Who's the best?

Comparison is inevitable in this world. Whatever people do, accomplish, fail to do, etc, it is always compared to things of the past, or similar things that others have done.
Comparisons are done, ratings are given and finally everybody wants an answer to the question "Who's the best". And the things that are compared range from infinity to infinity. Anything can be compared. Starting from which kid in the school has more toffees to who makes the fastest century in a 20-20 match, comparisons are a never ending phenomenon.

What do these comparisons serve? Probably, it is because of comparing and contrasting that we are able to improve our capabilities. So it might not be that bad either.

Again, within these comparisons, there seems to be an inherent trend, at least one that I feel, to put people earlier in time in a more positive light than they would deserve otherwise. And this is in every field.. Sports, music, arts take anything.. The earlier guy is always better/greater than the contemporary. Shakespeare, Picasso, Newton, Bradman, they are all great people and considered better than their current counterparts and probably anybody in the future too. As if great people are born only once and that too in the past!  Ghantasala is a better singer than SP Balu, Ilayaraja is better than A R Rahman, Nobody can think of a better actor than NTR in Telugu.. the list goes on.

Why so? One reason I can think of is that resources were limited in the past and anybody who achieved so much back then would have done even more now. True, but not always. Another reason then, probably, is that it is the modesty of the younger generations to revere and respect elders in their field and to attribute greater skill to their predecessors. Besides that, in most cases, the predecessors would have been their gurus or idols in the field, so they can't dream about surpassing the idols or at least openly accept it.

There might be other reasons, and I might be only seeing one side of it all (think about scientists before Newton and poets before Shakespeare, they existed too, but still the later ones are considered the best, right?) but it is mostly the case that in a list of successful people in a field, the earliest is always considered best. And, these comparisons never end.

So, which was the best movie of the decade, who was the best sportsman, which year was the best, etc etc.. and the comparisons go on and on... and while you are on it, you could also try and tell which of my posts is the best :) Yes, I am no different.

the canine question

Freedom. Contrary to what the word means, I think the word has a different connotation that is exactly opposite to the meaning, one which means restriction. We are all free by definition, but are we really free? Probably its a bit easier for us intellectually superior beings called humans ,to understand what the word really means and what we should and should not do under this empowering word called "freedom". But think about the animal world, specifically the "pets" the we so dearly love and have them by our side always. Are they free? Do they know whether they are free?

Watching two dogs on one day in different circumstances triggered a doubt in me as to what this word "freedom" would mean to each of the dogs.

The first of them was traveling in the rear of an air-conditioned car, sticking his head out of the window, wearing a dreary look on its face. One look at it and you would feel it is missing something. Is it freedom? But think about it, and the comforts it is enjoying, probably not even the upper middle class human can afford. But is it really free? Does it want to jump out of the window, hunt for its food, eat his hard-earned meal rather than eat artificial dog food fed to it every 6 hours. Is it happy being in the car? Probably yes. Is it free? Does it want to be? Only the dog can tell.

The second, a street dog, again with a dreary look on its face, this time looking out for some generous human who can give it some food. Is it happy? Not so much I would say, it doesn't know what its next meal is going to be and when. Is it free? It definitely is freer than the earlier one. Yes, it can hunt at its own times and for food that it wants. Sleep in its own time at any place it wants, be it right in the middle of the road under the shade of a tree. Freedom? Totally. But the very next moment a rash auto driver runs over its leg and it squeals in pain and runs amok as far away as it can. Is it happy being free? No. Does it want to be in the air-conditioned car, in return for the freedom? Only the dog can tell.

Never having reared a dog, I am not sure if these canines have a sense of freedom and whether they have a preference to have it or not, but what impresses me is their loyalty. They are loyal when they are free, and even more when they are tied up. One quality worth learning.

If only these canines could speak..

Been there.. Seen that..

It might be for just a couple of minutes. It might not be the greatest of the innings. But finally, I can cross an item from my list of "100 things to do in life".  That being "watching the master Sachin Tendulkar bat" live. Been there and seen that yesterday when I went to the test match played between India and New Zealand in Hyderabad.

