCHhbz4ZELzvWrKkKwQtmNd27oIoHgbz/s320/commitment.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="background: white;"><span style="color: black;"><o:p><br />
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</o:p></span></div><div style="background: white;"><strong><span style="color: black;">Relationships</span></strong><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black;">:</span></span><span style="color: black;"> At the age of 16 no one dreams of being single at the age of 32. There is an old saying that “All Feminist are heartbroken romantics “. Most of the single folks I know fit that description. At some points in their lives they have been party to a dysfunctional relationship or witness to a terrible alliance from a distance. I am not talking strictly about things like betrayal, Cheating, Breakup or divorce. These are relatively easy to deal and one eventually gets over them (I hope). What I am discussing is a situation where one know that He/ She has <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>made a wrong choice but now they are STUCK in a sub optimal alliance due to emotional or societal reason.</span></div><div data-mce-style="text-align: justify; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background: white; text-align: justify;"><span data-mce-style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;"><span style="color: black;"><br />
</span></span></div><div data-mce-style="text-align: justify; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background: white; text-align: justify;"><span data-mce-style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;"><span style="color: black;">I know some cases first hand where people are not happy and are kind of dragging their lives. This is truer of Indian context where social cost /stigma of a failed alliance are very high. We might have less than 2 % divorce rate in our country but if Happiness is the parameter of a successful marriage than I am pretty sure that more than 50% of alliance in our generation and generation before that will be classified as sub optimal if not downright failure . And it’s not hard to spot them, especially in small town India where your life is pretty much a open book. Being witness to such stories makes one afraid and skeptical of whole notion of marriage. Though people might not articulate it that way and no one has systematically studied and measured it but my hunch is that this factor alone is the biggest contributor to the initial seeding of the idea of remaining single. </span></span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div data-mce-style="text-align: justify; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background: white; text-align: justify;"><span data-mce-style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;"><strong><span style="color: black;"><br />
</span></strong></span></div><div data-mce-style="text-align: justify; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background: white; text-align: justify;"><span data-mce-style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;"><strong><span style="color: black;"> Money</span></strong><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black;">:</span></span><span style="color: black;"> by money I mean access to resources, access to discretionary residual income. This allow a fall back option. This provides a scope of experimentation in life. For better or worse ours is the first generation in India to experience this. Our parent’s generation was in a "survival mode" for much of their life. Reflection & experimentation was a luxury they couldn't have afforded. Since they never had to deal with these issues so they have very little of wisdom to share with us on them. Ergo ours is a generation suffering from a sort of identity crisis. Since they are not sure "Who they are” and "what they want to do with their life” so it’s kind of tough for them to decide "who they want to marry”.</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div data-mce-style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background: white;"><span data-mce-style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: black;"><strong><span style="color: black;"><br />
</span></strong></span></div><div data-mce-style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span data-mce-style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: black;"><strong><span style="color: black;">Denial</span></strong><span style="color: black;">: </span><span data-mce-style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;">Access to money also gives a sense of entitlement & [false] self sufficiency. A flaunted indifference to our surrounding. Often time it tricks you to believing that we don't really need anyone to lead a happy life. More than anything it allows you to re enforce & glorify your denials by external artifacts. Things like Cars, job, salary, luxury holiday or what have you. I have seen that most lonely person is the one who have got most things to show off. They still need to connect, they still need to validate themselves but they are in denial of the same and there is a whole industry out there to help them do it in style. This is most visible in educated elites with a thriving professional life but a less than happy personal life. Such people have very little room for accommodating someone else in their life.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><strong><span style="color: black;">Rigidity</span></strong><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black;">:</span></span><span style="color: black;"> The older we get, more rigid we become in our ways of doing things, in our world view and gradually lose the ability to adopt. And in our heart we know that we are losing it. We are becoming irrational and may be too rigid for our own good. We also know that any relationship involve adjustment and adaptation .so we are kind of afraid to get in to any such institution to began with. What’s funny is that I have friends who tell me that “I<em><b> am single because no one can live with me? I am temperamental and irrational. People eventually want to change me and I don't want to change...blah ...</b></em>” bullshit. My standard follow-up question: "<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><strong><i>At the end of the day Are you happy being irrational temramental ....blah blah blah. Will you be happy if you find someone who is absolutely fine with this</i></strong><span class="apple-converted-space">”</span>Standard Answer without a single exception”<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><strong><i>No. I am not happy but isn't I am too old to change now? Can I change at this age? </i></strong>" .</span></div><div data-mce-style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span data-mce-style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;"><span style="color: black;"><br />
</span></span></div><div data-mce-style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span data-mce-style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;"><span style="color: black;">What a pity! This is plain inertia of habits, a comfort zone where you are comfortable, Alone, Accepted, sub optimal and single. I advice them to get out of it ASAP. But till this day without exception no one has followed or even considered my suggestion. </span></span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div data-mce-style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div data-mce-style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span data-mce-style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;"><span style="color: black;">Finally I believe there is statistics at works. It’s a known fact that in every generation a certain % of population remains single. In the same way as in every generation a certain % of people are homosexuals. Our generation is not an exception in that respect. What’s different in our case is that thanks to technology we are super connected and constantly in touch with people who in past we would probably have lost touch with. My dad doesn’t know where his school time friends are and if any of them is still single. But I know. So this phenomena of single hood is somewhat more observable now a days ergo it’s being talked about more. But knowing a statistical truth is one thing and being a data point in that statistics is totally different and somewhat painful thing. That brings me to the most painful part of being a single guy (or girl for that matter). That is dealing with your parents. No matter how educated or understanding your parents are there is one thing they are unable to accept.</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div data-mce-style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><strong><span data-mce-style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;"><span style="color: black;"><br />
</span></span></strong></div><div data-mce-style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background: white;"><strong><span data-mce-style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;"><span style="color: black;">“Not Everyone Get Married “.</span></span></strong><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="blogger-post-footer">prashant</div>Prashant Singhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10079032946958487411noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9276397.post-46486071222406584022010-03-30T11:56:00.000-07:002010-03-30T12:07:25.809-07:00पुष्प<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQBtXeTtoC4E_Bubj7ZoCPUGsxzFaV-H1Aqams_dsS6KYhid8b26lP2h9ihf9wKweRkoa_yTiA0W3rI0CmKJ_AZUKBjJ4l6U1zxVjNYIO0gAmHiauzgTeyiBEiTx_JdhwnsUbv/s1600/dew2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQBtXeTtoC4E_Bubj7ZoCPUGsxzFaV-H1Aqams_dsS6KYhid8b26lP2h9ihf9wKweRkoa_yTiA0W3rI0CmKJ_AZUKBjJ4l6U1zxVjNYIO0gAmHiauzgTeyiBEiTx_JdhwnsUbv/s320/dew2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS'; line-height: 29px;">पीड़ा सी तुम कहराती हो , लज्जा सी तुम सकुचाती हो </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';"><span class="Apple-style-span">बन कर आंसू तुम फूलों का ,टहनी पे ढलकी जाती हो </span></span></div></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';"><span class="Apple-style-span">हर रात प्रतीक्षा करता हूँ , तुम सुबह ओस बन आती हो </span></span></div></div></div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br />
</span> </span></div></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';"><span class="Apple-style-span">तेरे आँचल के ढलने से , रात्री के कालिख धुलती है </span></span></div></div></div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';"><span class="Apple-style-span">पा कर के तेरा सरस स्पर्श ,मेरी पंखुरियां खुलती है </span></span></div></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';"><span class="Apple-style-span">अंगडाई ले कर उठता है , चिर निद्रा में सोया संसार </span></span></div></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';"><span class="Apple-style-span">तेरी बूंदों का अमृत रस, करता उसमे जीवन संचार </span></span></div></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';"><span class="Apple-style-span">रात्रि </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 29px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';"><span class="Apple-style-span">की</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';"><span class="Apple-style-span"> भटकी नौका को , सागर तट से मिलवाती हो </span></span></div></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';"><span class="Apple-style-span">हर रात प्रतीक्षा करता हूँ , तुम सुबह ओस बन आती हो </span></span></div></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br />
</span> </span></div></div></div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';"><span class="Apple-style-span">दिन मुझे आमंत्रित करता है , कलरव् से कोलाहल से </span></span></div></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';"><span class="Apple-style-span">छूती मुझको तमहर किरणे , छन कर आती तेरे आँचल से ,</span></span></div></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';"><span class="Apple-style-span">जीवन गाथा का खल नायक , वो दिनकर मुझे जगाता है </span></span></div></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';"><span class="Apple-style-span">पर </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 29px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';"><span class="Apple-style-span">उसे </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';"><span class="Apple-style-span">छुपा में देता हूँ , ढक कर पलकों के बादल से </span></span></span></span></div></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';"><span class="Apple-style-span">फिर तुम आ कर ओ निशिगंधा , मिटटी की महक बढाती हो </span></span></div></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';"><span class="Apple-style-span">हर रात प्रतीक्षा करता हूँ , तुम सुबह ओस बन आती हो </span></span></div></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br />
</span> </span></div></div></div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';"><span class="Apple-style-span">मंदिर से उठती शंख ध्वनी , मस्जिद से उठती एक अजान </span></span></div></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';"><span class="Apple-style-span">मुझे तोड़ने को बढ़ते , दोनों के अनुयायी महान</span></span></div></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';"><span class="Apple-style-span">गुंजन कर आता भ्रमर पुंज ,लेने मुझ से मेरा पराग </span></span></div></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';"><span class="Apple-style-span">प्रेमी ले जाते तोड़ मुझे , फिर गाते अपना प्रेम राग </span></span></div></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';"><span class="Apple-style-span">चाहे जो अंतिम यात्रा हो , तुम धो कर के मुझे सजाती हो </span></span></div></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';"><span class="Apple-style-span">हर रात प्रतीक्षा करता हूँ ,तुम सुबह ओस बन आती हो </span></span></div></div></div></div><div></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br />
