Leger-de-Man !

Traveling can be a lot of fun. Especially traveling alone. Even more so, if you are keen and observant of the surroundings and the aura of opportunity hat surrounds you. I've been lucky enough to have been given this chance. The chance to travel the world and meet so many different kinds of people, their lifestyles, share their thoughts, their emotions, their stimulus to what surrounds them and the life that they define. In my 21 years of existence, I've become learned enough to know that people vary magnanimously ! And here I am, sitting alone and just observing the people who surround my existence. It's all an opinion really. Some would consider 'holding a nosegay in front of a porch' as stupid, whereas others would interpret the same as logical and brave.
The world's an oyster of variegated personalities, a multifarious plenitude of characters and a plethora of experience in living. The more you explore, the more you're left baffled. In this age-an-era, it's easier to travel and explore contrary to what Magellan had to go through to accomplish his ambitions. Technology has served in our favor and made it essentially trivial to go to different places. All you need is a tutorial on the web and some greens in your pocket. Our generation hangs between the valleys of the Angels and the Daemons. On one hand we're surrounded by the comfort and ease of technology and progress, and on the other we got Guns waging bloody tales in the newspaper every single day. Who's to make a choice anyway ! We can't really turn back time to go back to the dark ages, nor can we zoom into a distant future where television would be on a handkerchief.

I sit here, in a posh restaurant with a glass of Apple Martini and a bowl of my favorite, fish and chips. And I consider myself lucky. Lucky to be born this way. Lucky not to have been poverty stricken. Lucky not to be suffering from some epidemic in a third world country. Lucky to have an education. Lucky to be traveling the world at this an age. And more so...
Anyways, I got a flight to catch soon so I'll just go down and dig into my sumptuous banquet and fly off.. :)

Chao..

Oracle and Aerosmith !!!!!

It was a dream. I had to pinch myself to believe it. Oracle Open World could well be, to most, categorized as, a dream come true. When I entered the gates of Open World. A sort of whim hit me. I was taken back to those nostalgic lanes of childhood when I used to dream and wish I'd find a place where all sorts of chocolates and cookies and ice creams and cola would be strewn all over the floor and I could just pick it up and eat or drink it. Ah, Open World was of such standards. Except one difference- instead of the cola, they had Liquor !! Yeah baby - Beer, red wine, white wine... You name it, you got it !

To add to this fantasy, there were free rides, games, beverages and the big daddy of them all - THE AEROSMITH CONCERT !!!! There was a different high altogether. The atmosphere was gaining voltage, and you could feel the pulse going high. In front of me was a stage - with a mammoth drumset visible from up front (Man! how much would that cost !! ), some 5 zillion Watt Speakers, the size of .... well ... me and a HUGE ORACLE sign in the background. Suddenly the curtains dropped and it read - Aerosmith! There was a huge cheer by the crowd. People pushing each other up front in their best attmepts to get as near as possible to the legend himself. After an hour long wait, finally............ the lights went off, the curtains came down, and there he was ... right above my nose ! Steven Tyler - The lead vocalist of Aerosmith. It was surreal. To see them live. To see them in flesh and bone singing your favorite tune right in front of you. It's a different high altogether.

Aerosmith is undoubtedly one of the greatest bands of the present era. Steve's voice resemebles no other's and his inimitable style of singing and music is what makes this band legendary. Not to take any credit away from the rest of the guys, the guitarist Joe Perry, is a fine master himself. They blew the crowd away with songs like "Walk this way", "Livin on the edge", "Dream on" and "I don't wanna miss a thing".

The crowd had lost itself in a different world. As for me, I was no different ! His voice spoke to me ! It was unbelievable. The range of his voice is impeccable and original. Although I hoped that they would play a few of my other favorite Aerosmith songs too, but nonetheless, it was definitely worth it. To add to the worth Steve's joke about Windows was definitely a checkpoint of the show ! :) I'm sure Larry talked money with him and convinced him to do that stunt !

In the end, the night was mesmerising and breathtaking. A night to remember definitely ! Aerosmith rocks ! (And so does Oracle :) )... !!!

