Life Reloaded!!!

Following is a thread on our friends' googlegroup "ekapekshaek": Nik: hey guys what do u think are 3 major mistakes of your life? I'll tell you mine after some replies. Me: I never expose myself:P Nik: lagna zalyavar asa nako mhanus ki 'i never expose myself' nahitar problem hotil

http://www.time.com/time/specials/2008/top10/article/0,30583,1855948_1855957_1862039,00.html

So I was talking about the change. What happened was Vishwajeet joined back Chikitsak High School in 9th standard. He was topper at his previous school and I expected him to break into top 10 of the class. One more of the change was the subjects such as “Work Experience”, “P. T.”, “Drawing” became grade based. Traditionally, boys would suffer a lot in these subjects with girls getting more marks in these subjects. This was the year when I made new friends in Vikram, Viraj and Aditya. The four of us used to totally harass Jeetu.  Well, as expected Jeetu toppled Deepashri in the 1st Unit test itself. For a change even I was in top 10 :). Of course, my concern was the semester exam. But, I again performed well to keep my place in top 10. In fact, I kept the pace in rest of year to fetch 4th rank in final exam, one rank behind Jeetu. The NCC was also better than previous year, since my batch mates were the rank holders in NCC then. Of course, it wasn’t that easy. More about it later....

There has been a big scandal in US (around $50 billion), made by Bernard Madoff. It has been termed as a "Ponzi" scheme by news papers. So I searched on Wiki and got really nice set of articles. Here is the set: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multilevel_pyramid_scheme http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_fool_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_beauty_contest Just realized that there was a "Ponzi" scheme in mumbai also, few years ago. Remember the "Sherekar" guy. Even my dad had invseted 1K Rs. in the scheme. He was lucky that he at least got the investment back.

Last sunday I met my school friends at our usual meeting place, Katta. While discussing about the picnic, Susmit reminded us this PJ which happened during Rishi's "job" party. Susmit: Kai re mi aikala tu Gym join keli ahes? Rishi: Ho re. Pan officemule jata yet nahi. Aata, mi Gym band keli. Susmit: Arey tula jata yet nahi, pan mhanun purnachya purn Gym band kelis????

Hey fellas, dont you feel the Global Oil prices are too much volatile? I mean everybody talks about BSE Sensex, but what about these oil prices? In just three months the prices have come down from $150 per barrel to less than $50 per barrel. How can nations stop inflation if the prices rise again in the same amount of period? It really surprises me how Opac works. Do they just want to make profits, profits and profits? Dont they realize that one day the damn oil on which their whole economy is based on, is gonna end? If they keep behaving like this with other countries, I am not sure how those nations will react when a formidable non-conventional energy source is found. 

I thought Rahul will make a Century. So much for my big expectations!!!!

Currently reading this article: http://www.uncommon-knowledge.co.uk/articles/making-decisions.html

Its my borther's borthday on 17th and one my best school friend Kiran's birthday on 18th. I wonder what gift should I give them? I guess I will give a book to my bro. Some inspiring story. Let me think. Cant think any great book, now. I'll have give more thoughts about it. And what about Kiran? I am not sure if he will be in Mumbai next weekend. Any suggestions from you people?

Have you visited Google Products Blogs? If you happen to visit them, then you will find one thing very clearly noticable. All of thier demo images which are used to elaborate some new functionality, are taken from Macintosh. I keep wondring why they use Mac when they keep bragging about thier use of Linux. According to me, Mac is like a symbol of being elitist. What do you say?

So as I said earlier Chikitsak High School is really close to my heart. My earlier school was not too far to my home, just 15 min walking. To go to my new school, I had to go by a private school bus. From 5th till 7th, we were in morning session. Morning 7 o’clock!!! Well, it wasn’t too hard for me actually, since I never really slept for too much time. In fact, my parents used to scold me at nights since I used to keep my eyes open and keep thinking, because I couldn’t sleep. They used to tell me that if I don’t sleep they would put ‘ masala’ in my eyes. lol… I spent 6 years in Chikitsak from 5th standard till my SSC. Each year was special in some way, shaping my personality, in a certain way. 5th standard was my entry point in Chikitsak. It was a good year both academically and socially. I was scared about how I will make new friends in the new school. But all my fears were broken as I settled down in the school. First half of the year I was in the “D” division which was meant for...