</span> </span></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS'; line-height: 29px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">बहती थी बन के जल धरा , तुम इस धरती के आंगन में </span></span></div></div></div></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 29px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';"><span class="Apple-style-span">में सुखी कंटक झाड़ी था ,जीवन रूपी इस उपवन में </span></span></div></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';"><span class="Apple-style-span">देखा जब तुमने मुझको , नव जीवन का प्रसार हुआ </span></span></div></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';"><span class="Apple-style-span">उस प्राण दात्री शक्ति से , इस पागल मन को प्यार हुआ </span></span></div></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';"><span class="Apple-style-span">पर तेरा मेरा मेल कहाँ ,तेरे चाहत वो बादल था </span></span></div></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';"><span class="Apple-style-span">वो रहने वाला नभतल का , मेरा घर तो ये धरातल था </span></span></div></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';"><span class="Apple-style-span">देखा मैंने बस दूर खड़े , तुम कैसे वाष्पीकृत थी हुई </span></span></div></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';"><span class="Apple-style-span">पाली तुमने अपनी चाहत , बादल से एकीकृत थी हुई </span></span></div></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';"><span class="Apple-style-span">पर रखने को तुम दिल मेरा , चुपके से झलक दिखाती हो ,</span></span></div></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';"><span class="Apple-style-span">हर रात प्रतीक्षा करता हूँ ,तुम सुबह ओस बन आती हो </span></span></div></div></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS';"><br />
</span></div></div></div></div></span></div>Pic Credit : <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10971383@N02/2389643522/">PJR 74</a><div class="blogger-post-footer">prashant</div>Prashant Singhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10079032946958487411noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9276397.post-84432453656686460662010-03-04T05:14:00.000-08:002010-03-04T05:14:40.547-08:00On Calculative People<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbRUvEBTAbGvwxlmkQhxl3N3sqOwzLOgPmiS-VM2xogoqTU9CemR1kE4LaYq8UoxxXoU0amjgL4a53GOrHryFZpXOWKq_4I1xu_e3ZzUXydqx4EaVrnrI5JsFUkIgPgp9CFWI9/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="184" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbRUvEBTAbGvwxlmkQhxl3N3sqOwzLOgPmiS-VM2xogoqTU9CemR1kE4LaYq8UoxxXoU0amjgL4a53GOrHryFZpXOWKq_4I1xu_e3ZzUXydqx4EaVrnrI5JsFUkIgPgp9CFWI9/" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<blockquote><i>"You know what’s wrong with you, Miss Whoever-you-are? You’re chicken, you’ve got no guts. You’re afraid to stick out your chin and say, “Okay, life’s a fact, people do fall in love, people do belong to each other, because that’s the only chance anybody’s got for real happiness.” You call yourself a free spirit, a “wild thing,” and you’re terrified somebody’s gonna stick you in a cage. Well baby, you’re already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it’s not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somali-land. It’s wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself. ” </i></blockquote><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truman_Capote">Truman Capote</a> in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakfast_at_Tiffany's_(novella)">Breakfast At Tiffany's </a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">There are many side effects of being good at penmanship but one of the most taxing of them is the constant stream of request you receive from friends and family to help them with their docs. I can't count how many speeches ,CVs ,Cover letters,SOP,party invitations, Resignation Letter and farewell speech I have ghost written . In my college days I used to be a busy man writing Valentine cards and love notes during V Day and Friendship Days. I used to enjoy it initially, It got somewhat mechanical later on but i keep on complying with requests as my schedule and energy allowed. However I was under the impression that I have seen all sort of request . So I was pleasantly surprised when I received an unusual request from an ex colleague of mine .She pinged me couple of month back.We weren't in touch for long time .We used to work together long back , when I was fresh out of college. I had a vague recollection of her.A sweet little non descriptive girl of fair skin tone . somewhat shy but ambitious and hardworking. She had borrowed my copy of Pickwick Paper and returned it only when i explicitly asked for it (twice) while leaving job. She had pinged me because she wanted me to help her with filling up registration form on matrimonial website. This was new to me . So I agreed to help her in exchange of a weekend breakfast at Kaffia . so we meet at appointed hour , after 10-20 minute of catching up and remembering the good time at out first jobs . we got down to business . that's when I realized that I was in for some rude shock.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Deal was that I will provide the appropriate words, some well written broad theme for write up , some quotes and She will fill in the details.She pulled out her notepad and we started with writing brief indicative words to highlight desired personality traits for potential partner. she explained that she is a shy, reclusive , un reasonable at times , moody ,rude with a me first attitude (only child syndrome at work here) so She wants some one who is socially charming , not very assertive ,who pamper her and don't think too much of her action .to quote her verbatim "<i>you know na ..husband material ..not an intellectual type.just put it in such words that it doesn't come across like a pappu,rest I will handle</i>" . She had done her research right , she said that she want some one who is professionally accomplished but not aggressive . To my great surprise she said (and i am quoting her verbatim)"<i>Guys from infy and programmer type because they are "manageable" MBA type are not Manageable</i>". (Holy God!!) .</div><div><br />
</div><div>In short she was looking for someone who can put up with her abuse , Human equivalent of a doormat. while I appreciated her honesty and clarity of thought but I was amused to see her line of thinking .I looked at her, wide eyed. </div><div><br />
</div><div>"<i>What ? Why you are looking at me like that ?</i>" She said</div><div><br />
</div><div>"<i>Well Nothing .. nothing just a bit surprised to hear your thought I guess </i>" I said </div><div><br />
</div><div>"<i>You think I am acting mean , scheming and calculative don't you ?</i> " she asked with a total calmness</div><div><br />
</div><div>"<i>Yes ..In a way</i>" I said as politely as possible.</div><div><br />
</div><div>"<i>I guess I am , All my friends say i am difficult person and I don't have many friends.I know myself, I am spoiled by my parents I want same from my partner.its too late for me to change and I think I am not asking for too much I can find someone</i>". She said ..nonstop seemingly talking to justify herself to herself.</div><div><br />
</div><div>"<i>Ya you can always find a sucker</i>" I said attacking her on personal front .I shouldn't .</div><div><br />
</div><div>"<i>Sucker ?? You call it sucker ? I think its compatibility . I will be compatible with a person like that</i> " She said.</div><div><br />
</div><div>"<i>Yeah,Like a crack head is compatible with drugs. That's not compatibility.its a type of hopeless dependence,an addiction,and trust me it will only get worse as year roll on</i>" I said </div><div><br />
</div><div>"<i>see you can deny right now ..if you feel like its beneath your dignity</i> " She said ,clipping me off in the middle of sentence . </div><div><br />
</div><div>I didn't deny , maybe because it would have been very awkward , may be because of some social rule of politeness drilled in to my head or may be because something in me told me that She don't believe it .she is just being "practical" .</div><div><br />
</div><div>"<i> Have you wondered how your spouse will feel about it ? if he got to know why you choose to marry him </i>? " I enquired </div><div> </div><div>"<i>He will never know .Actually That's why I asked you to help, I can't talk all this to my immediate social circle , we hardly talk na so you are just like stranger</i> " She said with a apologetic smile . I was fucked in day light on breakfast table .</div><div><br />
</div><div>"<i>I feel like a pen whore hired in exchange for a breakfast</i>" I said sarcastically ( It Cost 150 INR in case you are interested).</div><div><br />
</div><div>I wasn't very keen to help her now . I was feeling like a fellow conspirator , helping her to set a trap of word to lure someone . but romantic in me somewhere believe that she was just overwhelmed by the social pressure and anxiety associated with wedding so against my better judgment I tried to explain implication of her action . </div><div><br />
</div><div>"<i>You are not understanding the long term effect of your choice here</i> " I said, in a big brother tone " <i>from your way of speaking it looks like that you won't be respecting this person very much . you are starting the process with a compromise . is it a good idea ? seriously ? why would you like to spend your life with someone you don't respect and who don't inspire you .from what little I remember of our time together you used to be very inspired by our MD, he was your role model. he was not at all like that</i>" I guess I was trying to reproach her . </div><div><br />
</div><div>"<i>You don't understand how things are . I read your blog you are a romantic . I am not . Life run like that only .no one is perfect .</i>"she said with firm conviction.</div><div> </div><div>"<i>Well if your are OK with imperfect Life than you are living one right now ..why you want to drag someone into it </i>" I was agitated. </div><div><br />
</div><div>"<i>See if you don't wanna help me ,say so. I don't want a lecture</i>" She was visibly upset and uncomfortable.</div><div><br />
</div><div>"<i>All right. I will</i> " I said and for next 20 minute or so helped her in drafting some content . it was mechanical ,a formality because I was stuck there .She knew it too. We bid adieu after that . I doubt I will see her again any time soon. I am sure that I am not getting invited to her wedding .I didn't finished the breakfast too . </div><div><br />
</div><div><div>I decided to take a walk home . during that 5 Km walk from Kafia to my place I was thinking about her . I realized that Her flaw was that she was naive enough to admit her ulterior motives wasn't verbose enough to sugarcoat it . but fundamentally her line of thinking was not very different from many folks I encountered in life .some of them were very close to my heart . </div><div><br />
</div><div><div>Strangely I thought of my fave romantic movie "serendipity ". I remembered that about a year and half back a friend had asked me that "<i>Why i like the movie so much ? how its different from any other nicely done love story</i>" . I had no convincing answer to him at that time . But today I have . In that movie protagonist Jonathan Trager calls off his wedding even when he know that he won't be getting his soul mate . same was the case with female lead . they both realised that they don't love the person they are going to marry .so they act honest to other person and call things off . eventually find each other in a serendipitous way . they were not calculative. They were true to them self . That's what I like about the movie .I was happy that my gut reaction in cafe was in line with my inner standard of morality . </div><div><br />
</div><div>I know Life is not a movie. I know that serendipity is a very uncertain approach to life . but for now I choose it over being calculative.for my Ex colleague , I hope good sense prevail to her and she change her prespective . I have one last thing to say to girls (and boys) like her and its <u>based on my personal experience </u>" <i><b>Every human being have a breaking point , everyone develop a spine, a backbone over a course of time and when HE/She will develop that your calculation will fail you. Make your choices carefully</b></i><b>"</b></div></div></div><br />
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</div><div class="blogger-post-footer">prashant</div>Prashant Singhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10079032946958487411noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9276397.post-81302209002636257592010-02-14T08:59:00.000-08:002010-02-14T08:59:13.127-08:00Randall MunroeAs most of my friends know that I am a HUGE fan of <a href="http://www.xkcd.com/">XKCD</a> comics . I can identify with many of the situation dipicted in it . Its book marked on my Nokia E63 browser so that I can kickstart my day with a dose of Its special Geeky humor. But much as i love the comic I never really goggled for the man behind it . so today evening with nothing to do and with no date for Valentine Day ( Life is a bitch !!!) I started reading XKCD archives and casually googled for the guy . So his name is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randall_Munroe">Randall Munroe</a> , an interesting guy indeed . I stumbled upon his talk at Googleplex . It s a funny discussion <b>for XKCD Fans</b> . you should watch it . video is embedded below .<br />
