731 Days of Frivolous Love

It was not two years and one day ago that I met her. I knew her even before, In fact I might have even known her from another life. I have seen her even before that, not superfluously but even in the much simpler most straight forward sense. We were friends then and then we were better friends and now much more than just friends in the contemporary sense. But still we are friends first and anything and everything next.

The first time I met her was in my first days of college, in the most casual way, unnoticed and perturbing of each other’s existence. The first time I talked to her was in the gleaming presence of borosil glasses of the many million shapes and the vast variety of colourful liquids that it contained. Under its silent and tinted rendering of a magnificent evening was the first ever sounds greeted her in menial enquires. Then the first share the first touch, the first embrace and the first kiss and above all the first tear drop of love.

Two years back on that day lost among the wondrous celebrations how did I realized that it was to be her? That I don’t know but when our eyes met that day, then and there. I knew we were much more much more than what the earthy bodies have bounded us to be. We sue had history: a history that spanned eternities together. Her imperfections so perfectly sculpted that they fit like a hand in a glove to my imperfection. SO does my imperfections to hers. We complement and we complete and in unison we are eternal, transdential and complete.

Today all I price is her nearness all that I care for is the pungent fragrance of her aroma. Today everything is but another way to her just another step towards the ultimate union that is her and in her. Today everything is about her and about our love for one another. The one fact of the most greatest consequence today is that I am hers and she mine.  The one ultimatum is and is always is that

I LOVE HER.

Its all about Love

Hasn't it always been about love? Wonder what I am taking about? I am taking about marriages. India is a confusing country for a marriage to exist, to one side we have lots of customs and the rich cultural vibrancy that at this epitome of ethnic diversity throws about and to the other we have the largely commercialized and institutionalized gala called a marriage. Somewhere along the way I start wondering what really is a marriage about? Is it about two people in love uniting or is it just something done because everybody else seems to be doing and is it just at the primeval end a means to keep ones clan running.

The one word that describes the ‘wedding’ industry could be magnanimous; the elusive and lucrative industry has stripped Indian marriages off its essentialities and replaced them with material substitutes that corrode an institution that has long been considered scared. The sanctity of the marriage has been long lost; it has been violated and prostituted. But what surprises me the most is how people could be so blinded that they could for go what is essential and indispensible in a marriage, Love.

History is the witness when it comes to marriages in India. History bears witness to the freedom of choice and the simplicity of the great Indian weddings. Brides were respected and bridegrooms stood proud without a price tag.  What now appear to have become a largely commercialized and hyped up cultural gala and festival with much diminished  importance for the actual wedding was not always so. The advent of arranged marriages are not so clear to me but must probably they came from a group of controlling fathers eager to extend their family lineage and false prestiges.

It passes my mind how arranged marriages could ever succeed, it is incomprehensible to me how two people completely unknown, unaware of each other even to the slightest character could ever co-exist as such. At least isn’t that not a gamble? A leap of faith? Of course they succeed what choice does they have?  We live in a society that taken over by its totalitarian dystopia dictates terms and conditions on our existence. They expect us to obey and follow the crowd like buffaloes and those that dare to stand apart are either classified as philosophers or mad men. Then again I believe, this lack of choice and subjection is the one and only reason as to why such a marriage should exist, Like my friend so daringly terms it, A compromise!

Don’t for one second believe that I disagree with the fact that occasionally there comes a couple that are just perfect or so near to that place. What we call a real match made in heaven. But isn’t that just and odd chance a, a play of probabilities? Love marriages or as I call it a real marriage exists and stems from love the sole reason that appeals to me when committing to such a demeaning soc ial institution. Why else should one marry if not for love after all marriage is all about love!

An Invisible Man

What true is that all men are invisible, invisible like glass, so invisible that they are seldom seen and the funny thing is that unlike glass they themselves feel invisible. Everyman is lonely, everyman is alone, how much ever he surrounds himself with people, he becomes more and more invisible. How can he be alone is an interesting question, especially in this fast shrinking world, but the sad truth is the smaller the world gets the lonelier its inhabitants get. It’s certainly a paradox upon itself that in the growing crowd people find themselves the more isolated.

We are connected with a million people through all sorts of media, wired, not wired, perceivable and unperceivable alike. Tiny electronic chips plug you to a vast network of friends and family, acquaintances and what not. The virtual world of thriving socialization sees even people lacking in inter personal skills in real life make magnanimous groups in the virtual domain. But have you ever thought what you are worth without the internet. Has it ever occurred to you to sever away all virtual ties for a few hours, try it and see whether you are truly not alone. The networks have a very bad feature about it; it fills you with a false sense of reality. You chat and chat with your colleague on line but in real life you can’t even tell “hello” though you see here every hour of every day of your life.

