Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Google Wave is out! Are you invited?

Google has started giving out invites ( 100,000 of them ) to google wave today. Google wave is a new communications and collaborative platform and it has created a lot of interest and hype. It promises to revolutionize the way people communicate. Though the look may be cluttered for some, but the functionalities it offers look so futuristic, that it was sold from day one. And like everything. google never advertised for its product. The news spread virally.  Such is the power of ideas. It is a major trending topic on twitter now (since it is launching officially today).




So excited about the prospect that i may have been invited ( ah, the quintessential hope!) since i had filled the form quite early, i went to the site wave.google.com only to see the following message:



So for now i haven't been invited. I so wanted to see it today. But guess, will have to wait for some more time. Oh, microsoft has launched its antivirus software today. Called security essentials it comes free for the genuine users of windows operating systems. Its good to see the monolith offer something for free! It's all due to the free culture started by google! I love google's philosophy!

By the way if you are clueless about google wave, watch the folloeing video ( 10 min abridged version of the original 1 hr 20 min address) :

Monday, September 28, 2009

Some Captured frames of Nariman Point , Marine Drive

Nariman Point.Marine Drive. Mere words? Not for Mumbaites. Ask anyone and they are to reply that it is the heart and soul of mumbai. The Queen's necklace as it is called sometimes is a beauty to behold, especially during the early morning and late evenings. It is a place to come together : what old or young, rich or poor.It gives wing to dreams, solace to seekers, words to poet, love to lovebirds & health to walkers.A small sample:




It's Evening time and sun is obscured by the clouds!



It's what we call :Land's End!


The High Tide Time! Nature's Show..


Early Morning!


Early Morning!



At the time of terrorist strike.


Couples!


Sunset & Low tide : Picture Perfect!


The High Tides!


Calm seas. It's as if the water has turned Golden!



Ganpati Visarjan!


India!







The Play of Shadow & Light!


This is what the place is early in the morning.

Quotes on my Mind

Quotations are a thinking man's best friend. How often has it happened that when you are down a single quote has worked wonders for you, motivated you, and has send you back on the journey called life. Quotations in their entirety contain the speaker's life philosophy and come after almost a lifetime of living. As Kant said, you could gain knowledge either by having the experience yourself, or by other people's experiences. And quotations are a nice way of learning from the wisdom of the others. So here is a brief list of the quotes on my mind currently:

...The richest man is not he who has the most, but he who needs the least.

...Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear. —Ambrose Redmoon

...A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends. —Baltasar Gracian
In the same vein, Kabir said:
Nindak niyare rakhiye, aangan kuti chavaye
Bin sabun pani bina, nirmal kare subhaye

...The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Lao Tzu

...Before enlightenment: Chop wood, carry water. After enlightment: Chop wood, carry water.
[No work is too small. Humility. And enlightenment is a way of life, not the raise to pedestral of super humans]

...If you understand, things are just as they are; if you do not understand, things are just as they are.
[ In the same vein. Don't think universe revolves around you. In the past there have been many, in the future there will be many. One is but a speck of dust ]

...Behind every brilliant performance there were countless hours of practice and preparation. -Eric Buttterworth

...They can conquer who believe they can. -Virgil

...Get busy living or Get busy dying. [ From Swashank redemption ]

...I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tanhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain. Time to die.
[ Another beautiful line from the movie Bladerunner.. All of us are unique. There can be no other human being ever who will be 100% like us. Each of us has certain unique song within us. The one authentic swing ( in the legend of bagger vance), which we fail to recognise...All these moments lost...like tears in the rain.. Crux of all philosophy ]

...100% of the shots you don't take don't go in. Wayne Gretzky

...Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. -Mark Twain

...Know thyself. —Socrates

...People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing - that's why we recommend it daily. Zig Ziggler

...The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes. - Churchill

...The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. MK Gandhi

...Inches make champions. —Vince Lombardi [ So much in so less ]

...When the tiger comes down from the mountain to the plains, it is bullied by the dogs.

