A nice romantic song

Fastball is a very Beatlesque band. And one of my curent favorites of Fastball is the song Fastball-You're an Ocean.

If you liked Fastball, try Out of My head and The way by Fastball.

The lady in the song fits the lyrics very well ;-)

Google puts the Ball in the Chinese court

Well, finally there is one corporation which has to guts (stupidity in someone else's sense) to take on the mighty China. Google, starting this week has begun uncensored search by routing all the traffic to Google hong kong website. Though this is a bold move, the outcome for sure is known, Google hong kong will be blocked (working as of now).

What prompted Google to take a massive step in fighting against the laws and policies in China?

1. Was the attack on its website so bad? Did it not have the tech prowess to withstand such attacks.

2. Did Google realize that their revenues from the Chinese market will be capped to < $1billion (currently around 60% of that), even though they have captured 1/3rd of the market and were the fastest growing company in China

3. Or did Google decide enough is enough. We are an American company with great values and we need to maintain those values

4. Or is it that the US govt is twisting Google's arm (in a suttle way) to increase it pressure on China

whatever it is the latest move will be considered as Google taking head-on even though the re-routing is complied by the law..

i really dont think any company in the manufacturing sector/finance/other services could have taken such a move.. and clearly Google is showing it has the balls to do it

ps - apologies for the title being so sexist.. but it clearly conveys the message

Hair today

As a kid, one of the most loathed tasks was getting an haircut. I still recollect the burn the razor left on my neck, and the hard combings of my drunk barber during some of my juvenile nightmares

Coming back to the point, back then there was a lot of effort to keep your hairs from standing up. The usual ingredient used was Coconut oil, the more sophisticated being Brylcreem and the punishment for some kids used to be Castor oil..

20 years later, the creams and the gels are used to make the hair stand up. You go to sleep, ruffle your hair, wake up, see something standing and you carefully apply some gel to keep up the standing hair..

who cares for the short-term changes as it would eventually be "hair today gone tomorrow" .. (Credit goes to SP to pulling that one-liner) and most of us would be shaving the skull as well.

Q1 2010

its been a great and busy Q1 2010.. I have been traveling and working crazily and having much fun at the same time.. the only drawback has been that traveling takes you off the health targets quite a bit..

Shanghai, Fiji, Vancouver and with India lined up for Easter break, it has been quite good.. i will then follow up with Shanghai and India again mostly..

The alcohol is not something you appreciate too much after all the visits.. flight food is something you will detest (doesn't matter even if it is business class)..

the restaurant food has been great.. be it the Shanghainese cuisine, Sushis, Italian and Indian in Vancouver, western/Indian in Fiji.. and a lot of food in Hong Kong..

and the Bangalore food is just 15 days away now..

Absolutes

Are there absolutes in life? I am of the belief that there are no absolutes in life and decision making changes with circumstances.. People change and always change for the better

Yesterday while watching the Mahabharata (Draupadi vastraharana), I just wondered the level of dumbness the people in the courtroom carried .. be it the Pandavas, the Kauravas, Vidhura, the acharayas etc.. the biggest jerk seemed to be Bhishma.. who was bound by his bhishan pratigya - "the vow of life-long celibacy and of service to whoever sat on the throne of his father" (copied from Wiki).

Here was a guy who had the power to stop and probably kill all the warriors in the court in a minute but who let the atrocious act of disrobing Panchali, all for some stupid oath he had taken decades ago..

I need to read SL Byrappa's version of the same and see the difference in treatment, as the BR Chopra's version is certainly stupid..

Going back to India

after 2 months....phew it went like swooooosh. The winter was long and dark with one of the days at -31 degrees, the workload was on an all time high. Worked 6 out of the 8 weekends (sat &sun) and still there are issues creeping like snakes from everywhere. I have nothing to say , but I leave Finland dazed. Need a break. I wait for Early May.

the taxi driver ..

its always interesting to talk to Taxi drivers in a foreign country and it becomes more interesting talking to migrated Indian taxi drivers.

On my way back to the Vancouver airport, boarded into the Yellow cab and we headed towards the airport. They taxi guy started to speaking to his colleague in Punjabi.. and since Vancouver has many Punjabis I naturally assumed he was here for a long time and probably could have carried over carried over his family business.

We start to talk.. he checks where I am from.. when I say HK but Bangalore is my city.. he says I should be in IT.. I don't blame him.. and before I say anything he says.. California is better for IT than here.. ( I think over shit I should have called Richie.. 16 hours time lag between HK/SFO is not good..).. I was like hmm...aaa.. and then ask the akward question.. Are you from Vancover?

The next 15 mins the taxi guy talked and I listened.. he detailed me his journey to the west ..An an engineer with Computer programming skills he had flew into Canada looking for green pastures.. after 6 months of torturous job hunting .. (with work ex in India and skills sets in C++, Java etc).. he could not even land in a Data entry job.. Canadian job markets wasnt all that friendly to Indians back a decade ago..he explained.. after 6 months.. dude gets frustrated..gets drunk.. burns his certificates..and goes and gets a Truck driver license..

the next 4.5 years he drives all around NA to earn some money.. he says he was too ashamed to return to India broken.. though he dint tell and I think he messaged back home saying he was doing good in the IT world .. after 5 grueling years he settles down in Vancouver as a Taxi driver..

he further explains that back then Indian were considered illiterate in Canada as the majority of the Indians migrated had family connections who were flew in to work in farms and garages.. and he said that in an accented English.. (our conversation until now was in Hindi).. at the end he says its good that guys like you who have degrees and work in good jobs visit Canada .. he added that in the past few years the Indians migrating were more educated than he was and were landing into White collared jobs..

