Stubborness and Woman

probably have been fed from the same breasts - inspired by 'The Kite Runner'

Warning : Apologize for the topic to be named so, and there is no resemblance to the women I know personally. Please do not misunderstand me.

The lady was stubborn, believe me she was hard like a rock. She stood to her point. You twist the question, rephrase, paraphrase etc etc etc, she wouldnt fall for the trap. Instead, she corrects the question everytime before she answers. The interviewer is flummoxed. He is desperate to tie her up using his most powerful weapon - words. But, alas he is dumbfounded everytime. The interviewer had put others in a state of flux almost everytime on his talk show. But this time he was at the recieving end.

Aaaa, Karan Thapar, you could not get out what you wanted to of Miera Kumar. The lady was pretty smart, rather she had only one point - "Reservation for SC (to be Yesh C - in her accent)/ST in private sector" is a must. She spoke as if she was born to achieve this, this was her soul aim in life and GOD had sent her to achieve this on his behalf.

Karan Thapar tried to squeeze in statistics, quotes from business leaders, protests etc etc. But the lady was stubborn- if you dont do it, I have to enact a legislation. Her stubborness was vindicated by herself. Affirmative action is not enough I want reservation for YESH C/YESH T in the private sector. Its their moral right. Its their fundamental right. I want reservation YESH C/YESH T in the private sector.

Karana Thapar had to resign with "Thank you for joining us" ( you stubborn lady - in the background).

I kept switching between "Jack Nicholson's witty remarks in 'Something's gotta give' and ' I want reservation YESH C/YESH T in the private sector' "

I have lost my belch

Aargh. My fridge is empty. To quote Sinistar, best among philosophers, I hunger ( enter for wisdom ). (clarification: there are leftovers, but I hunger for good food.) It seems that it is time to run to the Indian store.

Mobile Spamming ..

I have been a viticm (and a grave one) of mobile spamming. Its gone to such a level I decided to throw away my mobile for a while.

Airtel is the mother of all spammers (belive me, though I havent used HUTCH or BSNL or SPICE I can promise that Airtel can be a frontrunner in spamming).

Just some of the messages they send.

1. Call #$%^&* and get free tones of Himesh Reshamiya and similiraly from kannada movies, upendra movies, sallu bhai and every tom dick and harry in the world and they dint leave DR.Raj also ........only clause Rs 6min/call

boooooooohhhhhhh, my phone is only for talking

2. Recharge now or never options. Do this you get that stuff with conditons apply clauses

3. Win Jackpot SMS &*() ..
Dude I havent been that lucky in my life. I am happy if the values of my stocks rise and I am out of loss okay.

Imagine this, you are sitting all alone from morning and you would not have talked to anyone and no funny SMS from your friends also and suddenly your mobile beeps. You excitedly look into it for a message from your beloved (I have been greedy here, we spend our time together always :) ) , your friend sending a cheapo forward (atleast this one).. okay, some emergency message ( I need help types...yuck no luck here too) and you end up getting one of those sutpid AIRTEL stuff.

If they gimme free SMSing facility == the number they send, I will be a true and loyal customer of theirs for life ;-)

Now they have gone to a whole new level, you get calls from AIRTEL, some cranky lady's voice recorded in the following way

"Namaskara, idhu Airtel inda Uchita kare ...." , I havent gone past Namaskara most of the times, but I have sometimes progessed till here.

Thank you Airtel lady for making my day. I may not get any calls from my known people but you for sure, make sure that you make (read mar) my day my day.

Similar viticms, suggest a solution if you know pleaseeeeeeee

Back in Bangalore

Life is again at full speed.....I have to realise that it is not just abt the jetlag, but lag in everything. Indian cities are "fast", because of the sheer amount of people everywhere.

