The World is Flat - III

Yesterday I went to a marriage party. Probably I will be giving a description of all that happened later (actually nothing at all happened) but first I would like you to know that I found after four years of my Vellore, I am almost disqualified for a typical marriage party!

And of course, once again, that the world is flat.

I and my dad reached there sometime after 7.30 pm (courtesy dad, who thought it'll start in time) and found that the dinner hadn't started. (anything new??) Our hosts took us to a banquet hall where mahila sangeet was going on. (!!!)

Well, it seems something has changed. It was a mahila sangeet program, held in a banquet hall, with a DJ and a dance floor, and with a dinner following. Of course, purush, that is fortunate males, could join the proceedings and the sanctity of mahila sangeet was kept only by the fact that there were only females on the dance floor.

The sangeet was also wonderful and got more wonderful as I was sitting there in the banquet for almost 45 minutes. The first I remember being played was a traditional Dhoom taana from Om Shanti Om that was being supported by the dance of a lady of almost 25 (+/-10, keeping in view my record at guessing ages of people) and I was wondering how Vishal Shekhar could make something that didn't even belong to their age. Accolades!

A few minutes later, which seemed to pretty long with the dance, there were small children of my mohalla (no relation with college mohalla) who jumped towards the stage. No, it wasn't children anymore. I had been out of town for too long it seems. Now it was a girl in her teens who was imitating Katrina as the hall was filled with the tune of Zara-zara touch me. And then, after another traditional dance on Aaja Nachle and maybe one or two more songs, it was a number of school and college going girls that captured the DJ as it played Kajrare followed by some typical DJ tracks, and the girls kept on rocking with dances that I never knew existed in my town. Not in mahila sangeet at least.

Finally I was getting the point. In the five years I had been out, having seen the culture of mainly metros, living with students from entire country, I had forgot there was a similar progress going on in my town too. And that too, at a speed more than in the big cities. The number of young girls and boys who were getting good exposure to metro culture was increasing. Basically, it was the same people I had been with for the past five years. And now, I was meeting them. Surprised. Shocked.

Maybe I have not been very clear in what I have said. But try to get the meaning if you can. ANyways, there was something else I am pretty clear about. My disqualification.

Having stayed at college for four years, my diet has changed. I eat a lot now. But that happens only at home it seems. Yesterday in the party, I could not eat most of the things. I mean, I didn't like the quality of North Indian dishes because I was eating only at home. And I didn't like South Indian at all after staying in Tamilnadu for 4 years. Nor did I want to have South Indian, actually.

Just had a few little things and a poori with a sabji, and I came back after one ice-cream.

Disqualified. Mom says I won't be going to the next marriage party. Thanks mom.

Read Read Read

I'm reading. More than any of the past 7 semesters. I started reading 'The World is Flat' on 5th January and completed it on 7th March. And I felt how could I read this slow? (Considering I have almost no work at hand most of the times) Though I would say I enjoyed the book a lot. In fact the book changed my entire thought process to a large extent and I started thinking differently, for the better of course.

And that turned out to be the start of a new era in my life, it seems. I started 'Kane and Abel' (Jeffrey Archer) and finished it within 3 days!! Then I started Shantaram, but left my mission mode in which I had completed my Kane and Abel. So I read almost 130 pages of the 900+ page book in 3 days.

Then by luck I found two books of Jeffrey Archer in library, probably for the second time in 4 years, and certainly for the first time that I got two. (God helps them who help themselves!!) And I decided to read them first.

Shall we tell the President turned out to be relatively shorter and I read it in 3 days. (mission mode is gone now) Then I started Honor Among Thieves, the second one from library and crossed hardly 100 pages that I found something interesting in the library again. I read the first 50 pages of this book called 'Next' by Michael Lewis in the library itself and took it to my room. Hope I'll be able to finish this one within one day.

Honor Among Thieves and Shantaram to complete.

The Alchemist and Maximum City in pipeline, along with I'm OK You're OK. Of course, magazines are also going on, rather more than ever before.

Wish me luck. For my final semester project. :)

In a Flat World - II

Today I was on my mission Malleswaram. By that I mean my schedule of roaming through the markets of Malleswaram, which is a pretty good market in itself now, with a number of grand showrooms, many of them opened in the previous 4 years, the time since I have come to college.