I am not here to bash technology and it’s just taking me far away from what is it that I really what to tell. The only reason I introduced the internet and the telecoms is because I wanted to tell you the virtual life is not the real life. The moment you are free from all these amenities you find yourself alone in the world. It’s certainly no generalization but the sad fact that rules most of our lives.

There are two kinds of loneliness in the world or I think so. One is the loneliness that persists because there is no one to be with you ever, because no one loves you are likes you. Now this is a sad state to be and the vast majority of us never fall in this category. The other the more general state of loneliness that you and I are so easily susceptible to is the state of loneliness that arise from the fact that though there exist a crowd of people who loves you they are just not there right now. This loneliness is always in the now. The moment you are alone it creeps in. Though you have a dozen friends, now seems to think about you then, no one calls no one enquires and then the minds starts playing sinister tricks on itself.

There is a goodness to this feeling of loneliness, it shows you what you want, what you can have and most importantly what is it that you already have. You would only miss what you already had, isn’t it? The truth is that no one is really invisible in this world, everyone is visible. It only happens that you are in a company of souls that can’t see you. I know I have half contradicted myself, but the truth is that no one is invisible, it’s just happens that no one is looking is looking right now. That is not the same as being invisible, Is it?

The Amazon Interview Process

This is the crude stuff about how my interview at Amazon went, I did not want to bore my dear friends with it, but then I thought may be someone would find it useful. So this will be one among that few that's just there in my blog but not for my readers to read. This is for that tech crazy job aspiring people who would really find this useful as I found many such blogs useful for my preparations.

Amazon’s interview process is sure one of the toughest to crack, especially since they come with a very specific list of skills. Amazon’s interview process is intended to analyse one on the basis of a set of data points and the cumulative of all data points are taken to find the final result. It must also be noted that if one candidate fails to satisfy the company’s requirement even on one data point he or she will be eliminated instantly.

An Overview of Amazon's Interview process

Amazon looks for the following in any candidate

• Programming skills
• Problem solving skills
• Knowledge of Data Structures and Algorithms
• Problem identification skills

Amazon’s recruitment/placement process is divided mainly into two parts

• The preliminary test
• The technical interviews ( 3 – 4  interviews in the span of a day)

The preliminary test contains both technical and aptitude based questions and it also includes two programming questions that have to be coded in an environment provided by amazon. The primary aim of the programing questions are not to test your ability to produce outputs but the focus is on finding the better answer or the faster easier logic.

The interviews purely focuses on ones ability to solve problems and the depth of ones knowledge in the field of data structures and algorithms. The more important thing is that one should be able to code on paper as they will ask for complete working programs and they wont provide you a compiler to test it on. Further care should be taken when coding for the edge cases as all edge cases will be explicitly tested on your code by them.

The Aptitude / Technical Test

If ones dream of getting into Amazon must come true then it is mandatory that this round be cleared and clearing this is not very easy.

They ask around 20 wildly assorted questions spanning everything in computer science fundamentals and a few from aptitude section as well. One could always expect a few output questions from c and cpp. The only trick is to be through with the fundamentals. The list of questions and their topics I remember will be listed at the end.

Programming Questions

The more crucial part of the preliminary test is the coding section where you will be asked to code  two rather simple programs ( simple in reference to other programs that usually appear for coding contests or online coding tests) within a time span of 45 mins. Though Amazon as such does not explicitly specifies any restrictions with respect to the time and memory conception of the code, they do evaluate by hand the optimality and efficiency of the code to decide whom they should let in to the interviews.

Getting an output is not the primary criteria for getting a safe passage into the interviews. Do take extra care to make sure that a better solution is provided for each problem being asked. One more thing that should be kept in mind is that though the environment accepts your program if it provides the correct output for the provided test case it may not get you to the next round. Make it a point to construct your own test cases and test your code on that too. These should guarantee you a safe passage to the next round.

Again the question that I was asked and I remember will be provided at the end of the so called long prose.

PS: By the way don’t think about copying, they do use dif on  the codes.

The Interviews

I did have to go through a sum total of about 6 hours of interview process before I was selected and it was divided into 3 sessions. First a 45 minutes interview that tested me on problem solving, next was an another 1 and a half hour interview on Data structures and lastly a 3 hour 15 min interview on more advanced and tricky use of data structures, algorithms and problem solving.

The first interview included a warm welcome and two very straight forward questions, It only included a basic understanding of data structures and some very crucial logic to get past this one

The second one was a HR interview and a technical interview rolled into one. The HR questions asked were pretty basic and included questions like, what is your achievements and why amazon so on and so forth. The one thing to be sure about is that you should know your resume back and forth. They have asked me everything that was there on that piece of paper. Again all questions I remember will be appended to the document.

