Author: manuscrypts

  • Moving On

    once upon a time there was a town. the geography of it does matter, but we will come to it later. the town had a decent share of manufacturing units, and fairly big ones at that. these units understood their social responsibilities very well. they built their share of the infrastructure – roads, parks, living quarters; and since the aspiration levels of the citizens were at a reasonable level, life seemed to be good all around. people started settling there after their retirement coz of the good infrastructure and excellent climate. you could see happy smiles all around, no traffic snarls, no road rage, slow paperwork instead of frenzied mails, (no blogs too, but thats okay, i doubt whether any of us could do anything worthwhile then ;-)), altogether a leisurely pace of life. pops have enough money, so kids can enjoy at the pubs, which have started to happen. but life is one phenomenon where the laws of inertia does not work.
    enter the 90’s, entrepreneurism is the happening thing, software companies , (read start ups) appear on the horizon, a new breed of techies are born, they have the money, they have the career path figured out, they wanna spend, baby, and rao obliges, liberalisation is in…infrastructure has not exactly kept up with the pace coz these companies are more into branding than infrastructure, but still not that bad… pubs mushroom, discos are in place, life is a party and the animals are evolving. life is slightly hurried, hey, but what the hell, we are enjoying it!! inertia doesnt work, we have to move on.
    the 2000’s….the first gen techies are in middle age, but the new gen has almost the same mantras in place. then come the call centres, kids after college (some before college too) have access to quick money, so what if they have to be nocturnal !! kids, no i am not demeaning them in any way, but kids…. kids who have a limited, skewed view of life, kids who have no career path, kids who have no clue, no, have not thought about what life will be 10 years later, kids who will buy fast machines so they look ‘cool’ in front of their friends, kids who do not realise that their ol’ city hasnt got the infrastructure to support their lifestyle(infrastructure?? my a**, we are into cost cutting) , a city that has to adjust to the nocturnal needs of the new breed, but hey wait, there are guys who say it is shining, so it must be…. kids now, kids hoping to be kids forever…..inertia?? uh-huh
    2010’s…. the call centres that came in zooming are zooming out, the kids are told that their counterparts in a remote part of the world they have only heard about, can do work at a lower cost…so in the larger interests of the organisation the jobs are being sent there….the kids’ future just collapsed coz there aint no plan b.
    look at the town, no, the city- the plazas, the malls, the complexes are all empty coz the kids now have no money to spend, the new techies are too busy, the old techies have lost the fire…the manufacturing units are closed a long time back coz the kids never wanted to work there. somewhere along the line, it ceased to become a pensioners paradise coz the traffic got too heavy, the atmosphere too polluted, and life too fast. a city dying…..
    we can be happy now, coz this is not happening here. but this is my expanded view of what happened here. i am not a pessimist, lennon would hardly call me a dreamer, but realistic?? i think so……
    the political system ‘there’ is much less volatile, what about ‘here’? in a society and politic that is already divided and subdivided on regionalism, religionalism, casteism etc, can we afford the volatility when (and if) the jobs (which were an integral part of the shining) left us??
    sam pitroda, the man behind the std booths you see all around, says the telecom boom we see are a result of the seeds sown a couple of decades ago…. what are the seeds we have sown for tomorrow??
    check this out, not exactly in the realm, but getting there…………….but hey, maybe “its not for us to question why, its only for us to do and die”
    and so in
    manuscrypts trivia
    this is about us…., this is the link to the ‘bad sex’ awards, and my usual quotes
    “Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around in awareness” ~ James Thurber
    “Concern for man and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavors. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.” and “Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.”~ Einstein
    “why cant male sheep be called heep?” ~ manu (couldnt resist)

