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(Have not been active here, and do most of my posting on twitter Today I wanted to write something, which is tough to fit into 140 characters, so here I am.)
When making an important decision, I think it is better to go with gut-feel than with logical reasoning, especially when the choice is a close call.
If you go by logical reasoning, there is always the chance of you not considering & working out a scenario, which then leaves you with a wrong decision and to top it all - you feel terrible because you screwed up at something logical!
On the other hand, if you go by your gut-feel, in a lot of ways you are taking ownership of the decision and it becomes a part of you.
Once you have taken ownership, you will make most decisions work well for you. Logic keeps the decision a stranger.
An old friend added: your gut has already factored in a LOT more than the superficial stuff you work out logically.
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On 26th February 8.44pm our angel took her first breath.
This marked the end of a very eventful, challenging & interesting 9 months in our lives and is the beginning of a lot more interesting, challenging & happy-fying life ahead.
There was a lot that I wanted to share over the last 9 months, but did not. Partly because of cultural and parental guidance and partly because I did want the arrival of the baby to be a surprise to most of the world. Also, because all of this was happening to both me & biwi (mostly to her) I was not sure about sharing it with folks she did not know.
I will try to capture most stuff in a nutshell below, though each of the below could ideally be a separate post in itself:
- Getting pregnant: the questioning, the planning, the frustration, the anxiety, the euphoria. Short lesson : planning may not work.
- A difficult difficult first trimester: biwi on bed-rest, a lot more anxiety, biwi quits her job (tough decision for someone who was the life of her team & loved being it)
- Subway sandwich, strawberries, cake fudge, strawberries with ice-cream : these were very mild demands compared to what I have heard & most of them were at earthly hours.
- Preparing for parenting - joined ISP: Infant SSY programme conducted by RSVK 2.5 hours for 9 sundays was a lot of time, but I totally recommend the program to all to-be parents / parents with kids less than 8 years of age. I am not following everything I learnt there, but I did acquire a new way of thinking about children - their needs & abilities and how often adults show disrespect to their needs & abilities.
- Finding the right hospital / gynaec : Lot of choices, lot of experiences; we chose Dr. Padmini Isaac at Cradle.
- Preparing for birth : lamaze classes - very helpful again. Just the knowledge imparted was more than worth it. Knowing what you are going to go through makes it a lot more easier.
- The last few days - waiting, anxiety, phone-calls : any news? :)
- A lot of pain & then a section - Ouch Ouch Ouch!
- All's well :) Baby & mommy doing fine, return home. Home decorated beautifully with Pink & white balloons lined on the roof throughout the home by
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) shashwat_09675 , ankitaprasad , Sapna & Sonu</lj></lj> - Post partum haemorrhage - another tough 2 days, had to return to the hospital. But things came under control quickly.
And a lot more .. right now, her every turn, her every smile gives us immense joy!
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I was remembering Chanakya the TV serial based on the life of a great scholar and politician, and started looking on youtube. I was glad to find a lot of those videos uploaded mostly by this user.
Finding this gave me enough motivation & incentive to look for other serials from the old days.
I have not yet met with a lot of success for some of them, but found some great blog posts with a lot of comments which made me relive my childhood. The best post I liked had tons of comments which spoke about a lot of serials that I had forgotten about.
Some of my favourites from that era are:
chanakya
karamchand
dekh bhai dekh
malgudi days
yeh jo hai zindagi
byomkesh bakshi
The more I think about it & go through the list I feel that the quality of TV stuff with just 1 channel was way more than the best of all channels right now. May be it s more nostalgia, but right now I am having difficulty coming up with a few good serials in today's
I would probably buy DVDs for the the above & many others like potli baba ki, buniyaad, nukkad, vikram baital, surabhi, flop show, udaan, neev if they are available. Are they ?
There was also Hercule poirot, Oshin, Raven, Street hawk to give us a little international exposure.
Now I get back to my quest for finding this stuff online or on DVDs.
Update: Found this on youtube, which had a lot of videos from that era.
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25 things (tagged by rileen on Facebook)
Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.
1. I loved playing sports, especially cricket, badminton & Table tennis. One thing that could get me up at 5 in the morning & make me feel kicked about it. I was reasonably good at TT & Badminton till college. Recently one of my buddies at Microsoft thrashed me at TT, so now I know I am no good at them.
2. I still enjoy watching most sports. Most of my tweets on twitter are about cricket. This is also the single largest reason for tiffs that me & my dear biwi have had.
3. I mostly listen to Hindi songs. I enjoy the lyrics of a song a LOT. To me everything else in the song are like props. There was a time I knew lyrics of a LOT of kishore, lata & mukesh songs, but now when I try & recollect am often stuck after 1 antara (stanza) & need a cue, like the 1st few words of the antara.
4. Through most of my childhood I believed I was a good singer. The knowledge of lyrics and Mom's encouragement added to that belief. When I would listen to songs with a headset, I would sing along loud & feel that I was in perfect synch.
