Fishes

Every time there was a program related to the first and foremost species on earth - Fish, on Discover or NGC, I used to switch channel.After one or two watches of the Whales and Sharks, I had lost the interest in programs which dealt deep with Fish and their species.
I picked the book - "The old man and the Sea" by Ernest  Hemmingway. This was a short story. The book is about 3-4 days of life of a fisherman and how he deals with his realities.
The writing style is no simple and the story so good that I used to read this book like a piece of sweet , slowly , repeating the reads and limited pages per read. I took close to 15 days to complete the 100 pages book.
This book brought back my interest in Fishes. For somebody who does not know anything about fishing, the writer takes us through the toughest and most dangerous encounter of a fisher man and gives you a glimpse of their daily life. There is no romance, no suspense, no crime, no bad guy or good guy, its a plain story of fishing. The book introduced me to a new species of fish - Marlin and post this book, my interest has changed.
Now every time there is a program related to fish - Monster Fish, Sharp hunters etc, I watch them.
One thing I ponder though is whether it is really required for our scientist to trouble the fishes, insert tags into them every time they get one. Only science can justify the need.

Smell

Perfume - One of the best results of human creativity.
I bought first perfume only about seven years back. But this was not the first time, i saw or used a perfume. My mother used to have a small bottle of sandalwood oil, this she said was the most costly perfume.
As a child, i was never allowed to open this or even touch it. It was kept with all the costly sarees and the sarees smelled of sandalwood.
Then came the first biggest event of our lives.For my sisters marriage, we decided to buy a perfume. We (Me , my cousin, my sister) decided that we should really savor the experience of choosing one. We were still in a city without too many malls unlike today. We went to a shop in city, this I remember was a small shop, but was an exclusive perfume shop.We were understanding how to smell perfume - smell coffee beans in-between, then smell the strip - during this shopping . Finally we selected - Burberry Touch.
The interesting thing is that since we bought this for my sister's marriage, every time I relish this fragrance, it reminds me of a great personal occasion, of celebrations.
This was just the starting of my perfume world. Then I started reading and understanding the science of perfume. The list of chemicals made me reluctant from using it directly on skin.
The next perfume i got was a gift for my birthday.One of my best friend understood my craving for  perfume and got me Calvin Klein Euphoria. I used this as a daily perfume , i used to wear it for work. I am past 2 bottles of 200ml by now, still have a new one UN-opened in my wardrobe. The fragrance is associated with work, every time I wear it I feel more professional.
Meanwhile, my friend bought Hugo Boss , I loved it in first instance. Soon I bought one too and in the later years, this was my "special occasion in office perfume." After few years my love for perfume was raised to a different level.
When I was returning back from my visit to USA, I went to Macy's and ended up buying - Armani Code, the lady in Macy's gave me a pack of small testers.
After about three months, I went again and this time, I bought a Sarah Jessica Parker brand perfume and tried one more Ralph Lauren brand and a Hermes.
I had become so much of  a perfume "Maniac", i ended up buying the Ralph Lauren perfume at my transit in Singapore.
Today, each of the fragrances mean something to me - they remind me of events,  one is for big happy occasions, other one is a happy work day, one more for something special at work. Few are stashed away for some future occasions. The sense of smell is so powerful , all of these fragrances bring back memories every time, some good some bad.I am not sure how, but it seems like brain does a match the following with smell Vs occasion. Anytime I smell Burnt Nilgiri leaves, it reminds me of the small town of my father, which we used to visit once in a while during occasions.