...What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy? MK Gandhi

...All that we are is the result of what we have thought. Buddha

...No great thing is created suddenly. —Epictetus

...Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. Ralph Waldo Emerson

...'Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'
'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat.
'I don't much care where --' said Alice.
'Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat.
'--so long as I get somewhere,' Alice added as an explanation.
Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

...There is more to life than simply increasing its speed. MK Gandhi
[ What is this life full of care; we have no time to stand & stare ]

...Sometimes even to live is an act of courage. —Seneca

...Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great. -Mark Twain
[ Some people are so negative thaat they begin to develop as soon as they enter a dark room ]

...No wind favors he who has no destined port. —Montaigne

...It is better to do one’s own duty, however defective it may be, than to follow the duty of another, however well one may perform it. He who does his duty as his own nature reveals it, never sins. Gita

...God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.

...Our character is what we do when we think no one is looking.

...Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.

And last but not the least Sw Vivekananda's call, " Arise! Awake! and stop not till the goal is reached"

A New Kind of Search Engine ( Wolframalpha)

Well the word search has become so synonymous with google that people do not seem to be paying attention to new search engines. And why not? Anything searchable can be found on google. It is a one stop shop for all your worries. But the fast changing field of computers is such that new companies and new ideas find success and oblivion in the blink of an eye. The stalwarts of yesteryears which couldn't keep pace can now only be found in books. The economic history of the world is bloodied by the Dot Com Bust. And instead of settling in some kind equilibrium, the technology world seems to be in an order of chaos. New ideas keep finding money and audience. Just when everyone thought that orkut was here to stay, Facebook came along and swept other(not so lucky) social networking sites away. And when people thought that blogging as a feature was a permanent fixture on the digital world of internet, twitter in form of microblogging, started causing ripples. What if the site has yet to make a single dime, it is already valued at at a billion dollars, and has successfully raised $100 million to continue its operations. When people thought traditional media sites would gain additional revenue from internet sites, digital citizens started flocking to user generated contents and sites. Citizen journalism, though limited in scope, started becoming a buzzword.

The point is one never knows what is going to be successful tomorrow. So it was a pleasant surprise when i came across the search engine "wolframalpha.com". Now supposedly this is a pet project of UK scientist Stephen Wolfram, who created a new computer language called mathematica, and wrote a 1200 odd page book called "A New Kind of Science". Using the same principles, he and his fellow mates have launched this search engine. Now what's so different about this search, You may very well ask? Everything!! is my answer. It, for one, does not return to you the pointers to the pages containing your answer, but it rather calculates the answer itself and returns it you. Now by its very definition, "Computational Search Engine", it has a narrow field. It can not understand all your questions ( for there is a supercomputer acting as a brain and not another human ); but if you ask questions in it's own language you will be surprised at the answers it throws at you.

In their own words, "Wolfram|Alpha's long-term goal is to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable and accessible to everyone. We aim to collect and curate all objective data; implement every known model, method, and algorithm; and make it possible to compute whatever can be computed about anything. Our goal is to build on the achievements of science and other systematizations of knowledge to provide a single source that can be relied on by everyone for definitive answers to factual queries.

As of now, Wolfram|Alpha contains 10+ trillion pieces of data, 50,000+ types of algorithms and models, and linguistic capabilities for 1000+ domains. Built with Mathematica—which is itself the result of more than 20 years of development at Wolfram Research—Wolfram|Alpha's core code base now exceeds 5 million lines of symbolic Mathematica code. Running on supercomputer-class compute clusters, Wolfram|Alpha makes extensive use of the latest generation of web and parallel computing technologies, including webMathematica and grid Mathematica."

Now for some results:
I searched with query Google Microsoft and the result was-




All the comparision is made and presented beautifully. So i wanted to search for my city Mumbai. Here is the result :


Not to be outdone, i thought i would play with it some more. So off i went with the search for " God"

So the most hilarious part was when i asked the question " does god exist" Pat came the reply-


And i havn't even started at the tip of the iceberg. You can throw at it any mathematical equation, gene question, biology, geography etc and you would get an answer. Oh you should be forgiving as well, for it is hardly five months old. And it is a work in progress. Just think of it's potential a few years away from now. Ask any question, in any way and you shall have the answer.Tremendous!

It is in no way a threat to google, for one needs to see the pages about the search item also. It can be complementary to the google search. It is most likely to be the playground for students, researchers, scientists for now. It's biggest plus point is that it has put a supercomputer at everyone's disposal. You want anything to be computed, just go to the site and search (What wolfram ?) it. [ Too bad they couldn't come up with some nerdy name for the site. ] This project if successful, will be the dawn of new era for search engines and for humans. IF SUCCESSFUL!!!