This belief was rather cruelly shattered when in my first month at the engineering hostel I was nominated as the co-finalist of the most besura(not in tune) singer. I do love singing, but am kind to people around me and sing for others only if my wife is singing along. (She is a very good singer).
5. I was a decent student, almost never in top 5 of a class, but not too far from there either. Dad had a transferable job & my score graph looks like a saw tooth. Move to a new place, adjust to new school, new scoring schemes, start improving, get to a decent level & we would move again.
I have no regrets about moving so often & I believe most of what I am are because of my parents and our constant moving which exposed me to different cultures & people.
6. The worst fall in my academic saw tooth graph was in 6th standard, when we moved to Jamshedpur. I got through the admission tests of Loyola - the best school that I know of in India. I was coming from a school where English was just another subject, to Loyola where folks in 6th standard were eloquent enough at English to give most of India's current media folks a run for their money. I flunked in 6 subjects in the 1st terms, only passed at Hindi, Maths & Science. I did manage to recover in the next term and did not lose a year.
7. As fate would have it, I met my class teacher from 6th who took 3 of the 6 subjects I flunked at, just a couple of years back. Was in Jamshedpur to attend a friend's wedding & turns out he was family friends with my 6th std class teacher and we stayed at her palatial bunglow!
8. I used to be an introvert in my early childhood, more so after the 6th std failures. We moved again after 3 years. Those 3 years at Loyola had taught me a lot. The new school I joined, though good by Calcutta standards was not as good as Loyola and I was instantly amongst the better students at academics & extra-curriculars. This is the time I started becoming more social & active.
9. It is around that time, when I developed some amount of faith in Numerology. It was the end of class XII, all of us would be headed in very different directions, and I was making a note of my friend's birthdays. At the end of the day I realised, ALL my good friends were a root-3(born on 3rd, 12, 21, 30). I am a root 3 as well. This belief only got stronger with time & more friends, dear biwi - most being root-3
10. My first real interaction with computers was in my first year of engineering. Prior to that I had only played Bricks at a computer center a couple of times. This is very different from most folks around me in the techie world, who started very early. I have never felt that I missed out ... I think this is amongst the easiest things to learn & do.
11. I am generally dis-passionate about most stuff, sports, biwi are the only exceptions I can think of.
12. I shocked my then-girlfriend-now-wife by telling her that I had first spotted her at her CET counseling. I was there to guide a cousin. We started interacting only 5 months later. She did not believe it, and surprising myself, I even remembered her dress. This is a faculty that I believe men are poor with, and I am no exception, so that was a rare event.
13. I am painfully adamant about punctuality. The sense of guilt I feel, when I am not on time even for Indian parties & get-togethers which I know will start late, is totally illogical. This is the 2nd largest cause of tiffs with dear biwi :). She is way more practical.
14. I learnt to ride & drive all vehicles after my younger sister had mastered them, starting from cycle, to bajaj chetak to cars.
15. My risk taking appetite has increased a lot more since then - I was the first hire at my current job.
16. I was laid-off my first job even before I joined. The company had come & offered a job in my 6th semester in Engineering. In the final semester they sent us letters saying "Sorry!". In the meanwhile all companies had come & gone, and I had no clue what I would do after my engineering.
17. With no clarity, I wrote GRE & GATE. Did well in both of them. Never applied to any US university, but did get an admit to IISC (though a few days after getting my first real job)
18. Yahoo came to campus in the final semester. Grapevine was ripe with "Yahoo will hire only 1". Through a screening which had 5 interviews followed by a month's hiatus and then a day-long coding assignment & interviews at the Yahoo office, they ended up picking me. This was the best thing that had happened to me till then. This especially after the months of uncertainty - no job, no admits was like a sign of someone up above taking care of me ( I was still an agnostic at this point).
19. I started having faith after a bad bike accident. My helmet cracked & one of my best friend who was riding pillion with me was very badly hurt. It is at this point, and especially after interactions with my friend's mother & my girlfriend that I started believing. Now I believe.
This post took a lot of time, across three sitting but was easy so far .. now I don't know what to write
20. Few know that I am a marwari baniya (merchant from Rajasthan) by birth.
21. I like wearing blue, and my ward-robe is mostly while, blue, black & greys. I do not fancy clothes too much.
22. In general I do not mind looking unkempt, and do not think much before stepping out of my home. This is frowned upon in marwari families.
23. I also do not crave much for possessing gadgets. Wife gifted me my iPhone recently - first stylish gadget that I have ever possessed.
24. I have recently discovered my love for ice-creams, especially strawberries with cream & ice-cream at Corner house. From my previous posts you would know I suffered a lot from asthma & cold, so ice-creams were a no-no. Now that I have found solutions to both, I seek opportunities to eat ice-creams.
25. I am a foodie in general, willing to experiment & try new cuisines. I love chats, Mexcican, most indian rice preparations : chawal-dal, biryani, pulao. Chawal with rajma is my favourite dish and it is the only fixed item (for Sunday lunch) on our weekly menu.
Phew... that was not easy.
