A Beginner's Mind

I received an email a few weeks back illustrating the wonders of 90s.All things we did down the memory lane. Ramayan, He man, complain; reminiscences of the good old days. It was a very nostalgic mail & got me into thinking, what defines my childhood? How can a simple collection of memories create such an impact on my mind? Taking it forward, what truly defines the 90s for me, the time when I was growing up, it’s not that I have stopped growing up but that was the time when I was growing older AND growing up. Most of us stop growing up after a certain age and continue growing older. So I thought let’s jot down my greatest hits of 90s.Greatest hits as in memories which have forever been embedded in my heart.  So here is a list of my greatest hits: 1. Sundays- Marked obviously by programs like Mowgli, Indradhanush and Stone Boy 2. Returning home early after exams 3. Mom's constant nagging for studies 4. Examples of good kids Vs. Not So good kids 5. My school till 10th the

One of my friends just changed his last name on orkut to “I hate girls” and i was completely zonked. I mean what in the world is he thinking about? As far back as I can remember, this guy was a “ really sentimental fall for all girls that talk to you & do nothing about it sort of a guy” . But what exactly happened? SO I read and re-read the last name and every time I read it I found an entirely new explanation for it!! The first and the most obvious explanation: Poor dude, became the fox who proclaimed grapes are sour… Got dumped by self imagined love of life and now is totally lost. Awe Shucks!! After reading it a couple times more I thought don’t be so cold man .Being a guy you are totally disregarding the fact how guys think!!! It had to happen to somebody. I must confess anywhere you go and find guys in the age group of 20-30 they are breaking their heads over the same issue; from casual bar talks to serious drunk discussions if it’s a guy party one of the topics surely is,

I powered my laptop and sipped my coffee the weekend hangover wasn't over yet. i keyed in the password with lumber & opened my outlook. A typical Monday morning i thought. hmmm back again. i should say to myself, ,"power up buddy i love my job this is the best i deserve and has luck ever abandoned me? Never. I've always got everything i wanted the trick has been to hang-on. to stay in the same distress and feel it , bear it , cry with it. the answer comes.All questions get answered, all desires get fulfilled." I started my Monday morning with these thoughts circling me like ravens haunting an already rotten corpse. but who cares, it's a corpse anyway.To ease the pain a little , i geared up for a gmail chat session. Nikhil was online. Since i had been gearing up for MS in states for God knows how long and then got slammed in the face ; Nikhil was the only one who got thrown out of the ride along with me. We don't know each other much but pain turns loa

Bodies fly in air, Limbs scattered on the road, Splintered families, saturated in blood; Shower of hatred, pioty drenched in gutter, Apostles of faith are locked behind shutters; Children dread, playing all alone, Freedom lies buried, concealed under stones; Gardens lie vacant ,play fields are empty, Government lies lepered, vice in plenty; Wealth in profusion but where is the peace, Buildings are whopping, no shade under trees; Marching to promised land, the sea ain't split yet. Cemeteries are busiest, for all others are dead; Promise of immortality, plague innocent minds revealing the rainbow to all colorblind; Beating the drums, for a deaf crowd, walking on water but sinking in doubt; A song of the mute, A picture for blind, Living like robots, NO dreams NO mind; Streets dual asylums, conscience dies everyday & All you can do is pray pray pray; The fields of hope are parched in draught, is this the world for which they f

How difficult is coding? How difficult is it to write software ? The reason why i ask this is because i have made at least half a dozen unsuccessful attempts at making my thought process binary , alas!!!! none of them worked. Now, do i lack the will to learn and motivation to get past the unavoidable English sounding words enunciating logic ; or is it the logic i lack. Since i score well in other logic related activities I've began doubting my judgment. Those were the job hunting days when every advice no matter how irrelevant it is, was considered a blessing and followed earnestly.I went for a interview in an IT firm, disregarding the fact that i am an electrical engineer and what logic am i following by going for a software job with no formal or informal coding background , i knew the HR head though , thought i'd slide along comfortably once i am done with the first few rounds. Alas all i got from the interview was an advice that, Boy ,you are computer illiterate and