Instincts

What I am going to talk about is something which most of us would have experienced at one point or another.
Today I was out to a place near Malleshwaram. For those of you who are from Bangalore, you would know that the very temple from which Malleshwaram gets its name - Kadu Malleshwara temple is right there . Today being ShivRatri , I had planned to goto the temple after my work.
By 1:45 PM  I finished my work and ventured towards the temple, I started following the bee line for Darshanam , by the time I reached the end, I thought it was just out of question for me to stand in the line and wait for Darshanam.
With a bitter mind, I treadled back to the Bus stop to catch my bus. But before that I had some minor shopping, so gradually after finishing the shopping, i rushed towards the Bus Stop. I waited close to 20 minutes, towards the end of my wait, I saw that most of the folks now waiting in the stop were to board the bus I was waiting for.
Finally the bus arrived and I was happy that I could even get a seat with window. With all my luggage, I for a minute , thought that now that I have boarded the direct bus and dont have to open my bag, put it below my shopping stuff . I was then lost in my own thoughts, which is actually quite normal with me - to think of every bougainvillea bush to think of as a bouquet which nature is offering us.
The lady next to me dropped her change in between  the journey and was continuously asking her kid to bend down and collect the same. I am usually helpful and in any other such situations would have got p myself and helped with collecting the change. But not today, today I was trying to fast and was very tired with all the heat  and shopping. So just let the child get down and collect it by herself.
All of a sudden at one stop when some people alighted, the conductor on the bus asked to check if I had my wallet.
I am the kind of person who never , even for a minute, hands over her bag to anybody and this includes my family members as well. I thought he was just saying it and casually checked my bag, which was below two heavy covers filled with my shopping , but still well organized.
I was in for a surprise, it was missing. He just told me to alight and chase folks who got down just before a minute. I ran like a mad dog, I still dint have any idea about who had picked it, the bus was stopped and waiting. I ran and ran and could not see anybody on the road who was there a few minutes back in the bus. Finally, while I was running, and mentally calculating what I had lost, I decided to come back to the bus .
During my chase I realized that I did not have more than 200Rs in my wallet , but I had almost all my cards in it. So I thought it better to start blocking them since the thieves were already on their way back home with the booty.
When I came back, the Conductor on the bus  proudly announced that he knew that the lady next to me was a thief , what I actually thought as a innocent kid collecting the change was actually stealing my wallet from underneath. I was angry and told him that there is no use of boasting of his cognizance since the damage was already done. I had become the curious case of lost wallet in the bus.
The next hour went mostly in blocking my cards and getting them reissued. While I did this, most of the ladies started chatting, some were blaming me to be careless, some the conductor, some the thief. But it was a good gossip for most of them and an event which most would recollect with their family - the ideal Shivratri Jagarane Gossip so to speak.
Sometimes when these events happen while you are upset that something like this happened, there will also be SilverLining. For me , While coming back from temple path , after cancelling my venture to bode lords Darshanam, I was feeling and hoping that my rejection of tedious path does not cause some problem. It did happen- i lost my wallet and would undergo some pain, till I am settled back. To add woes to the problem, just on the previous day I had moved some cards from my wallet and added a new one.
Silver lining was , I wanted to withdraw money, and for various reasons, I had postponed it for a week. I was running on scanty money and had spent most of what i had in the shopping . The other part was the ease with which I could within minutes block all the cards and save my self any more damage.
The customer care executives were very understanding and helped me very well, so much so that one of them asked me what all bank numbers i needed and was ready with the customer care numbers.
So in many ways today was memorable, one of the fall outs of today might be more surprising in future years.

Why men Fight?

The recent Israel air strikes on Gaza reminds of this conversation in the movie "Munich " - "We(Palestinians) did not kill your people, the land is as holy for us as for you, but still you strike back at us".
Thats what I recall, i cant understand why israelis hate Palestinians more than Germans. Logically Germans who supported Hitler rather caused more harm to Zionists than anybody else.
My eyes tear every time, I watch a war  time movie like - Schiendlers List or the Pianist. This is my one big question, I am holding when I meet a israeli .
For all i Know somebody in israel might be thinking -"Why does India hate Pakistan". Which I can answer because I am an Indian :-).
Nevertheless, I never stop pondering about why war has become inevitable for peace.