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this talk is spontaneous with some really light moment sprinkled throughout . I was surprise to see that even <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Knuth">Donald Knuth</a> , legendary computer scientist and aothor of most authentic book on algorithm is also an XKCD Fan . He was there at talk .Knuth was one aweinspiring figure for me in my college days . Knuth's book gave me a hard time in college. whenever I opened it I felt like shit . <b>I will read it</b> (<b> and understand it too </b>) one day <s>sooon</s> . Its a personal goal I had set for me long back.It was kinda good to see that Knuth had a sense of humor . So enjoy the video . and if you are uninitiated in XKCD than here are few of my fave scripts from it. <a href="http://seekler.com/lists/Best+xkcd+Comics">Best of XKCD</a> . Enjoy !!<br />
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<div style="text-align: left;">After <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel">Peter Thiel</a> , <a href="http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/">Aaron Swartz</a> , <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kara_Swisher">Kara Swisher</a> , <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Parker">Sean Parker</a> ,<a href="http://cbc.ucsd.edu/ramabio.html">V.S.Ramachandran</a>, and <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Deresiewicz">William Deresiewicz</a> ,<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"> Randall Munroe is also on my list of people to meet whenever i visit US.Amen!! </span></span></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">prashant</div>Prashant Singhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10079032946958487411noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9276397.post-73094073693291383022010-01-25T05:52:00.000-08:002010-01-25T06:21:24.987-08:00निशब्द<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1q3RaerpUCJ7ejdHX4BImBDC3wAwbQgh_dK7G1qrtYhsuD6Fry83N1UeGFEUNpsksbYjS-KDEddj-YxH9e0A_sTkfK8J-_w_qzds8Qky_NCM7bqMP2KozKSRFqhNsOmMR_hNE/s1600-h/NISHABD.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1q3RaerpUCJ7ejdHX4BImBDC3wAwbQgh_dK7G1qrtYhsuD6Fry83N1UeGFEUNpsksbYjS-KDEddj-YxH9e0A_sTkfK8J-_w_qzds8Qky_NCM7bqMP2KozKSRFqhNsOmMR_hNE/s320/NISHABD.jpg" width="212" /></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-style: normal;">देखा था उसको बचपन में , पाठशाला के आँगन में</span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">वो भैया के संग आती थी , छुप छुप के मिटटी खाती थी.</span></span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">काजल से सनी आँखे मोटि, वो लाल रिबन और दो चोटी</span></span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">मेरे मन को बड़ी भाति थी ,जब बात करो तुतलाती थी,</span></span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">सोची ना कभी कोई बात ओछी, सिर्फ एक बार उसकी नाक पोछी</span></span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">में शंकित ,मोहित , स्तब्ध रहा , और प्रेम मेरा निशब्द रहा</span></span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></span> <span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">कुछ वर्ष गए ,वो फिर से मिली , लगती थी कुछ बदली बदली</span></span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">वो संस्कृत मुझे पढ़ाती थी , खुद को मैडम कहलाती थी .</span></span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">में जब उससे चांटा खता था , तो अगले दिन ना नहाता था</span></span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">मेने संस्कृत में टॉप किया ,किस्मत ने प्लान फ्लॉप किया</span></span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">वो जॉब छोड़ कर चली गयी , मेरी महनत यूँ छली गयी</span></span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">में शंकित ,मोहित , स्त्ब्थ रहा , और प्रेम मेरा निशब्द रहा</span></span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></span> <span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">कुछ वर्ष गए , हम किशोर हुए ..आस पास वालों से बोर हुए</span></span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">हम थे योवन की चोखट पे , जब देखा उससे चित्र पट पे</span></span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">वो बेल सद्रश्य बल खाती थी , नायक से चिपटी जाती थी</span></span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">बारिश में गाना गति थी , ना पूछो क्या क्या कर जाती थी</span></span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">मेने नायक को कॉपी किया ,पर बन ना सका उसका पिया</span></span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">में शंकित ,मोहित , स्तब्ध रहा , और प्रेम मेरा निशब्द रहा .</span></span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></span> <span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">कालेजे आया हम युवा हुए , लगता था जैसे खुदा हुए</span></span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">हमारे दिल में एक सपना था , हमने दुनिया को बदलना था</span></span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">हम तडित मेघ सुनामी थे , बदनाम बहुत पर नामी थे</span></span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">हम थे बड़े क्रांति कारी , वो आयी बनके विपदा भारी</span></span><br />
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</span></span> <span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">आँखे उसकी नूरानी थी ,वो पापा की गुडिया रानी थी .</span></span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">कॉलेज में जब वो आती थे , शर्माती थी सकुचाती थी ,</span></span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">किसी से भी नहीं बतियाती थी , और मुझे देख मुड जाती थी .</span></span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">था उसमे ऐसा आकर्षण , जैसे के दिन की पहली किरण</span></span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">में प्रिंसिपल से लड़ जाता था , पर उससे देख हकलाता था </span></span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">में शंकित ,मोहित , स्तब्ध रहा , और प्रेम मेरा निशब्द रहा .</span></span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></span> <span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">फिर दिन बीते में बड़ा हुआ , आपने पेरो पे खड़ा हुआ</span></span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">देखी जीवन की धुप छांव , फिर आयी वो चंचला दबे पाँव.</span></span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">अब मिली मुझे वो , मत पूछो कहाँ , में उसे पा नहीं सकता जहाँ</span></span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">अब मैंने जब उसको देखा , तो देखी एक लक्ष्मण रेखा</span></span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">है किसी और के वो संग खड़ी , बातें करती है बड़ी बड़ी</span></span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">जीवन का अर्थ समझाती है , पर देख तिमिर डर जाती है</span></span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">मेने ना कभी इज़हार किया , उसने ने ना कभी इंकार किया</span></span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">में शंकित ,मोहित , स्तब्ध रहा , और प्रेम मेरा निशब्द रहा .</span></span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></span> <span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">अब दिन ढलता है कार्यालय में , और रात कटे मदिरालय में</span></span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">अब इनकम टैक्स में भरता हूँ , प्रति वर्ष तीस प्रतिशत मरता हूँ</span></span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">एक दिन केश राशी ,झड जायेगी और तोंद बहार आ जायेगी</span></span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">एक छवि मुझे सतायेगी , रातों में मुझे जगाएगी</span></span><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">क्यों शंकित ,मोहित , स्तब्ध रहा , क्यों प्रेम मेरा निशब्द रहा .</span></span><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">This is something I wrote this weekend . a poem partially inspired by real life . It document my search for perfection . I hope you like it .</span><br />
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</div><div class="blogger-post-footer">prashant</div>Prashant Singhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10079032946958487411noreply@blogger.com39tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9276397.post-35388868365324574012010-01-18T12:00:00.000-08:002010-01-18T12:00:13.515-08:00Year 2009 In Books<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0xHjyJnGGE85Fp2TGU0l2Ffo5tSUzPO9gmmtnSnh4TFokGbQLiHkvPeQoSmHx8Pn6AMe3YJVDrFgkL0fcn_FeZr2rkkSpHHhtU08OarxeKI2H7YoAEwvhXoWs3XGyq3BHRtB1/s1600-h/book+shelf2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0xHjyJnGGE85Fp2TGU0l2Ffo5tSUzPO9gmmtnSnh4TFokGbQLiHkvPeQoSmHx8Pn6AMe3YJVDrFgkL0fcn_FeZr2rkkSpHHhtU08OarxeKI2H7YoAEwvhXoWs3XGyq3BHRtB1/s320/book+shelf2.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Book Review and Travelogue are two things that I never did on Knowprashant . which is a bit strange as reading and travelling are my passion.so when two of my fave blogger <a href="http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/">Aaron Swartz</a> and P<a href="http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/">aul Buchheit</a> published their reading list for 2009(<a href="http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/books2009"> Link</a> <a href="http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2010/01/books-and-stuff-three-years-of-amazon.html">Link</a> ) I was very much delighted to read them . I spotted some good books there which i would have missed other wise . I will be ordering them in months to come.<br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;">One thing I liked about those posts was the sheer rawness of the list . There was just the name of book , link to amazon page with an occasional line or two thrown in stating blogger's opinion but by and large you have to do your own research and make your own judgement .which is a good thing cause Books are very subjective things . its subjective narration of something from author's point of view and its subjective interpretation of the same thing by lens of reader's perception. you and I might like the same book but how it effect you might be very different from how it shape me .<br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;">so I decided to compile a list of books i read in year 2009 with a few lines about them . i hope you find some good stuff here . (BTW here I would like to mention that there is a new website in India by name of <a href="http://www.flipkart.com/">Flipkart</a> most of these books are available there and at a good discount .I have ordered 5 books from their and I am very happy with their service .They are AMZ of india .Do check them out )<br />
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</div><ul><li style="text-align: justify;">1.<b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Anwar-El-Sadat-Identity-Autobiography/dp/0060137428">In Search of Identity</a></b> an Autobiography by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_El_Sadat">Anwar El Sadat</a> former president of Egypt . I first got to know about this book while reading Seven Habit of Highly Effective People Stephen Covey refereed to Mr.Sadat as a man who helped himself transform by sheer force of will. Book is good , straight forward and best part is when author talks about his time in prison . diplomatic shrewdness of Sadat is documented in brutal honesty when he talk about his experience of dealing with Soviet Russia and Swedge canal issue . I recommend it .<b>Score 6 /10 </b>.</li>
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</div><ul><li style="text-align: justify;">2 <a href="http://www.tom-holt.com/barking.htm"><b>Barking </b></a>by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Holt">Tom Holt</a> : A work of contemporary fiction where a submissive attorney from London suddenly finds himself amongst his school mates who transform him into Weer wolf , than he discover his wife is a vampire and Ex employer is a zombie. its funny and a bit gripping in the start but gets boring toward the end . good for in flight reading. S<b>core 4/10.</b></li>
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</b></div><ul><li style="text-align: justify;">3 <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation">Simulacra and Simulation</a></b> By <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Baudrillard">Jean Baudrillard</a> :Its one of the very few e books i read and trust me this book was scary like hell. its a deeply philosophical book about the nature of reality and how we in modern world are totally separated from an objective reference of real and living is a simulacrum . this book was inspiration behind Matrix movies . It was originally written in French so English translation is a little TOO verbose and hard to understand .Honestly I don't claim to understand it fully but whatever little i understood was enough to shake me . Recommended if you are in to philosophy <b>Score 8.5/10</b>.</li>
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</div><ul><li style="text-align: justify;">4 <a href="http://www.matrixjourney.com/"><b>Journey to the source : Dr. Pradheep Chhalliyil</b></a> . a Book about Matrix Trilogy and how vedic mythology and Upanishads have influenced it . a great read from Matrix Fan .A fascinating introduction to hidden symbolism in movie I enjoyed reading it .you might not find it that good . make sure you have watched trilogy 10 times before you open the book . you will find it un putdownable : <b>score 5/10.</b></li>
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</b></div><ul><li style="text-align: justify;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">5 <a href="http://timharford.com/logicoflife/">Logic of Life by Tim Harford </a>: A good book about an economist's view on how our hidden rationality dictates our day to day decision making .worth reading once . </span>Score : 6/10.</b></li>
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</b></div><ul><li style="text-align: justify;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">6 </span><a href="http://www.online-literature.com/cervantes/don_quixote/">Don Quixote</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Cervantes">Miguel de Cervantes</a> : A funny book about the adventure of a middle aged knight in search of adventure . I read it before heading out on journey to Himalayas this year. I am glad I did that . </span>Score 7/10 <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">. </span></b></li>
