Wanna use the new writing tool by Google??

I have been recently introduced to the new writing tool marketed by google for the bloggers and to all those, for whom, writing is a passion. Wanted it to share with all my friends and readers of my blog and even to those who accidentally have gate crashed into my web-log. However, like the other popular google sites, orkut and gmail, membership of writely is also by invitation. I am using it for the first time but I can see the loads of benefits attatched to it. I can see that my document is automatically being saved after every couple of minutes and I can manually save it in different formats including .doc.

So, if you are interested in using this tool and haven't manged to get an invite. Just leave me a message at rajneeshsha@gmail.com and I'll be happy to share this wonderful tool with you.

Munna Bhai MBBS.. the patched "Patch Adams"

Watched "Patch Adams" yesterday.. starring Robin Williams.. I always thought that Munnabhai MBBS was an honest movie and Indian newspapers carried all sorts of stories about hollywood trying to make a remake of MBBS.. Well, guyz the whole idea was drawn from this movie. The medical student, his age against him, his debate with the dean, person trying to redefine the medical ethics.. everything has been copied from there.. Add a little bit of humour, change the mental setup of the character and add a circuit (Arshad Warsi).. in short.. patch it with little of everything that indian cinema goers love to watch on screen and there you see patch-ed MB. MBBS..

The actor Robin Williams was an inmate of a mental hospital where he meets all kind of crazy people. By helping them , he realized that he actually feel satisfied in helping people and decided to make his career in medicine. Our hero got admission into one of the medical school where, he always find himself at odds with the established and standard medical norms. He regularly sneaks into the patient ward in his freshmen year (though it was strictly banned).. He was expelled from school on the charges of practising "excessive happiness" but, decided to fight a law suit.. where he give a emotional speech on medical ethics and a moral one.. and the good guy finally triumphs.

For, a person who is even remotely related to medicine, I prescribe this movie for a change. You don't see a Robin Williams movie too often but, this one surely has the capability to be called a classic. If, not by the standards of hollywood then, atleast by the norms of bollywood.

Anyways, with no any good hindi movie on the block I decided to spend a free evening watching some hollywood flick. In the end my choice was justified as for atleast three times in the movie, i surley felt a surge of emotions. You will surely curse the story line atleast once, but, then it's based on a real story and is not like the typical hindi movie where actor and the actress always manages to get united in the end.

Should I feel proud to be a part of the crowd?? part 1

Engineering students are considered to be a crazy bunch of maniacs who shares a common vision of fixing (sorry to hurt your spirits friends but, the way the university syllabus is designed, it makes you learn how to fix things and not how to create them). So, tomorrow some of us might fix bugs in the software programs, some may fix the faults in elctrical and electronics machinery, or some might pursue higher learning for fixing the things at some higher level. May it be politics, or finance or for the advocates of world peace, it could be as big as an aim as, fixing the moral disorder of the world. Now, I find that my self-percieved definition remains valid for most of the engineering institutions where I have my friends or friends of friends studying. But, the moment I try to take a saunter down the memory lane, I find this statement bogus and absurd. Life as an engineering student means studying your asses off for the most of the part of year, attend every lecture of even that lecturer who can't pronounce a correct word of english (he/she can't hide behind this crap that the institute is in Punjab, for god sake, we are not a punjabi minority institution). You find yourself submitting every assignment when you know that 80% of them are not a product of your creativity but, of your capability to cheat. To cheat your professor by making him believe that you are a genious when you are not even close to one. In the process you cheat your own self.

Speaking for airtime:
What's the use of studying for four months when, the purpose is getting only good grades. This logic seems to be far from my understanding that you speak in the class only for capturing airtime. You ask silly questions and feel confident about yourself that you are the smartest (when you know that deep inside you are actually a smartass type). And sometime you just keep trying to make sense with your spoken statements. I think those persons are much much better than you, who do not compete with you for getting hold of the airtime, because they are confident about whatever the knowledge they have and they never feel ashamed of admitting this fact that they know little. Well, I was the one who knew very little about all those things which were asked by those lazy professors during those crazy hours which, by no standards contributed anything to my learning process. I think that I have used those hours to perfection by reading Ayn Rand Classics.

