Looking into the horizon

There is a theological belief that says Jesus was not of flesh. Gnosticism tries to substantiate that belief and says; since Jesus was not of flesh, he didn't die in the cross. It was indeed Simon of the cyrene who got crucified for Jesus. I am not an advocate of any of these beliefs but what is enthralling is all these stories gives you questions which shakes you. If you are questioned "If Gandhi's father was Gandhi? Or Is Godse's son a Godse?", then you are in the never ending tale of Good vs Bad or God vs Devil. This goes on from Generation to generation. From childhood, we might have heard a lot of stories on moral values and principles. One of the intriguing things in listening all those stories is; how to attain the wisdom to decide between good vs bad. Some of the stories end with a verdict so you need not really bother about the process of deciding the evil. The ambulimama stories of Vikramadhithan-Vedaal never end with a verdict. They always question you...

My list of favorite batsmen in that order are 1. Ricky Ponting 2. Dravid 3. Kevin Pietersen 4. Rohit Sharma 5. Gilchrist Disclaimer: Leave out Dravid from the crux of this entire article. He is my out of world cricket love. The Gilly pull Rohit Sharma, Stand and Deliver! One common trait that you can find in the rest of them is they lose the grip of the bat quite frequently when compared to other cricketers. You can list 'n' number of times the bats flying out of the hands of all these players. All of them are exceptionally powerful hitters. They stand tall and are terrific pullers. Their long on to deep mid wicket sixes are as gorgeous as the world beauties. Personally, I like Kevin Pietersen's Flamingo and Ricky Ponting's pull. Gilchrist's jabs are equally powerful and effective. Yesterday's I was watching Harmanpreet Kaur's class. If you can see a pattern in the list above, then you can easily say, Harmanpreet fitting into that cla...

If I have to pick the best among the bunch of Indian actors today, I would pick Fahadh Faasil and Nawazuddin Siddiqui. Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum (TD) is just another proof for me to say so. I have only one complaint against Fahadh... on taking away the beautiful, charming actress in Nazriya out of the film world. TD is a second film of director Dileesh Pothan and his second assembly with Fahadh. TD is way ahead of Maheshinte Prathikaram (MP), (theirs first) in substance, making and in the performance of the actors. Maheshinte prathikaram with all its difference in film making can still be written off as a masala flick with a great screenplay and making. MP has a real good hero, falling for a girl, good at work, happy with his average lifestyle, getting disturbed and retaliating as masalaic as it can get. TD plays with situations and thus has a very enchanting travel. The wall that separates the good and bad and how tall it gets built by situations, is dealt with finer details. ...

When I was born, the 1 paisa was already demonetized (rounded off\decoinized). My life started when 5 paisa was still legal. I have all of these coins in the pic. In addition, have few annas as well. Both of my grandfathers used to say "ettanna" (eight anna) and "naalanna" (four anna). Apparently, my first pocket money was nalanna given by my dad for a bubble gum (big fun with cricket scores wrapped over it) during my first standard. Machaan when pronounced in tamil means brother of wife (brother-in-law). This is the relationship version. There is this farming version as well; whereby people have support sticks mostly of bamboo grounded for the vines to spread easily. In short multi-layer farming. Dad was good at both the versions. We used to get more than 10 gourds daily during seasons (mostly we harvest during December and January). Neighbors were bored of gourds and so my task was to give some of the gourds to a shopkeeper in exchange of some money. ...

I deliberately want to keep this simple with bullet points. This person Onoda as my friend describes is having inhuman characteristics. 1. Onoda was a Japanese army officer fought in world war II. 2. He was sent to Lubang Island in Philipines to carry out a military operation. 3. He joined a group of japanese soldiers who were sent earlier. 4. Egotism hit as some officers in the group prevented him from doing his assignment. 5. US and Philippine forces took the island into their custody in February, 1945. 6. All soldiers except four (Onoda and three others) either died or surrendered. 7. Onoda continued to live in the mountains. 8. He doubted leaflets which are thrown announcing the end of the war and decided they are hoax. 9. One of the four, walked away from them in 1949 and surrendered to the filipino forces. Rest all became more careful. 10. In 1952, letters and family pictures were dropped from air crafts but they concluded them as hoax. 11. In 1954, one of them gets k...

Today morning I was conversing with my roomie. He told about the infosys HR guy who killed his wife. I am seeing such news often. Though, the reason for this cause-célèbre is very personal, the reports about it attach the organization for which the person is working for. Job has become an identity in our society and is an indispensable aspect in the perception about a personality. Today, I googled "wife murder" and below are the results I got. Another article that I read yesterday brags IT employees'  friday groove . In 1980s, during my childhood days, there was a guy in my neighborhood who was working as a teacher in a state government school. He was skilled in hindi and music. He used to run private hindi and music classes and was very popular in our area. We used to call him "Hindi Sir". His mainstream job was never part of the label attached to him. We know him as a person who runs hindi tuition. I believe he did that with passion, got famous and hence e...