He ended saying that this helped raising the stature of Indians in Canada.. I dont know if the path he chose was right or wrong.. he made $35 on the journey today.. if he does 10 journey per day he makes 350 bucks or 4000 CAD / month.. thats a lot of money.. but could he have gone back and done better in India? is money the only motto he had? were his folks unforgiving if he had returned broken? or was he just too petrified of being a laughing stock??

what was the reason to become a truck driver who knows C++ and Java.. were there 10 sad stories behind every success story of an expat Indian.. i have heard that in NZ there are many instances of engineers and other indian graduates with masters ending as taxi drivers.... just had a first hand encounter with one today..

Thought for the day

It is easy to search god than to search hidden cameras
- Swami Nithyananda.

The guru and shishya are looking at the sky amidst the sea of endless snow.
Shishya : The sun is placed right. He is shining.
Guru : He is not very warm yet.
Shishya : Yes.
Guru : Be careful. The ice boulder on the slippery roof might disengage and fall on your head.
Shishya : Yes. But the squirrels are now seen and the morning birds have come back from the South. The sounds of the radio room and the footballer with locks will linger in my head for sometime. The place is interesting.
Guru : Ok. Do not double dare. Sometimes life can be unforgiving and merciless for fools. Fools are not always lucky.
Shishya : I need to test the degree of eelness in my personalty. But yes the wizard is waving the wand again. The businessman does not seem to be impressed.
Guru : Hohum

Ashrams/ Maths/ God Men..

The atrociousness continues..

26 kids,37 women die in ashram stampede - Kunda (Pratapgarh): In one of the worst stampedes in Uttar Pradesh,63 people 26 children and 37 women were trampled to death and more than 300 injured when volunteers at godman Kripaluji Maharajs ashram in Kunda used lathis to beat back the unmanageable crowds on Thursday.

Govt orders probe into godmans activities - The Karnataka government on Thursday ordered a probe into the land held by spiritual guru Swami Nityananda Paramahamsa following the revelation of video footage allegedly of him in a compromising position with a Tamil film actress.

the economic boom in India has created a new industry of godmen and their ashrams looting people in the pretext of spirituality and helping hard working souls to find a balance in their life..

a pattern

The alarm rings, and I snooze it.. and this repeats once more after 5 mins and on the third ring I reluctantly wake up. I see the wife still sleeping cozily. I get up envying her (she sleep 30-45 mins more than me as her office is comparatively closer and her working environment a lot more cooler), close the bedroom door, assure myself things will change the next year (i plan to retire for 3-4 months in 2011) and walk towards the kitchen.

I walk into the Kitchen, take the vessel (sometimes cleaned) wash it, pour some water from the tap and place it on the stove. Add two spoons of Sugar (sometimes need to refill the sugar bowl) and add 4 small spoons of tea and heat to the toilet. Finish brushing and the other job, I get back to Kitchen with shaving cream on my face. Have a glass of water, pour some milk(some times we are out of milk, when I curse the alcohol previous night) into the Tea, lower the flame and get back to shave. I shave, wash my face, go pour my tea and drop on the sofa.

The next 15-20 mins I switch between Bloomberg, star world and channel v. open the netbook and visit 'finance.yahoo.com' and check the company's stock price. Reaction varies based on stock price, and then visit bloomberg.com, in.rediff.com an find nothing's changed much in the world. (when I missed checking TV/News this sat there was earthquake in Chile and since we have an office in Chile it was a bad thing to miss)

finish my tea, head to the shower, sing some songs lousily, finish my shower, check my wardrobe as to whats ready to wear, finally search for a belt (brown or black whichever I get first) and head back to the living room where Haslinda Ahmed is excitedly narrating the 0.1% in Nikkei and how beautiful the morning is in Tokyo / Sydney/Singapore.. I look outside and HK looks Grey, as grey or greyer than Seattle.. I pick the shoes to match my belt.. pick my bags, phone, wallet and the door keys and remember I haven't had breakfast.. depending on the time decide to head to office or grab cornflakes/make some dosas/something else.. by this time wife has started her routine or if asleep I head back to the bedroom to kiss the wife a good bye.. and just sit there for 2-3 mins almost falling into sleep..

manage to wake up and head out of the apartment.. say "Jo San" (good morning) to the security gaurds and head towards the bus stop...

i do not see things changing much from the above pattern this year.. sometimes it might happen early or late.. sometimes in Shanghai or in Vancouver.. sometimes will have uppit/idli/avalakki for breakfast.. but except for those small vacations, this year is gonna be like this.. similar to last year......

Guru : So what do you say ?
Shishya : I am surprised - to say the least ... Pleasantly though :-)
Guru : Sometimes surprises come when you are least expecting it.