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</div><ul><li style="text-align: justify;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">7 </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobiography_of_a_Yogi">Autobiography of a Yogi</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> : By <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramahansa_Yogananda">Swami Paramhans Yogananda</a> : A fascinating account of life story of a hindu yogi.This book dispel the myth that our Hindu religion is all about faith without any scientific basis . With humor, wisdom, and heart, Yogananda relates the extraordinary events of his life. But those events serve as a mere instrument for conveying sublime truths-truths expressed in such clear language that everyone can grasp them. you will not be bored reading this book that in itself is a big achievement for a book dealing with the subject of spirituality , philosophy and religion . Recommended reading : <b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">A Big Thanks to </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://chitchatni.blogspot.com/">Mayukhini</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> for recommending it .</span>Score 8/10</b></span></b></li>
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</b></div><ul><li style="text-align: justify;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">8 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siddhartha_(novel)"><b>Siddhartha</b></a> By <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Hesse"><b>Hermann Hesse</b></a> :This was the book of year for me in more than one way . I have read it twice. all i can say is that after reading it I felt that I should have read it few years back I would have been a different person today . Drop me a line in comment if you want me to buy this book for you I Will be more than happy to do that .seriously .A Big Thanks to </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://chitchatni.blogspot.com/">Mayukhini</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> for recommending it </span>Score : 9.5/10<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></b></span></b></li>
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</div><ul><li style="text-align: justify;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">9 <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mans-Eternal-Quest-Collected-Essays/dp/0876122322"><b>Man's Eternal Quest</b> :</a> by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramahansa_Yogananda"><b>Swami Paramhans Yogananda</b></a><b> </b>. A collection of essays / talks given by Swami Yogananda about Life ,Truth , search of God ,Philosophy , Non Dualism , Joy etc. Good read if you are into spirituality ans stuff . I read it as i was fascinated by the author after reading his auto biography.</span></b></span></b></li>
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</div><ul><li style="text-align: justify;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">10.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game:_Penetrating_the_Secret_Society_of_Pickup_Artists">The Gam</a>e by </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Strauss">Neil Strauss</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">: This is an outstanding book . on the face of it its just a autobiographical account of authors experience with the underground community of pickup artists . but under the surface this book teach every MAN an essential lesson of Self Worth and confidence . This is a very controversial book and some women might be (rightly) offended by the content of this book .Author's description of Women's behavior is less then flattering but as author says in the book that at the end its a story of a guy who rewire his DNA and transform in to something of a girl magnet .This book teaches that external validation NEVER leads to self confidence it only creates dependency .its a Bestseller in all markets and every character in the book has made a booming business of workshops and seminar on the art of pickup .I can bet there will be a movie on this book very soon . Trust me its INR 600 well spent . Score :9/10</span></b></span></b></li>
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</div><ul><li style="text-align: justify;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">11 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker's_Guide_to_the_Galaxy"><b>Hitch hiker's Guide to Galaxy</b></a><b> </b>Part 1,2,3,4,5 : by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams">Douglas Adams</a> :: I wanted to read this series for a long time but somehow never got around doing that so when I saw the 5 book set on 60% discount I had no choice but to buy it . Its a funny book . you can't help smiling on authors way of describing events . I am literally in love with a character named Marvin, a paranoid robot. every paragraph of Marvin was a laughing riots . One thing you realize while reading these books is that how arrogant we as a species are about our place in universe .Universe is so mindbogglingly big . we are just another species here . this book looks at our life , tradition, ritual from the view point of interstellar traveller . i liked the section where a tribe adopts modern management methods to evolve . this book was like no other book i read before .Light reading, a lot of fun and new perspective . Read all 5 of them its worth it . </span>Score 8/10<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></b></span></b></li>
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</div><ul><li style="text-align: justify;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">12 </span>J<a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1263840174341">onathan Livingstone Seagull</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Livingston_Seagull"> </a>: By <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Bach"><b>Richard Bach</b></a> It was on my reading list for a long long time .I was pleasantly surprised to receive it as a birthday present . A good allegorical story about the importance of following your heart's dream and doing what you believe in . It inspired me . </span>Score 5/10<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">.</span></b></span></b></li>
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</div><ul><li style="text-align: justify;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">13 </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Language_Instinct">The Language Instinct </a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Pinker">Steven Pinker</a> : A good book if you are in to how we learn , epistemology and stuff , this deal with the debate about Language and how each one of us is born with a capacity /instinct for it . its not something we learn from external world . good stuff . </span>Score 5/10<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> .</span></b></span></b></li>
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</div><ul><li style="text-align: justify;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">14 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice's_Adventures_in_Wonderland"><b>Alice In Wonderland</b></a><b> : </b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Carroll"><b>Lewis Karol:</b></a> Need i say something about this beautiful work ? Its timeless , simple and insightful . I am not good enough to rate or review it . </span></b></span></b></li>
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</div><ul><li style="text-align: justify;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">15 </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dot-bomb-Days-Nights-Internet-Goliath/dp/0316507490">dot bomb</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> : <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kuo_(author)"><b>David Kuo</b></a> a typical story of rise and fall of a start up in dot com bubble of 90s .I still don't know why i spent 100 INR on this book . only lesson i learned is that never buy book if its available on sale with drastic discount . score 2/10</span></b></span></b></li>
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</div><ul><li style="text-align: justify;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">16 </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_(book)">The Secret</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> : <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhonda_Byrne"><b>Rhonda Byrne</b></a> : A VERY good book if you don't take the teachings too literally and make it an excuse for inertia and inaction. Law of attraction works . I have felt it . but Law of attraction is no excuse for inactivity you will still have to do the hard work . no silver bullet here in that sense . score 6/10 </span></b></span></b></li>
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</div><ul><li style="text-align: justify;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">17 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Well-Beloved"><b>The Well Beloved</b></a> : </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hardy">Thomas Hardy</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> : This book was a gift and a very good gift .I never thanked the person so here is a formal "Thank You" . This book marks my return to reading of classics after a gap of few years .Its a story of an artist who spend his life in search of perfect lover and Finlay dies . I felt bad to read the climax. I sometime worry that the book might be prophecy .because the person who gifted this to me believe in prophecy and fate . S</span>core 7/10<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></b></span></b></li>
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</div><ul><li style="text-align: justify;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">18 <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Art-Seduction-Robert-Greene/dp/0142001198"><b>The 38 Laws of Persuasion : Robert Green</b></a> :: Still reading ,good so far very interesting. </span></b></span></b></li>
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</div><ul><li style="text-align: justify;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">19 </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Choice-Eliyahu-M-Goldratt/dp/0884271897/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_5">The Choice</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> By <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Eliyahu-M.-Goldratt/e/B000APWH4C/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1">Eli Goldratt</a> Disclaimer: I love author's way of thinking and often try to mimic his approach in my day to day life ,with certain degree of success i guess . if you want to buy this book i recommend please read The Goal by same author first .</span>Score 8/10</b></span></b></li>
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</b></div><ul><li style="text-align: justify;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">20<b> </b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamayani"><b>Kamayani</b></a> : </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaishankar_Prasad">Jai Shankar Prasad </a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">: One of the best Hindi Epic ever written . its a writing about creation and elements of creation and human emotions. Jaishankar Prasad's description of women is nearest to what i am seeking in a partner ( asking for too much Huh ??) </span>Score :8/10. </b></span></b></li>
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</b></div><ul><li style="text-align: justify;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">21<b> </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sri-Ramakrishna-Prophet-New-Age/dp/1557782083"><b>Sri Ramakrishna: A Prophet for the New Age </b></a>by </span>Richard SchiffMan <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">( currently reading) borrowed this from a freind I have no intention of returing it . Tood good a book . </span></b></span></b></li>
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</div><ul><li style="text-align: justify;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">22 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thus_Spoke_Zarathustra"><b>Thus Spoke Zarthushtra</b></a><b> : <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche">Friedrich Nietzsche</a></b> : To deep and philosophical .I was not in a good frame of mind when I read it so i am not forming any opinion about it . will re read it . keep watching this space.</span></b></span></b></li>
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</div><ul><li style="text-align: justify;">23 <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man,_The_Unknown">Man The unknown</a></b> : By <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexis_Carrel">Alexis Carrel</a> bought but couldn't finish . still half read . </li>
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</div><ul><li style="text-align: justify;">24 <b><a href="http://www.chetanbhagat.com/books/2_states/">2 States</a> : <a href="http://www.chetanbhagat.com/index.php">Chetan Bhagat</a> </b>:A very Light hearted read about authors semi autobiographical account of convincing his parents for a cross cultural wedding .I like the simplicity of chetan's writing and his sense of humor . Score 5/10 </li>
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</div><ul><li style="text-align: justify;">25 <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight_(novel)">Twilight</a></b> : All right I admit I bought it shuffled through first 50 pages or so . couldn't understand what the hell was so special about it . apart from the fact that there is a boy who love to drink women's blood (<i>Its usually other way round in real life</i> ) . Luckily I had to go for a Birthday party in neighbourhood so i got this shit gift wrapped and gave it to a school going girl . Needless to say it was her fave gift this year . Weird World !! </li>
