Reaching Home Unannounced...

Few days back…
Landed in Mumbai… time 9 : 45 PM….
Baggage… Customs… it is 10 30 when I finally come out of airport…
Still thinking… to go home or direct to Bangalore by next flight?
Of course home won the battle…
I headed for Andheri Station…. Tried to call home and inform…
Balance -34 ;-(….. not a single 1 Rs. Coin in pocket….

Reached station…. A bit lucky….
It’s 11 15 and the 11 00 local is yet to arrive…

Reached home at 12 15….
To my surprise the main gate was locked from inside….
Hmmmm… I called mother hoping someone will wake up….
No answer…
Some knocks on the gate….
First with hand... then kicks….
No answer….
Once again some calls…..
Same result... again some knocks….
No effect….

I am thinking….. (Don’t be surprised…. I sometimes DO think…)

Started the small flashlight in phone…
Thank god it has an SOS mode wherein it flashes in the SOS signal….
Tried to use that too…..
Hoping that the flashlight on the window will have some effect….

Still I am at square one…. No success….

What next?
Ok… I have another sim card with international roaming… last time that faithful ally supported me when I landed in Hyderabaad…. Let’s check this time…

So I change the sim card….
Oh...oh…. SOS calls only…. ;-((

Hmmmm… let’s try the final option….
Jump over the wall…..
I put hands on wall….
Too dusty for my clothes…. ;-)

Let’s jump over the gate….
I keep the bag outside and jump over the gate….
Finally after half an hour struggle…. I am IN….
I mean at least I am now in position to ring the doorbell….

The Cosmic Game Show...

Some days ago there was an article in Times of India about “Are we living in a simulated world?” it was usual stuff revolving around Matrix theme… and all that. It quoted one dialogue of Morpheus…If real is what you can feel, smell, taste and see, then 'real' is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.
This dialogue is also well-known… but somehow, When I read this in that article I suddenly felt some chill in spine… yeah…. what if……
As usual thoughts running amok… so penning down….

It can very well be true… In a larger sense… like…. You refer to any religion… every one believes in the concept of “The Creator”
Especially all those spiritual guru’s saying “yeh sab usaki maya hai” and all. Now combine this with the concept of soul or “aatma”…. And now you have a simulation of “The matrix”…

Imagine if the “real World” actually consists of souls as its people….
All these people connect and disconnect to a matrix that is created by “The Creator”. Only thing is that they don’t die in one go…. Now add the concept of a soul going through “84 Laksha Yoni’s” and you have a fantastic game going on there…

You connect to the matrix…. Play the game there…. Once you win (or loose?)…. That is when you go to next stage….that is “Punarjanma”… may be this game has all those 84 Lakh stages…. And ultimately “The Exit” (or Ultimate Victory?) from the game …. Or “Moksha”. Is it “The Exit” or just “Next Stage” of a even bigget matrix….. I m not sure… ;-)

We can draw some stupid analogies like…..

What role is for “Bhoot and Bhatakti Aaatma” then? may be Hackers.. or the souls who somehow managed to hack into the system to trouble other players….

The “Yama and Co” replaces the the “Agent Smith & Co”… cool isn’t it? Who plays the role of Neo then??? Should be “The Distroyer”… or Lord Shiva…and the event of “Pralaya”…..

In one sentence Morpehus made it very clear how the concept of matrix can be very real…Many times we see dreams…Everything seems so real that we actually believe it till we wake up. Now… what if the dream continued for ever?? Will we ever come to know? The impact is so real… if we come across some fearsome incident in dream… the sweat is actually on our face and not just in dream…. Sometimes we even scream…

In many robbery movies like say Oceans eleven... we see the concept that people intercept the camera signals and send some dummy signals to fool the guards or like they did in Speed-1 to fool the villain.
Now think…. All nerves carrying the signals to and from the brain to body parts connect to the brain at one point (I m very weak in biology) so what if someone has intercepted those signals and my Brain is receiving some dummy signals instead of the actual ones??