Thanks rileen for tagging me. I shall tag a few people on LJ & few others on Facebook...
Tagging deponti ,
fus
kalyan
anomalizer
deep_musings
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Here are 2 remedies for common cold that have worked well for me.
Those who have known me well, would know that I am very vulnerable to a cold and most of my engineering days & a little later too - I almost always had a cold. You would see me with a jacket in summers, and friends cracked numerous jokes about my love for the handkerchief...
Last 2 years have been very different though and the reason is the 2 remedies below.
- Cold water shower - This is a remedy that my brother in law told me about. He also asked me to keep my mouth closed during the shower & advised keeping a little water in the mouth during the shower to help achieve that. This works like a charm for me. Besides fixing the cold, it also makes me feel a lot more charged up during the day.
- Drink a lot of warm water - When I get back home from work, and feel like I am catching a cold, I have 6-7 glasses of reasonably warm water at short intervals (every 15-30 minutes) and by the time I sleep, the breathing tracks are clear. This was a mom ka nuskha that has worked well for over 2 yeasr for me now.
Besides these, when I am regularly jogging I have no cold, but then I am too lazy to be regular at jogging which is why the above 2 quick-fix remedies are my favourite over the long-term jogging solution.
Disclaimer: These have worked for me, DOES NOT mean that they will work for you. But if you are in similar climatic conditions, may be the chances are high. I live in Bangalore, which never has any extreme weather.
If you are courageous enough to try these, or have already tried these in the past let me know if they work for you or not, so that I can decide on how forcefully I should advocate these.
p.s: I promise this shall be my last post about Health for sometime in the future.
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| » Back to blogging |
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With my last post on asthma, I am back to blogging.
A few weeks back, I had decided to separate tweets & blogs and also decided that I will resume active blogging.
You can follow my tweets here.
I did not want to post this resolution till I made a real post.
For the few of you who still hang out here or syndicate me, thanks! and leave a note if possible to let me know.
Jan. 20th, 2009 @ 04:30 pm
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| » Asthma and Bangalore |
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This is my story about asthma in Bangalore.
I have had intermittent asthma since childhood, typically once or twice a year at most.
It was never too severe & I managed mostly using homeopathic medicines.
I moved to Bangalore in 1998, and then it started getting more frequent & worse. In 2000 I was advised the Asthalin rotohaler, first as an SOS & then on a regular basis. I moved to Koramangala in 2001 & the frequency increased.
Since then I had gotten used to using the rotohaler. There would be a few months when I wouldn't need it, but most nights I would need to use the rotohaler before I slept.
There would be a bad attack once a year, when I would need to be nebulized.
In all these years, I knew that I was fine when I was out of Bangalore whether it was California, Jaipur, Hyderabad, Seattle, New York or North Carolina. I only suffered from asthma when I was in Bangalore.
In late 2008, my asthma got worse. Weekends specifically got very bad. I would need the inhaler 3-5 times a day. Going to a doc & taking a course of antibiotics would slow it for 3-4 weeks & then it was back to square 1.
In November 2008, my Father-in-law just moved in from Mumbai & he faced a similar problem. He'd never had asthma / wheezing ever in his life, but as soon as he moved in with us he had pronounced and regular wheezing.
In December he moved into his apartment in Indiranagar and has not had wheezing ever since.
This was incentive enough for me to try the same as an experiment.
In January 2009, I moved in with my father-in-law & very soon there was no wheezing and no congestion. For a complete week, I did not use the inhaler & was feeling much better. To ascertain that my asthma was due to an allergy specific to Koramangala & not a residual strain, we decided to go back & stay in
Koramangala for a day. We picked 14th Jan for the experiment. My wife went the previous day & moved most furnishings including the sofa set & curtains into another room & got the house thoroughly cleaned. I went home late on 13th night & pretty soon the wheezing started. I had to use the inhaler at about 4am. We moved back on 14th morning to Indiranagar - and no wheezing. I was convinced that it had to be the flora around Koramangala that I (and my father-in-law) was allergic to. It could have also had to do with furnishings in my house, but something happened this Sunday that clinched the case for us. We were invited for dinner in Silver Metro in the Total Mall, in Madivala on Sunday - they have a decent buffet. Dinner went well, but I had wheezing in the night and had to use the inhaler. I informed my FIL & he said he also had to use the inhaler in the night. Both of us having to use the inhaler the same night that we were around Koramangala for ~3 hours, after a long time of no wheezing is good enough proof for me.
It is surprising that me & my FIL share the same allergy, and that my wife and everyone else who has stayed with us in our Koramangala house have no such issues.
I am glad to have ascertained that my asthma is allergic and is also specific to a location.
I am going to move out of the locality, hopefully soon. Life without asthma is a lot lot better. If your asthma is specific to Bangalore, I would recommend try staying in other localities within Bangalore.
Jan. 20th, 2009 @ 02:37 pm
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| » Asthma & Bangalore asthmatics |
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I just created a group for Bangalore Asthmatics.
The group is meant to enable sharing of experiences, remedies and advise from folks who suffer or have suffered from this ailment.