Monday, September 21, 2009

Past Week [ 13-20 September ]

There's always a war going on - the war between your conscious and unconscious. Despite the writing of diary being my top priority, i haven't had the time to put my thoughts on the cloud. Time would be an excuse, the real reason being that i was too lazy plus my unconscious was telling me to relax instead of sitting infront of the monitor typing away whatever precious moments one has, never realising the value of present, while deeply immersed in his past. But the purpose here is more than reliving the past. Rather it is a chronicle of events that may or may not have a bearing on the future. So here i am, sitting infront of the monitor, putting words to my thoughts, which for the moment are in a slumber, heavily dozed as they are by the music. After many years, i am hearing all the songs of a bollywood movie, without forwarding, without changing tracks midway, and am enjoying the music. The album is titled What's your rashi? An interesting title for a film by Ashutosh G. who already has earned his place under the sun.Maybe the washing chore may have helped the album having an uninterrupted play. For it is usually my habit to wash clothes late into the night, with music playing in the background. And this album was versatile enough to have left an impression, instead of being a one time wonder.

The past week has been hectic one for me. Last sunday we had a lecture on Telecom in the morning slot (10 to 1). We discussed various project topics and i have chosen to go for rural mobile applications. Rural areas account for almost 2/3 rd of population with over 6,38,000 villages and any company wishing for a long stint will have to go there. And I wish to see if any applications can be launched which can tap into the rural masses, which are suffering from chronic epidemic of poverty and illiteracy. I have got three more months to think about that... After the lecture i proceeded to malad, to meet Kaushik. Kaushik had also invited Sanjeev to his flat for lunch. Now Kaushik and Sanjeev are my friends from Ram Krishna Mission days and it is always a pleasure to meet them. Had a wonderful & heavy lunch there, for when I lay down for a small nap, i woke up 5 hrs later with the day at an end. Decided to spend the night there and watched two movies - Deathnote, a japanese film about a notebook which causes the death of any person whose name is written on it and, Peaceful Warrior, based on a book by the same name, which is more of a philosophical movie that teaches to live in present. Both were excellent films! That's the beauty of life...when you have no expectation..life throws wonderful surprises at you....And at times when you want something badly...you miss things entirely!

Monday saw me hurrying back to my hostel and after a quick nap of 3 hours, i went for the supply chain management lecture, which incidentally was repeated on Tuesday also. Both of the lectures were boring...being about transport modes... Plus the mode of teaching was doubly boring...Some teachers just don't have it in them despite being good... Similarly the B2B lecture continued the boring trend as well as the lectures on IT & E business... I sound repetitive to myself and may be biased, but by God, are they boring?? A very big time! It's only the persistence of Indian student and his sharp mind that forces him to rise inspite of all the odds!

The book which i had got issued from the library " Habit by Neale Martin" is yet to be finished. Imagine just a 180 odd pages book which despite my best intentions i haven't been able to finish in the past 2 weeks. Sometimes i wonder what has happened to my reading habit? It is merely a shadow of its past and going by the way things are, i may even give up on reading newspapers!

Earlier i had felt that industry people should take lectures but after attending lectures for the past one year i feel that their involvement should be kept to a minimum. Oh it looks good as a concept with all the practical experience & all that thrown in, but in reality is a recipe for disaster. If you don't believe me, ask my batch mates. Out of 10 such teachers, only one, ok max 2, does any justice. Imagine my plight when during my first year i was told to write just a half page answer to every question, if i wanted to get my copy checked. It killed all the thirst for knowledge ( for i have never cared for marks, which has always been my nemesis).

So after numbing through the lectures in the college i was looking for a free weekend to roam around in mumbai. Alas it was not to be! Another idiotic thing that happens if you keep industry people as your lecturers. The only thing that created some buzz during the past week was product and brand management show we were asked to put up, followed by FMCG roundtable. Gandhiji participated in 3 round tables and he could get nothing out of it, and i am wondering the same, can we get something out of it? Are round tables worthless by the very definition? apart from creating the buzz ofcourse!

Our exam schedules are out and we are expected to give the exams for 10 papers in 12 straight days...atleast the schedule is out...So the next few weeks are going to be tight for me...tight enough so that i may put off writing...but still will try to pen down my thoughts.

Oh there are so many thoughts to write.. the birthday party i attended in chembur hostel(Ashish G)...the sitting together of few friends...My first day Vrat of navratri...and the gulping down of food the next day...progress in my jogging distance...my love & hate relationship with god...my affair with beethovan & Mozart... my new N86...but i guess i have reached the end of my patience...I am too lazy to write anything and the bed looks too inviting to me! So off i go to sleep! I have a class at 2pm so i can afford to sleep late. More next time!