  • Janus Battles

    A few days back a cold realisation hit me, that i had taken off the rediff ad banner from my blog…. if they were ever to do an audit, manuscrypts’ future looks bleak.. i know for a fact that simon has also discarded rediff, lots of others too, just cant remember who…
    but in case, someone from rediff is reading this, my sincere apologies….hehe.. but it seriously makes me feel a tad guilty coz rediff introduced me to the concept of blogging…
    it is said that the answer to ‘who am i?’ holds the key to unlocking a whole lot of mysteries about the self and its relationship with the universe in general…but even thats a difficult question to answer, isnt it?… like the alcohol ad that has ‘one part hot blooded, one part chivalry, one part foresight….’ , i have a part of me thats cold, selfish, uncaring etc, but i also have a part thats caring, considerate, kind etc…. i have a part of me that prefers solitude, easy listening music and books, i also have a part thats into having fun, playing pranks, raising hell and metalling heavily..hehe..its easy to answer this by saying that all of them are me, or even by saying that it depends on where i am and who i am with, but if i have to objectively say which is the dominant person..hmmm…its a daily battle, and the only consolation is that in the first set, i am kinda getting the good kind to win :-)….
    so, who am i………. still downloading…………….hehe
    on a sidenote, the people friendly part of me always poses the question whether i ‘blog socialise’ enough, virtually or really!!
    Apologies to all those who thought this post was about the trials in the life of a south indian woman, i was referring to the two faced roman god, janus!!
    this is something i picked up, when on my virtual jaunts,from a site called craphound, definitely awesome!!
    “I went back to my old haunts, the saloons where I’d gone for a beer after a day’s work at the docks, and the dance-halls, and the theatres, and I saw my old chums. That was hard, James.”
    He stopped then. I found myself saying, “How was it hard, Mr Adelson?”
    He looked surprised, like he’d forgotten that he was talking to me. “Well, James, it’s like this: when you’re away that long, you get to invent yourself all over again. Of course, everyone invents themselves as they grow up. Your chums there –” he gestured at the boys, who were now trying, with varying success, to turn somersaults, dirtying their school clothes “– they’re inventing themselves right now, whether they know it or not. The smart one, the strong one, the brave one, the sad one. It’s going on while we watch!
    “But when you go away, nobody knows you, and you can be whoever you want. You can shed your old skin and grow a new one.”….
    “”And then I came home.
    “As far as the folks back home were concerned, I was the kid they’d said good-bye to five years before. My father thought I was still a kid, even though I’d fought pirates and weathered storms. My chums wanted me to be the kid I’d been, and do all the boring, kid things we’d done before I left — riding the trolleys, watching the vaudeville shows, fishing off the docks.
    “Even though that stuff was still fun, it wasn’t _me_, not anymore. I missed the old me, and felt him slipping away.”….
    while on the subject, check out these two statements, different perspectives
    “the ant is disciplined, proper and obeys authorities. That’s why after five million years of evolution it’s still an ant”
    “the ant is disciplined, proper and obeys authorities. That’s why after five million years of evolution it is still around where dinosaurs havent survived”
    manuscrypts trivia
    check out this sign, some bollywood bloopers, and a few quotes
    “To measure you by your smallest deed is to reckon the ocean by the frailty of its foam. To judge you by your failures is to cast blame upon the seasons for their inconsistencies.” ~ Kahlil Gibran
    “If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.” ` Einstein
    and a personal favourite
    “Why are we scared to die? Do any of us remember being scared when we were born?” ~ Trevor Kay”
    “Should a female papaya be called mamaya?” ~ Manu (sorreeeee :-)))

  • Three’s Company?

    As part of the ‘made in india’ series on star movies, ‘split wide open’ was aired yesterday… a good movie, though constantly teetering on the fine line between raw portrayal and vulgarism, primarily because a lot of the movie’s content was sex, and not the kind thats publicly common in india – gay/lesbianism to start off, bigamy, couple sharing the male servant in bed, father in law stepping in coz the son is impotent, pedophily, to name a few……
    raised some questions in my mind – the lil girl involved in the pedophily episode, aged around 10, had been picked up by a guy from the street, and was treated quite well, to the extent that she didnt want to leave when her ‘brother’ tries to rescue her…. now, does she have the freedom to choose her way of life, does the brother have the right to choose right and wrong for her?…. not that the issues are similar, but is it kinda like a kid saying it doesnt want to go to school??
    the other food for thought is if three people feel they are perfectly happy together (would amount to bigamy), is the law justified in proclaiming it illegal?? so if someone finds three to be company, should he/she be given the freedom to live life that way?? all this would boil down to a simple question “should convenience of the majority be the only parameter while setting laws??”
    since we are on the topic, harvard is cool on the sexual explicitness front, so says this article. this article is about 2 guys getting caught for sending porn to a girl in mumbai.
    Two more totally unrelated links, this one describes your character based on alphabet……
    This article throws some light on my favourite actor of all time, mohanlal…guys north of the vindhyas wouldnt know him, except for a cameo in “company”, but for sheer talent, he remains the best i have seen….
    another best i have seen is my oldest and only chat friend, ‘doc’ amrutha, who, on valentine’s day elicited a whole gamut of emotions from me, ranging from absolute surprise to absolute happiness, by sending me flowers. totally totally unexpected, the only thing that could beat that was her dropping in, doc u hear that??
    which brings me to
    manuscrypts trivia
    have still not exhausted my quotes quota, so here goes
    “Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee
    And I’ll forgive Thy great big one on me.” ~ Robert Frost
    “I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.” ~ Isaac Newton
    “Life is not lost by dying. Life is lost minute by minute, day by dragging day, in all the thousand small uncaring ways.” ~ Stephen Vincent Benet

