Musings

It was yet another not-so-good decision I took the other day ( I am getting better at taking bad decisions with age!) by deciding to drop my niece at a peak hour. Considering the fact that we stay just 15 minutes apart, I never envisaged it would take more than an hour to get there. No sooner we hit the road I knew it was the worst time to get out. I looked at the road going back home longingly and even that was packed, bumper to bumper. No choice but to just continue on the road ahead that did not look inviting at all. One bad decision and I paid for it by spoiling the rest of the evening. The only good thing that happened was probably this thought the same principle applies to decisions made in life too. It is really a one way. Once a start has been made in a particular way you have no choice but to continue on the course, there are no 'U' turns on the roads of life. One may take detours, change the roads but never can we get back what is lost in terms of time, relationships...

As a onslaught of the construction industry the green cover opposite our flat has been fully razed to the ground. A once upon a time "cynosure of all eyes" is another construction site now with the regular mud & grime taking the toll on us. No more lazy times sitting by the window sipping tea, watching the brilliant tree cover with a blank mind. Soon there would be houses, people who may peep in to our house or worse still, start predicting the time table of our lives! In all this transition the worst hit creatures seem to be the birds that used to frequent the trees making their homes in the sylvan surroundings. It used to be a matter of pride to be sitting near the window and see a variety of rare birds from home. Now all I can see is a desperate search by some birds trying to find their once comfortable nest; all gone by a single stroke powered by the quest of money. As some of my close pals come on their annual visit "to India" (it never stops amazing me ho...

The world of software is interesting, for every software need of yours there are fundamentally 2 questions. Do you need open source or licensed? For the uninitiated in this world let me spell it out. Open source means free for use by the whole world and licensed means of course paying for what you need. For every licensed software there is at least an equivalent if not better flavor of free software available. Which makes me wonder who buys licensed software at all? When all & sundry is available for free who will pay for it? The truth is unnerving. There is a huge market for licensed software! Wonder of wonders a whole world out there which is not even aware of on the house freebees available. I am tempted to apply this logic of open source versus licensed to the world today. I believe when the universe was created the development of it was free for all. One made rules just for themselves and stuck to it. Responsibility is one of the key things in open source software. If it is ...

It was the end of a tiring weekend and I was at the end of my wits. All set to go home after a training session and of all the things I could not find my footwear! After a desperate search I burst out in to my famous non-stop laughter. Reason? I remembered the infectious line "What a joke!". The moment I thought about the scenario and said "what a joke" the whole desperation to find my missing footwear disappeared in to thin air. Laughingly I did find it after 10 mins but the whole "search pattern" changed in a moment. From minutes of frustration in to minutes of uncontrolled laughter. I know by now you too must be thinking "What a joke" this blog update is about. So let me get serious about joking :) The next time you are confronted with a serious situation, step back a few steps (mentally ofcourse) and just say loud this mantra. You would know what I mean. We tend to think of ourselves and situations so grimly, that we often forget that all th...

Few weeks back there was a burglary in our well guarded society. After all the postmortem it was concluded that the security guards are very over worked and tired. Hence after 3 a.m they tend to get slack and fall prey to the over powering sleep. Soon after the robbery security was stepped up and one guy was made to sit (my sympathies with him) in front of the house that was robbed. It seemed rather funny why that action was taken when the deed was already done. Soon out of boredom of sitting in front of the empty house the guard was again overpowered by sleep :) He was sacked the next day. My heart goes out to the hard working Gurkha who used to earn a few hundred rupees after spending hours doing something absolutely uninteresting & killing his otherwise healthy spirit. The diktat was changed after 2 weeks and all is back to normal now hoping that the robbers find a better society to enter and not ours! Ditto to how our country operates. Now that 26/11 is here we talk of slack s...

So it is time of the year again when most Indians in India or outside would have celebrated the festival of lights with much gusto. Not different with me too, had a nice time first preparing for the festival and then savouring the time ( & goodies) spent with close family members. I had a interesting drive (or atleast I believe I was driving) one day before the festival began. A distance of an hour from my home took close to 2.5 hours and needless to say it had it's own funny as well as frustrating moments ; with minimal movements. The first 20 minutes went like a breeze where I was cruising at almost 100 kmph on the highway and then suddenly like life stops moving for some time; I was stuck for almost half an hour on a flyover. Forget flying, one could not even walk with the number of vehicles occupying every space. Being a lady driver in India is an interesting experience. Every passing vehicle with a male driver will swear by a lady driver in front. The jam on the fly over w...

Building bridges is the in thing in India at this point in time. One can see construction happening at the most unexpected of places. “Fly over” is a relatively over used term. Now we have more fancy words like “express fly over” , "elevated bridge” ,” mono rail bridge”, “ metro rail bridge “ and may be a few more about which I have not yet updated myself. How a 60 year old country can keep her infrastructure projects alive and kicking even after so many years is a wonder in itself. Months after months we have new development projects being kicked off, whether they see the light of the day is a question in itself. Yet what amuses me is when can we safely pass on to “maintenance” stage and get over with development of basic necessities. One other classic behavior of Indians is to build important transport points far apart and then wonder how to connect them. We build airports so far from the basic commutation like trains & buses and then start projects to connect each o...