In the arms of the wind...

We live in a crowded place. A place which binds you to such tight chains, a place that squeezes all your virgin thoughts and floods your mind with mundane words of survival. We are blinded to the aura of richness that surrounds us. The same richness, which, if ever espoused, would bring about a feeling of deep content and happiness in us.

From the moment we're born, we become a part of this cycle which I like to call the "Cycle of serfdom". This cycle of serfdom slowly and steadily enters our minds and drives us away from our free thoughts of innocence. Its a natural phenomenon really. If we observe what Darwin did among different living species, we'll notice the theory of "Survival of the Fittest" applies everywhere. Not only in the arms of infancy and embryonic stages of life, but also in our daily lives. Our lives are a mere struggle for survival.

Some of us were born gifted, a vision and ability like no other. But these chains of survival snatch all that away from our blood. All we're left to see is that we got a lot of life running through our veins, going to a complete waste.

Anyways..... enough Blogging for now. Gotta go n sleep for a new morning, a new ring to the chain......

62nd Year of Independence

I think this year on Independence Day, is the perfect of time to set our goals and responsibilities straight not only as individuals, as students, as employees, as professionals; but also as moral citizens of this great Nation.

This year, on 15th August, I lay back thinking about the country. Where it has come from, and where it is going, and the role that I have to play in its path. Looking back on the years prior to independence, I think the youth lacks a certain respect and admiration for all the events that led to our independence and all those who shaped the future of the country in it's post independence era.

Let me exemplify this. Talking about people like Bhagat Singh, Subhash Chandra Bose, Mohandas Gandhi, I feel a striking difference of opinion among people of my age today. Some despise Gandhi and call him a manipulator. Some are of the opinion that Bhagat Singh and Gandhi were enemies and Bhagat Singh was the real hero and Gandhi was a crook.

The truth is that Bhagat Singh was a very dynamic personality and represents the youth of India even today. His courage and love for the country can never be embodied by any person of the present generation. He definitely is an ideal Icon for every child and youngster of India. But I'll tell you something that Bhagat Singh was not - a Mass Mover. He was a revolutionary of the order of Bhai Parmanand, Khudi Ram Bose, Sukhdev, Chandrashekhar Azad and others. Their policy of overthrowing the British Government by force was a minority ideology.

Gandhi on the other hand, was a mass mover. His ideas moved the nation. His ideology of Non Violence without doubt, shook the British foundation in the country. I'll tell you some allegations against Gandhi. He, at times, supported the British in sending Indian troops to fight against Germany. But think of this.... Britain and Nazis were enemies, and Hitler was looking to conquer Europe and finally the world. What if we didn't support the British, what if Britain lost out to Germany (remember the Battle of Britain ? ). What if Germany went on to conquer Asia after that ? Would we rather surrender to British or Germans ? So whether you like him or hate him, you can't ignore him in our country.

Honestly, after World War 2 , independence for India was on the cards.... No matter what. Britain's position was very weak. It wasn't even able to sustain it's own government, let alone ours.

So our struggle for independence played a key role, less in getting us independent from British, and more so in shaping the political future of an Independent India.

Now..... where are we headed ? Honestly, WE must decide that. We've already shown the First World Nations that their economy relies on our Brains. Now we must show them that India is gonna take over and dominate. I don't say this just for the sake of 15th August. I say this after years of research and reading so many books by great people and understanding their opinions on the Country.

We indeed have a lot of responsibility towards shaping the future of this great nation and let us all join hand in making this long last dream of our ancestors come true.

Jai Hind !

Thoughts worth a Pretty Penny...

Today, I felt elated. I felt I had a place in this world. That I was contributing to it in some bizarre and unknown way. Generally such thoughts never enter my mind. I spend most of my time fighting with my conscience over understanding the real reason why we're here. It's like my angels and devils face off head-to-head "No Holds Barred" !! But today was different... Somehow I felt a premonition of something different yet to come.