If you are / were suffering from Asthma in Bangalore, do join in.
My own asthma story is specific to Bangalore:
Whenever I am travelling, whether it is to Jaipur, Hyderabad or to the US, I am relieved of my Asthma for as long as I am out of Bangalore.
The day I land in Bangalore, My asthma kicks in again.
Does anybody else face a similar situation?
My Father-in-law just moved in from Mumbai & he faced a similar problem. He'd never had asthma / wheezing ever in his life, but as soon as he moved in with us he had pronounced and regular wheezing.
He recently moved into his apartment in Indiranagar and has not had wheezing ever since.
This to me is incentive enough to try changing stuff.
I stay in Koramangala.
It could be anything from the furniture in my apartment, flora that grows in & around my apartment complex or the air in & around Koramangala. I am going to start changing things, will probably start by going & staying with my father in law in Indiranagar for a week & if I am fine there, perform
I understand that my allegy would most likely be specific to me, but knowing that ~30% Bangaloreans suffer from Asthma, I am hoping I will find patterns that match mine.
Can I look for any particular kind of plant/flora that might be growing around where I stay, which could be the cause?
Dec. 7th, 2008 @ 08:12 pm
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| » It is easy to point finger on others but takes courage to accept our mistakes and correct our own se |
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Just received an email from a friend Arun, and I think it puts things in much better perspective than most things I have read recently.
In a time when we seek solutions from the government & blame countries & religions, its good to pause & look within ...
With his permission, here is the email:
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It is easy to point finger on others but takes courage to accept our mistakes and correct our own self.
Latest Mumbai attacks, Mr. Raj Thakery's movement in Maharashtra, Orissa riots, No proper aid during Bihar floods (PM offered INR 100 crores for this cause, but not sure how much really reached the victims), series of blast carried out across India from Bangalore to Ahmedabad and the list never ends. These are the biggest crises situations, in fact our system also failed in terms of providing our forces with better and latest equipments (our police force still stuck with 303 rifles and the Mumbai police was provided with the defective bullet proof jackets), the infrastructure like roads, electricity, water, education and again the list never ends. Our ministers who are so called public servants, gives unhealthy remarks for the martyr's family and to the public. If it's one or two ministers, they can be replaced but I think once again, this list also never ends. Looking at the fate of others that happened with Home Minister, Maharashtra CM, Maharashtra Deputy CM and Kerela CM, other's stay mum because they don't want to loose their positions otherwise they are also in the same category. Our country is being slaughtered and this seems like a total disaster and failure of our system.
BUT, we should think before we point any finger towards them, Do they eat or drink something different than what we do? Are they getting educated in a different system than what we do? Are they brought up in a different culture than what we do? Don't they cry when their dear ones are lost? Don't they have feeling? Don't they fear death? Etc...
NO, they are same as what we are. They are one of us. Even if we would have been at their position, situation would not have changed. Others would point finger towards us.
Today media shouts "Enough is enough" and government should take an action but we don't realize that who is responsible for this?
Blaming the system is an easy way to exonerate ourselves, which is completely unacceptable. WE are equal participants in the democratic setup.
Little away from the topic but I feel and believe that WE need to understand that WE are responsible for all, that has happened to us.
How?
What have WE done?
Did WE elect wrong politicians?
But there aren't any responsible leaders that WE can elect?
What should WE do now?
How can WE improve the system?
What can WE contribute to the system?
When WE look at the above questions at an individual level, WE might be lost somewhere to find answers to it. But YES, that's the truth. I repeat, WE are responsible for this total disaster and failure of our system.
WHY?
Because WE've been irresponsible at sometime or other during the course of our life. WE are equally responsible for this corrupt system which gave us total failure. Shortcuts and compromises have become a way of life. There's little point seeking change as a nation when individually each person thinks no further than his own well-being. WE have not done our job as a responsible citizen of our country. WE don't think about the inconvenience we might cause to others with our actions. WE are self-centered and equally selfish as our leaders are. Why choose the right way when it can be my way? Our leaders reflect our myopic vision. They neither have vision nor leadership. Do WE? Can WE inspire each other? Can WE even inspire our own family members to live life a particular way? The answer is a resounding NO.
Somewhere, perhaps, in this soul-searching as a nation, WE need to realize that WE first need to transform (not change) ourselves. Change is a mere tinkering with the our own self.
HOW?
WE take bribe which leads to loop-holes in our system/laws/policies. When WE become irresponsible, it's then that government or system has to come out with laws, which are acceptable by some and not-acceptable by others. WE don't follow rules due to which WE end up paying huge money as bribe. WE decide to augment our ill-gotten wealth by bribing the officer instead of paying our taxes honestly, which leads in huge amount of black money, WE drink and drive which leads into accidents causing deaths which I think will be really higher than what happened in latest Mumbai attack, WE make duplicate medicines and WE flow them in the market which causes so many innocent deaths, WE try to pay bribe to the serviceman to come out with huge luggage from customs, WE don't obey traffic rules, WE try to show our power at different level to break rules, WE don't allow police to do their job by obstructing them in some or other form, WE try to break the queue at every place because WE have to show our power, WE don't care for others inconvenience and the list is endless, but just check, WE probably did one of these things today.