The third interview was the toughest one of all, it was a gruelling three hour process and some tough questions. There were two programming questions again one was really tough and the next was relatively easier which was then followed by lots of direct questions on data structures, more like rapid fire back to back questions round.

Every time they do ask if we have questions and its appreciated that one asks them questions and they do like being asked questions about the company and how work happens in Amazon.

Tips and Tricks

·      Learn to be able to deduce logic for solving a problem and then convert the logic into code. Do follow the distinction between the two. This helps achieve a generic approach to solving adhoc problems. I suggest using of flowcharts to deduce this logic as it helps convert complex logic to code very easily.( It aided me in coming out of the final interview in flying colours).

·       Try programming puzzles in sites like codechef and do participate in coding contests. This helps in developing an appetite  and aptitude for solving programing puzzles.

·         Do study data structures and algorithms very well, they are absolutely necessary for Amazon and do practise such that you be able to identify immediately what databases serves best when used to solve a particular problem.

The Questions

Preliminary

MCQ:

1. Given a rectangle of given size what is the minimum no of squares needed to exactly cover the rectangle.
2.  Identify a given algorithm.
3. Given several pipelines their time costs and the delay in starting each pipeline what is the time taken to execute a certain no of instructions that are depended on each other.
4. What is the maximum number of processors that can run using 11 resources such that deadlock will not occur.
5. Which of the following happens ( deadlock and starvation), deduce for the given code.
6. Several output questions.
7. One question to identify the suitable characteristics of a network to be used under specified circumstances.
8. A question for speed distance and time.

Sorry that’s all I can recall.

The two programming questions are

1. Given that amazon wants to recruit only one from a group of n equally qualified candidates, they have decided to make them all stand in a row and them ask the ones standing at odd places to go home, repeatedly till one exists. Given n by standing at what position shall ensure a sure recruitment by Amazon.
2. Given a linked list containing a sequence of characters, reorganise the string such that all the vowels appear first and the consonants next and they be sorted in the order they appeared.

Interview Round 1

1. Given that amazon wants to recruit only one from a group of n equally qualified candidates, they have decided to make them all stand in a row and them ask the ones standing at odd places to go home, repeatedly till one exists. Given n by standing at what position shall ensure a sure recruitment by Amazon. Assume that the list given is  a linked list and all that you will have is the pointer to the start of the linked list.
2. Print the elements in a n x m matrix diagonally and from bottom to top

Egs   for  a simple 3x3 matrix filled with number 1 - 9 print  7 , 4 8, 1 5 9, 2 6, 3                                                                                         

Interview Round 2

1. Given a stack add the following feature without changing any of the characteristics of the stack. getminelement() with unit complexity, O(1).
2. Everything in the resume round.
3. What are my best achievements and why I consider it my best achievement?
4. What are my weaknesses and when and how has it affected my productivity?
5. What are my projects and explain in detail what I did?
6. Explain how I managed my team and concentrated my teams effort to achieve our aim.

Interview Round 3

1. Given that the input is a binary tree connect all the elements in the same level or depth using links.
2. Given the stack what additional modification can you bring to the stack such that you are able to check the presence of an element in the stack.
3.  Direct questions on Hashing( predominantly )and other data structures.

Additional Questions

1. To swap adjacent elements of a linked list by modifying only the pointers. 1->2->3->4 becomes 2->1->4->3 and 1->2->3->4->5 becomes 2->1->4->3->5
2. To sort the elements of a vector. Stable sort. The elements are sorted based on element%7. {1,2,3,4,5,6,7,14} becomes {7,14,1,2,3,4,5,6}
3. To find number of sequences of the form 1...N such that each element differs from the previous by +1 or +2. N is the input. Bonus: Generate all possible sequences for given N.
4. An array is given. Each element differs from the previous by +1 or -1. Best way to find the first occurrence of given number.
5. Given an array of extremely huge size, find the sum of elements from ith index to jth index. There will be lots of queries even for a single array. So some sort of pre calculation is expected.

I just wanted them to ask

I just wanted them to ask,

Not bother and bask,

I just wanted them to care,

That is only obvious and fare.

I asked not for a sonnet and a song,

Nor for pretty things to sing along.

All I asked for was love,

And none is what I got till now.

I asked not was cages of gold,

But the tight grip of your hold.

I want not the glitter of your smile,

But for you to be not apart a mile.

I asked not for divine embellishments,

But for wet trace of your rosy armaments.

The love is dead, that I know,

But life that is mine is being lost in snow.