On another day, it would have been a century that every cricket fan was waiting for - century number 50 in tests for the master, but it was not to be yesterday. That was the only disappointment, but not so much after seeing the other batsmen bat. All those batsmen whose shrugs and styles, defences and boundaries I was used to watching on TV were now playing less than a hundred yards from me. It was thrilling on that front but not so much in the play itself, it being a test match and our guys playing slower than usual, I was pretty bored with the game.

So, 1 out of 100 is over. Now I should plan for the rest 99, or rather I should make a list of those 99 first, because I never had a list till I did no. 1 :-)

Tweet.. tweet..

First there was the good old telephone. Then came the e-mail. Then the mobile phone. Social networking followed. Micro-blogging is the new fad. Like everybody I've taken to anything that's new and happening, and in the process, I've added a new gadget to the blog today - my twitter feed. I am not very active on twitter as such, but I thought interlinking them both would be a good idea because in a sense both the blog and the twitter are for the same purpose. I use them both to express myself to friends and readers.

While twitter is for an informal thought or a single line that flashes in the mind suddenly, blog is for the more-thought-about topics and things that I find time and words to write about.

So twittering, blogging and everything that the amazing world of internet has to offer. I particularly like the innovation that has come up on the communications front in these recent years. Its good to watch the trend :)

the new car..

After writing about bigger, grander and more meaningful things in the past few posts, let me turn a bit into the normal human this time. The kind that talks loud about global warming but still wants to own a car inside. :) After all I want my share too!

So it was a couple of days ago that I bought my first car. I am no expert in cars and how they work, and so had to do a bit of googling and the like, ultimately to realize that all these tech specs and comparisons do not make much sense if it is your first car. All you want are pleasing looks and enough space inside :) Trust me.

I zeroed in on the Hyundai i20 Magna and now I am a proud owner of one.

I wrote a similar post quite a few(!) years back about my CBZ and how it caught my attention on the very first day and I ended up owning it. Nothing like that happened for the car though :) Either I became older and more practical now or my dreams now know no bounds, for, only the Audis and BMWs catch my attention :)

To think or to act.

Much of what I write in this post is the result of a few conversations with friends and a few observations here and there..

So one day, a friend asks me "I do not want to see any destitute, poor and ragged on the streets. Can we do something about it?". And I said, "Well, what can we do?"

I am sure some of you are with me on this one. Many of us have this latent feeling to reach out and help people in want of need, but fail to do so because of various reasons. One, not to mention the busy lives that we live in, where some times we spend the better part of the day commuting to work and back rather than doing something useful. Second, the urge to relax and let the world take care of itself, rather than be out there and help the needy in a way that we can. Third, considering our contributions too small to even make a difference. Fourth, .. I can write and write but people might label me as being a hypocrite - much talk and no action. :-)

True, we are a majority, but every Monday and Wednesday enroute to my office, when I see this lady coming out of her car bringing cans of curd rice to distribute to the homeless, who spend their nights in the cold and the rain, waiting for their ailing kin to recover in an adjacent hospital, I tend to think no reasons are big enough to not act.

Probably a thing or two to learn from her. First, she could have been satisfied by donating an amount to an organization that takes care of such deeds. But she didn't, and instead took up the task to prepare the food and distribute it personally. Second, how much commitment would one need to have to return back every week and do the same act of kindness? Lets just compare it with.. say.. how regular are you to the gym or, on your diet? [The two most personally important things in these times of middle class affluence ;-)]

What this would mean is that for every action (or inaction) of ours, we have a choice. One can either shed some lethargy and act, or for the others who cannot, we have some good news. Because another friend of mine had said "That's ok. It is the thought that counts. Not everybody can go out and do these things. Besides, it is enough if a few people contribute and the rest support them". :-)

With a few days to go for the birth centenary of the greatest humanitarian of the 20th century - Mother Teresa, this post is also to remind ourselves of her service to mankind!

What's your language?

One would not question the fact that the main difference between us humans and the rest of the species on earth is the power of speech - being able to communicate. Empowered by "language",  developed through complex thinking processes and an evolved larynx, we, the humans, have the biggest advantage that helped us move beyond hunting and gathering food to taking flights to the sun and moon.