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</div><ul><li style="text-align: justify;">26 <b><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1263840174459">Madhushala</a></b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madhushala"> </a>: re read it . Need i say something about it ? </li>
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</div><ul><li style="text-align: justify;">27 <b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ignore-Everybody-Other-Keys-Creativity/dp/159184259X">Ignore Everybody </a>:BY <a href="http://gapingvoid.com/">Hugh Macleod</a> </b> This book is based on the hugely popular essay "<a href="http://gapingvoid.com/2004/07/25/how-to-be-creative/">How to be creative </a>" by Hugh MacLoad . I have read this essay for more than 50times online I still bought this book only for the purpose of gifting it to a friend. but ended up reading it one more time in print :) .You can read the transcript free online . Score 9/10.</li>
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</div><ul><li style="text-align: justify;">28 <b><a href="http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Kill-Bill-Volume-1-&-2.html">Kill Bill Screenplay </a></b>: read it online .good if you like the movie. Score 5/10.</li>
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</div><ul><li style="text-align: justify;"> 29 <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Walden-Disobedience-Penguin-American-Library/dp/0140390448"><b>Walden and Civil Disobedience</b> </a>by <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_David_Thoreau">Henry David Thoreau</a></b> :This was the book which inspired me to go to Himalaya . My friend <b><a href="http://nileshtrivedi.in/">Nilesh Trivedi</a></b> suggested this to me . Good stuff something which make you see the rampant absurdity of life around us and make you think about your priority in life .Score 7/10.</li>
</ul><div><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/sunnyflag/3002207457/sizes/l/">pic</a> credit <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/sunnyflag/">sunnyflag </a></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">prashant</div>Prashant Singhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10079032946958487411noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9276397.post-11246571154272388772010-01-07T23:22:00.000-08:002010-01-08T00:58:30.544-08:00Transformations<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCYuH9u3wk7-jARm0psYDNZb_mhc5EohbIhX1y6IQWmmIf8FeXs7GMxok-G2caHxJRIFwjjfUyqoEy9pZ_7538gZ1pAdigt_-x2Qf88OBzBKwWJuKlvSdMH_M4O97XFqFrOvhk/s1600-h/Transformations.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCYuH9u3wk7-jARm0psYDNZb_mhc5EohbIhX1y6IQWmmIf8FeXs7GMxok-G2caHxJRIFwjjfUyqoEy9pZ_7538gZ1pAdigt_-x2Qf88OBzBKwWJuKlvSdMH_M4O97XFqFrOvhk/s320/Transformations.jpg" width="246" /></a><br />
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<blockquote>For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or so, nothing continued to happen<br />
</blockquote><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams">Douglas Adams</a> In <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker's_Guide_to_the_Galaxy">Hitch Hikers Guide To Galaxy </a><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Something big has happened in protagonist’s life. He has been beaten by Mafia ,Loan shark of his village has auctioned his farm, His girlfriend has ditched him ,his father has been killed by goons, his mother died of cancer, his wife was gang raped by relatives or His sister has been burned by her inlaws. Details of events are inconsequential what matters is that its A turning point in his life .His whole world, his perception of reality, his value system ,is undergoing a tectonic shift . He is visibly shaken but he takes it very bravely. And Why not ? After all he is our HERO and this fact alone guarantee his survival .<br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">An upbeat music start playing in background. Our protagonist start running . a montage of images from his past life start flashing on the screen . A globe start revolving , hands of an old Victorian wall clock start ticking , pages from calendar start moving in a rapid succession . Covering a journey of few years in few celluloid seconds. By the time music reaches to crescendo Our protagonist is transformed . If he was a kid few min back He truns in to a MAN (a well established policeman, industrialist or gangster depending on the demand of script . )<br />
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His past avatar is not dead we are told. Its buried somewhere deep inside him . He is living in a self imposed denial .He tries his best to disconnect himself from past but invariably his past catches up with him toward the end of the movie . Again depending on the demand of script A lot of drama or action follows .protagonist either settle some long overdue score or reconcile with others character and in Very few rare instances manage to get himself killed .But invariably He ALWAYS manage to prove his point .Family and police arrive and we start waiting for end credit .Movie is over .<br />
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When it comes to transformation only Vampire , Unicorn and Werewolf can match our Bollywood Heroes and thanks to the staple diet of Bollywood movies most of us get in our formative years .our idea of transformation is something like what I described above. But I have come to believe that THIS conception of transformation is precisely the reason why we rarely get to see a FUNDAMENTAL transformation in people around us. In majority of the cases people don’t change . Not in any basic ,tectonic way as shown in movies . Life progress in a linear fashion till the day we die . Future , in most of cases is Past continuous tense . They want to change but they can’t .<br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b>Why ? </b><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Most of us don’t acknowledge the effect movies have on collective psyche. We despise the idea that we can be manipulated in to thinking something by a movie. Some of us can’t, but most of us can be manipulated and are being manipulated. So if you are one of those pseudo intellectual who love to fancy himself as someone who is in control of his/her life and you are beyond the scope of being manipulated (or even influenced) by anything. Then do me a favor. Move on .there is nothing here for you . I won’t even attempt to explain anything to you. Rest of you..read on <br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The modus operandi of transformation shown in movies is not wrong .the problem is that in order to make it work we need to comply with it underlying premises .which is very hard .sometime because these premises are not obvious and some time because its not humanly possible for us to follow them. <br />
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First premise is that protagonist knows that THIS is the turning point .He can see everything as black and white .There is no confusion about the intent and character of people around him . Good and bad stand apart from each other. Unfortunately Real life don’t work that way. We are never sure of the intentionality of evil . We always tend to think of evil act of our peers as some sort of circumstantial breach of trust .After all, these are the very people who were good to us in another place and time . add to this the prevalent popular wisdom of not being judgmental which is pushing our whole generation into the realm of quasi nihilism. Fact is that sometime you need to decide ,some time you Need to be judgmental. Funny thing is that almost each one of us is passing judgment all the time but since its not fashionable we just don’t stand for it .We don’t want to pay the price for it . ergo only time we act on our judgment is when we do some thing cunning or calculative . Transformation never happens out of calculation . That’s not the path of protagonist that’s a shortcut to mediocrity .<br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Second premise which goes unexamined (or underestimated ) is of effect of time . Time can heal anything . its true .time not only heal but it also makes us stale ,we loose our steam. Perhaps that’s the reason our new year resolution don’t last . Most of us tend to forget very easily and most of us love the cozy conformity of routine. While our heroes manage to keep the fire burning for a long time but we give up somewhere in between . Nothing brings down the moral of a soldier than fatigue .we often underestimate the need of perseverance in transformation. <br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Along with time, success also play a catalytic role in deciding whether we actually transform ourselves or not . Funny part is that most of the time we give up after the first brush of success in our quest .Its hardship which keep us going . As they say Good is often the biggest enemy of best . Sadly our first validation is also the first(potential) nail in coffin of our ambition. I think I felt it for the first time when I was in 12<sup>th</sup> standard I was amongst the top 3 of my class. Everyone was sure that I can crack engg entrance easily . I bought in to the story and appeared in exam and cleared it . My plan was to skip classes in first year and enroll in IIT JEE coaching but I was somewhat enamored by all the appreciation I was getting from family ,friends and relatives . Complacency creped in and against my better judgment I decided to settle for engineering course .I regret it till this day .<br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">But I might not be a worthy example. So I request you to test it your self . Go pick up biography of <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">ANY</b> revolutionary/Iconoclast you admire. I can bet that there will be a passage in the story where establishment presented a temptation of inclusion to him and He refused .That’s the reason their stories are being read today. Most of us get tired and give up to the first temptation of Inclusion . That’s the reason no one will read our biography (they might read our blog . I hope <span style="font-family: Wingdings;">J</span> ) . From Aristotle to OSHO and from Charles Darwin to Richard Dawkins this is the case .Real challenge of a transformation is not hardship of battle. it’s the complacency of initial success . <br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Last thing we don’t notice is that often times we derive our motivation from a desire to prove a point . its external and what make it worse is that often time it lies in humans .We want to prove something to our peers. But unlike the movies there will not be a reunion of all the character toward the end of our lives . We realize that no one actually gives a shit . The very people who caused the turmoil have became a distant and passive observer NOW. Busy in their lives. Circle of their lives are concentric to us but they don’t merge in spiral .Since as a hero we have to prove a point we see it clearly that it won’t be happening no matter what. Often time we give up our quest on realizing that. Of all the reason I mentioned above this is the best reason to give up . Life is too precious to waste it proving a point to someone who don’t care . <br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b>Epilogue : </b><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">It’s the time of year when we all make our NEW year resolutions. I haven’t made any resolution this time. But if you are making any resolution than I hope that this post be of some use to you. I wish you a Very Happy and Prosperous new year . Good Luck and Godspeed!!<br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">Pic Credit : <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/35301335@N07/3351088647/">YellowCakeMushroom</a><br />