In white and in black you tread,

In things you say are far important than the bread.

Care, do you really?

Love, hope you could see fairly.

Such is the loss that I dearly know,

That it is so much for me to let go.

Love me, care for me I beg,

It won’t cost you an arm or a leg.

I just wanted them to ask,

Not bother and bask,

I just wanted them to care,

That is only obvious and fare.

This is for D, who was pestering me lot to make a poem happen! So here it is , I fulfilled my promise :D

Chasing Liberty

The idea of liberty and freedom has always been more than just words to our years, we have had undergone a grueling struggle to claim what we call our freedom. Enrich Freud, an eminent psychoanalyst points out that humanity always had a quest fro freedom but often it were  reduced to nothing but replacing an archaic system of suppression with a later model. The continuous changes in governance and  theosophical societies has played the major role in what is that we call freedom. As mush as I agree with him on this point I disagree to the same degree with his views. I know that could very well be called double standards but after all for us Freedom , Liberty and democracy are more than just words.

All men are born free, but everywhere they are in chains

                                    -Jean Jacques Rousseau

The idea of liberty and our chasing behind it is there in the very fabric of our existence. As Rousseau  invariably pointed out all most all men are born into chains though by entitlement they deserve none, they are born into the chains of society, the chains of relations, the chains of hypocrisy and the very chains of existence. Though one may argue that some chains are rather light and essential for a social being, I would like to point out that nevertheless they are chains and further more an encroachment on ones freedom.  However light the chains may be, however indistinguishable the reins may be, they are by all degree an hurdle in the quest for absolute freedom.

Absolute freedom mocks at justice. Absolute justice denies freedom.

                                                                                                                                - Albert Camus

The absolute freedom is as volatile a thing as anything can ever be. When a freedom so absolute arrives and is exercised in its purest form, wouldn't ones freedom be just another encroachment on another's, wouldn't one's freedom be a hindrance to another's. These questions pose an obvious answer, it certainly would. if you are still unclear on that let me put it with a light example out here. if my freedom allows me to kill somebody as it should as it is being purely nonrestrictive to me then that becomes an encroachment one that persons freedom to live with out any fear or danger whom I am to kill to exercise my freedom. That must simply make it clear that our quest for absolute freedom will never be quenched as there can never exist an ideal concept of absolute freedom that is exercised universal and without discrimination. 

Then what are we hunting when we are hunting for freedom? what really is freedom? is it an ability to do what ever we please when ever we please to do so? It is not! Freedom in its ideal form is just an act of balance where one can do what he pleases as long as he is never incriminating another's right to do what that persons feels to do. Freedom sure is a strange idea, so is Liberty. I would never talk of democracy as an idea as strong as an idea as liberty or freedom. Democracy is just another "cracy", much like autocracy, theocracy and so on. 

The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.

                                                                                                                - Thomas Jefferson

But Liberty and Freedom are profound ideas and things that ever human or rather animal soul craves. But then one might ask what difference Liberty and Freedom entails as they seemingly and essentially appear the same. In fact its true that they are identical but for a slight difference. Liberty is the ability to exercise freedom without harming another.  It is true that our should never be for absolute freedom but for absolute Liberty and only the lady of liberty can bring about such profound change in humanity that they stop existing as a coercive species and as groups of idealists. 

The quest for freedom or liberty what ever it may be is a long one and much is left to be done to attain this perfect balance. what we need now are not champions of democracy nor champions of liberalization but we need champions of liberty. Champions who can and will work to bring about absolute Liberty. A liberal world is the most perfect world that we can ever hope that our children will ever live in. 

Dreaming of such a wonderful world I stop her assuming that from the shreds of things I talked about you could find what is that you want from the freedom and liberty you already have and what is that space that you want to create for liberty to thrive.

The Nights of the Firefly

The monsoon has just took an hiatus after barging on my window silts for what seemed like hours, the night still resounded with the faint dripping of the raindrops, yet there was an unusual silence about the dark veil it wore. The cold night which was reeling under the rain was just released and like a convict freed from the prison, it took in a deep breath, a profound, prolonged breath. The tress swayed and banged their heard on my bedroom walls. The night was poignant and yet there was one visitor who was not gloomy, one who was high in spirit, dancing around with a limy lantern on her tail.

Every monsoon she had came to visit me, day in and day after and this rainy night was no different, betwixt the occasional lashing of the coconut palms and the slow insidious murmur of the cricket. Slowly gliding into the darkness of my room, the strange ghostly lights, yellow, green and fluorescence of the chemical light, as though she in her gentle palanquin. She swayed and she glided, she smiled and she frowned and she sat on my bed with child-like innocence. A creature so pure, so beautiful, that her faint yellowish green glow has filled up more than just a room, it has filled my heart, the gentle sublime firefly!