My top 10 favourite cartoons: 1. Naruto 2. Dragon BallZ 3. Duck Tales 4. Ghost Buster 5. Scooby Doo 6. Centurions 7. Tom & Jerry 8. Men In Black 9. Alladin 10. Tin Tin Special Mention: Jungle Book Mogli , Swat cats, G. I. Joe., HeMan, Dexter, Recess, Tale Spin Which one did you like?

Its Subodh dada's birthday today. And that also reminds me that last year on the same day in December I gave interview at Netcore Solutions. Oh man!! Time passes so fast!!!!

Well, for each of us “School” is associated with distinct set of memories. So is the case for me :) In fact, there was a time when I would really want to go to school rather than staying at home, especially when the exam papers were corrected and returned ;) Just kidding. Though, it is true I liked my school very much. Actually, I must be more clearer to which school I am talking about. Honestly, I loved both the schools in which I studied, but I will always have more affection towards Chikitsak High School. Till 4th standard (in simple terms “primary” education) I studied in D. S. U. Primary School. Actually, the full form is “Devrav Shivarav Ubhaykar”, but since my “second school” friends used to laugh at such lengthy name, I thought its better to shorten it. Right from my nursery, I was the “simple, peaceful, naive” kind of boy. I could hardly stand abuse. Even now, I cant face a verbal abuse with anyone, I get scared (thats something surprising given the fact I am one of the most...

Its been revelation for me when it comes to my reading habits. Post-“Karna” scholarship interview I have tried my best to read the books as much as possible. I guess my biggest problem with reading is that once I start reading a book, I really cant put it down. It’s a problem because its not necessary if it is a academic book or a novel, I still read it with the same intent. And when there are exams coming this habit is sometimes dangerous. Recently read a marathi book called “Dharmananda” by Jaywant Dalavi. Not at all a good book. I kept reading the book expecting that some of the parts kept secret would explained properly at the end. But, really it wasnt worth the time I spent on it. 2 days to be precise. Now, my brother has taken Aravinda Adiga’s “The White Tiger” from his friend. He is reading it now. Lets see when I do I get my hands on the book, though I wont be able to read it in next week as my JMET is lined up. Damn these MBA entrances…

Interesting history of the Kaminsky DNS attack: http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/16-12/ff_kaminsky?currentPage=all

On the day before CAT Aditya Meshram told me that Sidscope and I were going to the home ground while others were playing away matches. What he meant was both of us were going to give CAT at the all too familiar place – King George School. I have given so many exams at that place, right from Agrawals to IMS SimCATs… that it kind of feels, he was right. So when I reached the school, it felt like home coming. Actually, I had not come to the place since I gave my SimCAT last year. Sidscope came after me and we met the ground. Next stop was the classroom. I was sitting on the second bench, first row. I got the answer paper first. 15 Minutes to go for CAT and we were given the sealed question paper. When I took the paper in my hand, I told myself – whatever happens, don’t panic. I read the instructions. My initial plan was going to be 30-30-30-20-20-20. But then, it turned out to be 25-25-40 paper. I thought that it must be VA with 40 question. Instead of thinking about it as being a disad...

“The road to success??….. is always under construction.”

“Too often, software work follows the first law of bicycling: No matter where you're going, it's uphill and against the wind”

So India won the 4th ODI and along with it the series. Congrats guys!!! After the match was reduced to just 22 overs per team, it was going to be display of power hiting along with an array of variations from bowlers. And it happened like that only. What hurt me though was the Man of Match award. The game was so much Batsman driven that it was almost impossible to produce an economical spell. In such adverse conditions Zaheer produce an awesome bowling performance. He gave away just 20 runs in his 5 overs, in a match where the runs were scored for more than 8 runs per over. And that’s not it. He also took 2 wickets and a catch. But the Man of the Match award went Viru. Just shows how much the game has turned into batsmen’s game!!! P. S.: Did you notice how Oasis Shah intimidates Indians while he is batting- running for a double even when the ball is going straight to fielder, making funny noises while running between the wicket!!!

The CHANGE had begun. Nope, I am not saying there was some revolution or something. I guess I already new those tricks which I learnt, but seemed to have forgotten them completely.  It happened like this- I was called for special TIME counseling session along with Sidscope. We were in separate sessions in batches of 4. The TIME guy, Satya, told us to show our TIME Mock CAT scores till that week. As I told you, my performance was inconsistency personified and Satya asked me the reason for it. I simply didn’t know it. So we went ahead with the session. Most of the points he told us were a repetition of in my IMS sessions last year, till he really get into the grooves. He asked each of us for the paper we read. 2 were TOI reader, 1 ET and myself HT. Satya told us that TOI is one of THE ….. worst news papers in Mumbai. So what’s new? Well, he added that even HT and DNA are not worth it. He advised us to read The Hindu or Indian Express. Today, I agree that HT certainly doesn't have the...