There is a new Radio Station at Bangalore called 93.3 Radio Mirchi. No idea, when the hell did it start.My car has magically picked up that frequency.There are promoting words like "sakkath" and "maga"....Lol... First was "Enjoy maaDi" , now it is "sakkath hot maga".....Whatever! So people are making some effort to familiarise the slang.

Meanwhile, Bangalore is the same as ever. The chaos , buildings rising up in no time...This city never stops and this time I am not surprised.The are two apartments (which were at ground level next to my house) are nearing completion.

The petrol prices have risen up again. What the heck !!! There is a massive media coverage on reservation and medical students...I have to look into that. Didnt get time to understand the whole controversy.

Meanwhile, a few liquor chocos I bought went into the wrong hands (my father,mother,grandfather,grandmother).....Some people dont look at a chocolate's cover while devouring it.....Thank god they didnt recognize what they ate!!! muahahahah....

Way to Washboard ABS

There are 2 ways to get back to 6-pack washboard abs. The one I read in the newspaper yesterday and the second one is my own funda

one -

Hi-protien diet coupled with cardio for 40 minutes & weight trainging for atleast 3-5 times a week. Avoid sweets, choclates, fatty food, junk food, soft drinks, night meals.

Walk, run, jog, use stairs, walk to office, swim the drain,
climb the tree,sit straight, sit crooked, push ups, pull ups, single bar, double bar, parallel bar, perpendiuclar bar, pendulum, uranaium blah blah blah which will avoid/ burn down calories.

Second -

Forget it and chill thinking that
"Truth is stranger than fiction"
"if u aint have paunch you aint a software engineer" "Even Neo has it"
"Paunch is in,slim is out"

and enjoy the mangoes this summer.

Have a good day.

Btw, SP and Avi meet you in the gym for a 2 hour workout ;-)

Adios

Oh-tata-wah

guys i am leaving ottawa this sunday.
i will be back in bengalooru tuesday.

i had nice time here.hmmmm...lemme recollect catchwords that MAY trigger memory!

PCU CELL Zahir 3500-Carling 166 DaysInn Laura PeanutButter+Frooties Haroon Kodbele Subway Loblaws Moody-Robertson Ravi Sudeendra 116-NapeanNorth 118-Kanata 118-Hurdman 116-SouthKeys Stefan Perry Pizza Subbu Srikanth Ananth BusPass theWhskyBar 1624-Baseline(!!) BAYSHORE-BASELINE-LINCOLN_FIELDS Accu-Rate Wendy's LittleIndia FamousPlayersColiseum TimHortons DoubleDouble Ryan VendingMachine Snooker&theChineseGuys Dollarama Bassano RotiWrap Helmi NiagaraFalls Montreal Toronto Rideau 64445820 that_hrrbl_friday_with_bengali_pg Oh-Henry Dani-California long-afts 6:49 riversideWalks&Paradoxes sudeep_v2 the_jeans

Dude, where's my gun!!!!

Apna Rathore (Olympic medalist) lost his gun in the airport! Losing a gun in an airport is a security issue.

What bothers Rathore is the fact that trap shooter Ronjan Birendeep Sodhi too had lost his gun while travelling on the same airlines 10 days ago and is yet to find it.

Talking about Guns, I read an interesting article about James Bond. The REAL JAMES BOND is an ornithologist who had written a book called "Birds in West Indies".Iam Fleming got the name for his character by seeing

this book , which was lying on his table.This real J.Bond had difficulty at an Airport when he showed a passport having a name called James Bond....Hilarious!

UPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

The PM and FM are making ppl dance to their tunes. While the PM along with HRD has managed to create some drama on the street, the FM has managed to pull off a Mayhem on the Dalal Street.It is so ridiculous to provide statements which can be misinterpreted in a hazzaaar ways. Kudos to the duo :)

UPA, Please stop the non-sense. UPA you are building enemies. Now even dalal street wont vote for you ;-). Let us see how many you will corner before your term of 3 yrs gets completed. You might say as Mahesh Bhatt puts it. We should not be reactive to how Stock market behaves. Only a million people depend on the stock market.