Not letting the moment go, I jumped up and opened my favorite book "Men of Steel" to page 4. And there he was.... Nandan Nilekani. Ahhh... There's a subtle human-ness in him, that separates him from all my other favorite Entrepreneurs. I got a whim to be just like him someday. "Infosys" Rocks !!!! :)

Anyways, I began my day (as usual), starting my laptop. I set up the Android environment. Yea, I've had some hands-on Java Practice and Android would be the "A OK" place to pick up some good ol' object oriented skills. Andriod's got some cool libraries and I'm waiting to start building some nice Applications.

Anyways, Mom called for Breakfast. I entered the dining room and there it was !! ... A bowl of fresh fruits.... 2 thoughts crossed my mind. One was "Good food... Good health" :) and the other was the main reason I was eating all this "Jaundice Recovery" :(... That made me sad !!

I brushed up on some good ol' Mathematics. Ahhh.... General 2nd Degree Equations. I studied the Quartic Equation today and Vieta's Method to solve it. I made a simple C Program to do the same. What better feeling than to merge 2 of my interests !!

My entire day went away in doing this and some usual Virtual Networking. Those cliched "Hi"s and "Wassup"s.... It's almost a recursive algorithm. And redundant too :P...

And in the end, I looked back on my day and pondered over the irony of the fact that I started it off feeling all pumped and relishing Thoughts worth a Pretty Penny and now there I was... All confused and muddled, feeling like a Lost ball in high weeds.

Anyways... Chao... :)

Music for the Soul..

This morning I woke up to the sound of music. The adagio rhythm ringing in my ears. Some leftover thoughts in my head like the dew of the morning. The only difference lay in its freshness. I slept late last night. A "not-so-pleasant" conversation with a friend followed by a half an inkling of sleep. The music played in my ears. The bittersweet symphony followed by a longing to make the ends meet.

I woke up to an excellent cup of bed-tea, followed by a fat free breakfast :P. The echo of last night's conversation resounded in my ear and made me feel like locking all them up in Davy Jones' Locker and start a new day.

Anyways, I took out my Piano and started to play. An F sharp scale was my mood. So I played a Ruben Studdard. It was soulful. It struck a chord hidden deep in my heart. Saved by the music...

I decided to do some improvisation and concocted some nice saxophone tunes along with a Hindi Classic song from the movie "Dil Apna Preet Parai" called "Ajeeb dastaan hai yeh". At the end of the session, I was back to my sane normal self.

Soon after, I opened my Facebook account. Did some nice chatting with a close friend. We discussed lots of interesting topics right from semantic searching and Operating System intelligence to the abstraction of the world and the Law of Attraction.

Still I had barely killed 4 hours of the entire day and still had more than 12 hours to figure out a decent plan for execution. To my luck, my friend showed up and spent the entire afternoon with me. We discussed a lot of issues. Some of which were exigent, rest of them were not really my cup of tea. So naturally, my impatience to end the matter was quite visible.

Soon after he left, I developed an appetite for understanding the Indian tax laws, so I pumped up my router and hit the Google button for some information. Soon after I decided to watch some ladies cricket. The semi final was on. India vs New Zealand. There I was on my chair, watching these girls play some fine cricket. Made me wonder how much of orthodoxy and prejudices they have to face and overcome to reach to their stand. It inspired me to make a difference in my life. Anyways, India lost.

So that was the end of my day. Another page of my life closed. As I slowly near the end, my inquisitiveness to understand my reason for existence increases and so does my enthusiasm.

All I would like is some Good Music for my soul please.... :)

What college taught us..

Now that college is over, I can look over it and think that college was much more than an educational experience. It was a lesson in life. I think we all have matured a lot from the day we entered the gates of college.

I think every one has a story to tell. A story, equally worth learning from. I think we've all had our share of experiences in college. Experiences of victory, of defeat, of pain, of laughter, of agony, of trust, of anguish, of relief. And in the end, as we look back, I realize that it was all worth it.

I step out of my campus as a better person, a more mature person, whose perspective of life has broadened, who has learned a lot of lessons, who realized his strengths and weaknesses and who is ready to face the next phase of life with full vigor.

Whatever life holds in store for all of us, and wherever life may take us, we all can surely thank our college life for the person it has made out of us...