Last Sunday after the CAT, it was time to meet my old school buddies once again. Many of us gathered at Aditya’s home, what we might call our second home considering the amount of time we have spent at his home. If I am not wrong, I met Sunil first time after our school days. That reminded me that he was the first person to write a testimonial for me. So today when I logged on to Orkut, I went to my profile page to read my testimonials. When I last visited it, there were 6 testimonials. Now, there are 4. Two missing are from Sunil himself and other one from Piu. It seems both have deleted their profiles from Orkut. The 4 which exist are from my best buddies, 2 from school and 2 from college. As I remember it was Sankalp who followed Sunil, then Piu, Divin, Jeetu and finally Nik. I feels really great to read what people think about you, what they expect from you and how you can improve. I know Jeetu must be thinking about the pending testimonial which I am supposed to write for him....

Mera Dil Bhii Kitanaa Paagal Hai, Ye Pyaar Jo Tum Se Karataa Hai Par Saamane Jab Tum Aate Ho, Kuchh Bhii Kahane Se Darataa Hai O Mere Saajan, O Mere Saajan, Saajan Saajan, Mere Saajan... Kitanaa Isako Samajhaataa Hoon, Kitanaa Isako Bahalaataa Hoon Naadaan Hai Kuchh Na Samajhataa Hai, Din Raat Ye Aahen Bharataa Hai ... Meraa Dil Bhii Kitanaa Paagal Hai ... Har Pal Mujhako Tadapaataa Hai, Mujhe Saarii Raat Jagaataa Hai Is Baat Ki Tumako Khabar Nahiin, Ye Sirf Tumhii Pe Marataa Hai Meraa Dil Bhii Kitanaa Paagal Hai ...

Well, its finally over. Result will be declared in Jan’ 09 and I will be eagerly waiting for it. I honestly didn’t use any of the “score calculators” which create so much confusion and chaos in people’s mind. I prefer to keep the “good” feeling till the actual results are declared. As you might have guessed from the “good feeling”, that I had nice CAT this year. It was nice because I felt like reaching to the next level which I always wanted to reach during this year. I am not saying I have cracked the CAT. No. I had a few tricky moments during the test, but what makes me happy about my performance is that I felt satisfied. After a many ups and downs during my AIMCATs in TIME, I came through with a decent performance in each section. It was really amazing how this CAT preparation shaped up. I started the studies in July end though I joined the TIME test series earlier. I had joined IMS test series for past 2 years but didn't see any real results in the final CAT. In fact, I had...

I was trying out Picasa 3 beta. This is what I created after using it for a while :)

http://freeworld.thc.org/root/phun/unmaintain.html

Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.                                                                 - F. S. Fitzgerald

Here is a nice article about the difference: http://economics.about.com/cs/businesscycles/a/depressions.htm

Well, I can’t believe it. I really can’t. I never thought that I could fall for it. Damn. It happened yesterday after lunch. I was working in the office as usual when Deepali told me on IM that someone had called me, but since my office phone is not working properly, it was transferred to her. She said that the person had left her phone number: 09371272497. I was surprised. I haven’t given my office number to anyone. Then how come someone called me in my office? Keeping my suspicions to myself, I went to Deepali’s desk and confirmed whether it was indeed “Siddhesh” whom the person was asking for.  After she confirmed, I thought its better to give a call so I picked the phone and called on the above number. There was one women at the other end. Since I couldn’t recognize the voice, I didn't say anything initially. But that women suddenly started accusing me that I sent her some “lewd” SMSes and if her brother comes to know about it, then I am a “gonner”. I told her that there seem...

Yesterday, as usual I fetched the two newspapers left at our doorstep. I opened "Sakal", the marathi daily which we generally read. It carried a story of "Bharat Ratna" as its main headline. In fact, it filled its upper half of front page. Congrats to one of India's greatest singers ever, Bhimsen Joshi for getting this honour. On that happy note, I shifted my attention to Hindustan Times. And well what do I find? Obama and Mc'Cain had taken over their headlines. Ok, some of you might say, "HT" is an english daily, so it has the so called "global" reach. Well.. Fair enough..Can you explain why there was just 2-3 lines of mention of Bhrat Ratna, that too in the corner. Even today they have not rolled out any details about Joshi's music career. And you know what, they even had a story about Gambhir's request to stall his 1 match suspesion being denied. Was this story more important than Bharat Ratna? In fact, did this story actually...