With Kamalnath and the social welfare minister pressing on a 2 year deadline on reservations in private sector, do u feel there is a chance that you will be voted back to power?

Your alliance partner DMK is in power, so its sure that the LS seats will go to AIADMK. You have lost another 40 votes. Kerala too has gone out of your hands, so will be Karnataka. Your darling x-CM - Dharam Singh- has managed to irke the people of this state to a maximum and HDK is doing quite well you see. Goa is volatile and you do not know about AP with your alliance working like a unhappy couple.

You will probably loose Delhi, Bombay and other urban/semi-urban seats where u r dominant right now, say around 25. There is no water/power & the infra is crumbling in these cities. To these existing woes, you have added the Reservation saga, without bringing in reforms in the existing reservation policy.

You have irked the muslims through your foreign policy (Iran), so no chance of a comeback in UP. The nuclear deal has mixed reactions. So it is not a clincher either.

Now the farmers and the rural poor. I know you wont keep your promises cos in 2 years you have not done much towards that. I am ransacking my brains, as to see if there is something...hmmmm... aaaahhh...noooo a zero over here too. Your agricultural minister is busy handling the BCCI, when there are suicides in his own state. Recentely Punjab too has joined in protests ??

Okies I know Sonia has made some tremendous grounds in politics, but she wont be enough to sweep the elections right ?

Now you might be wondering with NDA weakened with a poor BJP (Advani, mahajan etc etc being the reason) you have a fair chacne, but the answer is NOO a big NOO.

Right now you are in power but dancing to the Left tunes, I feel the you might have to supprot Left from outside or worst case the Left will manage without you, which again means there is no future for anyone in the country. No offecnce meant UPA. O dont mean that the NDA provided any better governance. There were lots a complaints from the rural poor, who voted NDA out of power. But with no good monsoons and hazaar farmer suicies, I think that was inevitable (though not predicted) that NDA would be voted out of power.

In short we have a bunch of losing political parties fighting hard to win. Each one have their own agenda to screw the country. We need to pick the best of the lot.

As Bill Gates put it rightly 'Democracy is the least corrupt way to run a country'.

So we really dont have a choice in here.

Da Vinci Code

Well, I saw this movie. This movie had a damn housefull theatre. This was least expected, considering the facts that:-
a) Mission Impossible #3 had arnd 40 people in the whole theatre
b)United 93 had 10 people in the theatre
c)I heard that Rang De Basanti was watched by 4 people in the theatre.

The same theatre was HOUSEFULL yesterday, something unseen by me.

The movie is very collinear with the book.They have not deviated and called a spade , a spade. However, it is very difficult to write a screenplay for a novel like Da Vinci Code.The acting job is challenging especially for the protagonists as they keep falling into loooong religious controversial conversations.

Nevermind the movie. I loved Audrey Tautou.Such dark, big expressive eyes.

Around Sourcing ?

I just read this article by Thomas Friedman, the journalist. One of the paragraphs caught my attention.

I was recently interviewing Ramalinga Raju, chairman of India's Satyam Computer Services. Satyam is one of India's top firms doing outsourced work from America, and Mr. Raju told me how Satyam had just started outsourcing some of its American work to Indian villages. The outsourcee has become the outsourcer.

Mr. Raju said: "We told ourselves: if business process outsourcing can be done from cities in India to support cities in the developed world, why can't it be done by villages in India to support cities in India. ... Things like processing employee records can be done from anywhere, so there is no reason it can't be done from a village." Satyam began with two villages a year ago and plans to scale up to 150.

There is enough bandwidth now, even reaching big Indian villages, to parcel out this work, and the villagers are very eager. "The attrition level is low, and the commitment levels high," Mr. Raju said. "It is a way of breathing economic life into villages." It gives educated villagers a chance to stay on the land, he said, and not have to migrate to the cities.