It has been a very uniform evolution pattern for humans across the world, wherever people stayed on the planet. Starting from becoming two legged from four-legged, cultivation, eating habits, hunting, running, eating with hands and not legs ;-) etc.. But why do different people on Earth speak different languages? One wonders why there are so many languages, some of them spoken by millions of people, while some, just by a few hundreds. And the scripts of these vary a great deal too. Left to right, right to left, top to bottom etc, evoking much interest in their purpose and origin.

Purpose, yes, there definitely is. Speech is definitely the fastest way of communicating. Think about sign language, or eye-language, or any other means of communication, spoken one stands out as the fastest and even helps people multi-task. You could do other things while speaking, except when you are eating, that is. :) And when the spoken one had its limitations, distance being one of them, people came up with scripts, to carry the language from one place to another (think letters!)

Origin is what confuses me. If people all over the world eat pretty much the same stuff, walk and run alike, think almost alike, how come they came up with different languages? Is language not something that is built into the human gene? Of course, the very fact that any person can learn any language of the world itself means that language is not genetic but a purely learned thing.  
              Probably each group that stayed together developed their own language, to be understood within their circles. They might have been unaware of other people on a different continent doing the exact same thing. If only they knew, all of us would have had just one language. :)

Lack of communication between early humans, thus, seems to be the reason for so many languages coming up in the first place and now, that very fact that these languages are so different is stopping us from communicating with each other :) Guess, we have come full circle on this one.

 Could we have done better if there was some built-in language into our human genes? Just like we have two eyes, two ears, if all us spoke the same language, we would have saved much time in learning foreign languages and many a barriers would have come down. Right?

Speaking of languages.. does anybody know what the newest language is?

Did I hear somebody say Java........!!!  :)

The First Decade of the century...

This day marks an era of my foray into the world of computers. Today marks six years at work and counting a good four years at college before that would make it a decade with the man-made-machines. So comes the new design to the blog, to celebrate.

Roughly ten years ago it was, that I wrote my first C program, and as anybody would guess, it was the hello.c program which printed "Hello, world!" with the exact punctuation and capitalization :-)

int main() 
 {
        printf("Hello, world!");
        return 0;
 }

What struck me the most at that point was the colors on each word, which I came to know later was called 'syntax highlighting'. Back in school days, all I knew was BASIC and it did not have this feature. So it was kind of new and colorful. What started then became a hobby, then a vocation and later a profession.

In these ten years, I have seen transformations and advancements in the computer industry of all kinds. But the biggest and the most far-reaching one in all of them would be the "collaborative web". Powered by the likes of wikipedias and the youtubes, this revolutionary idea has changed the game called internet.

 Back in the day a website meant information being pushed one-way i.e., from the websites to the internet users. If you had some information and wanted the world to know about it, there was no direct or rather "free" way of doing it. You had to buy website hosting services and host a website of your own.

 But today, if you have some information to share, you have a host of websites ready to present it to the world, all for free. Take blogger. I have been able to write for over so many years, without spending a single pie. Take wikipedia, or youtube, or yahoo answers. The collective knowledge of all the people in this world, wherever they are on the planet, is readily accessible.

 There were thousands of instances, personally for me, when this altruism of fellow internet users helped me find relevant information, that too in a few minutes.

 Imagine going to a library and searching through books when you want to find about interesting tour places in Japan, or understand what an "off side" meant in football, or the Bertrand Russell’s paradoxes or the billion things you to go to the internet every other minute.

 All of this has been possible through the advancement of technology, yes. But underlying the success of these collaborative projects is the benevolence of mankind in contributing their time and effort in making these projects so useful to all of us.

 It is these acts of selflessness that raises hope for a better tomorrow and fills one's thoughts with optimism in a day where we hear more about the bad than about the good.

 Hope, Empathy and Peace.

What's not in a name

Its been well over a month since I wrote last and before I get into the well of procrastination, let me jot down something. But suddenly why today? To be honest, I was watching TV over the weekend and Discovery and NGC had special programmes lined up for the World Environment Day. It rung some bells, and here I am, back to the blog, after glancing over last year's post about the day.