Foradian Technologies  have released the new font which has the rupee symbol with the " ~\' " key. Here is a screenshot! The symbol looks great!!

The Lampard denied goal ( in the match England Vs Germany ) is creating ripples. We have also started arguing the moral boost that England missed because of the denial. England certainly started feeling the need for speed after they were two goals down. They started their attack and the best part of the game was those 25 odd minutes when suddenly England started to pull things back. But, Lampard's strike was denied and his face reflected the sorry figure of the entire hope. I always loved how our director  puts his words. What defines a person is not what the person can, or cannot do. What defines a person is what the person can do, but chooses not to do. I heed on the views of decision makers. So, I wanted to know how FIFA president reacted for the refereeing mistakes.  His words as I felt are very sharp deeply reflecting on the subject. I deplore the obvious refereeing mistakes we have seen. I understand the teams concerned are unhappy. I have person...

I am fond of football and Italy is my favorite team. I remember the days when I watched Salvatore Schillaci and  Roberto Baggio. Baggio was my favourite italian player in my school days. And he is my favourite till date. I remember my class twelfth supplementary reader book covered with the sportstar wrapper featuring Baggio. I watched the penalty shootout which he missed in 1994. I loved his Goatee a lot. Those were my early football days. I used to collect the cards given with bubble gums. And we used to trade for getting  cards  of  the famous players. Diego Maradona card was one of the rarest!! We loved him really. This year I am betting on the following players. Lionel Messi - for his left footed tackling. Steven Gerrard - cho chweet... so cute.. Fabio Cannavaro - for his water tight defense. Fernando Torres - for his speed Gianluigi Buffon - Goal keeper! He keeps them all his way!! David Villa - if it is a striker then he will be my man. (Somehow he ...

Having read this , I have some questions. How the hell the US scientists and so called Prof. J Alex Halderman was given access right to the voting machine? What are they trying to prove especially by tampering the Indian voting machine? What Deputy Election Commissioner, Alok Shukla is trying to defend especially the hack has been announced in public? Shouldn't it be considered cross border terrorism?

I have recently shifted to Bangalore. Another friend of mine is supposed to shift to Bangalore in a month or two. We have made an agreement to stay together at Bangalore. So, for the time being, I decided to stay with one of my ex-colleagues. My mobile bill has skyrocketed in the past one month with all the roaming stuff I did. Having done that, I wanted to get a new mobile postpaid connection. My company is situated in outer ring road and is bit remote. In our working premises, only one service provider has the network coverage (Alas! Please inform Dr. Obama that being bangalored also has few hidden operating cost :| ). So, I was left with no other option. I went to the service provider and applied for new postpaid connection. The executive asked a residential proof and photo-id proof. I submitted photocopies of my passport and PAN card. The executive asked me the local residential address and my office address. I informed them that I have shifted to Bangalore recently and I am in ...

Minister of State for Environment and Forests, Mr. Jairam Ramesh announced that India will be eyeing 20-25 percent reduction in the carbon emission intensity . The announcement should be appreciated for we are seriously pondering at global climatic changes. What worried is the way he relates the concern with GDP and population. Relating Emission trading with GDP can be taken with a right sense. But, relating the GDP with population is intolerable. He is reaching the world and he is representing a country. H should have been careful about his statements. He said The GDP is low because the population is high. The country’s single biggest failure in the last 60 years has been that it could not control the birth rate. Population control as such should not be treated as a problem anymore. I have the following viewpoints about population control. It indulges with individual rights. Government shouldn't do that. Government is there to protect it not to prevent it. Government is not per...

Sometime back I was reading a book on human mind. I should say it was a good read. It dealt about wants and urges of mankind. I read that in our pursuit for something, at the dawn of the journey we are bound to take decisions based on what we are seeking. As more steps get underway, the experience drawn from previous steps decide the course of our travel. Its simply like climbing up a ladder. Fix the target first. Take one step at a time. Be careful that your current step is firmly placed. Take care while you move ahead, and reach the target. Alas! but ladders are not without snakes! The key point in climbing the ladder is we need to fix the target first. Fixing target needs careful analysis, We should analyze the problem space, decide what we want, fix the target and place the ladder. Once we fix the ladder we start moving ahead. Remember, ladder cannot be locomoted when you are on it. When you start climbing, be sure that the target is fixed. I have experienced this, when I try a n...