The basic conclusion, I reached is any *.* sourcing is madness.

The BBC Goof-up

The BBC goofed up and interviewed a person X instead of a person Y on Air !!!

A person named Guy Kewney was to be interviewed about the story BBC is doing on the Apple v/s Beatles.However, the BBC ended up interviewing another guy Guy Goma who had come for a job interview at the BBC !

It all started when the producer of the show goes to the wrong reception room and asks for "Guy".Guess who raises the hands?

Guy Goma, a guy from Congo, who had come in for a job interview.This man shared the same first name "Guy" and he had come for a job interview at BBC.He's a Business Studies graduate, from the Congo, and he was there in reception because he was applying for a high level IT job with the BBC.

And what goes on simply hilarious. This is the transcript :-


Karen Bowerman: Guy Kewney is editor of the technology website Newswireless.

KB: Hello, good morning to you.

Mr Goma: Good morning.

KB: Were you surprised by this verdict today.

The best part
Mr Goma: I am very surprised to see... this verdict to come on me because I was not expecting that. When I came they told me somehting else and I am coming. So a big surprise anyway.

KB: A big surprise, yeah, yes.

Mr Goma: Exactly.

KB: With regards to the costs involved do you think now more people will be downloading online?

my favorite part
Mr Goma: Actually If you can walk everywhere you are going to see a lot of people downloading the internet and the website and everything they want. But I think eh It is much better for development and eh to inform people what they want and to get the easy way and so faster if they are looking for.

KB: It does really seem the way the music industry's progressing now that people want to go onto the website and download music.

Mr Goma: Exactly you can go everywhere on the cyber cafe and you can take, you can go easy. It is going to be an easy way for everyone to get something to the internet

KB: Thank you. Thanks very much indeed.


Apparently the unflappable Mr Goma assumed the whole thing was some kind of initiation prank (stress interview)

His own speciality is data cleansing, and was "a little upset that nobody asked him about his data cleansing expertise."

You can check the video here

And the bbc link

Well, the guy next to me is an eastern european , as I mentioned in my earlier posts. A Romanian to be precise.His native state is "transylvania". Does that place sound familiar.I guess so :). Well it is where Count Dracula lived (in the novel Dracula) and the Dracula novel is set. I thought it was a fictional place.

I also googled up and searched for pictures of the Castle of Count Dracula and found it here

Also I remember seeing the movie based on the original Dracula novel

Very nice movie. That image of Transylvania has a good impact on me.

Boastology

A great man once said :-
"Give me a place to stand, and a rod and I will move the whole earth"

But is it really possible?
Such a long rod cant even be lifted , right ?

I think we need some F = m*a calculations. Or the value of "g" acceleration due to gravity of that place to stand mentioned by the great man.

Nevermind.
I am really tired and bored of eating subway burgers.
Yesterday's vaangibath was awesome, though, prepared by me.

Returning to our discussion,nobody gave the guy a rod nor a place to stand. The great man figured that nobody would give him that. Thats why , he was great.Now I will say this :-

Give me a machine which will travel in the speed of time and I will go backwards and rewrite history

Reservation about Reservations

In an interesting debate with my Father about reservations we came to the following conclusions

1. Reservations for SC/ST should be present in all forms of education, but mechanisms to prevent the creamy layer should be implemented
2. The MOBCs should be identified (Most Backward classes) and reservation should be extended to them in all forms of education
3. Reservations should not encouraged in employment, but there should be affirmative action
4. Affirmative action should be extended to economic backward class irrespective of caste. Reservation will not work here as it is not easy to define "economic backwardness"
5. Unfilled seats via reservation should be given back to General merit. But this requires a proper implementation.

But for all of the above to work in a +ve manner there should be AWARENESS created about education and its benefits in these people. Another way is to lure ppl towards education.