Saturday, September 12, 2009

12th september 2009 ( A Date with Gandhi's Philosophy)

The night routine continues unabated, despite making an unsubconscious effort to shift to day routine. It's been four days since i went out for a morning walk and already i am feeling the ill effects like longer sleeping duration and tiredness in daily routine. Ah now i think i understand why the aged make it a habit to take a morning walk. And so my body clock willing i intend to go on a morning walk tomorrow, or rather today as the the day will change by the time i finish writing this entry.

So how was the day? Any different than than prior days? Yes infact, in a few respects. Well first about the classes. The first class we had was about the product and brand management. Now brands are an interesting thing to study and make, the problem according to me is you can sway the facts any way you like. For among the plethora of brands ruling our everyday life, no one can say for certain which customers will purchase your products. And despite all the desertions written about the brand loyalty and consumer psychology, we can't certainly launch a successful product. The success or failure of a brand still depends on the vagaries of divine will( if you believe in God), or the vagaries of consumer taste( if you believe in free will). Interestingly we were shown an ad of the DOVE self esteem fund ads.The one titled "evolution" where a not so good looking model is turned into a supermodel using the age old practice of makeup and the new digital technology called photo touching. The caption then says that no wonder our perception of beauty is so flawed. Well what i find so ironical about all this dove ad is that it's parent company Unilever also owns the brand Axe(deodorant). And they leave no stone upturned to portray women in the same seductive supermodel mold that they work so diligently against in the Dove ad! An irony indeed!

Then we were taught about the iconoclastic brand by the name of Virgin. But why despite all the copying of anything successful there is just one Richard Branson? Well definitely a food for thought!

The evening saw the convergence of digital industry biggies on our campus for a round table discussion on IT convergence. The same old theories of the rising social networking phenomenon was passed around as the name of companies like twitter, facebook, linked in etc. Oh a few interesting points were also raised, 3G talked about, lack of digitalisation of contents touched and above all the meaningful mining of data ( Which I feel Google will rule in days to come). So after the end of lecture, with my head still reeling from the onslaught of information I reached my room at about 9:00 PM. Ah my dinner as usual was on jumbo vada pao from the irctc stall. I should really stop eating all this shit if i intend to survive over 70. Why 70? Well i feel that 7 is a mystic number for one as is 0, and that i intend to surve the society in some way. And 70 is a good age to go as you have some juice still left in you at that point.

It was after dinner that i paid a visit to Tripathy uncle. He is a typical Gandhian to the core and any discussion with him is always intellectually stimulating. It also brings out the divergence (as well as convergence)of thoughts among the two generations. Today he was telling me how the Gandhian model worked so well till the 70's when the older generation was alive. And also how the model failed for want of leaders as the old men had not developed the new leadership to take over the mantle after their passing. The newer generation not in tune with Gandhi's philosophy left the model and institutions to rot. Now this is the most important lesson for any institution or company or individual to imbibe. Anything is as good as the people making it. And leadership development should be taken proactively if one wants to stand the test of time. One should start developing future leaders who would take the mantle forwards. Without good leaders an institution or a nation will have to face a certain death.You won't have to go too far to seek an example. Look at India's national father's dream!

So I asked him what was the philosophy of Gandhi with regard to management. He explained it in four short wonderful lines:

Satya Ahimsa Brahmacharya Asteya Asangraha;
Sharir Shram Aswado sarvatra Bhaya Vivarjanah;
Sarva Dharma Samanatwam, Swadeshi Sparsh Bhavana;
Ekadas Sevaih namratan Vrat Dridh Nischayi.

This requires a separate blog post entry but in short the meaning is:

Truth, Non-violence,Celibacy, Non thievery, and non hording ;
Exercise, control over senses and without fear everywhere ;
Each religion is true & same, swadeshi(made in own country- self reliance) & brotherhood(touch feeling) ;
Serve everyone without pride,fast(determination) and iron will.

Well it was a good thought to end the day with. Whether the sayings of Gandhi can be applied to today's competitive world is worth discussing. But another time and maybe another place. But a day well spent, especially the date with a Gandhian.