Hated for humor:
As a person you should have certain sense of humor. And as an engineer I guess, it should become an integral part of your daily life. The daily dose of humor keeps you active and happy. Practising excessive happiness is by no measure a debacle to your profession but rather, it's a thread which will keep you closely knitted to those around you, in your personal and professional life. But, thanks to you all, I have seen another side of humor. despise for it. Humor is creativity and despise for it translates into hatred for creativity. Hatred for humor means you are too dumb to see a different side of life, you are too reluctant to allow your ego boundaries to be overcome. Well, I have been at the suffering end for our humor and I express my thankfullness to the almighty that he saved me from turning into a nerd or a book worm or a not-so-creative self. Though I am not a geek but I am proud I have retained my sense of humor and hopefully will get the enigneering certificate with all of you soon..

A Rainy Relief.

The summer in Punjab is really devastating. The morning soothing sunlight has a mystique effect on you and you pray that god! Let it be like this for the whole of the remaining day. But, slowly you see the orange color fading into white and it seems that the whole sky is set ablaze. The morning joggers tend to finish their jogging routine early. You start sweating profusely in your first kilometer and even a seasoned campaigner can’t even manage to complete a two mile lap.

Well, in hostels, the inmates are broadly classified into two types. The morning types and the all-nighter type. The morning types sleeps early to wake up and see the rising sun. Now, it depends on their shape and intellect that, whether they decide to take a stroll, jog or read. The all-nighter ones stays up late in the night during most of the days and I bet that most of them don’t study for all those sleepless hours. I belong to the second type and usually I feel sleepy between 3 and 5 am. Last night, I was unable to go to bed due to an interesting LAN combat of Age of Empire and I was feeling restless so I switched on my computer and decided to avail the 2 MBPS leased line facility for surfing.

Coming back to the summer heat, it’s really unbearable during most of the part of the day. You can’t step outside of your room for the fear of getting scalded. But, I guess today it was a little different. At 6, I felt a gush of cold wind that left my door wide opened. The coldness of the wind made me look out of my window and what I saw was too surprising. Tiny droplets of water were falling down from the sky and I was too dumbfounded to realize that it was actually raining. I ran past my corridor, jumped down the stairs to enjoy the rain falling in my face. There it was, fresh, filled with the aroma of wet mud and green grass. A brief respite from the scalding heat of summer sun, a cold respite.

Mid-terms are always dreaded, look how we tackle them..

Our class is like every other class, a mix of persons who are intelligent, of those, who are average and of those who are below average. Now, like every other engineering college we have our ‘regular’ (well the word has relative meaning for different individuals and organizations ) asessments in the form of minors and seminars (individual presentations or group presentations). Have I said seminar? yeah! this is perhaps the most dreaded subject among my classmates. Dreaded because, the thought of giving a presentation comes with many more thoughts. Thoughts like, how would I look standing near the blackboard? What kind of clothes I should wear on that day? (Oh man! the other day somebody was telling that one should wear a traditional white shirt and I don't have a white shirt). I sound hoarse, do I need to stand in front of mirror and rehearse the transcript for like thousand times? And for some, the thoughts could be as weird as "What Language", "How" and on "OHP" or "Multimedia"? What other people will think of me?