  • Special Post

    this one’s to wish you all a very happy valentine’s day, not exactly a great believer myself, but for those who do, have a blast. and this one’s for my one and only lovely wifey, who’s gonna read this blog after a long time (coz the poor thing has got conditional (!!) net access at work), i looooooooooooooove you!!
    and in
    manuscrypts trivia
    a link, for those against the day
    & a good joke
    A couple was celebrating their golden wedding anniversary. Their domestic tranquillity had long been the talk of the town.”What a peaceful & loving couple”. A local newspaper reporter was inquiring as to the secret of their long and happy marriage.”Well, it dates back to our honeymoon,”explained the man. “We visited the Grand Canyon and took a trip down to the bottom of the canyon by horse. We hadn’t gone too far when my wife’s horse stumbled. My wife quietly said, ‘That’s once.’ We proceeded a little further and the horse stumbled again. Once more my wife quietly said,’That’s twice.’”We hadn’t gone a half-mile when the horse stumbled the third time. My wife quietly removed a revolver from her purse and shot the horse dead.
    “I started an angry protest over her treatment of the horse, when she lookedat me, and quietly said,’That’s once’.

    “And we lived happily ever after”.

  • We don’t need no India Shining

    thats probably what the IIMs want to be singing after the govt slashed their fee structure….. i am actually confused, and have very ambivalent thoughts on the issue…on one hand, i dont like the govt sticking its hands into something thats an established brand, and has shown thats its perfectly capable of handling its business, it looks like they wanna have a share of a good thing, maybe even use that in the ‘india shining’ campaign…. on the other hand, i also feel that a govt influence might make the IIMs more accessible….
    btw, the election commission has warned the govt not to spend the revenue from taxes for the campaign, so we might get a breather.. 🙂
    speaking of IIMs, i just had a thought, humankind protests against all kinds of disparities – race, sex, age etc..but arent institutions like IIMs promoting discrimination based on intellectual aptitude…. at every level of academic life, we strive to take tests and pass, arent we therefore subjecting ourselves to a screening for checking our levels of intellect….they are just standards that suit the majority… i get admission in a good college coz i performed well in school, i get a good job coz i did well in college, the list goes on….but what gives us the right to discriminate against those who arent as bright?? … is it right to condemn them to a life of misery, self doubt and frustration just because they cant utilise their brains to the extent we can?? but we do, coz if we dont, a lot of existing systems would crash!!
    saw “plan” during the weekend, expectations were close to nil coz of the reviews, but surprise, surprise, it wasnt that bad, which goes to show that you cant trust reviews all the time….sanjay dutt seems to be perfecting the ‘comic don’ character…. the movie has some corny shayari, courtesy, dutt and mahesh manjrekar, who has also done a good job..think this one takes the cake “sher ke saamne sher bolne se chooha sher nahi banta; bache paida karne hote hain, god lene se koi baap nahi banta”……. 🙂
    been reading a whole cartload of articles on ‘outsourcing’, am actually wondering whether He has outsourced sustenance to someone, that would answer a lot of questions regarding the way humankind is evolving, the ‘quality’ issues….btw, have a look at this link, a good read.which brings me to
    manuscrypts triviadont remember where i got it from, but its good
    In The Adventures of Griswald Gnome: A Fairy Tale for Children of all Ages, the magician gnome starts by saying, “I am a Peristaltic Basaltic Cabalist.””A reformed deformer, searcher for research, a regrind grinder, one who once faltered, but reflated and did rejoin as a joiner. If I might presume, I’m going to lecture you. This statement is my testament: my supreme objective is to preserve the perverse,”and the usual quotes
    “To a large degree reality is whatever the people who are around at the time agree to.”~ Milton Miller
    Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. ~ Einstein