Note: Do watch Munich to see Daniel Craig, he proves that he is not worth to be 007 :-)

DejaVu

It happened today. I met this person in lift, he was my ex-collegue who had now joined at the client location, where I was now a contractor. IF it was only him , it was ok. But the minute another ex-collegue and current client entered the lift, I realized, I had a faint memory of this happening and then I was waiting for something and thats when they asked me about one of my current collegues and again with the same mistake of not pronouncing his name properly.
I was very sure , this is DejaVu - Same faces, same mistake. I could not believe that this is just a mess up by my brian where it pushes something by mistake to long memory although it should have been in short memory. This is the most known scientific explanation for DeJaVu.
It sometimes apalls me that with all our scientific discoveries we have still not been able to know what causes such small incidents.
At the same time, I am amazed at how brain of human beings has evolved to the level it is. It distresses me that we don't realize this beautiful gift of nature to us and make the best use of it :-)

English - Hinglish - TaHiEnglish

Recently I travelled around south India and during the journeys went to Tamil spoken regions - Kanyakumari, Rameshwaram and travancore.

During my journey, I found some interesting posters here are a few.

If you did not still understand, the shop keeper meant Flour mill.The next one is miserable and infact punishable.

Now this one is - I do not know which language.(zoom in)

But beyond all this is the clincher. The super hero.

East or west India is the best.(Zoom in)

Why does everyone hate IT and IT people in Bangalore?

First the History of what factors caused Bangalore to be the IT hub

Bangalore was a place which was known for its weather. The ideal weather rather with not too much of heat during summer and not too cold in winter.
People not to mention were and are not aggressive. When you roam around to different parts of India, one would always consider Bangalore a comparitively peaceful place for one to live.
People usually have - "mind your own business policy" - unless you go and poke , there is no concern. For example when BDA started falling trees in Bangalore, people's societies started protests only when the plan showed deforestation in their areas - when they fell trees in Basavanagudi, the people's association in Malleshwaram did not bother and vice versa.
The biggest factor also were the local governament policies - this boomed the industry both in Bangalore and Hyderabad.
Also the first and the largest IT companies were setup here.

So what went wrong?
When the initial companies were setup by the two big wiggies - NRN and Premji, a lot of our local folks got in. The field boomed. There were a group of VCs in Silicon Valley, who supported and setup firms in Bangalore. Gradually there were a lot of IT folks travelling to western countries at a very young age - to USA, UK. Suddenly they had travelled and roamed more than the sum total of three generations of their forefathers.


Stay in Foreign countries
There  is saying in Kannada - "Kosha Odhu Desha Suttu". It means roam around the world , read knowledgeable books. Our IT guys did the earlier one and forgot the later.

The oppurtunity to see a new country and an advanced country and additional money is a very lucrative offer. Some just fell for it and were swept in it, never to come back. Some took a dip and started realizing that with all the luxury and comfort in other country, they are still a secondary citizen in  these countries. They still need to get permission for fireworks for Deepavali.There was a lack of identity. Now for a considerable percentage of people, although they would love to stay back in a foreign country, their terms were over and they had to return back. In simple words, they were not needed in the guest house anymore.

We are happy for the first group, which is now not in India, they helped reduce the population burden and also spread the Indian roots elsewhere. Its a pleasure to get the second group back, which might get us some intellectual thoughts which will steer the city and the country in the right direction - or atleast put some effort into it. They are the rational thinkers. The last segment which still dreams about staying abroad is the detrimental one. All of these folks, are proud they went abroad and want to realize the comfort and luxury here , in India. They need their USA here.

To start off, they need to match money, now if you have to get the kind of income you would have earned in USA, you will need to take on some competitive work - work under pressure, touch the niche areas. This has made IT work more than a 9-5 job.The work is not something where you go in and come out, you own stuff there. There is tension. These are the first set of people who want to stay close to office within the radius of 10kms. They caused the rise of apartment culture.

Rise of Apartments
Frankly I still dont like apartments, they seem to me like a glorified version of "Vatara's of old bangalore".  No offense to anyone, after staying in single houses for long time, it is a little difficult to be accustomed to apartments.You can smell neighbours kitchen, you can hear shouting next door and most of all, there is no identity of the place you live in.
Apartments are a problem in other ways as well , because of their creators which is the real estate business. Just like any other natural resource has been exploited, the real estate owners exploit the water , air and the land itself to make quick bucks. The massive pressure on water these apartments have put with no proper foresighted planning is already evident with Bangalore seething under its garbage and never satisfying thirst for water.