That is just one of the dreaded issues; the other is of the minors. Now, our minors require you to solve a few questions (mostly theoretical ones) in one hour duration on an answer sheet. Well, the beauty of the minors lies in their dates. The dates are announced during the start of the semester which gets postponed for like tens of times (sometime on students demand and other times professors mess up with the scheduled dates). Now, however early the dates been announced, most of the students (it’s a fact that the number of average and below average students when taken together, contribute massively to the term “most”) start studying that subject only a night before the actual date. Some try to pull an all-night-er (well most of the night is spent on watching video clips, playing online games or chatting as, people start feeling the need for some sort of relaxation after every half an hour for another half an hour), some sleep early to wake up in the morning and study (again “most” of them are needed to be dragged out of their bed so that they can at least, attempt the paper). Some even manage to wake up early but then suddenly they realize that the syllabus is immense and it’s a better idea to get the appropriate dosage of sleep.

Well, this is just about the preparation for the minors. On the day of the test, all kind of students carry their notes with them to the class. Though, the intelligent ones bring that for a quick revision whereas, the other types envisage these copious amount of notes as their potent arsenal, in case if it is needed. Everybody tries to find the most convenient position in lecture hall. The word convenience obviously translates into, who is sitting next to you and in front of you, how far it is from the lecture desk, and is it well lit. Now, once these things are taken care of, you are well set to attempt the paper. Answer sheets are given to you and you start writing the answer to first question. You write it in bold and stylize the text, Answer 1): and then you realize you know nothing about this question. You try attempting the next question and again find yourself amidst a lot of confusion and chaos running through your mind. And then, you attempt the last question, it seems familiar and you start writing the first line of the answer, man! Again you forgot everything. What is happening here? You look around and find ‘most’ (look for the word, it’s explained above) of your classmates struggling to scribble bits and pieces of the answers that they never read and which, they are now trying vainly to recall. You find some solace in the fact that you are no different from ‘most’ of them but a feeling of guilt sweeps your mind that you squandered this chance and then, you make a promise to yourself that you will study for the next minor. And then, you come back to your cozy hostel room, take a nap for a couple of hours, play tennis in the evening, do everything that you regularly do. You hear a voice from inside that you should study but then you think, forget it man, I’ll see whatever happens.

Bad Ads, (Ruining my TV experience)

I seldom get the chance to watch TV but, a cricket tie between India and Pakistan is always a hit with the TV viewers and to take advantage of this fact, all kind of brands features in those one minute advertisement breaks between two over. In the recent series at Abu Dhawi, DD got the rights to air the matches with ZEE and I can very much say that with DD, your TV experience will surely go for a six. Not only the transmission quality plays the spoil sport but, also the quality of Ads being displayed. DLF exercised it’s monopoly on the airtime and I guess that the kind of Ad it has prepared is completely out of taste and time and if I am not exaggerating, completely out of the world. The background music is cool but then you count the number of times it has been played in one day, you start despising it. It was a bad choice to air the ads during a cricket match. BSNL ads have a decent theme but then making a black and white ad is how purposeful, I can’t understand. Being a govt. organization, they can claim that they prepared this for the majority of those who do not owns a color tv but then logic tells me that if you prepare the ads in color it gives you access to both type of audiences independent of what kind of television sets they use.

Well, if somebody decides to write on good ads and bad ads, I think he will end up writing a book. I wonder that all these brands are spending tones of rupees on the branding and advertisement purpose but still they are lacking in appeal. What kind of brain storming is going inside the teams behind these ads? What kind of creativity is this which neither connects with the target audience nor with the target market? In Navratna Ad, I remember people like Govinda, Amitabh and latest addition Shahrukh, claiming that this is the best oil on this earth in a manner which is completely out of this world. The ad featuring Amitabh was a decent one in which he claims that he is using this product since his early days of stardom but, for Govinda dancing with a tennis racket in his hand, god! If he had played tennis, he should have much lesser body fat than what actually shows. Well, Shahrukh is advertising it as world’s smallest AC.

Sunny Deol is now beating the shit out of devils on TV now, thanks god the villains in the movies can breathe easy for the time being. Sunny jumps with a sword in his hand, and then in the last five seconds of the ad, you discover the secret behind his heroics, Himani Sona-Chandi Chawayanprash. I guess, all the hindi movie villains should start feeding themselves on this wonder product otherwise they will keep getting the kicks on their butts by this Deol for years to come.

