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High on Life…No More..
Apr 20th
Steven Kumar was once a cheerful man in this dour and sober age.
He was different from most of the folk whose life were earnest, full of purpose and enjoyment were beside the point.
One the train when everyone else clacked at palmtops & listened to self-improvement as nobody talked,
Steven Kumar used to listen to the songs on Radio, tell jokes & struck conversation.
In a dour and sober age, Steven Kumar was a brief, bright light;
for everyone considered Steve Kumar was high on Life.
But all good things must come to an end
Evil Narcs came for Steven Kumar they couldn’t take anymore of his high-octane life.
People gossiped about it, questioned was he really high,
The Doctors looked and questioned him like he was an Addict Scum.
Steven Kumar said he never used drugs, not nictoine, not alcohol or caffiene .. not even a sip of wine.
The Doctors said you are high all time, as they tested him for all the addiction
After all the test doctor concluded its not drugs, he had an addiction of different kind.
Steven Kumar blinks and said he is just a cheerful sort of guy & thats no crime.
Narcs still thought an opiate is an opiate and he is not behaving like a regular folk.
They believed that he was sick and he definitely need to be cured.
Now Steven Kumar is a man like any other, in this dour and sober age.
He rises every morning, drinks decaffeinated coffee, ride soberly to the station.
Steven Kumar sings no longer, neither he crack any jokes, he works on his palmtop on the way back home.
People still gossip about the day the Narcs dragged him away,
But now society says he is clean and is high no more.
One more addict has been reclaimed for society, one more victory won by this eternal darkness gulping our new world.
- Inspired by an article from 1992 November issue of Analog
‘i’ Free
Mar 24th
iPhone, iMac (more of macbook), iPod….all of them the best of the gadget’s world. I have acquired most of them over the years hoping to use them regularly or daily when I am back in India. Now its been almost like a month I have been back in India and all the gadgets I had gathered since my stay back in U.S. have started to gather dust little by little.
Don’t deduce from the above statement that these gadgets are not useful in india any more. Back in US we used to buy gadgets to pass time, you had time and more important you had money. All these factor propel you to go ahead and buy these gadgets. You play with them for a while and finally get hooked to it, making them a integral part of your life.
Hold your thoughts right there, so once you are back to SWADESH there are lot of things to do (you definitely don’t want me to list them here.. you have read most of them on the FB updates by now 
) and you don’t get time to play with these gadgets anymore. They become like your long lost girl friend which you call up (in case of gadgets open\start) once in a while and no longer the time come that you forget them. And so its happening the same with these i-Gadgets. But all is not lost with the ‘i’ phenomenon here, there always will be an ‘i’ in one form or the another. Currently the new found love of ‘i’ is in the form of ‘I’ndian Premier League (IPL).
So its still not ‘i’ Free for now 
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India @ home
Mar 13th
Its been long since I have blogged. I am trying to sink into the feeling of almost new India and being back at home. Thats what you feel the moment you step out of the airport. The sense of belonging is back.
Lot of things have changed back here since the last time I was here. The infrastructure has improved, the public transport has improved, to some extent even the connectivity. The main partying culture of the city and the people still remains the same or should I say have improved. Local eateries have expanded (in terms of their food option) and more to my un-liking so has the prices every where. The traffic has gone crazy and so has the roads in some cities (converted many roads to one way). But inspite of all this the feel and the spirit of the cities I live in or visited has not changed.
One thing people asked me what would I miss about U.S. when I will be back in India, the only thing I could say was the Internet. But I would take my words back the internet here is almost at par if you ready to pay the prices (which I feel is nominal). So many of you would still ask me than why this blog came so late, the answer to this is there are so many things (family, friends, party, food, holiday places, formula 1, IPL,.. list goes on) to catch up with you don’t even get time to check out your mail or blog. The only time I get to sit in front of my computer is office but the bad part there is lot of work & they have blocked everything.
But I will try to keep up with this and start posting something unusual and usual thing I liked or see back here. Till than stay safe and healthy, talk to you soon .
War of Words
Feb 11th
Cover of The War of Words
This poem describes about the current situation which mumbai is facing due to the politics of linguistic divide. How much can a great city like this handle and for how long…
Beginning of time there were two brothers,
Now left with only feuding neighbors.
Life in ruins in this stirred destruction,
Friend turning foes in this boiling hatred.
Everything new is broken again,
Nights no longer are glittering again.
A place that I knew of perfect color, happy faces all over.
Is now taken apart by these extreme ways, so many heart aches, so many faces
There is no Peace that was meant to be,
Thats what you get when you start the war of Words again….