An old woman sits by a flower shop on the other side of the street. Her wrinkled skin , anguished eyes , sunburnt hands are a stark contrast to the beautiful flowers she is selling. A maiden walks to her. Her fair spotless hands, feel the wreaths like a mother caressing her new-born. A virgin touch, seraphic smile, aura of tranquillity. Garlands with over-stuffed flowers; bloating buses , agonizing noise. The flower shop seems heaven in disguise. So many faces, so many colours; so many windows, so many shutters. A malnourished child suddenly appears at the window. Her rags trying their best to cover the bruises from her master. She asks for money, my heart sinks into an abyss. She taps the window, the driver makes a gesture. Her eyes reflect a forgotten reality. It’s only a window which draws a very important line. The first thought that comes in mind, gets buried because it’s hard to accept. No one chooses grief & misery. Is it an edict of stars that I am on the other

What gets us into trouble is not what we do not know; it is what we know for sure that just ain’t so. - Mark Twain Bombings in major cities in India , war in Iraq and Afghanistan , terrorist attacks in most of the places in world once considered peaceful , starvation some places and obesity in others what is the world going through. What has happened to the society? What has happened to the peace? Where are the good old days? This is what most reasonable people who think about the world, think. However, peace has remained a dream since time immemorial. Wars have always been fought, innocence has always suffered, and our choice of leadership has always been flawed. We've always experienced this same dilemma since ages, but it's more colorful this time. Just think about it, God had to come so many times to give us the message. You might say that we were not prepared the first time, what about getting the message right the fourth , fifth , sixth time. How about straigh

IF you love your family lavishly then it is a problem. IF you don’t love them at all, then so it is again. IF you live only to work, then it is a problem. IF you work to live, then so it is again. If you read and don’t think at all, then it is a problem. IF you only think and don’t read, so it is again. IF you worry about others too much, then it is a problem. IF you don’t worry about them at all, then so it is again. IF your partner only argues with you, then it is a problem. IF no squabble ever happens, then so it is again. IF every effort results in despair then it is a problem. IF victory is the only Experience you have, then so it is again. IF it's knowledge you have and no vision, then it is a problem. IF only Vision exists, then so it is again. IF you feel that only Almighty can save you, then it is a problem. IF you think you can do it alone, then so it is again. IF every rise makes you exultant and every fall brings misery, then it is a prob

Darkness engulfs eternity The sun of hope rises everyday The dusk brings us closer to reality; On this treadmill of life we walk everyday; In the shadow of a tree called expectation, Too scared to face the Sun. The thirsty traveller bears each footstep in an unending desert. Who am I? The fruit called responsibility, whose seeds of freedom are discarded, suppressed; No further growth is possible, The gardener is now gone. We fight with nature everyday, w e pray for dawn; The dreams we had, are now long gone. The efforts are all in vain, Nothing remains but the pain. Burdened with sorrow, we pray for a better tomorrow, Our dreams scattered on the canvas of life. We do nothing but survive, The irony of survival is survival. Will we be like the leaves which perish every fall, Or the branches of wisdom that flower every spring. Who decides the path? Who creates the creator? Who destroys the destroyer? Who banishes the darkness? The

“You have a message”. The message pops up and you manoeuvre through the screen to reach your inbox. The mail you see is from a job portal telling you that a “big fat job fair” is organised at the “farthest place” in city. It tells you to register because in the crowd of innumerable freshers you might get lost or will have to wait in the steaming sun to get entry. You get uneasy just at the thought of it and register to get a BIG alphanumeric code. The next morning which is usually a Saturday or Sunday you wake up early and take a bus ride down the venue and end up inadvertently in the unending queue that seemed like a nightmare yesterday. But you don’t have much choice; because you are a fresher and you’ve gotta get a job ASAP. The scene inside (if you manage to get past the watchdogs, without perspiring to death) is almost the same every time and the worst part is, you know the outcome. The job fair has been advertised as the best and last resort for freshers and in the hope that

What IF??? What if, the universe is much older than we thought? What If, Big Bang is not a single event which marks the beginning of space-time but a cyclic episode that repeats itself every 14-15 billion years or so? The actual age of universe might be trillion years or so, who knows, even more; What if, the value of constants changes over time, maybe the value of the cosmological constant decreases over time? The variation might be so insignificant that no one notices it; What if, Instead of having many universes we only have one .Which might not be exactly true because there have been many before the current one and there are going to be many after this one; What if, there is not a single beginning of time but many beginnings, not a single moment of creation but an unending ever-present cycle. We are but a consequence of fine tuning that accidentally happened in the present version. But who knows? Maybe many lives and civilizations have already vanished with the end of th