The latest addition in my hate list is Pepsi TV. God! What a bad use of Kareina, Priyanka and Shahrukh? And, what a logic to explain the concept of Pepsi TV, Man! Do we ever think that we pay for these ads and then again pay for our precious time to watch them again?

Brace yourself..

I was unable to post anything since the last few days and thought i can end up the draught by posting an acocunt of the recent trip that i made. Well, it could be a bit annoying so, if you are a reader of my blog then i should warn you first that Brace yourself, this gonna be a long story..

A Trip to Vaishno Devi Shrine.. (Jai Mata Di)

My friends had planned a trip to Vaishno Devi Shrine which is built in the foothills of Himalayas about 80 kilometers from Jammu. I was casually asked to accompany them and I agreed immediately. For all these years I have spent in Punjab, every year I guess I vowed to take this journey but, never actually I got the chance. Sometimes, the desire was lacking and sometime, the willingness. But this time, desire and willingness both propelled me to walk 12 kilometers of steep climb for the darshan of maa. I started the journey with certain amount of curiosity and a lot of enthusiasm as I had heard a lot of sweet and beautiful things about the whole journey from my friends, classmates, teachers and family members. I also wanted to have a first look of the things which makes the campus couple pay a visit to this shrine year after year. The journey was completed in three days time and was un-eventful except for the joyous train ride and the breathtaking scenes of the mountains going up and down with the bus from Jammu to Katra (the base station) and back.

A Lovely Sunrise:
I woke up with the sound of a porter. I asked him surprisingly that what place it is thinking that we are still about 2 hrs away from our destination. He replied “Jammutawi”. It was a pleasant surprise as the train was running a couple of hours late and it has somehow managed to reach in time. It was 5:20 in the morning and another surprise was that we were all set to see the sunrise in the hills. Being an engineering student translates into late nights, hangovers and skipped lectures in the morning. Life in an Engineering college is dictated by the credits. And unless your professor puts a condition that you will get examination credits for getting up in the morning, seeing the morning sun is a complete waste of the precious time you get to sleep.

Jammu railway station is almost like a typical north Indian railway station minus the hustle bustle of the crowding public. The taxi stand is downstairs so, the crowd dispersed within a moment and we were standing outside the station in that cold chilly morning wind (what a welcome break from the blistering summer heat of Punjab). We took a matador and boarded in one of the hotels nearby which charged us Rs. 200 for a 4 hour stay. We changed our night clothes and then after having breakfast took a bus to Katra which is the base town from where the climb begins.

Mystical Bus Ride:
The bus starts and stops, starts and stops again to lure those passengers who are waiting for the first bus to start. It starts climbing up the small hill which marks the beginning of the 70 kilometers journey. The road itself is one of the marvels of modern day’s civil engineering. On one side it’s high rise mountains and on the other, deep valleys dotted with agricultural fields, trees and a few houses on the slant. You see a TV antenna on the roof of one of the houses and feel surprised, you see a bullock cart in the valley plough a field and think about the hardships of the life here, you see a kite flying in the sky and regain that consciousness that not everyone is unhappy and sad here and at least some people have found ways to overcome the difficulties involved.

After passing numerous check post, turning numerous bends and crossing a couple of small bridges finally, you are here into this small town where it seems that there are more number of shops than there are houses. Shops which are selling Prasad, dry fruits, collectibles, artifacts, handicrafts and all the other small things. Amidst the chaos you feel a great sense of uniqueness with every other person you see. Everyone is here for a single purpose. You wonder about the feeling you are feeling now. What is this that has brought these many peoples from the different part of the country at this place? Why people from places as far as Andaman and Bihar are coming here? Why people are making sacrifices in terms of their time, effort and money to pay a visit to Maa?
Well, for the time being, I left these questions unanswered and immediately took my place in the queue for registration of the yatra. There were around 500 other people who were ahead of me in the queue and I was wondering about the sheer number of person who were about to start their yatra.