So when I was on my favorite shop, Temptation M, which is something just like Planet M, I saw a couple inquiring about the Ramayana of Ramanand Sagar (the old one) which was available there for Rs 3500.

The in charge of the shop told them and when they showed some reluctance, he started trying his luck and showed them the Mahabharata, Shri Krishna, and Vikram aur Betaal. But the couple had lost interest for some reason and confused, they left the place.

And I started thinking how would it be a waste of their money had they bought it.

Nowadays my mind is really giving me lots of troubles as it is making me think about lots of things I need not think. (so I think when I do not use my mind)

I started thinking how could they use those Rs 3500. First thing that can be done is, buy a Tata Sky connection with the amount of money. Or Dish TV, whichever you like more. In fact you can even have Reliance BlueMagic, but we don't really know in how much time is Mr Anil Ambani going to launch it, but anyways it is going to be cheaper than the two. At least that is what we expect from Reliance.

I think I went off the topic. Back.

So, we can buy a DTH connection and watch new Ramayana on the NDTV Imagine. And after a few days the new Mahabharata too, on Star. (according to reports) This way, we'll be getting a number of channels in addition to the Ramayana and Mahabharata we actually want which will be easier to watch as all the fights in the serials will be using higher quality animations compared to those of 80's.

Second option, we can have a broadband connection of any company. From a wired home broadband connection of BSNL or Sify or Airtel to USB/PCMCIA cards of Reliance/Tata Indicom. And then download and /or watch a hundred more national and international serials, series and shows from Youtube.

Actually I have learnt a lot from that shop itself. About the flattening of world. About technology getting cheaper and becoming more affordable. I have bought a number of CDs from this particular shop (in case u don't know, I am a big movie buff, and a bigger music buff, still buying movie CDs many times) and seen that CDs I buy at Rs 100 (in my case, that's the limit), are being sold for Rs 50 or 38 or 30 by Moserbaer or some company which has reduced its prices due to competition with Moserbaer.

So, in short, as the world is getting flatter, I think it is important for every human to get acquainted to its environment, so that we can get the maximum benefit of the things happening around us.

Hope u are keeping yourself updated.

I Don't Pod

I don't generally regret things. Even try not to be materialistic, that is I try not to be sad for things I would want and don't get.

Till date there were two things I felt sad for. Namely, I do not have a digital camera (not even a camera phone yet), and second, that I do not know how play an instrument, not any one of them.

But it seems the list is going to expand this time.

I was yesterday in a train. From Katpadi to Bangalore. Having nobody with me, I got a boring book called 'The world is flat'. Well, the book is not actualy boring, cause had it been boring, I would not be able to cross 500 pages of that. I know I am not that good at reading boring things. That much I know from 'The Hindu' and 'Frontline'.

Anyways, I managed to read the book for 2 hours. 45 pages, that is. 25 in the first hour, and being complacent, 20 in the second. (actually that tells me its a boring book)

Got to confess something too. There were two girls sitting on the seat behind mine, most probably from my own college. But even though I thought of talking to them (just generally, maybe for yet another so-how's-the-college talk), but part for their almost continuous sleep, and part for me being me, I did not.

Well, the essence is that I was in the train, getting bored alone. And then I could see some guys who came into the coach probably at Kuppam station. Most of them were having i pods in their hands and earphones in their ears. (of course!!!) I have always been content with me singing on my own and listening to myself. (I do not bother others in public places generally, though 2 days ago my neighbor Akshay asked me to sing as he was feeling I had reduced my singing time)

But this time I was feeling different. Seeing so many people with i pods, or their counterparts from other companies, like the one I saw with Saurabh 2 days earlier, one from 'i ball', I have started feeling that I also need an i pod.

Not that I have started feeling that my own voice is not that good as before or something, just that I have started feeling that I want to listen more than sing to myself. And since I am reading that boring book, i mean my flat-world, I'm feeling I am left behind people. People who know less than me. (nothing like I have done some research or something, its my self-decided notion that I'm more intelligent than most of the mortals on the earth, and in the opinion of this intelligent mortal, its very very wrong, making it a paradox)

Anyways, I think I'm gonna get an i pod as soon as I get my salary (thanks to Mr Chidambaram, my taxes are gonna get down by almost 25k this yr), even before my camera, that is in queue since 2000, or may be I get an N82. (I loved the phone, has a 5 mega pixel camera embedded and of course i can listen to what i like with that)

Well, for now, i can just keep my fingers crossed, until I get my first salary. Hope to get it soon (and my passport too, that is mandatory for joining)

Amen.