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Another Dream
Feb 6th
Bright morning light fades away the pale moonlight,
Still half asleep smiling about the last night dream.
My mind like a gazelle gallops around the forest of thoughts,
As sun continues to play hide n seek behind the clouds.
The Dream seller is back again from faraway land with new dreams,
On a lazy afternoon with gentle breeze, I bargain with him for another dream.
Soon the dull day starts to fade away into twilight,
the day turns colorful as it adorns a cheerful evening gown.
Friend reunite and conversation sparkles, the time flies as old memories unlock.
Soon the glittering night sings the lullaby, drawing me back to the dream again.
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Clean Slate
Jan 21st
Hatred filled minds
Judging eyes all around
Lies from every mouth
cut throat competition everywhere
No shoulders to cry over
Backstabbing at all corners
Blood on our hands
nobody walking together again.
want to believe everything still not over
Like a clean slate want to everything to start all over again.
Sleepless in Virtual World
Jan 19th
The virtual (internet) world has always loved the night life. It flourished during the night time. Once the sun had set in people would come out of their real world, let go all the problems and would don a new avatar. They would than immersed themselves in their own little virtual world where in people met other people, discussed about what happened, what’s new, they laughed, they cried, romanced .. had a great time in short. In this world they were a completely different personality it didn’t matter what they were in real life but in here they could be anything even a superman. Any dream of theirs could come true in this virtual world.
This trend started off with the first virtual environment which were created by chat rooms (remember yahoo chats) people used to stay awake late night just to meet different people, chatted, flirted, played, watched (video chats) with others for hours sometimes till the dawn just to realize that they had to go back into their real world. Many friends were made, many took it to the next level some got married where as some broke out. This was a new world which everyone liked. No doubt that good looks was still helpful but here again the other important factor was they way to conversed. Here in this new world more than looks for the first time good conversing was the new charm.
This chat world after few years evolved to a new world of social networking websites like Facebook, MySpace, Orkut and the whole gamut of it. In this people didn’t had to be online to chat or remain in contact with other people. They could connect with their friend by leave message, share photos, their updates.. etc. These websites also gave them a common platform to start up their group activity at anytime they want. This change had made the world once place which didn’t had to be bogged down by the different time zone.
Similarly with the social networking website blog also became popular. Blogosphere provided a medium for people to not only pen down their thoughts online but to start sharing it, get feedback on it and start interacting. Before this thoughts were a part of an old diary kept tucked beneath the bed or in the closet.
But still here in this of social networking and blogs the night time was the best as people would return back home after office hours\school\college\finish off their daily chores loosen up and than start checking up whats new in their virtual world.
People say that time changes fast and along with it the people and the world around it. The virtual world had always the first one to embrace the change. The new age of Information was fast and it was more of a real time. People needed information fast and did not wanted to be bogged down to a place or a time. They wanted to be connected to people at everytime. Now the virtual world and real world intermingled. This new virtual world was called Twittersphere. People used the 140 character (similar to sending SMS) to its full use. The 140ism was a new and a quick way to tell people what you were doing and got to know what others were doing all the time. This broke all the time & space barriers. People could tweet from their mobile phone or computer from anywhere. The whole world was one place one in the same time line.
Even with the advantage of being able to tweet at any time from any place people still loved to tweet at night. One of the studies says the twitters tweet mostly after 4:00 PM. Which incidentally coincides with the end of the office hours and the start of twilight. Its the time you can peacefully devote to your virtual world the time and the necessary attention with out someone looking over your shoulders.
Leaving you with this thoughts is a song I like.. till then Jaagte Raho….
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New World
Jan 16th
The sleepy city still waking up from its dream,
sun continues to plays hide and seek again.
Free falling from the hazy sky,
dancing and dribbling the droplet hits the ground.
Rain follows soon with the thundering cloud,
washing all the weariness away
I lay in bed hearing the rain,
thinking of waking up in the new world again.
Stuck in the Loop
Jan 13th
Image by thms.nl via Flickr
How many times has this happened that you go to watch a quick 30 second video on YouTube and regain consciousness hours later having jumped from interesting video to interesting video. This is called the Youtube Loop. Similarly kind of phenomenon occurs every-time you browse the web. For instance you try to search something in google you find that topic, but along with that you also find a related topic you click on that link and thus you are stuck into the loop.