Mid-day meal is an excellent program which is working towards educating the masses.
People are sending their kids so that atleast these ppl get access to one proper meal per day. In the process the kids picks-up a little of formal GYAN.

There should be more scholarships at higher education level, so that the backward class people complete their education and make a living out of it. THE CREAMY layer should be punished if they even try for reservation.

Reasons for the above

A large population of SC/ST/MOBCs do not have access to education. Their economic state is very bad. They are mostly worried about making a living for the day. In that most of them tend to ignore the benefits of education.
Most of them are still under bonded labour, more of it in the Northern states and the backward villages.

Sample Data
My Village. The incidents my dad gave were shocking.

After the discussion, my reservations about reservation has gone down.
I realised that I hate the concept of reservation due to its bad implementatioin.

I feel its better a mediocre backward (economically) student gets a living for himself and his family by studying in a reserved seat rather than a well-to-do meritorious guy who will flee to US of A.

In general I conclude Reservation with proper implementation is a must for the all-round development of the society.
The current move by the govt is absurd, as 90% of the listed OBC's have very well-to-do people and this should not happen.
The MOBCs should be identified and reservation should be extended to them, may be a max of 7.5%.
Affirmative action in employing these ppl should also be implemented.

More number of seats should be added so that Merit students arent deprived. We need to check Brain Drain and reservations should not become a pretext for people to flee.

Ah, Poetry!

Check out this poem written by my colleague, Vardhan.


Vision of a Dream

Swirling clouds among misty mountain tops
Beams of light piercing the veil of silence
Amidst the voiceless tumult of far away storms
Breathing the freshness of the first drops of dew
Fragrance which hits the sweetest spots
Of a mind lost in its limitless deep gaze
In the profound story of a soul wandering
Through the jungles towards an unseen goal
First glimpsed in the eyes that made it speak
A language unknowingly known to itself
Uncovered by the slightest breeze of her sight
Oh heaven oh earth oh life why are you so beautiful?

Bravo !

Infosys Technologies on Monday announced its first largescale plan to recruit 300 college graduates from universities in the United States in 2006 and 25 graduates from the United Kingdom in 2007 as part of an ongoing commitment to create a diversified, global workforce.

Now THIS IS CALLED TRULY GLOBAL and achievement man!!

And add to it ,

The new employees hired will develop their engineering skills at Infosys development centres across India for six months before returning to Infosys offices in the United States.

Yay! I am feeling very happy for my country :)

Read the full article here

United 93

I saw this movie.
The tagline of the movie runs likes this :-
September 11, 2001. Four planes were hijacked. Three of them reached their target. This is the story of the fourth.

First and foremost, this movie has nothing to do with patriotism.The passengers were not even aware that this was a terrorist act. It is about ego clashes between some passengers and the terrorists who want things to go as per THIER plans.It is not about team spirit.It is about reacting in a way every human being reacts when he is as strong as the other guy and his ego is hurt.This movie is about many things. It is about the tension in the NewYork Air Control Room , when the four planes were hijacked. This movie is very importantly about the grit and determination of the terrorists.Their faces, their ambush.

The movie has made an impact on me and I am still thinking abt the godammn movie. It is very disturbing.Very realistically made.

Kudos to the director , who has made this masterpiece.

Interns

Well, I saw this news item that Infosys will recruit interns as a part of its prestigious inStep program.

Interns would be recruited from technology and business schools including Said Business School, University of Oxford and London Business School, UK, Mannhelm University, Germany, Ecole Polytechnique, France, and St Gailen, Switzerland, an Infosys release said

Is there anything very special abt the inStep program ?

Interns will have the opportunity to work at Infosys Headquarters in Bangalore, on high quality, high visibility projects for eight to 24 weeks, it said.

I guess many of us who have worked at/working for Infy do the same thing. By high quality == CMM level 5 or higher. High Visibility == You can be seen by everybody on the plush Infy campuses and be recognized as an Infy Intern.The best part will be staying at 5* hotels and going around in golf cars.