Technologically this does not seem impossible…. Some days ago they were showing on CNN the story of May Chidiac... The famous Lebanese media personality who survived a car bomb. They showed her treatment being carried out in France… The lady lost one arm and one leg in the attack. Now they have attached a robotic arm to the end that reads the nerve signals and performs accordingly ….
Or the story of a Japanese company (again I forgot name) that developed “robotic legs” that you “Wear” and they too read the nerve signals that are being passed and act synchronized with your legs sharing the load and thus enabling you carry more load.

Sometimes this makes me wonder… did our ancestors actually know about this “Matrix”?? Otherwise just think… why a species supposedly evolved from monkey would have thought of all these concepts that are nowhere related to the Jungle Life? That too not in one or two places but all over the world including the areas that were unknown to us till now; like the American continent.

Why does Jesus… Mohammed Paigambar… all says that we are messengers of god….. Why do we have Bhagwad Geeta wherein Krishna Says I am God???
Think of any civilization. Right from Egypt to the Inca and Aztecs everyone believes in some form or the other of “The Creator” and the theory of the soul…why? Why? Why?

May be this is the last of the 84 Laksha Games for me…or what is it is the first? And who cares?

Calvin & I

In past 2 years Infosys has caused a lot of changes in my world… generally all the changes that come along with change in career…change in location… change in lifestyle… and all other job related stuff…
But there is one more change that was brought in by Infy and that was no way related to my career or job…but related to my favorites….
During training period in Infosys Pune I became a big fan of Calvin & Hobbes cartoon strip. Thanks to the unknown person who took all the pain to prepare a collection then host it on an intranet website; we used to read the strip for fun whenever we had free time.

There is something about this character that I really like. Initially if you read a strip or two, you won’t find it very funny. Rather it seems stupid. Initially it is difficult to understand how a stuffed tiger sometimes speak and play and run and sometimes is just a toy?
But as you go on reading, you began to understand the World of Lord Calvin. You realize the way that small kid thinks. You began to understand his Tiger Buddy and the emotional relation between the two. At one point you understand the way the kid think and you find that you also think in exactly similar manner when you are reading the strip… and after that every strip is a fun.

After this there is no stupidity in any of the strip. Everything seems logical. Especially the way author comments sometimes on the serious aspects of life using this small strip are amazing.

All the scenarios are very much close to our daily life… a typical naughty mischievous kid whose parents work in office… he goes to school… a troubling teacher… friends in school…the sledge… the snowballs… and his imaginary world…

Everyone has his own imaginary world where we like to do the things that we think we can not do in real life. And this kid is no exception to it. The way he gives way to his destructive tendencies is just fantastic. I soon found out that I became a fan of this child’s fantastic ability to drive people crazy… especially his parents... Teachers... Friends and of course his baby sitter…

The themes of fantasies are also nice… Space Man Spiff and The Alien Encounters with Miss Wormwood… his teacher… the transmoglifier …. Calvinosorous …The snow goons… and my favorite Calvin the Tiny Insect.

Since long I was looking for a complete collection of the strip. The strip started in 1985 and was up daily till sometime in 1995. The server in infy did not have the complete collection. So I was looking for the complete collection which I could save and later read easily. Fortunately some days ago I found one and I spent a whole weekend in office just to save those pages on machine. I just spent time opening a hell lot of windows and saving one after the other… I don’t know why but I somehow desperately wanted to collect the whole set.

I sometimes feel it is very much similar to my nature… sometimes mischievous… sometimes serious but all the times logical… the ability to experiment is another thing that I find common…. (Oh God…this is height of misconception about one's own self.)

Surprisingly Badri….