This happens to me most of the time when I use Wikipedia to research a particular subject leads to an infinite loop of addiction. Some time back I got sucked into a Wikipedian Loop where in I was there for like 5 hours, I started on ‘Indian Hockey’ and ended up in ‘History of Adidas’…I had 26 screens open.. luckily my browser crashed or I’d still be there now…
This is because of the growing internet data or you can say Information bombardment (click this link for more insight on this). There is so much data available that you feel that you are behind the current affairs and you want to assimilate all the information at once. This addiction of assimilating knowledge some times reach to a level where in a people are transfixed at Wikipedia or news or web pages for hours at a time and usually results in varying levels of frustration and distress at the impossibility of ever successfully reading through all the Wikipedia pages or news or any other web pages currently open without the urge to open even more to linked subjects and thus continue the Loop. At its climax an infinite number of screens may be open.
How many times has this happened when you realize that you are stuck in a loop?
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Nations Pride
Jan 12th
The game which has won 8 olympic gold medals(the highest among all national teams) and is the national game of India is under a crisis. Indian hockey is seeing the worst days since its glorious days of 1928 (the first time it won olympic medal).
You guys might have already heard a lot about the Indian hockey team controversy regarding refusing to continue the preparatory camps for the world cup (which starts in 6 weeks from now) because of their dues which are yet to be cleared. The players demanded Rs 4.5 lakh each as ‘dues’ for their 2009 showing, a graded contract system, daily allowance during camp days and match days as well as match fees. Predictably, HI (Hockey India) said it did not have the funds to accede to their request. They instead offered Rs 25,000 per player which the players spurned it and stormed out of Tuesday’s negotiation in Pune. To this the federation reacted by threatening to field a ‘B’ team if they don’t rejoin the camp in the next 48 hours. The problem which now arises is that India only has a pool of 50 players and the next set of players have also taken a stand to support their main team not only because their dues have not been paid till now but its the only time they will get a solution.
The questions have been asked more recently to these national player regarding – “Is playing for nation more important or money?”. To which today senior player Deepak Thakur put the players’ fight “against injustice” in perspective:
“Nothing comes before the nation, not even money. But why is it that only the players have to think about the nation and not the administrators? We have an important event round the corner and that’s why we raised the issue now. Had we raised it earlier, it would have been swept under the carpet.”
I completely agree to his point and its a know fact that in India other than politicians nobody gets their dues in time, unless they stage up a protest at a crucial time. Holding anything to ransom is not the proper way of solving the problems but looking at the conditions I believe this is the only way to do it. The most shocking thing to know was Hockey being the national game of India, the federation which is currently administrating it does not have enough funds to pay the dues of the player. This is what HI President A K Matto had to say
“I told the players that I have ‘X’ amount of money in my hand. If I give it to you, I have to give it to the women’s as well as junior team. I told them their all demands we will take it forward to new body and see what we can do best for them,”
“There is no question of salary. They are not paid employees of HI. We offered them Rs 25,000 each which we can afford right now but they refused.” he added.
In one place Cricket which is not even a national game is seeing dollar pouring, with each player getting more than 100 crores per annum from sponsors and the BCCI contract system. Here HI is not even able to given them 4.5 lakhs rupees for the year 2009. Shashi Tharoor talks about India being the soft power, Congress talking about austerity drive, nuclear deals & trying to spend crores of rupees just to host the common wealth games to show the world that India is fast growing and is a Soft power in making. But nobody is looking into the basic needs of a person. If a player who plays for the nations pride have to fight for his salary its really a shame for India as a country.
We do not pay player their much deserved awards and dues and expect them to win gold everytime they hit the turfs. Indian hockey — the winner of several Olympic gold medals — capped off ominous signs of its fall when it failed to qualify for the 2008 Beijing Games. That led to disintegration of the Indian Hockey Federation, which drew heavy criticism for its management. Hockey India replaced it.”But both Hockey India and Indian hockey are in disarray now,” sports journalist Harpal Singh Bedi said. “None appears to be having a clue how to elevate the sport to its past glory.”
Indian National Game players going on strike creates a dent to the Soft power status which Shashi Tharoor has been preaching and going gaga over. Shashi Tharoor stop tweeting about the high tea meetings and hypothetical lectures which never had solved common mans problem. A common Indian man or to say the Indian Hockey National team does not even have a state of the art training center of themselves and you wanted a gym to be constructed for your government alloted house. Stop thinking about Tourist visa start thinking about people in India when they are not able to move and work freely in different state (anti-Bihari sentiment on rise ) within India.
Once a Nations Pride Hockey is soon turing out to be the Nations shame just because of governments inability to see and solve problems at a common mans level. The government should know that only making statements at summits and trying to depict India as a better place does not changes the reality. Its the people who change the image of the country. Without empowering the people of India we will not be able to grow or sustain. Its the people of India which holds the Nations Pride.
Related articles
- India squad face World Cup ban (telegraph.co.uk)
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