I can guarantee that every one of us has sometime or other done something irresponsibly and most of us are doing it today also. Then why blame the system?? Why blame the government?? Why blame the politicians?? Because WE are responsible for this system/government/politicians. Be true to yourself and think over it.
Corruption is the biggest form of irresponsibleness, which is eating our system every single minute and WE are the ones who promote it either on a small scale or a larger scale.
SOLUTION:
Must come from each one of us and our actions. To begin with on a higher level,
It's not the time to sleep, but time to wake up because it already too late.
If WE become responsible and WE act responsibly, I believe that WE can make a difference. Nobody is perfect in this world but it's WE who have to come together and unite at this moment and eliminate our irresponsible acts.
1) Say NO to corruption, of any kind. Offer no bribes, take none either. Report such activities. Responsibility brings with it accountability. Let's not take our rights and privileges for granted while forgetting our obligations and liabilities;
2) Make accountability of all responsibilities / obligations given to all government authorities mandatory, akin to the private sector;
3) Ensure transparency. Let independent agencies be appointed as concurrent auditors to check public spending;
4) Establish and ensure swift, fast-track courts / tribunals to take action on complaints regarding corruption, dereliction of duty, etc.;
5) Establish special fast-track courts to deal with terrorism, with a maximum time limit of 90 days to consider the matter and deliver a verdict. The verdict of the said fast-track court should be final and binding and no appeal should lie either to the High Court / Supreme Court therefrom. Further, make execution of sentence, if any given by the fast-track court, mandatory within 30 days from the date of passing the order. Delays produce Kandahars. WE don't need them.
6) Ensure highest penalty and gravest punishment for any form of corruption;
7) Withdraw, with immediate effect, all unnecessary privileges to leaders across all political parties, including security, VIP movement, cavalcade of cars, etc, or any form of wasteful public expenditure;
8) Divert commandos freed from protecting politicians to protect citizens and to impart training to youth voluntarily at the local level;
9) Make rigorous physical training a continuous exercise for the entire police force on a daily basis. Equip them with the latest machines / weaponry required for the purpose;
WE must not forget, even momentarily, that our leaders are also our law-makers. Intense public pressure alone can perhaps bring new legislations and action in place. Let's do it!
WE should have the spirit that WE will make the difference.
I salute the martyrs and to all those who have been doing their jobs very responsibly and saved so many life.
Thanks for reading this. Now is the time to take an action and be responsible.
I AM NOT THE PERFECT MAN BUT I AM A RESPONSIBLE INDIAN CITIZEN AND WOULD LIVE A RESPONSIBLE LIFE AND ELIMINATE MY IRRESPONSIBLE ACTS WHEN I FIND THEM IN ME OR POINTED BY OTHERS.
Regards,
Arun.
Dec. 4th, 2008 @ 05:46 pm
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| » Barkha dutt's excuse - there were no rules, so we did not break any |
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Barkha Dutta responded to the various critics
(I wrote this as a comment to that post, but it grew big enough for me to put it here)
Essence of what Barkha says - "Because there were no rules in place, we could not have broken any".
Proves to us viewers that you have no conscience or intellect that tells you what is right and what is wrong.
Its this lack of maturity & leadership, that you continue to show that people are pissed off with. Media coverage definitely cost people's lives as mentioned by Mr. Pollack here (http://www.forbes.com/2008/12/01/mumbai-terror-taj-oped-cx_mp_1201pollack.html)
and a lot of other sources that you can read up about. Instead of being a DUMB conveyor of information, you had the responsibility to ensure that you did not cause harm. Sadly, none of the media channels, including yours did anything to justify that responsibility.
While we appreciate, your questioning the government and asking for action, especially at a time when the government needs to take action that will show it in good light in the upcoming elections.
The 60 hours of "hollywood action movie" like coverage has helped seed so much rage, fear and anger that people are willing to go to war with another nuclear state, without any proper analysis of the event or the outcome. And the coverage continues ...
Your incessant coverage did actually get to me & in a fit of anger I had posted about retaliation as well. But I am lucky to have good thoughtful friends who quickly got me back to senses. I wish folks in media had similar friends.
If there is a war, as per me - YOU, the media would be largely responsible for it.
I am not saying that the loss in Mumbai is small by any means, but the losses in North East & losses to Naxalism are much bigger issues that have eaten into this country for more than a decade now.
But you only care about TRPs which is why Naxalism & north east are 1 hour special reports at a non-peak hour once a quarter.
Dec. 4th, 2008 @ 05:10 pm
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| » Lessons we need to learn, questions we need to ask |
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I hope now on government/military disallow all live coverage of any *live* mission conducted by security forces AND LET THE SECURITY FORCES RUN THE SHOW. They are putting their lives in danger - and everyone else needs to do whatever is best for their operation.
