• Am I Doing Something – about it…..?

    A topic i had wanted to write on since i saw ‘phir milenge’..(when i saw ‘philadelphia’, i wasnt blogging)….
    for a long time, i had maintained that awareness kills fear..the child’s fear of the dark, for example – once it realises that there is nothing in the dark that causes harm, it loses the fear.although there are a lot of things which dont fall under this categorisation, those, i believe,are things that we dont have complete info about..
    AIDS – a phenomenon that is perhaps mankind’s greatest threat ever, because even awareness isnot moving people away from its most usual modes of transmission, and it can strike you by no fault of yours – blood transfusion, infected syringes, certain organ transplants etc. but, it definitely cannot be transmitted by borrowing clothes from an HIV person, sharing of utensils, drinking from the same glass with the person with HIV/AIDS, shaking of hands, embracing,or even kissing an infected person…. yes, i know all of this, all of us who are aware of the disease know this…
    but inspite of this awareness, i am not sure if i could bring myself to share clothes with an HIV infected person, to hug him, to maybe even sit close to him ..
    it is certainly not lack of awareness thats causing this fear.. is it because i am also aware ofmy mortality but unaware of what lies ahead of me after death? will it take that awareness to get over a fear of something i know about? i, for one,hope not, and the day i get over this fear, i will be a happy man….

  • Senses and Sensibleness

    No, i am not about to do a Gurinder Chadha on “sense and sensibility”.this is in a totally different context.
    ever since the dawn of the internet era, the term ‘virtual’ has come to be used in a whole lot of diverse fields. i, for one, am looking forward to a lot of stuff that can be done with virtual reality, in the gaming context 😉
    things are happening, and will continue to happen in this field, and judging by the way more and more people are getting e-literate, all these things will get transferred to more and more people, in the days to come.
    now, there are five senses that we humans are familiar with (lets forget about ESP and manoj shyamalan for now) – sight, sound, touch,taste and smell. of these, we have managed to bring sight and sound online. i still dont know if we have managed to bring any of the other stuff online, my limited knowledge says no! even with two senses, the amount of cyber crime based on these two are of alarming proportions, and affecting people of all age, gender, geography etc. net etiquette is something a limited few practise.
    with the current rate of technological growth, it is not going to be long before some smart one finds a way to get the other three senses also to find their way online. i might get to try out a shirt on fabmart, buy a burger from mcdonalds after having a bite of it, or buy a perfume after getting a whiff of it, all online.
    we will undoubtedly become smart enough to get all senses online, but whether we have the sensibility to handle it is a totally different ball game.
    so until next time, be sensible…..

  • Before Baazigar

    a couple of days back, there were some VIPs in office, and all of us were asked to be on our best behaviour, and loud noises were met with cold glares that said ‘dont you know they are here?’…..
    it took me to a whole long time back , to a school which used to have school inspectors, who, like the mythological king mahabali (for whose visit we celebrate onam..grrr, i am digressing) used to come once a year to monitor the school’s standards.he used to visit all the classes, and sometimes, if he actually took his job seriously, visit some classes twice. now, all teachers had their ‘poster boys’ who were chosen to answer the questions posed by the inspector. (it reminds me of the first scene in troy, where, to avoid the losses of battle, the two kings let their best fighters take on each other, oh, but i am digressing again).
    once, the inspector refused to let the teacher choose, and insisted he would leave the question open,but little did he know that the wily teacher had anticipated this possibility too, and had forbidden anyone else but the chosen one to raise their hand. but the inspector was adamant, he posed the question to the girl next to the chosen one.
    a little history, the job of the chosen one wasnt as easy as it looks on the monitor. you should remember that he was the flagbearer of the entire class, and carried the expectations of the teacher and perhaps the school itself. it was not confidence that killed the butterflies in his stomach, it was ambivalent feelings – if he got the answer right, he would continue to recieve adulation as the chosen one, if he got it wrong, well, the wretched job would be taken off his shoulders.. and for the few butterflies that did remain, you can blame the ego…
    back to the story now, the girl didnt know the answer, she looked pleadingly at the chosen one,but with the inspector staring at him, he chickened and stared straight ahead….
    for the girl, the poster boy had transformed into the first anti hero of our generation.. it certainly wasn’t SRK !!
    and since we are on the subject, here are a couple of toons..um, not exactly for children, but..

    until next time, know your role….

  • Game Theory Revisited

    1978 : rattles (educated guess)
    1980 : assorted dolls, building blocks
    1982 : wooden ksrtc (kerala govt transport) bus,lorry,plastic cars
    1984 : plastic/metal robots, Lego (thanks to dad’s US trip), guns (toy, that is), snakes and ladders
    1986 : Rambo stuff (bow & arrow, guns..the works), cricket, ludo
    1988 : scrabbles, hockey
    1990 : monopoly, indoor cricket
    1992 : mortal combat, steet fighter, memory!!
    1994 : cricket, dumb charades, walkman
    1996 : roadrash, Life
    1998 : claw, mario
    2000 : need for speed, duke
    2002 : snake, mpeg downloads 😉
    2004 : monopoly, claw, colony, discman……

    once upon a long time ago, hours could be spent playing any of these games..over time, the sheer joy the toys used to give, has given way to faster bouts of fatigue/boredom and the quest for an elusive ‘something’… growing up or growing down, who’s to say? ….ironical that more the choices, more the intensity of the quest……
    the toys have changed, the child remains…

  • Freaky Friday

    i had promised myself that i wouldnt give this blog a ‘my diary’ feel, but have to chronicle this, so it can serve as a benchmark for later days –
    it all started with D preponing the weekend laziness and saying that she would go to office late . me having built a system of timelines, even this tiny aberration was enough to cause a bug in my system, due to which i got delayed too, a marginal 15 minutes, but delayed nevertheless. during travel time to office, i cajoled my system into a feel good mood.
    less than a kilometer from the office, the kiney decides to prepone the weekend laziness and refuses to respond to auto start, kick start or any bludy start, all this only 4 days after a full servicing.i started dragging it (hate leaving it) , saw a closed workshop on the way, and finally reached an open one a kilometre later (in a direction away from the office). Got the kiney repaired in one hour, and gotto watch a Sony Playstation go through a cleaning session with an equipment they usually use to check tyre pressure…i swear!!
    cajoled my system into feeling good again, only to promptly crash into an auto that turned without a signal… the traffic policeman also supported me, but couldnt get the auto guy to pay for the broken helmet visor, rear view mirror and the mental trauma…only solace was that i changed his relationship with his mom, sister (if he has one) etc…. forever, hopefully..grrrr
    got to office, the comp system hung twice before realising it was only a friday and not the weekend… had almost brought my system into normal mode when a colleague literally marched by and insisted he wouldnt stop till i marched with him, the excuse being that i would forget marching (the last time i marched was in std xii).. the logic that there was no reason for me to remember it anyways, did not appeal to him…..that is the last thing i remember on friday, my system hung!!
    P.S just in case you though it was over, i got a message at 10 pm on saturday to let me know that i’d have to grace the office with my presence on sunday.
    until next time, drive safe….