For those who moan over the annual food inflation at 14.55 percent , comes salt for the wound. India! hailed as the second largest country in rice production will be importing rice after 21 years. How and why are two serious questions that everyone wants to look into. Rice being the backbone of India with high percentage of consumers in its eastern and southern parts, measuring the impact of this rice import in common man's (Indian citizen) life is crucial. How and why it happened? We all know India's agricultural sector depends greatly on the monsoons. This year the monsoon has failed. Government reports 23% below normal monsoon. This also is rated as the worst in 37 years . So the impact is evident and justified. The state cannot be held responsible for failed monsoon. We have to accept the decision with gumption. This year's poor monsoon has raised doubts about the output of summer-sown crops popularly called as kharif crops. The estimated shortage of production is...

Recently, there was some resource reallocation in our company. Ours was a team of twelve members. The schedule and technology demanded more. I had a one-on-one session with our mentor and brought up the issue. He said he cannot allocate more resource to our team. The decision is not a big surprise given the engineering strength we have but the reason is. Precisely, what I wanted was to put forward details of the resource requirement not an actual resource allocation. Our mentor mentioned that my current manager can handle only 'this much'. I thanked god he didn't mention 'this bunch'. That would turn the pointers on us. To be frank, I consider our team as a group of self motivated and disciplined individuals (blah! that includes me too). Till I read this Seth Godin article on Dunbar's number , I thought managing a team like ours is not a real big deal. Though he talks about building tribes, I got what I wanted. In his book "Good to Great" Jim Collins q...

Union Minister for Human Resource Development Mr. Kapil Sibal's this statement , has cropped issues related to schooling in India. Yielding to the pressure, Mr. Sibal overturned and said that the issue will be left to the hands of the IIT Council. Not only the premier IITs, the next graded NITs have also taken up the issue of raising the qualification marks. The issue brought out the grip of muffling coaching centers in the school education. Some IIT aspirants even quit school and join the coaching centers. They can privately prepare for their board examinations which demands only 60 percent marks. I recollect the hay days of my school education. I am from south Tamil Nadu. I should say that education system was rather bad. Teachers in the school often run their own tuition centers. They won't complete the syllabus in the school. The inclusion of the laboratory internal marks had a real stranglehold on the students. Teachers urge the students to join the tuition centers run by ...

Today a 25 year old infosys employee was arrested for raising a bomb scare at Delhi airport. Reason for such an act is so simple, he feared of missing his flight. The chain of events is as follows Abhishek Gupta (25), was coming from Lucknow to Delhi in Gorakhnath Express. He expected to reach Delhi by 0600 hrs. He had to catch the 0845 hrs GoAir flight to Bangalore. The train got delayed. He called the GoAir's call centre prior to the departure of the flight and asked to reschedule his journey and put him on the next flight. But his plea was rejected by GoAir authority. Desperate Gupta called up the staff again and informed that there was some suspicious object on the plane. The passengers were set down and the bomb disposal squad was put on service. Gupta reached the airport by 0930 hrs and asked for a boarding pass. Thats it! our officials picked his collar!! Being a software professional myself I compared myself with Gupta. In our company, we speak about culture a lot. Both lif...

Accept that he is a good filmmaker with films like 'Rosemary's Baby' and 'The Pianist'. Being good filmmaker doesn't mean that he should be treated above the law. The case of Roman Polanski is gore as seen in some of his films. Here is the timeline of the case. March 12, 1977 - Polish film director Roman Polanski, widower of murdered actress Sharon Tate, was on charges of luring a 13-year-old girl under the pretext of photographing her, then drugging and raping her. March 26, 1977 - Conviction on the charges could send Polanski to prison for up to 50 years. Polanski, 43, remained free on $2,000 bail. August 10, 1977 - Court ordered that psychiatrists appointed by it will examine Roman Polanski in Los Angeles if he can be labelled as a 'mentally disordered sex offender'. September 20, 1977 - A 90-day psychiatric study is ordered by the court to to help the judge decide his sentence. February 3, 1978 - Roman Polanski flees from United States and ar...

A forwarded mail says When your friend loses his job it is recession , when you lose your job it is depression I don't know in which state I am in, but the recession is taking its toll globally. An act of desperation and the tough job market is causing women to dance in strip clubs. Here is an interesting article which speaks about job market, job security, women and 'thick skin'. Is there any such options available for men?

Microsoft has released a new report titled Measuring Browser Performance: Understanding issues in benchmarking and performance analysis . Microsoft says This document explains the various browser and network components and how each piece can impact performance when benchmarking. Interesting fact as per the report is IE loads mozilla.com faster than Firefox, and Firefox loads microsoft.com faster than IE. Well! it might be evoking controversies soon.