I have never written an entire post about any of my friends yet…but there is going to be one exception now Bdrinath Mahabhashya… or just Badri…
To be frank he is one of my Bakra” in the infy who undergoes a lot of mental torture bcos of my usual activities…

Somehow it is my habit of passing taunts and making fun of people and if someone responds to it in an “Expected” ways then god help him. May be my moon sign scorpion is responsible for this behavior… (Nice way of washing hands off)
At every stage right from School... DME... BE… Godrej…L&T... absolutely at every place there has always been a bakra for me…

And so is the case with Badri… poor guy…
But somehow I find this guy a bit different from all previous cases.
There is a nice mixture of innocence and maturity in his nature and the percentage of innocence is higher… and one easily observes this during interaction.

Even when this guy shouts at someone…. If it were not for his words, from his face u could never make out that he is angry. There are two things that I like about this guy… first one is His face somehow remind me of the Tom from Tom and Jerry which is my favorite cartoon. And secondly there is nice sparkle in his eyes whenever he talks about his plans and ideas.

I really wonder how this man can put up with me after all the troubles I give to him. In fact there were two incidents where the situation was too embarrassing for him…and even after these he still comes with us for breakfast and lunch… I don’t think I would have done that under similar circumstances.

Another thing special about this person is the way he keeps on forgetting and missing things every now and then. Most of the times they are found to be with him (that is “in his hand” sometimes) or around him… and many times these are the things that make him “fun center” of the group… of course these are not the only things… there are many more…but I won’t discuss them here…

But somehow this person manages to remain cool all the time… always smiling… always helpful…an ability I envy him for….

Power of Stupids in large number....

Yesterday the legendary Kannada actor Rajkumaar died….
After that whatever happened in Bangalore or rather still going on while I m writing this is the worst case of fanatic behavior I have ever seen. I thought the fanatic behavior was limited to big posters with big “haar” and all…. But this was a new dimension I witnessed…

Yesterday late afternoon we got news in office that actor Rajkumar has died and there are riots going on in the city… fans of the actor were going rampant on roads burning vehicles damaging properties and all…

Obviously all the IT companies and call centers got alerted and asked all employees to leave early and made arrangements accordingly…. As it was evident there was nothing to do with the actor’s death but just to save the property from these stupid people. All the company busses were displaying big posters of the actor on the wind screen “just to protect” it.

I left a bit early… my roommates opted to stay back in office. as I reached home I realized that I have made a mistake by leaving office early….because there was no food at home and no shops open outside…. I had to wait till my friends brought something for me to eat... as well as “survival stock for tomorrow”

Next day was declared as holiday. From the events so far we were pretty sure that we won’t be getting anything to eat outside next day.
On next day... that is today morning was cool… no riots nothing…. But we got the feeling that everything is not ok since there were no channels available on cable except news channels.

Since I work for customer support team… it was necessary that someone should be in office to handle if any of the customers face any critical problem. So I and Santanu decided that depending on morning situation we will come to office…. And we succeeded… after I reached office I got call from fiends that riots started again and better I stay back in office…. And so I m stuck here... writing this post…

These events reminded me of one quote “never underestimate power of fools in large numbers” every action being taken in the city had a stamp of this sentence on it. No need to mention who those fools were… otherwise no IT company would have declared holiday today. Everyone company is simply trying to save its property and employees from these stupid people.

Height was when we found that even petrol pumps … majority of bus service routes were closed… I just hope that those people would have spared hospitals and ambulances….

Now that everything seems to be clearing out… people are just wondering whether to come to office tomorrow or not…. Because the government has declared two day mourning… for some companies it is good Friday holiday but for some it is not…. Let’s see….

Here I m strongly reminded of the incident when King Fahad of Saudi Arabia died, I was in Jeddah. We just got news in office that the king has died. Two minutes silence was maintained and country was back to work…. No holiday…. Nothing… Even the flag was not lowered down to half staff….

Thank god… Bollywood is not based in Bangalore…. Otherwise we would have seen such scenes every time some star died….