L'ignorance est bonheur

This is just not fair .. what do i get for being one ? nothing .. i mean a lot of
things change after college days .. you do realize how stupid life gets .. really .. though "pocket money" increases .. what shud one with it ? i'll tell you what to do with it .. SAVE .. else the tax chaps are behind ya .. BIG time behind ya .. gals get some deductions .. married chaps can reimburse their kids school fees ! ( hey doesnt mean all you married folks go arnd pro creating follow family planning ... our FM , Chid could take off that deduction come Feb 28th for all you know ! ) and whats more ! while relocating with family most MNCs pay 3/4s more than what they do to a bachelor .. i was secretly consipiring for that when I got a job in Hyd .. but well .. wat can I say .. am still a bachelor !

learn to cook ! .. learn some new language ( hoping you get a gal .. and fail in that too) ... spend like crazy and start chking your account balance from the 16th .. eagerly waiting for the last day of every month .. always hope 30/31st is a weekend( y ? sal wud get credited sooner !! )

No Parties ! Stags .. thats wat we are called ! animals ! are we ? ..

why shud a guy pay the ultimate price for having fun in life ! ( or some deductions in taxes ! ) our chid dude must have been a bachelor himself sometime back .. com on chid ! help us out .. we are the yuva of the nation .. you guys already did wonderful by giving 33.33% of everything to women ..

Chid - if you really liked this blog .. dont mind even if you dont comment .. but pls help with this tax thingy .. will mail ya my PAN # just in case

3rd Oct:
I see a huge board advertising a saree mela near shilpa ramam .. there is this place near Hi-tech city [ thats where my office is ]its called shilpa ramam .. lovely name huh ? :-) .. it really is a well maintained place .. this hosts many fairs esply the rustic kind.. and during dussera they had a mela for sarees .. this one was from 1st to 17th Oct.

later ..

I always wanted to get my mom a saree .. i kept postponing this for along time .. this time thou i chked the date .. like luck wud have it it was 17th Oct ! getting a good saree aint a kids play and i found it the harder way ..so there i was .. in shilpa ramam .. ready to buy a saree ..without knowing the diff betwn polyester cotton and synthetic polyester [ i thot all polyesters were synthasized ] as i had decided to get a cotton saree and i thot it wud be no big deal .. man ! was i in for a surprise ?! there were many stalls each one proudly displaying their variety ..bengal cotton, batic design in cotton , poona cotton and one guy even had Kanjipuram cotton .. frankly ... dint know there was one and each one of these had so many collection ! i stopped looking for more varieties .. i wonder if i ever spent so long while deciding a dress .. no wonder gals spend so much time shopping .. they are provided with SO MANY choices ! .. so many that they can even confuse a guy !
so the story starts here .. there is this arcade .. i zeroed in on Bengal cotton .. liked the designs .. and hoped my mom wud like it .. tough combi .. its always difficult to match ur liking and moms .. happens all the time .. i picked a saree and asked the vendor how much it was .. 1400 came the swift reply .. "aap keliye 1350 me dhetha" .. and that supposed to make me feel good !.. u see i too had done my resaerch before .. was told shud ask close to 1/2 the rate that the guy mentioned .. was being smart and asked it for 600 bucks he made a big fuss .. make that BIG fuss .. then there was this God sent lady who helped my nail the deal .. paid 600 :-) I some how was very happy with the deal .. thoti shud try my luck with another .. zeroed in on poona cotton .. this was really really traditional kind .. lady luck smiled on me again ! got a green one for 400 bucks ! thot it was a pretty good deal :-) ..

you it feel so good to do something on your own .. and wats more pleasing is ppl are ready to help when ur in a strange place and doing something for the first time ... I just love Hyderabad !

oh btw mission accomplished !

THE BEST SPEECH I'VE EVER HEARD/READ

Just too good !

Steve jobs is the guy behind Macintosh (Apple computers) :-)

- Arvind

Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky – I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation - the Macintosh - a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me – I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

Impossible !!!!!! .. thats the first thing that comes to your head right ? ! we use google for so many purposes .. Once I used it to test the speed of my net connection, later that beccame my home page .. i staunchly believed in seeing a blank page when I open IE , but now i see the colorful letters .. g-o-o-g-l-e

It has become IE for me ! i type sites,addresses, look for my next desktop picture .. well in short I am adicted to google.. thats bad isnt it ? i wasnt this dependent on a search engine before .. why am i like this ?

to think about it .. half of what we do in life comes from copying (guess thats what goes to codes too :-P ) .. people use google as a replacement of search these days .. when you ask a dnout to some one and if they arent aware of it .. pop comes the reply ! 'google it dude'

Why is so much importance given to this ? agreed it an amazing algorithm but why do we market for someone else? i dont know :-D .. everyone is comfortable as long as things work :-D .. while Page and Brin mint money .. for every click :-)

orkut,maps,gmail ... what next ? :-)

this site says paypal ! well wat can i say.. google rocks !!

mom !!! i remember you telling

.. i wont have to worry about report cards and stuff once am out of school ..
.. i wont have to worry about watching TV for however long i want
.. i wont have to worry about what time i wake up or sleep
.. i wont have to maintain my classwork
.. can completly forget abt the word 'homework'
.. i can just talk over the phone how ever long i want
.. i dont have to worry about taking my id card every day

now i find that i got foxed .. :-\ .. all the words just got replaced by what i call 'corporate' words

.. I fill up a form for appraisal .. and i am ranked .