Yatra Stage 1 (From katra to Ardhkunwari):
The journey starts with a dip in the holy Ban-Ganga river (this river finds it’s origin in Mahabharata. Bhism Pitamah was on the arrow bed and he asked for water. Duryodhana brought water in silver and gold cups but he refused to drink from that. So, Arjuna shot one arrow and water sprouted from the place where the arrow went in. The water was believed to be of river Ganga and thus the name ban-arrow + ganga evolved). The first leg of the journey is about 6 kms long and if you take the stairs it comes out to be somewhere around 2400 stairs. The climb is steep at some places and you gasp for air due to fatigue. There are numerous shops at both sides for all kind of stuffs. There are eat-outs and restaurants and music shops. I was completely amazed to find a Café-Coffee-Day outlet at about 2 kilometers distance. The chants of Jai Mata Di keeps you charged and energized for the entire journey and the sight of young and old faces keep you pumped up. Then you see people coming down with packets of prashadam in their hands and you think that that yatra do has an end. That it will be your turn to climb down the next day. Finally we reached the Ardhkunwari after a 3 hour journey. We registered ourselves for the darshan at the ardhkunwari cave and we were notified that we might have to wait for as long as 12 hours. This was really crazy, but I looked around myself and there was like thousand of people sleeping in the open (with their families) waiting for their turn for the Darshan.

We waited for 4 hours and when I entered the cave, I can tell you that it was the experience of my life time. The cave is of such a shape that only one person can enter at a time and sometime you have to slide on the rocks with your body stretched to come out. There are chains hanging from the walls for the support but the effort required to pull you through the cave is awesome. I came out and when enquired from one of the staff about the significance of the cave, he told me that the shape is like a mother’s womb. And it was exactly. It was like taking rebirth. You feel that how it was when you were born, what excruciating pain your mother have endured while giving you birth. This was really a shocking revelation. I thought that this journey was worth the experience.

Yatra Stage 2 (Ardhkunwari to Bhawan): We rested for a while and started our ascent up the next 5 kilometers of the climb. Now there are two ways to the upward direction. The old one is narrow, steep and you have to share the road with ponies. The new one is wide and free. The climb is easy and you feel like walking and not climbing. We started discussing about the civil engineering concepts and clicking pictures. Within one and half hours we were there at the last check post. A group of our friends were already there and immediately we took our place in the queue. And then a long wait started. The queue was about 1000 person long and we waited for 2 hours in the line when we finally arrived to the artificial cave, which is almost close to the actual cave where the Devi is belived to have worshipped. The chanting grew in noise and you feel that you are almost there. And then, the moment you enter the cave with your head down, you are escorted outside again with your head down, but this time, grabbed by a security person who desperately tries to throw you out of the temple. So, a two day long journey ends with a two seconds darshan. But, then I saw thousands of people lined up and waiting for hours and hours for their two seconds of Darshan. God! What is this? And you get the reply, sheer devotion.

'Age of Empire'

Life in an engineering college hostel is completely crazy. It's kind of raw, untouched by the rules and regulations of the normal life. There is no normal sleeping time, there is no time to wake up, no time for meals and sometimes, absolutely no time for lectures. You plan different things and then execute the different ones. You start doing one thing and end up doing another. you vow every night to start the next day fresh and from scratch and then, you forget your resolutions the next morning.

This is my last semester in this college and thanks god! i am trying to live every moment to the fullest. I am trying to make up for the sleep deprivation which I will get in my MBA college by sleeping for like 8-10 hrs a day (sometimes throughout the day). I have started playing tennis as I don't know that when and where I will get a 3000 Rs. tennis racket and endless number of Cosco balls for free. I am watching cricket all day for I know that this is a privilege which I won't be enjoying in the coming years. I am chatting with my future batchmates furiously in a bid to know them better and better.And then, I am learning this new game "Age of Empire" which can be played on the local network.