But,am I missing something here ? Why is the inStep program so high-profile , that it gets coverage in Economic times and all that?

Link :- Infy to recruit 30 interns

The point is :- All the software companies who are big gasmasters have inflated "Brand India" to something very high and unrealistic. This seems so superficial.

Lets accept the fact

Sometimes you are 'the MOST WANTED' - in your company, at your home, by your friends, by your partners and thankfully not by the Police. And at times you are 'dead & stale meat & a burden'.

The only way to be the coveted one at workplace is to accept all challenges thrown at your. I prefer to call challenges as stupidities at times. You need to put in those extra hours, burn midnight oil, live on coffee and pizza, screw up your health and walk away with a 'thank you mail' from the "DELIGHTED" customer.

At home, you are the best kid if you dont have opinions and walk on a line drawn by your parents. Question their system and you are screwed.

Friends - aaahhh this the most easy one.. you can walk into a gang anytime and you can move out any time. I depends on your interests and like mindedness (dont know if this is the correct word). No one judge's you much and no one bothers. Just give a ring when you want to join some ppl and they accept you without any tanturms. There might a few leg pullings, but its funnnnnnnnn nevertheless.

Police - A NO NO always to me ..

Wondering where the Partner stuff went ?? thats a surprise .. ;-)

THE WORK IS BORRING .. I AM NOT ABLE TO COMPREHEND WHAT'S GOING ARND IN THIS PARTICULAR SHITTTTT.... AND I SUDDENLY FEEL I am adding no value, and hence not the most wanted guy in the project. Irony is my PM feels I am adding 'value'.. GRRRRRRRRRRR

Topcoder statistics

I was going through the Country-wise topcoder rankings of programmers.

This survey, I feel is a good indication of where we are heading.

And I was of the opinion that India is moderately good in Programming than the rest of the world.Look at the number of programmers(931) in India and the ranking(15th). And just check out China.This looks like the Olympic Games Medal Tally which we see every 4 years and sulk.

UPDATE
I got confused between a programmer and a software engineer.
This was going on in my mind since yesterday.

These kind of contests may judge a great programmer. But A GREAT ENGINEER ? A GREAT INNOVATOR ? These guys are what companies need....Ofcourse, they need, good programmers who are like tailors(skilled labor).....But the innovators and engineers are the movers and shakers for the success of a company.

This has caused some panic even in America

Let's face it:-

A great innovative programmer CREATES.The great programmers in this world are those who have demonstrated their abilities by actually designing and implementing great software. Coding the solution in a competition proves great problem SOLVING capabilities BUT NOT PROBLEM DISCOVERING abilities.A good guy in the software industry, should also know that he must be able to sense the need of automating some tasks or he should sniff at a system, and say "hey! i can write a piece of sw, instead of tabulating and writing in a book".You don't have to look any further than the GNU, Linux, Apache, KDE, Gnome etc. etc. CVS and mailing lists to find the real great innovators!

As well as software engineers? The best ones are those who can demonstrate abilities in :-
a) DESIGN
b) RE-ENGINEERING
c) DOCUMENTATION & COMM SKILLS.

Well , as far as many jobs coming to India.....This may be happening for sometime....We'll surely have stiff competition from China and Eastern Europe....I see a lot of Eastern Europeans in Ottawa :D ....Even the guy next to me is a Romanian....

heheh

xoxoxo

Time travel is an interesting thing. It may be argue that travelling backwards in time is impossible.

Consider this situation :-

Suppose you travelled back in time and killed your biological grandfather before he met your grandmother. Then you would never have been conceived, so you could not have travelled back in time after all.

In that case, your grandfather would still be alive and met your grandmama, you would have been conceived, allowing you to travel back in time and kill your grandfather.

This paradox is called Grandfather's Paradox.