</div><div class="blogger-post-footer">prashant</div>Prashant Singhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10079032946958487411noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9276397.post-59300498176539185992009-12-06T00:32:00.000-08:002009-12-18T06:42:44.118-08:00Nice Guy Syndrome<div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBWOvL6aTPLXB1iUTSKNynW0E9BTjm3yY12xma9b6_hFP28Oq3FNuiwvq8zuR7k-_nigFdo5qxtes5rx3Wvb31JiKjIO7LeGbvvjLjmwrcDUlHA3UMJ02l3rr0KhQZPZJrwzn-/s1600-h/0911lastwords.jpg"></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBM6JGh_eIuj-3JioikBxrmkeI3XYWR4avfI6KtdusZPD4D4OPSjLR9R7sSItIqAv2jRI1Kiwyk7chP9l_k8nG-zeCoi2a-e8aodUgAtKVOwhq0XI0XC1jCAAtg3VuBMq305OJ/s1600-h/wake-up-sid-ranbeer-kapoor.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 294px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBM6JGh_eIuj-3JioikBxrmkeI3XYWR4avfI6KtdusZPD4D4OPSjLR9R7sSItIqAv2jRI1Kiwyk7chP9l_k8nG-zeCoi2a-e8aodUgAtKVOwhq0XI0XC1jCAAtg3VuBMq305OJ/s320/wake-up-sid-ranbeer-kapoor.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5412040901361227810" /></a><br /><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />A woman has a close male friend.he is probably interested in her, which is why he hangs around so much. She sees him strictly as a friend. This always starts out with, you're a great guy, but I don't like you in that way. This is roughly the equivalent for the guy of going to a job interview and the company saying, You have a great resume, you have all the qualifications we are looking for, but we're not going to hire you. We will, however, use your resume as the basis for comparison for all other applicants. But, we're going to hire somebody who is far less qualified and is probably an alcoholic. And if he doesn't work out, we'll hire somebody else, but still not you. In fact, we will never hire you. But we will call you from time to time to complain about the person that we hired.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">DragonflyBlade21 at <a href="http://bash.org/?414593">BASH.org </a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Couple of days back a college time buddy of mine called me after a long time.His wife (who was also our classmate) has asked him to call me. They were based at USA and they had just returned from an All Indian get together where they had watched "Wake up Sid" on their host's home theater system. She said Ranveer Kapoor's character and mannerism reminded her of me . Needless to say I was Instantly inflated and asked "<i>Oh really ! Do I look like him </i>?" ." <i>No ! Dumbo , its not about looks its about mannerism</i> "She replied.(My Ex would have agreed with the dumbo part).</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Though I was kinda disappointed to know the finer points of her compliment, still It gave me a hope that something in me stand a chance to get a Hot Bong chick like Konkana Sen someday. for now It looks like I would have to settle for a lot less. Anyway after 30 Min of who-is-where-doing-what catching up .They enquired about the state of my romantic life (Ah! finally I found someone who gives a shit ). I said its OK, a bit like IRAQ after US attack, ravished but trying to resurrect and at times missing Saddam Hussien.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"<i>That's sad ..But you know something ?that's what happen to Nice guys ..Always..without fail</i>" She said . That was followed by a rare event when a woman said something which every man from Adam onward has been wondering .<i>"I don't know how girls think"</i> She said .</div><div style="text-align: justify;">For the record I don't know that either .And this post is not about neuro anatomical functioning of half of the world population . Its about the observation my friend made about nice guys. They are indeed unlucky with girls. She is not alone in thinking that. As it turns out this is a consistent observation across geographies.Many amongst us have tried to decipher it . It won't be an exaggeration If I say that It has acquired status of a pseudo science. so much so that New Scientist has an <a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19826614.100-bad-guys-really-do-get-the-most-girls.html?DCMP=ILC-hmts&nsref=news4_head_mg19826614.100">article</a> which quotes a research to argue that when it comes to dating their is a contradiction between stated preference of women and their Actual choice.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">They prefer to date so called bad guys. nice guys are often "just Friends" material who with a little bit of luck might hope to be "transition man" for their Female friends. nothing more than that . Academics call it "Nice Guy Syndrome" . I have seen it happening way too many times . I agree with the observation but often time I find the conclusions of these article to be incomplete. So here is two cents on this topic.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Nice Guys : </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBWOvL6aTPLXB1iUTSKNynW0E9BTjm3yY12xma9b6_hFP28Oq3FNuiwvq8zuR7k-_nigFdo5qxtes5rx3Wvb31JiKjIO7LeGbvvjLjmwrcDUlHA3UMJ02l3rr0KhQZPZJrwzn-/s320/0911lastwords.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5412748885540619666" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 193px; " /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lets deal with the easy part first.I might be disappointing a lot of my brothers by saying this but in majority (not all) of the cases these so called "Nice guys" are not Nice in true sense of word.their nice act don't originate from a genuine niceness from with in but their chivalry is driven by a desire to fit in,to validate them self. They are subconsciously dependent and insecure whiners at Best and shrewed long term strategist at worst.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I have seen a lot of such specimen in my life. the insecure types keep on doing things for female friends and in the back of the mind they keep on accumulating some sort of Karma points which they think they can redeem on judgement day. so when like a hidden cost in credit card contract ,when female discover the finer point of "service" they are often shocked and forfeit the payback .they back out. guy's investment becomes Non performing asset. At that point These guys join the Nice guy brigade. "<i>After all that I have done for her.......Bitch</i> " goes their statement after the first brush of reality. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There is a sadder version of story too . In few cases girls say YES because they are unable to say No .They don't want to hurt him . After all He is a Nice Guy and nobody want to hurt a nice guy.Add to this a motley crew of girl's gossip loving friend( HE is invariably a Friend to them too) who will say some thing like " <i>Now come on ..Look how cute He is and HE care for you too</i>" or "Decide fast or I will gona grab him " (Yea that's why he is still single) . This cute-caring logic is a pure bullshit .I care for Katrina Kaif and I am cute too (see above ) . I guess All I need now is bunch of her friends to lobby for me. wish me luck.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">My observation is that This kind of cute ness infected association are usually not long lasting .a little change of surrounding a new city ,a new job, a new school or new friends and puff....there goes the <s>clutter </s>romance. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Other kind of nice guys are the strategist . They are dangerous and should be avoided at all cost. Ever heard the campus rumor where a female broke up with Her long standing relationship and her BEST friend was there to "Support" her in difficult times ? Well the Truth is that in all probability This best friend is usually a big contributor to her difficult time . He is the self serving catalyst who fuel the petty difference /spats of couple. when these differences pile up They are always there to listen to them and agree with Her unconditionally.Their claim to fame is that They "understand her ". which is absurd ( come think of it.Can anyone ever understand her?? ).</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Trust me on this I know a case where a south Indian guy with zero knowledge of Hindi used to sit down and listen to the Hindi rants of a UP girl who couldn't speak basic English .Best part is that HE was able to "understand" . Love can over come any barrier it seems.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This is not to say there are not good guys around . There are and they also screw up the things too. Problem with genuinely nice guys is that they are ..Well Nice. They are always trying to reconcile their desires with their moral standards. Am I acting selfish ? Am I good enough ? is it right to feel this way ? . Yes you ARE Horny Buddha of our age .Now go do something to fix it.In their quest for a life of higher morals they start denial / justification of their feelings .This results in a person being more anxious around someone he is trying to cultivate a relationship with. they Mask it under some stupid "friend " stuff. They try to fool themselves.Thanks to temptation of proximity to their object of desire, by the time they realize the nature of their endeavour they become as manipulative and deceitful as the other guys discussed above. My heart goes for such folks . </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Its very hard to tell the difference. one possible indicator is guy's behavior out side of romantic context . How He deal with people he is not romantically inclined to . I am not saying that he should treat everyone in same way .There SHOULD be SOME deviation,some special allowance for partner. But too much of deviation and there is a problem.As they say in England Someone who is nice to you but rude to waiter is not a nice person . Other definitive indicator is Friction . a genuinely nice guy would give You a friction once in a while. The REAL Nice guy would stand up against you for principals. A subtle indicator is their approach . I have seen that a real nice guy would tell his feelings to come clean of guilt , to stop being two faced, not for the purpose of knowing your response. This is not to say that their guilt is girl's obligation or it make them a better candidate . No its not like that . Its just an intention vector. YOU still have to choose .He can still be the wrong guy for you but He will not be BAD guy for sure.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote>Good Guy screw ya! and Bad guy screw ya ! and Rest of them don't know how to screw ya</blockquote> </div><div style="text-align: center;">Samantha Jones in <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0159206/quotes">Sex and the City </a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Now lets talk about the BAD Guys .He is the "Lucky Bastards" down the street.The guy with ear ring and ponytail. Jerk ,bully,non committal. He drinks , smokes and do fast bikes. He had 5 girlfriend in college. and all were Hot chicks. sounds familiar ? Meet The Bad guy . Now who gave him this label? His Ex Girlfriends and Nice guys . I admit that most of BAD guys are BAD in True sense .But their "Achievement" are generally exaggerated . We are often very selective in our observation. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lets talk of statistics first . The assertion that they get more girls. well they get more girls because they try more .Do your math right . lets say I invest my energy in one girl at a time. so if I do not succeed, I fail 100%. My roommate, juggling four girls at any given time, fails only 25% whenever he is rejected. And even if both of us courts the same number of girls, he will have gone through his girls much faster than I. This alone gives him "more girls". plus when you are aiming for four girl its likely that you won't be emotionally invested in them . so it would be easy for you to move on . </div><div style="text-align: justify;">However there is a lot of baggage which comes with being a BAD guy . But thanks to their arrogance "bad boys" are just themselves without reservation, for good or bad. in that narrow sense the bad boys seem more honest.At times their arrogance gets them laid. but most of the time it also get them in trouble.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">So how come they end up getting girl.Well I don't claim that I know how it work with girls (who can ?) . My experience with them is fairly limited .I can count the number of girls I have dated on my left thumb and I can count the number of rejections I faced on remaining fingers of my left palm . But in spite of my limited exposure I can say that their is something weird about them and I am not talking of anatomy. I am talking about their whole approach toward the subject of relationship. like pseudo nice guys explained above , many girls ( not all) too fool/justify them self by self serving constructs .They are confused and indecisive .In fact some enjoy this a lot .and thanks to skewed gender ratio in educated young people they can easily afford to be that .Many of girls I know practically maintain a "buffer" of potential partners to choose from. They keep on doing things for her and she purposely pretend to be oblivious to the ulterior motives of the folks around her.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I guess some of the confusion and complication can be PARTIALLY attributed to our social structure.In spite of media propaganda about gender equality our society has yet to get rid of gender stereotype.We need to learn how to deal with an independent women.We assume and enforce the world view of female dependency. for instance I am 30 and still single cause I want to wait for the right sort of girl.But when it comes to my social acceptance my single hood is not a showstopper its only a minor nuisance. I doubt I could have afford to do that had I been a woman.I bet life would have been a hell and I would have well past my expiry date by now . By that logic dependability becomes a major factor for girls. Since social cost of a failed relationship is very high for women. and the power balance in relationship is inverted the moment they are committed. ergo they keep on delaying the decision and keep on enjoying the free lunch in the mean time. Eventually when they have to choose She can choose only one person so rest of the pack is bound to feel shortchanged and harbor bitterness.ergo Legend of a Bitch is born .</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Labeling people is wrong and putting them in boxes is BAD. As a human we are evolving all the time .In due course of time both men and women realize that there's a difference between being a genuinely good man and just being a Nice Guy. so Nearly every sane woman over a certain age learns that what she wants is a good man, not a bad boy or a nice guy. What give them a bad name is the things they do in between .</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">So this was my take on the whole thing .As an alleged victim of Nice guy syndrome I admit that don't know how to deal with it so I am leaving that part as an exercises to readers. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">prashant</div>Prashant Singhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10079032946958487411noreply@blogger.com32tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9276397.post-4948979329452357942009-11-21T17:08:00.000-08:002009-11-27T10:42:41.504-08:00The Sixth Sense<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/YrtANPtnhyg&hl=en_US&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/YrtANPtnhyg&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object><br /><p> This is one of the most exciting TED talk I have ever seen.