“The fireflies o'er the meadow In pulses come and go.” 

- James Russell Lowell

Have you ever seen a lake at night filled with fireflies, if you have not then you have seen nothing. The beautiful sight of floating lights that embellish the nights in a festive canopy, they go on and off in a blaze with subtle demeanor. My room was filled with them many a times, gaining shelter from the tormenting rain that just went by they came in. I do keep my windows open and welcoming, they are never closed and hence I do have a large number of visitors day and night and my little friends here were more than just acquaintances. They would sit at the various places that they felt comfortable, transforming my room clad in darkness into a sight as serene as the night at the lake.

But Alas! the times have changed and changed a lot too, the lantern like angels do not come visit anymore, the night skies are darker than the used to me, shrouded by darkness and the pessimistic cacophony of the rumbling concrete jungle on the rise. The fireflies have long been gone, but even today as the rain battles on my walls, trickling and spraying off my window rails, I dream of the lake, the dark, the blue, the silent lake filled with a million tiny sparks in the starry sky.

Now we have a Century : A Letter of Cognizance

Dear Friend,

                              When I started my blog way back in 2009, I have had no idea that I would ever be able to stick with for long enough, let alone be able write my 100th post. But here we are and I sure owe it all to you. When I started thinking seriously about writing I was apprehensive, uncertain and greatly confused, but I did sure want to come out and give it my best. When I finally decided to go through with my plan , Pages off Life was born.

                             Pages off Life was never the run-away success that I hopped it to be. but most of its juvenile years it spent going in and coming out of one hiatus after the other. But pages of Life was my only project that stood the test of time, when my other blogs just withered away there was something special about it that made it survive the hard times and the only thing that made its survival possible is you my friends. 

                               Before 2011, I had not many followers nor many readers but still I kept writing and slowly  you came to my site, some leafed through, some dared to come back and some took a liking to it that I never will understand. Everyone one of you made my day one way or the another. You gave me a valuable gift, the gift of your time and further more your criticism and guidance that made me  a better writer post after post. I am proud today not because I have many followers but because I have made many a friends, because I have had the privilege to be among a magnificent crowd of remarkable people.

                           I thank you today more than ever for your support and guidance, for the heart that cared and the words that guided me. the truth is if I am a writer then you have made me one. It is you who have shown me the strength when I was in doubt and it is you have shown me belief when I was lacking in faith. Page off Life may be my blog but it is not mine, it is ours to be.

 Thank you, Friends!

Wet with Tears

I just finished reading Tuesday’s with Morrie by Mitch albom and if you have had read it once then maybe; just maybe you would know why I have titled my post so. The truth is that I have not cried so much, at least not produced so much tears by volume in the last several years. This book undeniably has struck a few chords with me. I was weeping thru the life Morrie Schartz and I honestly have no idea why and I believe may be writing this would fetch me an answer. This is just another of my aimless self-inquests.

When Morrie battled it out triumphantly with ALS and died a serene death that many among us desperately dream about, his left many a men bewildered at its blatant simplicity. It may forever remain the enigmas of life, the secret of self-discovery and salvation.  It occurred to me I am a sad example for any form life, no real purpose, no real dreams and certainly no real ambitions and the worst of all the ugly fact that I am doing nothing about it.

There are three kinds of people in this world. Firstly the ones who knows what he wants and does what must be done,  secondly the ones who have no idea about it and hence does nothing whatsoever about it. These two I believe must be happy at all points in their life, for the first are a contend lot and the second bask in evanescence of ignorance and hitherto has nothing to y and a worry about. But sadly I belong to a third group of troubled, lonesome, frustrated mob, the ones that what they wants and does nothing about it and hence settles themselves to self-pity and a life full of discontent and emptiness. May be it made me realize the emptiness inside of me and that’s why I cried, maybe I cried because I know what I wanted to be and just realized that I was nothing that I promised myself I will be.

Mitch talks about a lot in the 200 pages that the book really is, there was so much love, compassion and gratitude. These things touch your heart no matter in what colour and brand they come in. The truth about life is simple, we crave love and we crave it with all our heart. It is to the soul what fresh air is to the body, we thrive on it and when we don’t get enough we suffocate and our soul perishes. I quote from a recent movie “make sure when the final buzzer goes off on your life BHeeeeee you have no regrets”. I makes me think, How many of us can really say that if this very moment as I am writing these words and you are reading these we die,  we would have no regrets. Not me! I could very well haunt the attic of my own house due to the sheer volume of unfinished business that’s left. May be it’s the realization that made me cry like a new born.