Parallel Universe Solution
----------------------------------
There could be "an ensemble of parallel universes" and when you travel back in time and kill your grandfather, you do so in a parallel universe in which you will never be conceived as a result. However, your existence is not erased from your original universe.

Super.Alwa ?

Source :- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandfather_paradox

Happy Birthday

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ZEEDS

Wish you a very happy birthday!

Nodu maga, Indian time alli wish maadta ideeni :)

Have a nice day :)

The unltimate Goal

of life or in one's life, according to me, is to figure out as to exactly why one was born. (on the funnier side we can say it was an accident which had dangerous consequences ;-) )

Everyone is in search of this ultimate truth which is unique to every single person. The whole life is as such a struggle to find out THIS particular GOAL . In the process we would have traversed several paths, helping some, bring smiles on someone's face, harming some, hating some, loving others, hurting intentionally sometimes & unintentionally at times, ispiring someone to follow you, demotivating others and etc etc etc. Most of the above might be happening simultaenously but we look at +ve part almost always and move on.

And when you observe the dark side of life, you sit and blog, read someone's blog and feel cozy that some other guy/girl is going through the same feelings.

And finally one day you feel that you reached your ultimate goal - mostly in your death bed. The goal === sum of all good things you have done enroute your death bed. YOu will be apologetic to all the people who you have harmed, but there will be none to pardon you.

So, feel sorry deeply and truly when you have hurt someone one and come to know of it. Apologise for your mistakes and hope that you are pardoned.

Laugh and feel goood when you have realised that you have done a good deed. Inspire others to follow suit. Showcase your good to others and ask others to do good.

Small chapters of life are very hard to learn.

Current book : Fedex Delivers
Current Music : Mirchi top 20
Current weather : Hot and Sweaty
Current Mood : Gloom Gloom & more Gloom

Looking a brighter Monday. How wierd ?? You hate Mondays!!!!!!!! aint it?

BTW Schumi and Ferrari pull a spectacluar win :)

500 rupees

An interesting article on the Youthcurry blog.

So true!!

Why I am touched abt this article is that, when I am in India, my purse does not have any 1 rupee coins at all. Forget the 25 paise/50paise coins. Everything starts at 2 rupee coin and 5 rupee coins are very common. But here, the coins still have value and you can get quite a bit of things with a 25 cent and a dollar coin. And they give the exact change, so the purse becomes really heavy with coins....

George Bush Double

This was hilarious!

Youth

A question which popped up in one of the many "Friday General Meetings" (back in Bangalore, some weeks ago) was this :-

Is "youth" a state of mind or has it really got to do with numbers ?

I am talking about the people in their 20s/30s/40s, and not people in their 70s or 80s.

I believe Youth is more a state of mind.Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals/giving up/sulking and brooding/regretting.Some people look lively and bubbling all the time , whereas some people look worn out and tired. Each face tells us a different story.Various opinions came out of the discussion.

One of the discussions which arouse out of this topic went something like this :-

Can we prevent ageing by "taking interest" and "enthusiasm" about many things like hobbies

I think, this is true in its own way.If we have the appetite for adventure over the love of ease, I think we can achieve grow older at a lesser rate(and be happy).A child has an un-ending supply of enthusiasm in it. It is always curious and takes the game of living as a kind of joy, it just doesnt give up and start seeing "a pattern" in life and make predictions and finally end up bored.It always has the attitude of "whats next" in life.

We can simulate curiousity and joy by just forcibly involving and exploring new things with renewed josh and thus keep us "alive".

A counter argument ran something like this :-

Some of us here have had really rough times and life has taken us through perilious paths.They often look a lot mature than their "age", they have wrinkles and white hair faster because they worry and they had a reason to worry.

I would agree that one too.The ones who are beaten by the weathers of tough times.

But, as I just read in one of the forwards I got today :-

In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station; so
long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from men
and from the Infinite, so long are you young.

Current Music - Pearl Jam : Alive