</p><p>Update : here is an article debuking the greatness of talk .<a href="http://www.andyrutledge.com/blind-leading-the-blind.php"> Link </a> Its a very Good read. Lesson for me is that I should not get carried away with tech demoes .<br /></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">prashant</div>Prashant Singhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10079032946958487411noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9276397.post-65734918067526762042009-11-13T11:00:00.000-08:002009-11-26T11:09:16.160-08:00On Heroes,Humans and Role Models<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmMxNityw0j_AuYe0Nb1JFU2ZHA-kiwXdk6JtuEqkl3D_aQ1hYE53ifprKCscId-zrVZlkB1C2xGaCruhGi46Cq9kAgAS5nj4EKBrbHl3y_dL_oMd_k_ZMcmGhLEsParX1AMuq/s1600-h/thinker+mid+size.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmMxNityw0j_AuYe0Nb1JFU2ZHA-kiwXdk6JtuEqkl3D_aQ1hYE53ifprKCscId-zrVZlkB1C2xGaCruhGi46Cq9kAgAS5nj4EKBrbHl3y_dL_oMd_k_ZMcmGhLEsParX1AMuq/s320/thinker+mid+size.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5403665326287175794" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><blockquote>A locomotive is moving. Someone asks: "What moves it?" A peasant says the devil moves it. Another man says the locomotive moves because its wheels go round. A third asserts that the cause of its movement lies in the smoke which the wind carries away.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">The peasant is irrefutable. He has devised a complete explanation. To refute him someone would have to prove to him that there is no devil, or another peasant would have to explain to him that it is not the devil but a German, who moves the locomotive. Only then, as a result of the contradiction, will they see that they are both wrong. But the man who says that the movement of the wheels is the cause refutes himself, for having once begun to analyze he ought to go on and explain further why the wheels go round; and till he has reached the ultimate cause of the movement of the locomotive in the pressure of steam in the boiler, he has no right to stop in his search for the cause. The man who explains the movement of thelocomotive by the smoke that is carried back has noticed that the wheels do not supply an explanation and has taken the first sign that occurs to him and in his turn has offered that as an explanation.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">The only conception that can explain the movement of the locomotive is that of a force commensurate with the movement observed.<br /><br />The only conception that can explain the movement of the peoples is that of some force commensurate with the whole movement of the peoples.<br /><br />Yet to supply this conception various historians take forces of different kinds, all of which are incommensurate with the movement observed. Some see it as a force directly inherent in heroes, as the peasant sees the devil in the locomotive; others as a force resulting from several other forces, like the movement of the wheels; others again as an intellectual influence, like the smoke that is blown away.<br /><br /></div>So long as histories are written of separate individuals, whether Caesars, Alexanders, Luthers, or Voltaires, and not the histories of all, absolutely all those who take part in an event, it is quite impossible to describe the movement of humanity<br /><br /></blockquote><div style="text-align: center;">~ <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Tolstoy">Leo Tolstoy</a> In <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_and_Peace">War & Peace</a><br /></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Prologue:</span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">I have been on this planet for a little more than three decades now and I must admit that though I don't remember it in great detail now but I have good reason to believe that my experience during the first decade should have been the best .For ,after that I started indulging in a paranormal activity called Thinking. And That was a BIG mistake . Why ?? To answer that you need to know the nature of my indulgence . You see ,I have been trying to make sense of world and people around me and its taking longer than my initial estimate. There are many aspect of our existence which I don't understand. and whenever I try to go down the path of logic of what drives the thinking of my fellow humans I always come back empty handed .On every such attempt my faith in Darwin got reinforced.I am thoroughly convinced that We ARE descended from apes.<br /><br />One damaging side effect of this habit is that often times it put you at odds with your peers .Specially When you are trying to argue a view point by rule of logic . So very often I discovered that like the man who attributed motion of locomotive to the movement of wheel ,inWar and Peace ,people around me start a discussion logically but their logic stops after a certain limit . its not that they are incapable of following the logic ( like in differential equation or advance Quantum physics ) its just that they are uncomfortable and unwilling to follow it . and if you try to tell them your reason they will listen to it,agree with your premise ,your hypothesis , your extrapolation but They will Dismiss the conclusion. I can understand it if agreeing to conclusion demand them taking any action. what make me sad is that even in purely theoretical , academic and intellectual discussion people flat out refuse to learn and acknowledge the finding.What make it worse is that after that point they try to throw personal insults to prove a point and win an argument .<br /><br />If Brain is the source which moves our society and civilization then knowledge is the fuel which run it . Refusing to validating the knowledge and trivialization of seeker/pursuit of knowledge is bad and in some cases fatal for society . still I see this happening around me all the time . I used to wonder why ? I even used to ask it aloud but not anymore at least not very often . In very few cases I make an exception .This post is about one such case.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center; font-weight: bold;">Context:<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />Few days back I was sitting in the company of few of my friends. We were having free flowing conversation about nothing specific . suddenly out of some random event out talk drifted toward a certain public figure ,a sportsman (lets call him Sir X) . Sir X is a well known name in world and often quoted as the best player the game ever had . I am no expert in that game ( or any game for that matter ) but still I will submit to you that the Sir X has earned his reputation , he has worked hard for it . During our conversation somebody in the room suggested that Sir X should be treated as a role model for future generation, not only in his area of expertise ( the game ) but also in every walk of life .<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I politely tried to suggest that casting someone as a role model for young kids , that too in "EVERY WALK OF LIFE" is a very big decision . are you sure Sir X deserve that ? I tried to support my argument by quoting some well known incident where Sir X tried to evade tax on multiple occasion for an object of personal luxury and trying to modify a certain instrument of game for unfair advantage . I purposely quoted just two Factual and well documented incidents. so that their is no scope of ambiguity. I didn't even bought in the often discussed but inconclusive point about Sir X's affiliation toward individual performance at the cost of Team ( which i believe is just a matter of opinion and I defend Sir X there) .<br /><br />My intention was to construct a complete picture so that we can choose carefully what we idolized for generation to come . But the reaction I got was surprising . from a non committal "Hmmm But ... " to " Lets not be judgmental " . I am accustomed to both but one of the person in room snapped back at me saying that<br /></div><br />"HE is good because He will never react like you " . I admit that I was shocked and Hurt. I was Hurt both by her reaction and reaction (or lack of it ) of rest of the people in room . I was even more troubled by my own reaction , by the fact that these things STILL matter to me . I was under the impression that I am "Seasoned" after all My years here ( sorry for the style but I feel terribly alien to my peers when I think of these events ) . It seems like I will never be seasoned enough when it comes to two things<br /><br />A) Ideas I am passionate about ( in this case KIDS and the environment we provide them )<br />B) People I care for (there were few in the room) .<br /><br />But question still remains ? Why folks act the way they do ? and How can we solve this .<br /><br />Specific Details of Sir X is irrelevant .. They are all around us . you can think of Sir X as<br /><br /></div><ul><li>A certain veteran actor of Bollywood who falsely presented himself as farmer so that he can avail subsidy on land and buy it at low price which Ideally should have been given to a more needy person .He is a great actor .idealized by millions of Indians as role model.</li><li>A certain chief minister who go Tom Toming about Industrial progress in his area but at the same time he is mastermind behind biggest communal Massacre in recent history . Many amongst us believe that he should be India's president .He has created Biz friendly atmosphere in his state for sure . But does that qualify him as the best guy to RUN the country ? I don't think so.</li><li>All the investment banker in USA who took Bailout funds (Tax payer's money)from US Govt to save their arse and than they went on rewarding them self Hefty bonus while their countrymen were loosing their jobs . These guess have an air of self righteousness which is very similar to the one exhibited by my peers.</li></ul>Truth be told ,for most of us if we want to see Sir X we need to look in mirror .there is a bit of Sir X in everyone us . Its in me for sure . only distinction i can possibly claim is that I am not in denial of it .<br /><br />Another unfortunate aspect of this tendency is that how it rob the spotlight from more deserving people.who are actually doing something meaningful and they are consistent in their values.<br /><br /><ul><li>Megha Patker ,NBA Activist .She was a gold medalist from Tata Institute of Social science. She could have picked up a well paying job at any corporate or UN agencies .She choose to fight for a cause . She is,as a TISS allumni told me at a Cocktail party, the only TISS graduate who is ACTUALLY making the difference. Now tell me how many time we hear about her ? Is she getting her due credit ? having had the honor of meeting her once I can tell you that she couldn't care less for it .She is one women with a mission .What a pity all we can think of social cause is some Beauty queen visiting Dharavi with a Team of Photographer .</li><li>Pullela Gopichand , The Badminton player who refused to endorse a Global Soft drink Brand because he himself don't drink it. What he got ? an Oblivion .</li><li>Keshub Mahindra , The Leading Industrialist from Mahindra Group who refused Padmabhushan saying that he don't deserve it because He was on the Board of Union Carbide at the time of Bhopal Gas Tragedy( <a href="http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/mms-hidden-weapon-keshub-mahindra_199809.html">Link</a>). Its worth mentioning that He was a Board Member, a designation which doesn't entail any operational responsibility .Yet he didn't evaded the responsibility. That's a Gold standard one can set for himself and posterity.</li><li> E .Sreedharan Who after years of excellent work as Head of DMRC and Konkan Railway offered resignation after a mishap at Metro construction site which was clearly a mistake on part of vendor. He didn't choose to encash his past good work to sanction some mistake . His standard were not flexi.<br /></li></ul>Whenever I discuss these people and their work the response I get is "<span style="font-style: italic;">Uhh huh ..Here He goes again..</span>" .Once a person said that "<span style="font-style: italic;">They are good , May be they are GOD .But you know what ? they are not cool </span>" . May be He is right. consistency ..that too self imposed is not cool anymore .<br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Reflection</span><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />You can't deny other person's reality , you can only build upon it<br />~ <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Levine">Emily Levine</a> in <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/emily_levine_s_theory_of_everything.html">Trickster's Theory of Everything</a> .<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Human brain is gifted with a strange capability of constructing things. We look at one half of an object and in our brain we can see how an object will look like in full . this capacity of creating self fulfilling constructs is not only limited to physical universe . We do it all the time in the realm of thoughts , ideas ,values everything. Perhaps that is the reason why some of us fail to see the complete picture . Our schools don't teach us critical thinking they teach us facts .they don't teach us how to think they teach us What to think .That's why most of the time We work on a limited /Bounded rationality . That's why our logic stops the moment we enter a uncomfortable zone .Man is an rational animal .We are told .But this doesn't give us a free ride at rationalizing whatever We deem fit . What will happen to a world where everyone act in this manner? Where everyone is rationalizing the path of least resistance . Where everyone is governed by their basic instinct ,Convenience and will full ignorance ? That thought gives me a shudder .