Fellow Blogs

I recently discovered that others in my graduation batch, Nitin Goyal and Satnam Singh, also maintain blogs, so it would be a good idea to link them here. Satnam has some great pictures and adventure stories a la Marco Polo kind but in different area of expertise.

Its great feeling that atleast somebody I know is enjoying the life to the fullest. Mangesh is the other one I know. Rest seem too busy to write even one mail per month. Last meet I organized nobody but Rupi turned up. Let me see if I can organize another one.

BTW, if you are wondering which batch I am talking about here, its University of Roorkee 1996 B.E. batch.

Updates

It has been a long time since my last post. Apparently, this blog business is difficult to keep track of. At least, for me.

There have been so many events since last post. India lost the cricket test series to England. Yes, 1-1 draw with a part time team to me is loss. They can't bat full day to draw a test. What with the world's most formidable line-up that fails to deliver when it matters. Always. When was the last time they batted days out to save a test? From a winning position to losing one, thanks to their kiddish fielding. Anyway, its time I should stop watching cricket or at least hoping that they have balls.

South Africa showed what will power can achieve. Beating Australia in a world record mammoth run chase. That was superb.

What else... well, there has been huge uproar in parliament on "office of profit" issues, a violent mob in Mumbai, nuke deal between India and US as well as India and Russia etc. I like the nuke deal. This shows that everything is negotiable if you have the right cards. For years, China has violated NPT by arming Pakistan. Nobody questioned China. NPT has, anyway, became useless. Now Pakistan is crying that Indo-US nuke deal signals that NPT is dead. Well, China put first nail in coffin. Pakistan the rest by acting like Chinese agents selling Chinese nuke technology to Libya and Iran. Pakistan paid 9/11 investigators to remove its name from report. Look who is talking?

As any Indian would tell you, most of us laugh on Pakistan's inability to comprehend the changing global scenario and still behave like it was cold-war period. They do have higher per capita income compared to India. But that's it. I'm sure it won't be long before we beat them at this too.

Sun Tech Days, Chennai, 2006

Well, I have just attended Sun Tech Days at Chennai. Somehow, I always feel that event management is not the first priority on their agenda. First day was running a hour late. Though, the music fiesta at the day end was great. I really enjoyed the Gattam. But again, there were not enough seats to sit so I was standing for a fairly long duration till I finally found a seat once audience started rushing home. For reasons unknown to me, I could not get a train ticket to chennai so have to take a bus ride. I don't recommend anyone taking a bus to Chennai from Bangalore. Its too much pain.

Second day was better though again the event management showed off their weakness. Food served on both days was not up to the par and I just don't like the T-shirt throwing in events like these. Crowd (should I say mob?) goes crazy for these T-shirts and many get injured. This is not for weak-hearted. Why can't they just give it to ones who participate or give it to all. I think, they didn't expect this much crowd.

Also, I feel that they should stop doing multiple tracks. I feel like attending more than one but have to sit out another due to concurrency. Somehow, there is duplication of information across sessions. They should streamline and review the contents of all presentation so that it is crisp and upto the mark.

Overall, barring few sessions, I felt it was not worth travelling 500 kms in a bus to watch this event.

2006

Well, finally 2006 is here. Delayed by a second. I didn't notice that delay. All I felt was jammed networks. So people sent me SMS well before 2006, just to make sure they don't miss out. Somehow, it is no longer strange to wish people in advance, such is the hectic pace of life now-a-days. Imagine, wishing happy fatherhood to somebody whose wife is expecting 8 months later... "better later than never" is now changed to "better earlier than ever"... Wonder what next? If we could predict future, perhaps the day when son is born, we would congratulate the new father with his son's first rank in college and then strut around to show what we are the first one.

Another new year. Another resolution. I have seen some people who make a long list of resolutions for the coming year. I don't make one. I am yet to follow the last one I made couple of years back. Times have changed but the need of that resolution is fresh as ever. So continuing with that. If I can achieve that, I'll make another.

Been very busy lately. Got some relief today. Wrote a small poem on the new year resolutions for my close friends, similar to that jokes/poems of Ahsaan Qureshi of The Great Indian Laughter Champions fame. I like his style more than any one else in that show. आखिर, व्यंग भी काव्य का एक अंग होता है ।

God's Debris

This a good read by Scott Adams. I like his books (and Dilbert) but this is very different. In fact, this is the first time I finished a book at single sitting. Its interesting. Or perhaps, that comment says something about me.

I think he has used a lot of concepts from Hinduism in the book. Wonder from where the thinking came from? If you have read vedas, mainly Rigveda, you will discover a lot of similarities.

The best sentence of the book, IMHO, is "Ideas are the only things that can change the world. The rest is details."