5 -> outstanding
4-> Exceeds expectation
3-> successfully meeting expectation
2-> needs developement
1-> working below standards

this is one type of ranking where getting 5 is better than 1 ;-)

.. I tried watching TV till 3 the first 2 months .. had to visit the eye doc :-(btw pls note that recent studies state that watching TV these days cannot contribute to short sight)

.. Flexi time is a good term .. but then if i wakeup late .. i find hot air blowing from the taps .. so that kinda makes me wake up early

.. I have to keep stock of all the codes that ic hane ! and managing mails is a big task !
.. Just that theres a new name for homework these days .. they call it assgnments
.. After talking for however long i want .. i am not that impressed with the bills i get at the end of each month
.. The watch man looks at me like an alien if am gonna forget taking my card one day :-you know its a pain to fill a stupid form evertime you forget taking the card

nothing has changed mom .. nothing has ..

what life !! cheats everywhere... i wonder why ppl are so bent on cheating to make a living ..
naa mes not talking abt an auto rikshaw driver or a cop who argues i beat a signal.I am talking
abt huge corporations who fleece us right under our nose.

I am not sure if this has happened to you. I am never happy with my mobile bill.. frankly i dont mind spending for what i spoke.. but the part that i spend for not speaking gets into my nerves .. the sales chaps dont know wat they are advertising(or have been educated just enough to fool you).. but then thats understandable .. they are sales chaps and they may get 20% or so of my connections value .. but wat abt the guys sitting in AC and answering calls (ya mes talking abt the call center chaps).. they misguide you .. every time the bill is screwd up .. iknow many will empathize .. but isnt it time we question. the concept of unbilled amt in never heard of in many places. and if they do tell the amt its before the deductions or discounts ..

is it really so difficult ? .. i wonder .. its just simple math ! aint it ?

if a = # of calls * amt per call
and b= disc % on the # of calls

amt = a-b thats that ! why are things so complicated when all i want is a simple bill which i can understand and make a payment

ahem . agreed its too much math for a blog .. :-P .. next time i promise to have a clean one ;-)

Nature is a good teacher .. but it kills all its pupils

how true ! 30000 of its pupils .. poor people who depended on Sea to live were stripped off life. Is there a lesson somewhere in this tragedy ? .. every tragedy teahces one .. we cant ask ppl not to stay close to the sea can we ? and an earthquake is never going to warn us. Couldnt help but think of "Day after tomorrow" . What a film that was ! .. agreed the female was cute and the pairing was elegant ..but it did show when nature takes its course man can't do anything but stand and watch..the funny thing is sumatra was the epicenter and the ppl killed there was 5k.. not that i want more dead .. but they could have warned ppl out side the world .. they had 3 hrs to warn us for Gods sake ! so there it goes the first lesson.. communicate in time .. the cost of these 3hrs was 30k lives ? .. was one call too much to make ? .. and what were the duffers in the MET dept doing here in India .. they wanted US to tell its 8.9 on the ritcher scale .. lazy fools.. if we shutdown a db at the wrong time here we get fired .. these idiots are responsible for these many ppls' death ! they predict the past ! and we call them experts ! CNBC predicts stocks better !

the second lesson i'd say is the value of life .. we take it so cheap .. we Indians .. ya with a population of 1 billion we see it as if its water to spend rather than money to invest (ppl from chennai pls swap water and money in the prev line ;-) ) .. cutting out 30k from the billion doesnt affect the figure that much does it ? .. and am not sure if we have to praise of stock markets for being stable .. they went on 56 points higher on the day of the quake .. ironical isnt it ..

third .. will to help .. this i think we have learnt pretty well ..saw a fwd on how most disasters were happening on every 26th .. not that its of any significance ..we guys have learnt from those incidents .. more relief operations et all .. hopefully they are not adding chaos to the already existing one :-) .. 'coz i see we snatch defeat from the jaws of victory pretty often ! .. that reminds me of the pahetic display of cricketing skills by #2 team in this world against Bangadesh ! .. 26th was a total cropper ! Period


btw .Sumatra has shifted 100 feet i was told .. well .. takes so much to move an island :-) ..