On 5th July 2004, I stepped into Persistent as an employee for the first time. I was a completely absent minded, mannerless, untidy, lazy fat boy with no special knowledge about any programming language.
Absolutely nothing has changed and I completed 5 years yesterday in the same company :)
Awesome ! :)
Monday, July 6, 2009
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Recent visits to a book store
Whenever I go to JM road, i like to visit the pirated book sellers sitting on the footpath. These sellers are always unbelievably updated as in they always seem to have most popular and recent books.
So from my recent visits, one of my observations is that they seem to have unusually large number of books on self help. Well this category of books include books in "how to..." series for example, "How to win people", "How to improve your body language" etc. Also we have subtle books like "Monk who sold his ferrari" or "Tuesdays with Morrie" or more obvious ones like "Yes, You can !" or "You can win" or more abstract books like "Who moved my cheese" etc (listing many names just to drive home the point)
Other observation is that most of these books are best sellers which is a puzzle in itself - how can we have many best-sellers in a given period. And if at all a book is NOT a best-seller it is always by an author (or even a publisher who hardly has anything to do with the actual book) of a best-selling book. So basically all the books are best-sellers.
Most interesting thing I found in recent books are the sesationalism of the book title. It seems that everybody wants book titles which either create sensation or controversy. I read a very interesting passage in "Rich dad poor dad" where a friend of the author wanted to publish a book named "Fundamentals of education" which was the aim of the content of the book. No publisher wanted to publish the book. The same guy renamed his title without altering the content and named it "STOP SENDING YOUR CHILD TO SCHOOL...If you want him to learn" and the book became (any guesses ?) ...."BEST-SELLER"
There is a very interesting observation in the same book about the term "Best-seller". The term is very simple and self-explanatory. It doesn't say "Best-written" it says "Best-seller" there is a very obvious difference !!! It's just a advertising point, it doesn't mean anything about how the book is.
So when I think about it, the only conclusion that i can draw is, like any other field, literature has also become a "business" where authors (most of them) want to "supply" the "demand". They want to market their product (book) aggressively just like any other product in the market.
So from my recent visits, one of my observations is that they seem to have unusually large number of books on self help. Well this category of books include books in "how to..." series for example, "How to win people", "How to improve your body language" etc. Also we have subtle books like "Monk who sold his ferrari" or "Tuesdays with Morrie" or more obvious ones like "Yes, You can !" or "You can win" or more abstract books like "Who moved my cheese" etc (listing many names just to drive home the point)
Other observation is that most of these books are best sellers which is a puzzle in itself - how can we have many best-sellers in a given period. And if at all a book is NOT a best-seller it is always by an author (or even a publisher who hardly has anything to do with the actual book) of a best-selling book. So basically all the books are best-sellers.
Most interesting thing I found in recent books are the sesationalism of the book title. It seems that everybody wants book titles which either create sensation or controversy. I read a very interesting passage in "Rich dad poor dad" where a friend of the author wanted to publish a book named "Fundamentals of education" which was the aim of the content of the book. No publisher wanted to publish the book. The same guy renamed his title without altering the content and named it "STOP SENDING YOUR CHILD TO SCHOOL...If you want him to learn" and the book became (any guesses ?) ...."BEST-SELLER"
There is a very interesting observation in the same book about the term "Best-seller". The term is very simple and self-explanatory. It doesn't say "Best-written" it says "Best-seller" there is a very obvious difference !!! It's just a advertising point, it doesn't mean anything about how the book is.
So when I think about it, the only conclusion that i can draw is, like any other field, literature has also become a "business" where authors (most of them) want to "supply" the "demand". They want to market their product (book) aggressively just like any other product in the market.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Blood diamond Vs Slumdog
I am right now watching blood diamond movie for about nth time. I absolutely love the movie for it's story, performances and presentation and great dialog delivery by D'caprio. But that's not the main subject.
The movie tells us about the domestic war which was enraged in africa in early 90s as a result of diamond mines in a small country called Sierra leone. And how some rebels destroyed thousands of families just to stay in control of the diamonds. The movie exposes us to a very disturbing face of africa.
When i was watching some of the scenes in this movie, I suddenly remembered the whole big deal made out of Slumdog where we (most of us) felt that it just showcased the negative parts , the poverty and stuff like that. And foreigners like to see india as a rotten land. Or some of us felt that it wasn't such a great movie at all even if we choose to ignore other things about it.
So what should explain the fact that slumdog was so well appreciated by everybody (except in india) similar to how we appreciated blood diamond ?
May be we just love to hear or see facts which make us superior than somebody else. May be we couldn't appreciate slumdog because for once we were at the receiving end.
Also the fact is whatever was shown in slumdog is not fiction in any sense of the word. We all know that these are actual facts which we try to turn deaf ear to. May be we know these things too well to appreciate a movie made on the subject :)
I am sure, most of the south west african people know the history of conflict diamonds. Chances are that they would have felt the same way about blood diamond what we felt about slumdog
So the whole point I think is, we should better accept the fact that there are people who enjoyed watching a boy jump in a shitpool or little children hanging on a train roof just to steal food.