It’s amazing how languages develop. Look at english. Even if it is originated in England, it now has spread all across the globe and has undergone multitudes of changes. In fact, every region which speaks English has its own specialties, its own words, its own phrases. To explain you this I will give two examples, both told to me by Sidscope, occured in Lehman Brothers. The first one is related to a phrase or rather “greeting”. Many people have a habit of saying,“What is your good name?” Sidscope’s colleague was chatting with his Japanese counter part and he started of by saying the same thing, “What is your good name, Sir?”. Well, the Japanese got angry and replied, “Do you think all Japanese names are bad?” His colleague had tough time explaining the Japanese guy that it was normal in India to ask this question as a symbol that the other person name, whatever it may be, is good. Second example was kind of shocker to me. It was about a word which I have used so many times in my li...

“It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.” - Harry Truman

Hehe, I finally got all the episodes of “Friends”. Hopefully, I will be able to complete watching them by next Diwali. If you are wondering why I want so much time to watch it, then you might like to know that I have 3 movies (Pirates of Caribbean) lying on my hard disk for last 3 months. Worse part is that I deleted “Meet the Spartnas” which I had taken from Atif 5 months to accommodate the episodes of “Friends”.  In fact, its been 2 days now. I havent watched a single episode of it. I guess I wont be watching any of them till my CAT gets over. :D

"A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal." - Oscar Wilde

http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/VJTI

http://mutiny.in/2008/10/17/the-dream-job/

http://www. hindu .com/mag/2008/ 10/05/stories/ 2008100550010100.htm (Thanks to Laxmikant Agrawal)

http://www.thehindu.com/2008/10/21/stories/2008102155230800.htm

http://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/home/faq.html

Check this out . And you thought India is crumbling???

I am really frustrated with this common cold which seems to be common in just me among my friends. Today, I am having yet another "cold" day. I changed my IM status to - Can someone tell me how to fight cold? And then I came across this - Link Till the time you read it, I will go to Doctor. Bye.

This pic was taken after our 7th (or 6th???) standard's final exam. That's the oldest digitized pic I have :) Myself, Rishikesh and Kiran From School 2

Well, well, well what you know? Google India has come up with SMS Channels. The product has great similarities with our own MyToday MOBS and Webaroo’s SMSGupshup. You can create an SMS channel which is a way of sending group SMSs. I guess the specialty of Google has always been the ease and simplicity of user interfaces. The same thing continues here also. You can create your own SMS channel with various options. You can use it to send RSS feeds or send alerts about your blog or alerts about your or send Google news alerts for particular keywords or send alerts about the emails sent on a Google group or the simplest of them all – send a “free” group SMS from the web site. If I have to compare the 3 services, two of which I have already worked on, there is one big Similarity in all. “DELAYS”!!!! Well, I have sent an SMS on my SMS channel Chikitsak and I still haven't received the SMS on my phone. You could expect it to happen with MyToday or SMSGupshup, given their huge subscribe...

This is one of the episodes which I really like very much, I will try my best to describe it: Zabuza captures Kakashi in his water prison and is aiming for the three Genins. Since he cant possibly leave the water prison, he creates a water clone and sends him to destroy Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura and the bridge builder. All three know that they cannot beat Zabuza’s clone. Sasuke tries to attack but its in vain. The clone hits him like a punching bag. Naruto sees this and is totally scared. Clone makes his move towards Naruto, slaps him, kicks him, takes off his head “Ninja” band and puts his foot on it. “ You call yourself a Ninja?? You don’t become a Ninja by wearing flashy head bands. For me you are a Ninja if you are worthy of being written about in my Bingo book.” Naruto is shivering now. He says, “I cant fight this guy. If I don’t get away, he will annihilate me.” And suddenly he sees the wound on his right hand. It’s the mark of his “Oath of Pain”. He had vowed not to “quit” afte...