In a flat world 1.2 (or) I've gone mad

Believe it or not. It's hillarious!! (nothing to do with Hillary Clinton)

Google is tracking what we are all listening. In all the countries. Based on those who put current track in their Gtalk. Big deal. But not much.

The much big deal is the results I saw. For the first time I entered the Google music labs (as they call it) and checked the results under All countries and All genres. And Mohit Chauhan's 'Tum se hi' was the third topper on the list.

So, in the flat world, Indians are participating in everything. Congrats India! The world is listening.

By the way, if u want to know what India is listening, u can select India instead of All countries. And if u are still not surprised, select genre soundtrack and all countries.

In a flat world - I

I do not know how many parts I will be writing in this post. But since I have been reading the book 'The World is Flat' by Thomas L Friedman for a long time now, that is almost since the first week of January, completed more than half of the book, and liking it continuously, I think I can write a lot on this Flat world.

The author has given a list of things, ten in number, that are making the world flat today. But there is, to be very specific, one, that I have been using for a long time now. And that flattener is Google.

Friends, maybe I am obsessed with Google. But I think if it is so, it's worth it.

Well, I do not know how many of you use Google how efficiently but I would like to tell you here how much and in what manners I use Google. As long as I am online.

Google starts with web search. Web search for general knowledge, studies, projects, movies' details, songs, or simply time pass. May be I have left a number of categories I search for. Then, the very next, image search (going by the order on the Google home page). Image search of Google is used for various reasons, to find various things. From pictures required in assignments to movie posters. From beautiful girls (under censored language) to my changing profile pics on Orkut. Google image search only gives meaning to all JPEG, PNG, BMP and other such words. The next one, news, is though a thing I do not search through 'Google News'. But still, almost all the news are found through the standard Google homepage.

Then comes my dear old Orkut. Whatever I say about Orkut is less. I have used Orkut for a lot, lot many things. I have found lost friends on Orkut, have talked to them sending 200 scraps in a day (to one person only) when the reply option didn't exist, have talked to anonymous people on scraps, spent whole nights visiting profiles of girls with different algorithms, collected people of my own town from around the world under the community called Najibabad, gathered information regarding admissions, colleges etc, even provided information to many, shown my power (when there was a race among us friends to have the maximum number of friends, though trying to lessen the number now), and what not.

Then comes the Gmail. A forever favorite. Currently I have at least 5 Gmail accounts running out of which i use 3 regularly. Also, my college has assigned a new mail account in the name of college provided actually by Gmail, making harshitgupta2004@vit.ac.in my new Gmail id. Basically after using Gmail I do not want to use any other mail. Recently I tried AOL mail after using which I could say it was 'Not Made for India'. I was really pissed off as I could not send even one mail properly from the American giant's mail.

Then come the two things, Google Books and Google Scholar, which I rarely use. Actually I have hardly ever used Scholar except for the main Google search engine but after seeing the papers available there, I must say it is going to help people, including myself, in their assignments and projects.

Google blog search is another interesting thing. It has found me things I could never reach through the normal web search. One day I simply searched the name of a friend and I came to know he's running a blog about which hardly anyone knows. I also search blogs when I simply want to know people's view about something, be it Raj Thackeray or my college VIT Vellore.

Photos is one thing I could not use yet as I do not have proper internet connection to upload my pics. Still, I find Picasa really useful and better my photos using Picasa as Adobe Photoshop is too heavy a tool for me.

Then there is 'Blogger' through which I broadcast all the crap that comes to my mind. And those Google alerts in which I used to write any person's name I wanted to know about and get all the info on my mail (I had hundreds of mail alerts in the name of Sania Mirza once, to keep me updated) And the desktop search that searches every item on my hard disks with the speed of Google. Wow!

And even though I don't use Google's docs and spreadsheets as I have Microsoft office on my computer, I cannot afford to forget Gtalk that I use to talk to a number of people simultaneously. In fact I have talked to 4 people at a time in the Gtalk embedded in Gmail too.

Well, being a computer engineer, I do not want to tell you how much I search on google code. It'll tel you too much then. :)

Well, that is how Google makes my world flat. that is how I access information from all the corners of the world today. And that is how my life goes on Google.