Well, last whole night was spent on learning this new game and I am a newbie still. eight ofmy friends grouped themselves into two teams of four each and then the game continued for eight hours without a result. Eight long hours!?? yes, I think that the only student community on this earth that can afford a luxury like this is computer science and engineering students of our college. If this was not enough, most of the players slept throughout the day and woke up only to feed their empty belly. They tried to lure me with the fact that the game essentialy checks your management skills and ability to plan things taking into consideration, the need of the hour. useless to say that I fell for the crap and tonight will be the second night which I am going to waste for the match practice. after all, I am a computer engg. student and I can afford this luxury of wasting this much time.

Freedom or Escape from Freedom?

I need to write this in a bid to take this thing off my mind. Only few weeks back when, I was struggling with my B-school hunting, I was really living in a confused state of mind. Those sticky situations, when your life gives you a feeling of being a snake and ladders game, where, everything is centered around making right moves and the worst part is that the moves are out of your control. In those moments you look for some advice but, in my situation I think, that the only person I could look up to, in case if I needed someone was myself. I didn’t realize how and when, the idea of working in a call center (BPO is the more civilized term) crept into my usually logical and rational mind. I mean, how could I have justified all these years spent in an engineering college learning computers?

Today, I am really thankful to the almighty that somehow I decided to give it all a fresh try and got acceptance into one of the emerging B-Schools of country. Well, I was almost over with that lean patch until I decided to talk to my long lost friend and then, my nightmare chose to give me a revisit. Long ago in one of those enlightening seminars on career-education (If you are a graduate then you might have survived through a lot many of those) I learnt the difference between a job and a career. “A career is something where you can extend your personality to your workplace. Where, you can relate with each and everything that you do and that you need to do. And a job is something, where your workplace enforces its character on your personality. The guiding force is not your inner drive but, the various long term/short term goals of your organization.”

Well, the definition is crystal clear and anybody who has the working knowledge of English can comprehend it well but, does the real world behave like this? I guess that the reality is something different. Have we ever thought that why more and more people are taking a job rather than going for a career? What are those conditions which are forcing them or guiding them to take up a job which could neither satiate their intellectual spirits nor could guarantee a brighter tomorrow? I thought to pose these questions to my friend and I am trying to put her reply into words. She said “Raj! I am a victim of my own insecurities. Living alone in an alien world, no one to look up to when, you feel lost and tired, meeting the demands of demanding parents, pushing yourself to the extent your body and soul can endure and then falling prey to the lifestyle of the big cities. When I passed out I started preparing for the MBA but then, realized that it requires a hell lot of effort as well as a hell lot of money. My father was not in a position to finance my MBA education and banks do not oblige you for nothing. (True! they want strict documentation like covering the loan amount with insurance cover and your father signing the guarantee.) I started feeling insecure and questions like ‘what’ and ‘if’ started haunting me day in and day out. So, I started looking for a part time job and then one of my friends introduced me to this concept of working in a BPO that, how fun it is for her to work there and that she is getting paid handsomely. I went for an interview and got selected as a voice based agent.

One and half years have passed since then, and the only change I feel in myself is the way an unknown foreigner, in the middle of the night, pronounces my name. To pronounce it exactly in that way, I have to roll my tongue over the ‘R’. I have lost weight but, for a girl of my age that is something everybody wants. Well, I think one more thing has changed, what I saw as my freedom, I now envisage as “escape from freedom”. I mean I was free to chose a different job, and I was free to quit this job at anytime I wish, I was free to save enough for my initial days at B-School and I was again free to ask my father or any other member of my family to sign a bank guarantee for me. I was free to do all this but, I chose to become what, I am today and at every moment of my life I am trying to convince myself of how happy I am this way.”

Well, when I disconnected the call, I was getting mixed vibes about my reunion with this dear friend of mine, about how young people like us define freedom and how this whole definition is all about ‘Escape from freedom’.