Speaking of Discovery channel and their programs about tigers and all, recently I happened to read the book "Life of Pi", the book is about a boy and a tiger, both stuck on a life boat in the middle of the Pacific for close to six months, imagine that! While the story itself is gripping and narrated in a very imaginative way, the book has some very good thoughts related to religion as well, a completely tangential topic. And the protagonist happens to major in Zoology and Religious studies. A unique combination! I wonder how he would've answered the age-old question about Evolution :) Probably that would tell which of his majors his favorite is!


And the book is set in India in the 1970s. Not having read too many books set in the Indian background, I found this book fresh and real. The familiar names and places, the description of the huge tamarind tree and kids playing under its shade, the earthenware to cool water and such minute things made it a pleasurable reading experience and the imaginary world one constructs while reading a book felt very real. Not so much with the books set in some foreign contexts.

Probably I should read more such books.. but how would I know. One classic mistake I did when I first came across this book a few years back was to dismiss it as some kind of self-help book. The words "Life" and an unknown/mathematical-constant "Pi" made me assume it is not my type of a book. But once I got to know that it is not, I started reading and found the title very simple and very apt to the story.

So, moral of the story: don't second guess what a book is about just by looking at the title :-)

La Belle Dame...

Is it just me or do others also find these fighter jets appealing? appealing as in 'attractive'. Sounds strange but these hit-machines are designed so beautifully and have these great looks. Aerobatics they can do and attractive they are. Compare them to the passenger aircrafts :) Leaving out the science part and the reasons for the difference in shapes, if we just focus on the aesthetic component, people would definitely vote for these fighter jets as better looking. Even other space vehicles like the rockets don't seem so elegant either.

Somehow I see an inherent sarcasm in the way these things are designed. For one, they are designed to kill. They carry dangerous explosives capable of wiping out civilisations but one look at these carriers and you would like them instantly. Compare this to the evolution theories put forward by Darwin et al, who say 'things that are attractive are generally safe'. Probably the most intelligent species that we are, went for the deception tactic to fool the natural senses and give a fatal edge to these good-looking 'beautiful beasts' :)

Reminds me of the famous John Keats and his La Belle Dame sans Merci -- the beautiful princess without pity. These hawkers are definitely the belle of the dames of their category and sure are 'sans merci'. :) Guess you can call it the Keatsian irony! They sure have kept 'thou in thrall' as well..

How the course of natural evolution has taken the wrong track with humans developing these tools that, instead of propagating human life to the next evolutionary phase, are taking the whole process one step back enabling the possibility of large scale destruction with these weapons. Or is this the natural path? only time will tell.


On a parting note, it’s that time of the year when we remember the man who has personified the word consistency. Wishing a great birthday to Sachin this year and many more on the field. The world needs more cricket.

The trip Far East

So the dream of going around the globe one day was taken forward one step when I went to Tokyo for a few days. While there, I had a chance to visit Kyoto as well.

Both cities are interesting places to visit. While both have the "old" and "new" sides to them, what is extremely fascinating to a tourist is the difference between the old and new sides of these cities and how you cross a street and see the old and new sides of the cities appearing and disappearing at will, one giving way to the other.

While on the old side you get to see ancient shrines, zen meditation centres, temples from the Buddhist period and numerous palaces and gardens built majorly with wood, all of them pretty stable and surviving many a natural calamities for a thousand years and more. A big set of them on the UNESCO World Heritage list too!



Cross over to the new side and you see skyscrapers, plush locales, suit-clad men and women on their way to work, big brands and great shopping districts completely and exactly the opposite of the old side.


And connecting the old to the new is an efficient transportation system, with the bullet trains being a special attraction. I was surprised at how we covered a distance of 500 kms in a couple of hours! Another attraction is the food. Food is big in Japan. You find hundreds of restaurants. Lots of varieties, cuisines and the preferred choice being sea food. Sakura - the cherry blossoms are another hard-to-miss things in Japan, especially if you are visiting in the right season.

Summarizing the trip to Japan I would say - Shopping, Restaurants, Shrines, Culture, Discipline.

Milestones!

Sachin going on to make a hundred hundreds is one. Federer getting twenty slams is another. They are big and the world watches with awe. Here's a tiny one for me and from me.

This is my hundredth post!