May be if this isn't stretching it too much we should ourselves not be too ignorant about it to even not notice it when somebody else is showing it to us because Just read following dialog from a brilliant scene in black diamond
African man to journalist : "You are writing about what is happening in Africa ?? "
Journalist : "Yes"
African man : "So when people in your country read this, they will come help us, right?? "
Journalist: "Probably not"
The movie tells us about the domestic war which was enraged in africa in early 90s as a result of diamond mines in a small country called Sierra leone. And how some rebels destroyed thousands of families just to stay in control of the diamonds. The movie exposes us to a very disturbing face of africa.
When i was watching some of the scenes in this movie, I suddenly remembered the whole big deal made out of Slumdog where we (most of us) felt that it just showcased the negative parts , the poverty and stuff like that. And foreigners like to see india as a rotten land. Or some of us felt that it wasn't such a great movie at all even if we choose to ignore other things about it.
So what should explain the fact that slumdog was so well appreciated by everybody (except in india) similar to how we appreciated blood diamond ?
May be we just love to hear or see facts which make us superior than somebody else. May be we couldn't appreciate slumdog because for once we were at the receiving end.
Also the fact is whatever was shown in slumdog is not fiction in any sense of the word. We all know that these are actual facts which we try to turn deaf ear to. May be we know these things too well to appreciate a movie made on the subject :)
I am sure, most of the south west african people know the history of conflict diamonds. Chances are that they would have felt the same way about blood diamond what we felt about slumdog
So the whole point I think is, we should better accept the fact that there are people who enjoyed watching a boy jump in a shitpool or little children hanging on a train roof just to steal food.
May be if this isn't stretching it too much we should ourselves not be too ignorant about it to even not notice it when somebody else is showing it to us because Just read following dialog from a brilliant scene in black diamond
African man to journalist : "You are writing about what is happening in Africa ?? "
Journalist : "Yes"
African man : "So when people in your country read this, they will come help us, right?? "
Journalist: "Probably not"
Thursday, April 2, 2009
English isn't english anymore...
Yesterday, a friend pinged me on messenger and said "hru?". And then after giving it a long thought, i knew that i was supposed to understand this as a "how are you?". I told her about the assessment test that i am going to have in next week for five hours and she said "OMG !!!" Again i blanked out for moments and then realized that it was "Oh My God !!!"
While we were having the conversation, i felt that i was playing some weird code game. It wasn't english for sure !
My dad has been an english teacher for more than 30 years and I have tried to learn alot from him about the language. May be that's why i feel compelled to think about it. If somebody talks to him in this manner, he will probably swear all the english names he knows at him ( they are plenty and they won't be in short forms !)
"FYI" or "PFA" or "FYR" or "OOO" "GOTCHA". What's with all these shortforms ? Before we know, these codes will become words which most of us will use while talking to each other (like "I was triple O at that time" or "It's just an "FYI" or "I was WFH" ).
Words are also getting shorter along with keypads it seems.
If this is how the language is evolving, then i will take pleasure to be a primitive caveman.
P.S. If you don't know any of the short forms used, don't worry, it will get you.
While we were having the conversation, i felt that i was playing some weird code game. It wasn't english for sure !
My dad has been an english teacher for more than 30 years and I have tried to learn alot from him about the language. May be that's why i feel compelled to think about it. If somebody talks to him in this manner, he will probably swear all the english names he knows at him ( they are plenty and they won't be in short forms !)
"FYI" or "PFA" or "FYR" or "OOO" "GOTCHA". What's with all these shortforms ? Before we know, these codes will become words which most of us will use while talking to each other (like "I was triple O at that time" or "It's just an "FYI" or "I was WFH" ).
Words are also getting shorter along with keypads it seems.
If this is how the language is evolving, then i will take pleasure to be a primitive caveman.
P.S. If you don't know any of the short forms used, don't worry, it will get you.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Happy new year FY2009/10
Just realized that today starts a new financial year ! ! !
I sincerely wish FY 2009 / 10 to be better than the previous year where we heard nothing but about the economic downturn and recession and what not.
May the sense prevail in this year and may my stocks (infy, wipro, rel petro among the darkest in red) stop going down and seriously start thinking about a U-turn :)
So for all of us.... I wish a healthier and wealthier new year !
I sincerely wish FY 2009 / 10 to be better than the previous year where we heard nothing but about the economic downturn and recession and what not.
May the sense prevail in this year and may my stocks (infy, wipro, rel petro among the darkest in red) stop going down and seriously start thinking about a U-turn :)
So for all of us.... I wish a healthier and wealthier new year !
To start with...
As the name suggests, this is going to be a "type as you think" blog. Don't know why after typing the first sentence i went blank for almost 2 minutes :)
They say in a day our brain or mind thinks about 60k different things. I guess, in my case almost half of those thoughts are about food and other half are about leaving a job and starting a vada pao hotel.
To avoid the redundancy, I will try to curb those thoughts as much as I can and will try to focus on few other thoughts which now and then make their way in my daily life.
So.... looking forward to what I can manage to think :)
They say in a day our brain or mind thinks about 60k different things. I guess, in my case almost half of those thoughts are about food and other half are about leaving a job and starting a vada pao hotel.
To avoid the redundancy, I will try to curb those thoughts as much as I can and will try to focus on few other thoughts which now and then make their way in my daily life.
So.... looking forward to what I can manage to think :)
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