Definitely not pressurize them with constant questioning about plans, strategy & results. Except for more viewers for their channel, did those questions do any good for anybody ?
Edit: Correcting myself & removing stuff that is not borne out by facts.
I see no positive measures, there are knee jerk reactions like the extensive checking of baggage by railways after the blasts in trains, but they lasted for a month.
Today all hotels are checking every vehicle & guest, but I am sure this would become a ritual in a month.
Public memory is very short ..... but these terrorists are doing us a favour by constantly reminding us of how vulnerable we are, and how we do not learn from our past.
Its easier to complain that Nothing is being done, than suggest what needs to be done. While I am no expert, here are a few things that come to my mind:
- Dr. Manmohan Singh said we will take stern measures & have stricter laws. By when ? Why do we still not have them, after 8 terrorist attacks this year? Will we have them before the next attack? Continue questioning from all possible forums till this happens. If we let this slip - we will be responsible for the next blast.
- US has had no attacks since 9/11. Has there been any study by the government to see, how the US achieved this? If not, will they do it NOW ? I am not saying we replicate all measures, but at least know what it takes.
Edit
(deleted non-sensical stuff thanks to kalyan and noelladsa drilling some basic sense into my head)</lj></lj>
For threats from within, I do not think our state apparatus can tackle them. It is not practical to check every person walking in a bazaar, for explosives.
What can we as citizens do ?
For one, I think we can all be a bit more paranoid, a lot more cautious, and not ignore any suspicious behaviour.
Would love to hear more about what can WE do to fix this problem.
Nov. 28th, 2008 @ 05:03 pm
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| » TV Journalism by hindi news channels in India |
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I received an interesting forward from a friend - ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) chauhan.
It reflects on the kind of news our Hindi news channels cover.
I often get into a debate with my biwi, about the annoying trivia they cover & biwi responds - this is probably what most indians want to see.
I am not convinced - I dont think they are measuring this, but then again, given that they carry this stuff a LOT - they must be doing ok, else the channels would have gone under, or may be not, as there is no sane hindi news channel to compete for the user's time.
Some of the news thats they cover
Jun. 18th, 2008 @ 03:54 pm
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| » My personal views about Facebook & OpenSocial platform |
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I was responding to a clarification on the Bangalore OCC group, and decided to make that a blog post.
Now that the Facebook platform is available, a network would consider both options.
While OpenSocial was quick to get off the ground ( its almost hacked up together ), it still has serious issues.
Will list out some of them:
* Functionality
# Virality - except Hi5, no container has implemented virality(inviting friends, notifications, myspace does not even have news feeds) - which is key to application growth
# Profile - This is a serious flaw in the design. In OpenSocial, profile views are fetched from the application servers. Not only does it burden the app provider considerably, it also puts at risk the performance & usability of the network itself. 1 slow application (possibly because of a bug) , can make all profiles that have it become very slow. I can execute javascript on profile pages, and can continue to show alert boxes ... etc
# Application management - This does not exist, except for Hi5. In Orkut, an application is tied to a URL, so I cant move to another URL. Moving to new servers, is painful. Taking downtime on a server is painful. Yes you can do DNS changes, but they take days to propagate. The basic idea of starting with small infrastructure costs & growing as the traffic grows, becomes impossible.
* Checks & Balances
- This is where Facebook has been very good, they have built powerful systems, that automatically regulate quotas based on the spaminess of your applications. OpenSocial networks have only relied on manual monitoring & correction, as of now, which is difficult to scale.
- Facebook's application metrics (and they have evolved) are an effort to promote more useful applications. Other networks will have to go through that entire exercise figuring this out themselves.
* Javascript Apis only
- Just because this is supported by Myspace & Google, it has actually taken off - but an api thats available only in javascript, would have been laughed at & ridiculed to no end in the dev. community. Whatever happened to web-services! You cant do any batch processing like group actions of a user together & send a concise & more meaningful message out. Now, its 1 message - 1 notification.
- If this continues to be the case, most developers will learn & pick up Javascript to get the distribution that G & Myspace provide, but in the longer term, thats not going to take them far. Javascript, as a language will probably gain a lot.
Eventually though, it wont really be a simple logical decision, there are much larger & longer term issues which will play a role in deciding which network goes which way.
p.s: These are my personal views, and I hope I get corrected by networks, platforms & people.
Jun. 5th, 2008 @ 12:41 pm
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| » BooksiRead.org launched |
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BooksiRead the product that we started to build at Ugenie as a facebook application, and then took it to Hi5, Bebo, Myspace & Orkut is now also available outside of all social networks at http://BooksiRead.org
This enables us to do a few more things that were a little difficult so far.
Firstly, to those who love BooksiRead ( and said they used to log on to facebook only for BooksiRead) - you no longer have to depend on a social network. ( Yes, thankfully & luckily we have a few such users).
Now you can "take your reads" with you to your blog, to your website & showcase your shelf/reading profile.
With larger real estate available, we should be able to provide a richer experience.
A much richer profile page, that you can customize quite a bit.