Or maybe it’s just a sign that I am still human and I have that small bit of humanity left forgotten in some deep corner of my institutionalized heart. It always occurred to me that this was one good excuse or reason however you may take it to provide for my momentary lapses and occasional tryst with reality. Many a times I have took shelter under this roof and I see no reason why not today, why not now.

There is one more reason for the profound volatility that I experience now emotionally, the fact that life is short and succinct is not one that I am unfamiliar with but the truth is that I dawns on me time and time again and leaves me in a kind of a emotional upheaval.

I end now for I have no more to say!

PS: I don’t know why I wrote this, I felt a need to. I not know what I meant by it, I just went by my heart. The truth is my emotions are as mixed up as the post is forgive me! guide me!

A Great Speech for Humanity's Sake

The wonderful speech from The movie "The Great Dictator" featuring Charlie Chaplin.

I'm sorry, but I don't want to be an Emperor - that's not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone, if possible -- Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another; human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there's room for everyone and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone.

The way of life can be free and beautiful.

But we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men's souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.

The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.

To those who can hear me I say, "Do not despair." The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass and dictators die; and the power they took from the people will return to the people and so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

Soldiers: Don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you, enslave you, who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel; who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don't hate; only the unloved hate, the unloved and the unnatural.

Soldiers: Don't fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written, "the kingdom of God is within man" -- not one man, nor a group of men, but in all men, in you, you the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.

Then, in the name of democracy, let us use that power! Let us all unite!! Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give you the future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie! They do not fulfill their promise; they never will. Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people!! Now, let us fight to fulfill that promise!! Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness.

Soldiers: In the name of democracy, let us all unite!!!

Moments of Silent Pleasure

I have read some where that love is not looking at each other for hours without end but it is looking at the horizon together. I have repeatedly failed to grasp what it meant but now things start coming to light. The fact that love has a language on its on and its synchronizes two souls that in otherwise would have nothing in common. The purpose of hope and ambition in love is simple, it serves as the bread and butter of love and it essentially distinguishes love from lust. When in love you know where you want to be now, where you want to be in one year time and where you want to be after a decade. It certainly is not planning but it certainly is a subconscious route map to where you are headed in love. Some understands it, some cherish it and some are scared the hell out of by it. Some run from it, some hide from it and some boldly face its adrenalin rush. 

Love is not what is said and written about. Love is the happiness, the silence and meaning of wordless-ness. Cherish it, embrace it and most of all dare to fall into its depth.

The Days that I Fear

It had happened at last, I knew it would come one day. The haunting realities of old age makes it impossible to forego. I knew it would happen it would only be a matter of time. The truth is that upsets me is not that it happened but I was not here by his side when it happened. I was not here to catch him when he fell, I was not here to sit by his side when he was lying in the hospital bed, and I was not here to take flowers and fruits to cheer him up.  It strikes me hard and I can’t forgive myself for making him be all alone when he needed me the most.

When I woke up yesterday, it was a beautiful day; a day like any other. The day was not meant to be anything other than what I have been planned. It was supposed to be an all holes barred canister of monotony but the heavens had plans that were greater than mine. When I reached home after a meticulously planned day which was executed to perfection, I was confronted with a rather off handed remark from my aunt. She enquired whether I knew about my grandfather been taken for a ‘service’.  All I could respond with was a rather confused look and a big question mark hovering over my head.

Grandfather, Great Spirit, once more behold me on earth and lean to hear my feeble voice.
Black Elk

I was to be at the receiving end of some very shocking news. While I was away in my college worrying about my petty exams a whole lot had happened here. One day my grandfather felt dizzy and almost collapsed, My mother and aunt tried sugar solution thinking that it was a drop in his sugar level, then the called a doctor who lives across the street, she came in and did some preliminaries and then they called my uncle who is a doctor and he was quick to recommend a hospital and insisted that they take him there instantly. He was admitted in Intensive Care Unit and was under observation for three days and a hoard of test was being conducted on him. All this while I was laughing, joking and partying with my friends, unaware of anything that was going on in my hostel.  I despise myself.

Photo by     Corbis Super RF 

All my life my grandfather was there for me, when I took my first steps , when I passed my first class, when I was not able to sleep and when I was down with a fever. He would come to me from anywhere he was. Je would abandon all that was important and come to me sit by me and care for me  and now when he was sick and tired where was I? Writing exams of no real significance in life? I was doing things that I could have written at some other time and passed with the same ease. No body informed me what had happened and nobody told me that something was wrong and I did not feel it, I should have felt it when he was sick. I should have. He does so should I shouldn’t I? My grandfather had asked everyone not to tell me anything.