Sabbatical from Facebook

Dear Diary,

After much contemplation i have decided to take a break from a website called Facebook. Now you may be wondering what sort of name is Facebook? Well you see it was named by a geek by the name of Mark Zuckerberg,and not a normal person. You see he was a student of the fabled Harvard and in the beginning the website was only for Harvard students. Later it was extended to other colleges like Stanford and yale. And like all successful phenomenon of today's globalised and connected world it quickly spread from one country to another till it became the fourth most visited site on the web.

Now i have no problem with the site. It is an excellent site where you can remain in touch with your friends, share videos, photos, and links. Morever you can play games along with your friends and indulge in all the silly quiz's of the world. It is like a giant ocean where each of your friend is able to view all your history and comments and of your friends too.

The problem in my case was that i had become too addicted to it. Anything in moderation is good for you, but the same in excess is bad for you.I had become addicted to the various games there on the facebook, be it from virtual farming, or taxi, or helicopter, or space commander, or mafia wars to vampire wars. I was loosing my sanity. It is laughable at my age to wait for the energy points to fill so that you can complete a few jobs, or for the crops to grow so that you can go to the market to sell to sow the same crops again. It was monotonous after a point to do the same thing in an autopilot sort of way. So i have decided, enough is enough. For the next one month i am getting nowhere near that website.

Oh i will miss the comments of my friends especially the sane ones.At one point i asked if there were no better games on the facebook, and pat came the reply from one of my friends, "There is. It is getting out of your room and meeting people. In the start you may find it awkward but later you will realise that it is a good game". Well i am going to follow this sane advise and start playing the game called life.

As someone said, life happens while you are busy doing other things. So no facebook for me for next one month and after that an occasional peek a boo game with it.

Time for me to go to sleep.I am already feeling light hearted after taking the decision and unloading it all to you.So wish me luck that i succeed in kicking off this addiction and build on it's success to leave other addictions.

Friday, September 11, 2009

11th september 2009

Today's day has been made famous in history, not by any heroic deed, but by a cowardly act that saw the death of 3000 people and millions after that in derived warfare.Well it was an epoch making event when terrorism became common man's problem. But what has that got to do with me? Why am I more interested in an event that happened thousand's of miles away? Why can't I be ignorant? "Ignorance is bliss", must have been coined for this purpose only.
In the indian history written by Bankim Chandra, he quotes an englishman who was awed to see indian farmer quitely at work while two armies were fighting a few distance away. In india that was the fact of life. No matter who became the ruler, one's existence would go on, exactly in the same way. That was how the social distinction got seeped into the collective psyche of the masses.

Well i am getting too ahead of myself. I have made a promise to myself to write a few entries every month about my life. Not that my life is extraordinary, it isn't, by any definition, but because the ease & technology is there. And the safety of numbers. With millions and millions of pages created every year mine is but an inconsequential effort, but an effort important to me at least.I expect it to stand a testimony to the fact of my existence- anywhere and everywhere at once ( for this part of me-my words stand saved on the cloud which is accessible from everywhere)

For now i do not care what i am writing. I don't intend to do so till the time my thoughts become coherent and i gain some clarity. I just plan to write- junk, gibberish or sane - i just don't care.

So was today any different than yesterday? The height of stupidity is to keep doing the same thing and expecting different outcomes, it is said. So my day was the same as the previous ones.Slept late and woke up even later. Fortunately the classes were kept at mid-day. One was on B2B selling and another on some IT topic, which I can't recall even after sitting for four lectures. How has life come to this point? Why is it so hard concentrating for 2 hrs on a trot? So sat for both the lectures like an automated robot- automated i say because no new thoughts come, no questions come... it's just the wait to see the class get over. So at the end of lecture we stand around for some time, chatting among ourselves.But the numbers have started thinning, for a class with strength of 60, maximum are absent at one point or other. It's the second year I guess, time to play senior.

So after the lectures which got over at round 9 pm, i went to matunga to catch the train to dadar. And like always, i can find the crowd on the train. So after getting down on Dadar, I am in the same automated mode when i hear shouts and swearing. On turnig back i see two people fighting. The fighting lasts barely for a minute or two, other people are at hand to separate them, but it forces me out of the deep reverie that i find myself to be in.Why do people fight, I wonder? Why can't they live happily? iS it only because of ego? Heck why the hell should I know, or I care?