Hope you like the product.
Do send me your thoughts, comments, brickbats ... and more
p.s: You will be able to link all your accounts - across all networks, we'll roll this out this week, so if you have created your bookshelf, at any network, you don't have to duplicate the effort.
Jun. 3rd, 2008 @ 04:21 pm
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| » Impressed by Lok Paritran |
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As the election date for Karnataka State draws close, I have been trying to find out who deserves my vote.
After the drama that I witnessed, where all possible combinations were tried out by Cong., BJP & JD(S), drama that revolted me completely.
Backstabbing was the order of the day, Everyone was willing to go with everyone else - for a slice of the power. Principles - were an unknown quantity and governance - was all about being in power & nothing about governing.
That period was revolting & I dont think I would be able to get myself to cast a vote in favour of any of them.
Today morning I saw a leaflet in my newspaper from "Lok paritran" - Took me a while to remember that this was a party created by a few IITians a couple of years back and I was happy that it has survived. I am a little ashamed to admit that I felt charged up till a few days after I saw the movie Yuva , but did nothing about it - and here are some people who seem to be doing exactly that in real life.
I went to their site and read up their election manifesto for karnataka .
I was quite impressed by their manifesto, which took a data driven approach at listing out the issues, and suggesting solutions that they would work on.
Besides the fact that they have a lot more educated candidates than other parties, they attack a lot of fundamental issues, which should have far-reaching - ripple-kind of effects.
They are apparently fielding candidates for all constituencies in Bangalore, and I hope that at least in Bangalore - they can see some success.
What I have posted here, is based just on what I have read & may be far from the truth.
I would be happy to learn more about the topic and make a more knowledgeable decision about my vote - about this party or others from more experienced & knowledgeable folks in this area so do leave me a comment.
I hope all of you who are in Karnataka - do vote this weekend.
May. 7th, 2008 @ 07:00 pm
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| » Loconomy - a novel idea for local search |
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In my last post, I spoke about the local search players in India.
All of them have their on niches, some integrate well with maps, some have a very smart search - but to me they are all somewhat equal, especially in the experience a user goes through.
A few weeks back an ex-colleague & friend from Yahoo (Jignashu) pointed me to loconomy, and asked me to play with it. First 2 minutes, I could not figure out "whats special". Then he asked me to try searching for idiyappam in all local search engines & then try it on loconomy.
Well, I dont quite remember what idiyappam is, but I tried the search and sure enough there were matches on loconomy and Jignashu pointed out - they index the catalogue of the various businesses that they index, and now also have a "Famous for" field for each business.
Thats a novel idea: its simple, and very powerful.
For once I dont have to ask my friends - "where can i get pav bhaji around koramangala" : loconomy answers that for me.
Its not just food, where they index catalogues. Try "root canal".
While they have a long way to go and need to do a lot more - especially in terms of distribution - mobile interface(SMS, voice). I was impressed with the simplicity of the idea, hence the entire post for them.
I hear that 1 of the founders is an ex-Yahoo! as well. Quite a few ex-yahoo's starting up.
Should do another post about that :)
May. 2nd, 2008 @ 10:23 pm
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| » Local search in India |
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There are so many startups in the local space in India, that despite anyone seeing significant traction, the space seems crowded.
Onyomo, Justdial, Guruji, Asklaila, Dwaar and Zivah(zook) are a few to name.
And now with Yahoo & Google's entry into this market - I would guess it would be difficult for any of them to prosper.
2 factors that make Local search in India very different from the US or Europe are:
- Data: the data is not easily accessible online; changes are even harder to keep track of; ground reality is that changes are frequent
- Web vs other mediums : internet usage in India has not grown as per projections, on the other hand mobile usage has grown more than steadily
The 2nd point actually in some senses contributes to the 1st - There aren't enough users consuming this on the web, as a result, there are lesser incentives for business owners to be online & keep their online presence updated.
What this does mean is that all the local players either need to have a way in which the common man can access their service over mobile - sms & voice. (No other medium over mobile, is common)
Some of the players have had a head-start with this
- JustDial has built a huge brand and a profitable business, with users calling them up for local information. Some might say that the call-centre model isnt scalable, but then need to remember that the costs to run a call-centre for the indian market are very low. India has a lot of people - and till the point voice recognition becomes near perfect, this will always be a profitable model.
- Almost everyone else has a SMS interface to the local search: Zook & Onyomo have mobiles as fundamental parts of their service.
Data is a completely different beast, and most players have had to resort to some form of offline data collection. (Please correct me: I am aware of 3-4 of the companies I mentioned above doing this). This again, might run into scalability issues - and the rate at which any of these products add new cities will be slow. Here again JustDial has been in the market for long enough to have good quality data for ~200 cities.
For a web-based local product to do well in India - would need a lot more Indians to be logging into the internet for more than checking emails from their relatives & clients.
To be successful, a product would need to create a brand with SMS & voice interfaces, or last long enough - till the time a lot more Indians are online.