<br /><br />But I have seen enough of world to know that I have to live with it . No One can be changed by preaching. Bhagwat Gita says that You are entitled to change only one person in this universe . You yourself .That too is a tough job. Herman Hesse Wrote a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siddhartha_%28novel%29">book </a>to explain the same point . Although I try to present my point with all my energy but I don't harbor any illusion to be capable of changing any one's world view .I used to think I can but not anymore . But at the same time I know that everyone of my peers , whose behavior is troubling me right now will change their thoughts , in their own sweet time . I have seen it happening in some other context so I know it will happen here too . I might not be there to see it happening but I know it will happen someday .<br /><br />That leaves with me with critical Question "How to act in a situation like that ? What should be my approach when I face a situation like the one I faced in the room that night? How can I fit in with the reality of my peers without denying it and Keep my version of reality intact ? I have no definite answer . I have a hunch .<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center; font-weight: bold;">Epilogue:<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Regular reader of this blog know that I am very passionate about the kids and the effect society have on them in their formative years . <a href="http://knowprashant.blogspot.com/2007/06/teachers-parents-your-chance-to-change.html">I have talked about it in past</a> . I might be paranoid about it and in all possibility I might be overreacting . But the fact is that We as a society don't pay much attention to the kind of environment we expose out children to . If every kid is our chance to change the world to a better place then I am very sorry to say that we are fucking our chance and we are fucking it badly .<br /><br />First HERO a kid have is his parents.for better or worse there is not even a choice involved for both parties . Kid will see you as role model and He will imitate you in thought and action . Thats one BIG reason ( for there are many ) why I am still single and somewhat afraid of getting married . I don't see myself to be a good enough role model . for now I can only resolve to teach my kids to think critically and examine every thing presented to him . I will try not to impose my world view on him . I will try to teach him to create his version of reality while being aware of tricks of his own constructs and If he ever asked for my opinion I will tell him that Amitabh Bacchan is a Great actor, Narender Modi did some good work to promote business in Gujrat ,his father is an Average blogger who is terrible with spellings and Sachin Tendulkar was the greatest cricket player we had .<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And I will make sure that He will have intelligence to interpret these facts for what they are actually worth . Ithink I owe this much to future generation .I don't want to fuck my chance to change the world.<br /><br />Picture credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/infinityrain/198060393/sizes/m/">Infinityrain</a><br /><br />Update: A funny observation I just noticed that this essay was published on 14th of November <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Day#India">Childeren's Day</a> .<br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">prashant</div>Prashant Singhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10079032946958487411noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9276397.post-44413441863340159642009-11-01T02:59:00.000-08:002009-11-01T03:47:53.380-08:00Death of a Helpline<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDtolJHwnS6QSxSBjwGseoPAAZ___nFE3YK9jER3-ikwNmdK6JqfzuFDLsULnjVwOQvLMlNcrdNYOQ3MbGhP-M0loiWilOvW9Vsv71Cay4Q0Rh-tzlv8DGrgBrSAgF_XIGdFja/s1600-h/helpline.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 201px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDtolJHwnS6QSxSBjwGseoPAAZ___nFE3YK9jER3-ikwNmdK6JqfzuFDLsULnjVwOQvLMlNcrdNYOQ3MbGhP-M0loiWilOvW9Vsv71Cay4Q0Rh-tzlv8DGrgBrSAgF_XIGdFja/s320/helpline.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5399098752692104322" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family:arial;">By the time you swear you're his,</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> Shivering and sighing,</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> And he vows his passion is</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> Infinite, undying,</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> Lady, make a note of this —</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> One of you is lying.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> ~<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Dorothy Parker </span></span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:arial;">As I write this , I just get off from a 1.5 hour long telephonic conversation with a female friend of mine ( I know I have your attention NOW , Thanks ) . She was girl friend of a friend of mine ( Sorry for disappointment ).They had a fight and He wasn't answering her repeated calls ( 2 calls in 15 minute to be more precise ) . All through our conversation she was constructing a solid case against her beau, with anecdotal evidence supporting her preliminary and irrefutable hypothesis that Her boyfriend is the most insensitive man ever walked under the sun .Our conversation was abruptly terminated with a crisp sign off message "<span style="font-style: italic;">wait a sec ..HE is calling </span>" . I am not waiting . why ?? Because I know that on Her chronological scale "a sec" will pass only when her boyfriend will be rude to her again and that may take anything between 1 week to 6 month .</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></div><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:arial;">This is neither new nor one off incident for me . </span><span style="font-family:arial;">On last count there were 4-6 such girls who regularly resort to call me in the hour of their "Boy friend inflicted distressed" . Initially , as a <s>cornered</s> concerned friend I used to try tohelp them by listening intently , carefully analyzing the situation and suggesting a Win-Win Paradigm for them and their boy friend . But it didn't helped them one bit . so for past few months I decided to help my self and admitted the futility of my endeavor . I stopped being my rational ,analytical logical self and constrained my self to " <span style="font-style: italic;">You are right</span> " " <span style="font-style: italic;">I understand </span>" " <span style="font-style: italic;">He should understand</span> ", "<span style="font-style: italic;">That must be hard</span> " ," <span style="font-style: italic;">Really ?? I can't believe HE did that</span>" etc .</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />The trouble is that even that has started taking its toll now . I am tired of this thankless job .I think I can spend my energy on more useful tasks ( like updating this blog more often ).So I have decided to put an end to this . since some of these girls read this space regularly so I am officially announcing the closing of this help line here ( for those who don't read it I will send them the link to the post over email ).<br /><br />Message is loud and clear I will not be entertaining such calls anymore . This line is and will be [perpetually ] busy.</span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:arial;"> Aforementioned helpline was one of many humanitarian activities where I got my self involved into without making a conscious choice . But my days of youthful </span>indiscretion<span style="font-family:arial;"> are long since over ( or so I am told by my Mom) so i am getting rid of them one by one . Today is the day to mourn the death of this helpline . </span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center; font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Funeral Speech: </span><br /></div> <div style="text-align: center; font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family:arial;"> <span style="font-weight: normal; font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-weight: normal; font-style: italic;">I can call for souls from the heaven & ghost from hell, So can you.</span><br /><span style="font-weight: normal; font-style: italic;">That is not important, what is important is, Will they come?</span><br /></blockquote><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">William Shakespeare</span> In <span style="font-weight: bold;">Hamlet</span></span><br /><br /></span></div><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> Ladies and their boyfriends </span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:arial;"> We are here to bid final adieu to this unpaid job of mine in which you pushed me on the name of our friendship.Its a norm that on funeral you talk about the good and bad time you had with the deceased.share those learning you had from him. Everything in life teaches us something but whether we learn it or not is optional . same is true for this experience too .I have some fond memories of my time with this helpline . I learned a lot of things from it . It will be terrible loss if all this learning is lost. So for posterity's sake I am listing some of my conclusion here. </span><br /></div><br /><ul><li><span style="font-family:arial;">Your intentions and sincerity is useless if it originate from a sense of compromise somewhere deep down . </span><span style="font-family:arial;">Glory of sacrifice is often overrated.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></li><li><span style="font-family:arial;">No amount of Display of effect can't produce the cause. </span>Be Honest to yourself and don't deny the reality . if the feeling is not there anymore than admit it .<span style="font-family:arial;"></span></li><li><span style="font-family:arial;">Avoid Long Distance relationships. they are only good for cellphone company .still if you got to do it then use </span><span style="background: yellow none repeat scroll 0% 0%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;font-family:arial;" class="J-JK9eJ-PJVNOc" >Skype</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> . Why ?? because when the damn thing will eventually blast ( usually its a question of When ..not If ) you will find your self only emotionally broke not financially broke.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></li><li><span style="font-family:arial;">Watch your words to know where the relationship is heading. Avoid few words like plague. Excessive use of word "SPACE" is most reliable indicator of upcoming disaster .</span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></li><li><span style="font-family:arial;">If you think your life is boring than its probably because you are not doing anything interesting . Not because your partner is not showing enough interest in you.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></li><li><span style="font-family:arial;">There is a difference between missing someone and your obsessive need of companionship to compensate for your lack of purpose in life . understand it before its too late . </span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></li><li><span style="font-family:arial;">Its never too late . you will always find someone else and it will be Equally( if not more) hard to adjust with him/her.<br /></span></li></ul>and<span style="font-family:arial;"> lastly </span><br /><br /><ul><li><span style="font-family:arial;"> When you call someone at 2 'o' Clock in night to tell your problems.He deserve a proper "Thank you" </span></li></ul> <span style="font-family:arial;">So "Thank you" and I hope not to hear from you again .</span><br /><br />PS: This post was written at 4 in morning with a part humorous and part frustrated state of mind .<div class="blogger-post-footer">prashant</div>Prashant Singhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10079032946958487411noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9276397.post-25829027400168984102009-10-08T11:23:00.000-07:002009-10-08T11:38:24.801-07:00Some Videos From My Himachal TripI was in Himachal Pradesh for much of last two weeks. I visited a lot of little known towns and monasteries. Why I went on this trip and What was my experience is a topic of subsequent blog posts on Knowprashant . for the time being I would like to share this video.<br /><p><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/i7UfgX4Vbys&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/i7UfgX4Vbys&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /></p><p><br />This video captures one of the high point of my trip . Here you can see some Kids from the village <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nako_Lake">Nako</a> singing few Kinnauri songs on my request .Look at the innocence and cuteness of these little performers . Do watch it till the end when they sing a hindi song .<br /><br /></p><p>Here is one more which I capture at a primary school in the village of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalpa,_Himachal_Pradesh">Kalpa</a> .<br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/1py3morerxg&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/1py3morerxg&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><P><br /><br />keep watching this space for story of my trip. That's not as refreshing as these videos but its worth reading nevertheless.<br /></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">prashant</div>Prashant Singhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10079032946958487411noreply@blogger.com3