But no! the questions have been framed and the pseudo intellectual in me is offering me all sorts of explanations. It is to catch him that i have decided to write. Among various ways to achieve God, Krishna says the path of knowledge is the most difficult. The problem with knowledge is that it changes with the perspective. In the dark ages, when earth was taken to be the center of universe, knowledge was something else. As it is now. It evolves. It is never still. So how can our solutions and our perspectives remain fixed? In today's world it is said change is the only constant.And why shouldn't it be? Anything that is static wears down. Look at the mighty Himalayas. Look at the roman empire. To be static is to die! So why do people feel that by the same age old definition can they survive. Each day which comes is like the countless others which have come before, but on a different plane, on a different spiral. That is why no two days are unique, like no two individuals are same. No, not even twins.

And so even in my case thought the day looks similar to the previous day, it was unique in it's own sense. So after reaching my room i fell for a quick nap. Oh about 10 min or so.But by the time i woke up (which was 20 minutes too late)the canteen had closed.So off i went to churchgate station in order to have something. God bless the IRCTC counter opposite wimpy's burger... for they are open quite late. Interestingly they have started a new dish- jumbo vada pav which comes for 10 rs. It is nothing but burger sized pav with potato stuffing in between. But it is supposed to be completely automated process in which no hands have touched the entire product. Looks good and tastes good also. So i have brought a burger and a jumbo vada pav to my room on which i am planning to feast after i finish writing these words. Time to eat I guess!

I am planning to give up playing on facebook from tomorrow. Let's see if I can keep the commitment.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

10th September in my life

Was today any better than previous days that have come into my life. No it was just like any other day, late at the start, for I am more of a night person than a day person to the chagrin of my family members, and it started with my missing out the first session of holistic development lecture scheduled for today. Now what is a lecture on holistic development doing in a business school? Well for one people have realised that the better rounded of the personality of a manager is, the better he is able to contribute to the bottomline of a corporation. And the era when profits were everything is long past. I am not saying that corporations have stopped paying attention to profits, but merely that new variables have entered in the equation. People have started looking beyond money as the only motivator. And companies are looking at community development, green causes, employee engagement, employee development etc.

So the new fad seems to be drawing everyday lessons from scriptures : as to how to achieve a balance in life. And people have started looking at our own Gita as a manual for achieving balance.Gita is supposed to be the greatest gift to mankind from India, and within India it is looked as a manual straight from Lord's mouth, and in the present scheme of things, is revered more than it is read. So it was a pleasant surprise to see the words of gita being applied to corporate cases. So the morning session that i missed was all about higher philosophy applied to today's corporate world.

The time at which i joined, we were being shown a movie : the legend of bagger vance. It starred Matt damon, Will smith, charlise theron as actors & robert redford as director. The purpose was to show that we recognise our own cob webs and come out of the wallowing pity we feel for ourselves. As Bagger Vance says,"Inside each and every one of us is one true authentic swing... Somethin' we was born with... Somethin' that's ours and ours alone... Somethin' that can't be taught to ya or learned... Somethin' that got to be remembered... Over time the world can, rob us of that swing... It get buried inside us under all our wouldas and couldas and shouldas... Some folk even forget what their swing was like... ". Then later at a critical moment when Damon seems to have found and then lost again his swing, he says "Ain't a soul on this entire earth ain't got a burden to carry he don't understand, you ain't alone in that... But you been carryin' this one long enough... Time to go on... lay it down... " and later, or before i don't remember exactly, he says, "What I'm talkin about is a game... A game that can't be won only played... ", obviously the hint being towards life.

How was the movie? Frankly I would say, it didn't appeal to me very much. Despite all the philosophical underpinnings and great lead actors something was missing. Something magical that seems to transform a movie from average to great. With due apologies to Prof. Dr. Prasad Kaipa, if it wasn't for him and his engaging explanation I would have walked out of the movie. The 3rd session which ran till about 7 in the evening was about appreciating an individual for whatever good he does. The practise of criticizing has to give way to appreciation. We were made to form a group of five and point to each others strength and thus appreciate him/ her for it.

So it was after the lecture when i had come home the thought came to write the blog in form of a diary. The thought has been there in the sub conscious for a long time but i could not gather the courage to write. For writing about your feelings does seem to require some courage.So I have thought to start writing in about a day or two in my life from time to time. The purpose is to engage in a conversation with my own self and to see if any changes occur over time.

The hardest thing for anyone to do is to have a candid conversation with one's own self.And it would be great to do so in the form of an online diary. Only if i can write it.