JustDial - has my vote for becoming & staying the most successful. They do need to do more with the wealth of data they have collected for users & use it intelligently. They also need to think of smarter business model - than paid listings. (Connecting users & businesses & charging per saleslead is an obvious one)
Besides JustDial, I think it would have to be companies with deep pockets to stick it out - as well as get enough distribution to get their products off the ground. A couple of the startups mentioned above have raised significant amount of money so they could fall in that category - but otherwise its dwaar, yahoo & google local.
I hear rumours about Reliance entering this field as well, as of now I totally believe them & that might make me change some of my bets.
My next post - a novel idea for local search ( a product that exists today)
Apr. 30th, 2008 @ 07:30 am
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| » Books iRead matures |
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Books iRead - the facebook application, that we have been working on, is now a lot more.
The application is now available on most popular social networks - Orkut , Myspace, Hi5 & Bebo.
Most of these networks are yet to start promoting applications and exposing them to their users. Orkut recently made it available to all their India users & we are seeing quite a bit of traction from Orkut.
Besides distribution within social networks, which set it apart from other book community destination sites, iRead has grown a lot.
From a simplistic initial feature-set, which allowed users to search and add books, rate and review them and see their friends books, iRead has come a long way.
Some of the powerful features that we are proud:
- Recommendations - Real-time recommendations, based on books you have added & rated.
- Read Now - Allows users to read a lot of books online(~16k), and the set includes popular books like Alchemist, and Pride and prejudice
- Book clubs - a place for like minded people to get together, discuss books and anything else.
- Author's corner - a way for authors to connect with their readers and for the readers to get a closer look at their favourite authors.
This one is for the geeks - all the applications on the different networks work off the same code base. May not seem like a big deal to a lot of people, but as an engineer I am proud of this.
Been through a lot of tough times, and the ride has been a lot of fun. The learnings, from people to product, to business to technology .... have been tremendous.
Hope the ride continues... and iRead becomes the biggest & most used book community.
Apr. 29th, 2008 @ 12:43 pm
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| » SC approves reservations - but its not as bad as it could have been |
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SC approved 27% quota in govt. institutions.
While I believe this is the wrong approach to solve the existing problem at hand and social equity can not be achieved by reservations, but rather by providing equitable growth surroundings to all. I can write a lot again about this, but this isnt the time for it and I have already written a lot about this earlier.
Given that this was already made a law by our elected representatives, and that this is a big election year, I did not expect the SC to hold out for a lot longer.
In the course of this hearing SC had raised great questions like :
- Can the govt prove the positive impact of quotas for SC & ST ?
- Why the number 27%, why not 25, or 22 ... how do you arrive at that number ?
I would love to read the ruling & the proceeds of this hearing, if anyone knows how I can get my hands on it, do let me know.
Ok, back to "its not as bad as it could have been"
- No reservation for creamy layer. This would be a huge setback to the politicos, as the creamy layer is what controls most of the power center's and influence vote-banks. While it makes common sense to not have reservations for the "forward" (creamy) OBCs, our politicians are going to fight this tooth & nail to prove otherwise.
Besides this 1 obvious "win" the court has actually gone to great lengths to bring some order & control while doling out the reservations. Sadly, very few people & news channels seem to be talking about these aspects. Of all news sources, suprising TOI has a good article that delves into some of these depths.
- Periodic reviews of reservation : "periodic review of the educational advancement of the castes so as to exclude them once they cross the threshold of backwardness" and they go ahead to put a number - 5 years. Every 5 years there needs to be a review.
- Dont compromise much on quality - "the cut-off marks for OBCs could not be substantially lower than that prescribed for general category candidates." Some members say that it shouldnt be lesser than 5% of the general cut-off, while another member of the bench puts it at 10%.
- Quota only upto Graduation - "once a backward class student passes graduation he would not be eligible to seek admission in postgraduation courses under the SEBC quota." This should have put IIMs out of the quota purview, but I guess there is more to it than meets the eye.
- Include our politico's families in the creamy layer - "On the creamy layer, the court suggested that the government should include the children of former and present MPs and MLAs to the "creamy layer" list by amending the 1993 office memorandum issued by the ministry of personnel."
While I was very peeved on reading about the SC judgement, I draw some solace from the above.
Apr. 11th, 2008 @ 03:25 pm
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| » A new eating place in koramangala - Boca Grande |
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After a long time, we were in a restaurant and said to each other
pet bhar gaya ... par man nahi bhara
translates to :
the tummy is full .... but I still feel like eating more ...
May be it was because the place opened 2 days back ( Yep .. that almost makes this a breaking news :) )
3 of us ordered diverse things :
Potato leek soup
vegan ..... (in the burgers section)
Delhi durbar - a pizza
Golden brown munchies
cake shake.... ( yep a cake shake ) ....
And all of them were par excellence....
The ambience is good .. though the tables on the ground floor arent the most comfortable for dinner.
Overall a great place & we spent about 150 per head.
Location: Opposite Bethany High School . Midway between Mocha & Namdhari's.
Mar. 27th, 2008 @ 10:10 pm
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