All the people in Apartments are busy lot , they need shopping malls to finish shopping and get some food and get recreated with movie - the bare minimum luxuries of USA. So we have now shopping malls at every end of the street. Our people have sufficient money to get an apartment , shop at malls, every week and now buy a car . This is the mini-USA they had hoped for.

While you think all of this is not just IT employee problem, a lot of it like the Regulating real estate is Government business, we all understand, how democratic our governments are. So we are still quite far from getting the right regulations and following them to make sure our progress does not hinder our environment.

All of these have now wiped out trees because they need space to drive cars, build malls , Emptied the water in the lakes and underground to fulfill the needs of apartments.
The development in Bangalore is like the thin Ice crust formed on a lake due to the lower temperature. It looks like a flat and strong plateau,You can walk on it , but only one at a time, too many of us go in, the layer will break and we will be drowned in cold water. The Garden city is now Concrete city.

The surrounding of people have suddenly changed.The inside of the house is also changed.Every house has a person in IT  Industry. He can afford the mini - USA. Their lifestyle lures others to imitate them.There is pressure on other businesses and professions to generate sufficient income. Everywhere the price is rised, the doctor from bangalore starts charging more than the doctor in Udupi, the vegetable vendor starts hiking prices.The housemaid expects double the salary she would get in some other place. The cost of living increases and now this becomes a place with reckless development at the cost of killing nature and actual and original culture of people which facilitated the business in the first place.
Lately its not just the IT folks, almost every profession is providing lucrative money. A person with an MBA from any local university will be paid 60-70k per month in retail, automobile, travel companies.

The lucrative jobs and the mini-USA in Bangalore has encouraged a huge migration of people from the populous states like Bihar , Uttar Pradesh, Delhi. Due to the conducive environment, a lot of these folks are not going back and are settling here in Bangalore. this and lack of proper planning has become detrimental for the city.

The common man and the old people who have been here in bangalore for more than 20 years, start hating the community which started or rooted the culture of money and hence everybody blames IT for city's detriment.

In my opinion, the problem is with the IT companies rather than the IT employees. The companies like Wipro, Infosys, TCS, CTS are taking away the best of our engineering colleges and putting them in a lowely job of maintaining some existing software and getting them used to mundane tasks of software. IF these companies could setup an equivalent research centers, encourage labs and innovation, worked with universities and help us get more patents, we would have still continued to consider IT as lucrative. Ayn Rand , they say , did not believe in charity. The IT companies are doing megre charity and believe they have fulfilled their responsibility for the society, but unless they dont teach our folks how to fish, no matter how many fish they get it will not solve our problems.

The other problem wiht IT is they have not setup enough shops in the northern India, this area requires a boost from governaments  in supporting more IT . This will let a lot of the crowd go back and stay closer to home. This will also help in an overall development in India rather than development in pockets. Unfortunately although we are the biggest democracy we are very poor in planning and with the huge corruption , this seems like a far off dream.

The IT employees are no different from somebody getting good money - all they spend on is - Food, drinks and the luxuries. If they start using what they have judiciously especially the natural resources, we will be far better  than today.Everyday when I am in my cab, I pass by numerous cars with just one person in the driver seat, i know they are IT by the bags they have and by the tags they wear.Although educated, we lack wisdom. This year, during May we had the driest stint and one of my collegues had a jacuzzi at their home and there was no water in their borewell. If she had probably been judicious in using water and infact invested on Rainwater harvesting, she might have probably still had a working borewell.We will soon not have water for drinking if we do not use the resources judiciously. The attitude of  IT employees is that - Money can buy anything , there is very less social responsibility, they own.


Anything which is lucrative just because of the money wont stand for long, it needs to go further into the intellectual aspects of the life. It needs support in our value system and if possible needs to relate to the spiritual layers of the society in the right way .