"...there is no grandfather who does not adore his grandson."
Author: Victor Hugo

Now I know not what to do, Should I be angry at him for not telling me anything or should I be happy that he is alright? Should I be making a tantrum about why not me? Or should I just be ‘adult’ about it. But one thing is sure if at all anything happens to him which I believe will not and I am not here by his side holding his hands during his last few moments in life I know I will not forgive myself ever. 

Wiki-ing, Goggling and more

Look how the world has changed! I still remember around the time I was in 8^th grade and so, every time I ran into something interesting, finding out more about it was an uphill and upbeat task, you had the reference books, then there was occasional newspaper write-ups, the not so frequent shows in the discovery channel or the National geographic and then there may be the library, a teacher who could help me out and many a times a really good dictionary. Those were my close friends’ every time I found myself fascinated by something or the other. But that’s all history now!

Goggling the World

I don’t even bother opening the dictionary these days and the last time I touched it was to dust it! Every time I see something I go to that fabulous website that can be termed nothing short of a window into the world outside. I Google! The refreshingly clean and no fizz home page of mine that gives me an answer to all my awkward questions even the ones to which my mother’s answer would be “stop asking such stupid questions”.

Simply enough Google has literally revolutionized the world and the rise of Google has been nothing short of a revolution in itself. But of all things it revolutionized it revolutionized the education sector most, free and open information was now freely available and any person who had a question in his mind had a place to ask it and hope to get an answer to it. You could follow anything you want you could study all that you can and want; there were no longer any restrictions. And the education was becoming more fun as it is meant to be. The single most important factor that made it possible is the ability to select and study any subject you want without the walls of a curriculum closing on you or any pressure being put on you. For the first time you were free! But what Google did was simple enough, it put everything there was on the internet and put it in a shelf so that we could find it easily, it opened the way to a hoard of services.

Wikipedia : Creating a world with Free Knowledge

Then the next revolution in the world of world education ought to be the Wikipedia, a site so simple yet so powerful that it just changed the way we learn things altogether, the very definition and purpose of an encyclopedia is rewritten with Wikipedia. There is practically nothing under the sun that the Wikipedia doesn’t have an article about. Even the organizational hierarchy is worth the praise, an encyclopedia anyone can be part of the making. Whenever I want to know something, a place, a thing a concept, whatever it may be it’s a one stop place for information.

The internet has just realized its potential and is coming up with innovative ways to enrich the experience of education; the days when education was confined to the walls of the classroom and monochromatic black board are history. The education today is more an holistic approach and when its powers are truly extracted education can be real fun and an experience worth experiencing.

The Discovery of a Friend

She was just as I had imagined, her rounded spectacles, her classy selection of colours, her magnificent smile, when I saw her walking towards me after three years, one month and twenty eight days, she was just as I imagined. It was three years, one month and twenty eight days ago that we first met, a truly serendipitous discovery in every sense of the word. The memories of her lies in the most vibrant colours available in my mind, these images boast some of the most wonderful memories I will ever have to cherish. People say a long distance relationship is hard, it may be true in case of a relation that has a future with a wedding and kid in it but not for friendship, it can survive some of the harshest conditions that the nature can throw at it, it can be deceived sometimes but not deceived always, it may have some dark days but it sure will come around and the friendship will flourish.

It was on a warm sunny April 12^th way back in 2009 that I met her, we were sitting next to each other in the examination hall for IIT-JEE, I had wonderful plans for the day and so did god but it’s not the case that I did anything for either. Half an hour into the examination I was pretty sure this is not going to happen not with three answers a zillion random guesses and that’s when she caught my attention. She was sitting there doing most humorous things in the world, at one point in time she actually held her hair up and used her question paper for a fan, Oh! God I wanted to fall to the floor and laugh my heart out. But then she turned around and it was as if destiny bought us together, a friend for life served in a platter.

Now if you had by some chance came from Indiblogger, you must be wondering what in the world does this have anything to do with the internet, this doubt is sure to rise in any readers mind who understands that this was submitted under the tag “Internet is fun”. The ambiguity is because the part where internet played any part is just about to come up. Those who just lost it here try this link here.

So as I was saying we met for the first time, but this is not a love story it’s a friendship story so just one meeting is not going to suffice, we should meet again and we did too( otherwise there won’t be a story to tell. Would there be?). We left the hall with just a smile and I had her name and knew where she was from. That night I had the stupidest idea ever why not Google what I have, then the popular network was orkut and I searched for her there. I still think what if I had second guessed it, I would have been really stupid had I not been stupid then, I would have missed meeting my best friend and would not have even known that. Oh! Yes I found her on the first try, I send her a friend request and she accepted, we started talking and we chatted and then orkut became Facebook and then messages and then calls and now, three long years have passed and thanks to some stupid decisions and the amazing world of internet I had a friend, not just any friend my best friend was discovered hence.