And the blogger dashboard said this, before I started writing this one...
Tiny, when compared with Sachin and Federer and the like, but a huge one, personally, for me. Because it proves a few things.

One, I stuck to writing and did not give up on it though it has been a few years now and there were periods of zero activity too. Isn't it easy to just to get lazy? However I came back.
Two, kind people have been reading whatever I write and have been encouraging me all through with comments and feedback online and offline.
Three, I can write. :-) Though not all the hundred posts were good, I guess a few of them, say a ten of them were good enough that people came back the second time, read and remembered.

I wonder if the word milestone is apt here, because milestones are measures to see how close or away you are from your target, but in this case, there is no target. I just wish to write more and more.. as long as I have things to write about.

More questions, more answers...

I am called a pillar

Over the many thousands of years, people have used me as a support structure to the many buildings they built for shelter.





In the accompanying picture, I am part of a temple, called the "Thousand Pillar Temple" in Warangal. Like one would guess from the name of the temple, we pillars started as a group of thousand way back in the 12th century. Some of us have stood the test of time and stayed this long to talk to you while some of us succumbed. It's been a thousand years since I was carved out of a shapeless rock into the beautiful pillar that I am now, with decorative patterns and intricate designs, thanks to the hands of the sculptor. I have become a thing of beauty which everybody admires than having stayed as an old rock which one would dismiss as a non-existent entity. What wonders beauty can bring !!

Having stayed for this long is an accomplishment in itself. I hear the pyramids have stayed for longer and I wish I would outlast them. But to be honest, I have seen enough to my heart's content in these thousand years. From the happy princes and princesses riding on horse tops one day to the luxury car driving 21st century man, the transformation has been exciting, beautiful and beyond any imagination.

I am particularly amazed at this one piece called the digital camera that people have come to use to take pictures. I remember in good old days, the royal artist would spend a week to get a reasonably close picture of us pillars, still prone to some mistakes, but this thing called the camera takes these impeccable pictures which are the exact replicas of us and I stand to wonder how intelligent man has become.

But I cannot hide my disappointment at the fact that ever since this device was created, people do not look at us for long. They come, take a look, capture us in their cameras, go back without even taking a second look!! With all the thousand years of observation behind me, let me tell you that the thing you call 'life' has become very fast-paced now. People never have time to take a second look.

With my long-earned wisdom, I can say one thing - Take a good second look and a third look too if you can. Because the next time you want to see one of us, we might have perished.

-------- == ---------

An attempt to remind the world about the things of beauty around us on the occasion of a similar temple completing 1000 years in 2010. Quoting Keats - 'a thing of beauty is joy forever' !!

Writing style inspired/copied from 'My name is Red' by Orhan Pamuk :-)

bonne année!

The New Year has set in and a recap of last year is in order. Only two things come to my mind from 2009.

The first, through a short story..

Scene from class - IV A. The teacher was giving out the marks of the just finished Quarterly exams. She calls up Tinku and hands over his answer paper. The marks on the paper say 30/100. Poor guy, he fell 10 marks short of passing the exam. The teacher was about to start the usual "Work hard, Study well" lecture when Tinku turns to his classmates and says..

"Friends, you have seen how good a person I am, how tasty my lunch box is, how I gave you the best chocolates on my birthday. Now is the time to show some loyalty. Please send an SMS to the teacher asking to pass me by giving an extra 10 marks. Your voting matters! Please type PASS TINKU and SMS it to the teacher's number"

And the teacher immediately knew where the other 30 marks of Tinku went, happy about one positive thing though, Tinku's understanding of the democratic system. If people so demand, anything is possible :)

That was the first thing - Reality TV shows and how many of them!

And today, a friend and I were watching a news channel and pop comes a scroll bar in the bottom in shining red with the tag BREAKING NEWS and it is followed by "Today is the 4th of January, 2010, the birthday of Isaac Newton". I agree Newton is a great guy and his birthday is special, but what is so "break"-ing about his birthday? I am sure it comes every year, doesn't it?
The best I could relate Newton and breaking is the apple 'breaking' away from the tree and falling down, if you can call it that.

That was the second thing - News channels and how many of them!

Happy New Year to one and all. Let the good things stay the same, and if they don't, there is always the next year :)