When I think about it now it occurs to me had I there not been there, had there been no Facebook or had there been no orkut, I would never have had her, never would have got to know so well a wonderful human being and above all a magnificent and irreplaceable friend. Isn’t it wonderful what you can find in the internet these days? I tell you this internet is not all a fairy tale, there are dark corners in the internet that’s is better not talked about but it’s not an evil place to be, the vast majority of it is marvelous, the vast majority is about sharing, friendships, chatting, getting to know and exchanging ideas. Internet sure is fun when you get discover something marvelous in the tangible web!

"A Friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of Nature."- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Believe me! I am NOT a BOT

It has happened way too often, every time I decide to surf the internet I have to question that keeps haunting me. Every time I want to comment, Every time I want to subscribe for a newsletter, every time I want to do something interesting it happens. They always ask politely but when the number of times one has to answer increases so does the frustration and anger multiplies. The question is always the same, “Please prove you are not a Robot”.

The question is always accompanied by a set of illegible letters that no one with a sane pair of eyes can read and if he does try its certain to drive him insane in seconds. The worst part is when the set of letters never matches anything you type because some idiot who did the data entry was way too drunk to realize the difference between ‘a’ and o or ‘r’ and ‘n’. You have to keep typing till you lose sanity and give up or by some divine luck you get it right. I there is one thing in the internet more irritating than those crazy videos that go viral just because some idiot just realized he was an idiot and was lucky enough to be caught on came and helped himself to a few million hits overnight then this must that.

They call it captcha I call it capture

They do have a very lovely name for this insane madness; they call it ‘Captcha’. It sounds like ‘capture’ and I have never been able to understand what they were actually trying to capture, some bad evil robot developed by the sky net or our sane minds.

There are way too many captchas out there for any sane person to happily search the web without losing their minds.May be they do have no other way to distinguish genuine users and spammers but what I don’t understand is why is it that I have to enter the same thing again and again in the same website can’t they just be happy with one verification. I will tell you this I am sick and tired of being called a robot and being asked to prove otherwise. It never fails to make me cry out “Believe me! I am human”.

The Lost Childhood

Do you remember your juvenile days, the time when the whole world was full of wonder and possibilities? The time when the whole world was just perfect and everything was just a thought away? The truth is most of us cant, if I were a wee bit wrong and I do wish I was wrong, we could have seen a whole lot of people trotting along the streets smiling happy smiles. If I were wrong we could have seen unknown people playing with each other and there would have been no disgust or bias based on colour, race or faith. Every evil is the work of an adult, the child is not tainted, the child knows no distinction, and for a child all are one and the same. With age we learn to bias, discriminate and demarcate!

Let me tell you something that happened on my train journey yesterday, I was travelling on a train to home in a relatively full cabin. There was a young couple, an old man, a middle aged professional and then there was me. A rather weird mix of people that under no circumstances would strike up a conversation with each other but it so happened that in this particular journey we were meant to be more than just polite  in our conversations but friendly enough to play together. There was a girl, A sweet, cute angel with a flower the size of a lotus stuck to her hair bow and a smile that could melt the world away. She talked to us every one of us and before we knew we were cracking jokes playing at each other’s expense and mocking each other. What had happened for such a remarkable transformation to occur to a very strange group of people?

The truth is, the kid happened, her innocence transcended our hearts and heads, her innocent melted away any discrimination and disgust we would have carried, it annihilated whatever it was that prevented us from talking to each other. In her presence we were becoming children poking her, making faces, mimicking her stories and acclimating to her emotions. She made us able to see through life with clarity, without prejudices, an ability that we have lost in a very distant past. It’s a shame that we can’t live the life of a child always. Wouldn’t it be amazing had we been able to remain a child forever, an age of mind where your biggest sadness was not getting candy and your days always started with sunshine and ended in fairytales? An age when we were willing to believe in magic, fairytales, magic and fairies. An age characterized by an ability to trust and love unconditionally.

I believe we need to reclaim our childhood if we are to live life to our fullest. I believe when we lose all childishness and child-likeness in ourselves that’s when we really become old. It is possible and it is achievable, to be like a child, it is possible to keep an open mind and it is possible to love and trust unconditionally. We need to understand the child in us and keep it alive inside us. Life is too short to be not a child. Ask yourself if being in the presence of  a child is enough to make you childlike then would it be hard to be childlike all your life if you tried.




Photo Credits: Children Playing in Rain, Bangladesh© 1996-2012 National Geographic Society.