This was my idea: http://www.youtube.com/v/8gj5r7mhS58 And this wasn't: http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=pzJR1OlZPeg

When I read the news about Lehman Brothers on Monday morning, I didn't really know whether to smile at my fate or worry about my best buddies who are working there. Its amazing how things change so quickly. One year ago when I forfeited Lehman's offer, I was looked upon as a fool. How can one leave such an offer for a start up company. I made matters worse when I left that job in a months time for GRE. And didn't even give GRE. Didn't get a decent CAT score either. So it was all lose-lose situation with I not being firm behind my own decisions.    And now when Lehman has collapsed some feel that I was lucky that I didn't join Lehman last year. Honestly, it is just coincidence that something like this happened. My decision could have been " correct " or " good ", had I backed it with continuing work in other firm. I didn't and hence it wasn't the best of decisions to leave Lehman. In fact, till I joined Netcore in Jan my parents would alw...

Sorry, for being late to publish this link: http://picasaweb.google.com/darkside299/Ganeshotsav2008

The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.....

Today, I would like to talk about my company. Most of my friends don't know much about my company. So it will be helpful for them to understand my work. I wont go into the history of the company, you can as well search Netcore on Google for that. It is basically into 2 major fields: Mail and mobile related services. I am working on the later part of it, so I will talk about the same service. In the mobile part also we have some variety. It includes the mobile portal (mytoday.com), the group SMS service(MOBs), SMS chat service, a platform for SMS competitions, polls and the most important of all, SMS dailies. Our site, mytoday.com is particularly designed for GPRS viewing and hence you might feel a bit weird when you will visit the site. A site without flash, even not many many colors, black white in appearance in the days on Web 2.0 is strange. But as I said the site is mainly designed for mobile viewing. Due to lack of flash content, the site loads very fast. This is very impor...

Damn it. Using computer for too long takes its own toll. Whenever you are solving a Reading comprehension problem, you wish you could have Ctrl + F to search the particular sentence in the paragraph. The habit of using Netbeans has made press Ctrl + space whenever I want to correct a wrong spelling. Whenever I am writing something and make a mistake I wish I had a delete/backspace button to remove the stuff(too lazy to use eraser). Of course, how can I forget copy-paste operation while writing assignments....

Adversity causes some people to break... and others to break records.                                                                                                                - William Ward

Two weeks ago I watched the latets Batman flik, i.e. The Dark Knight. Not the best of movies I have seen, but certainly one of the darkest movies I had ever seen. Most of the characters were protrayed with darkest possible way, especially the Joker.  I always liked the Batman-Joker rivalry, one too serious and the other so funny. In the earlier version of Batman where Joker was played by Jack Nicolson which was more of a "laughing Buddha" than the ever smart and brutal Heath Ledger's Joker. The amount of wreckage caused by him is unimaginable... the chase sequence... the bombs in the boats carrying people... bombing the city hospital... its just too much for any criminal. And why does he do it? money? Well, lets just say that money is nothing for this guy as he burns millions of dollars with Gasoline... He simply crazy!!! I also liked the movie for the importance given to the strong characters shown in film. Each of the protagonists have been portrayed with some dark s...

Some good articles on why India has not been able to win as many medals as it should have: 1. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/25/india.olympicgames2008 2. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080813202631AAFWAsJ 3. http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/08/why-does-india.html Source: Marginal Revolution blog. My take on this whole issue is that it is related to Indian people psyche. I have expereinced with my own parents and my friends will also agree. People dont consider sports as a career option for their kids exception may be cricket. Not many parents want their child to be Swimming champion or a runner than an engineer or a doctor. That is where it start going wrong. The system obviusly plays a role, but since people really dont belive in sports, think it as TP or a school comtetion activity, we never excel. Just imagine, how can we expect our swimmers or runners to win if their personal bests are way below the wrold record. Yeste...

Looking at my current DI form this should not have happened... After I started the paper in such superb fashion.... After I was convinced that I had solved enough in QA to clear the cutoff.... After I attempted 19 questions in VA... After all RCs attempted for the first time .... How could I break down at the last moment with DI? Just 4 questions attempted that too with 50-50 surety! This isn't a good sign Sid, you need to get back to practice. After all, the more I practice, the luckier I get...

Sorry everyone, I didn't tell you all. I changed my job again. I left my job in Citi Technology Services six months ago. 25th January was my last day at Citi. Next day I went for trip with my school friends and didn't tell them either. I feared that I would be termed as a quitter. So finally, I am telling you all that I have joined Netcore Solutions. I joined this company on 29th of Jan this year. I got confirmed on 29th July and got the confirmation letter on this Monday. So I thought it is about time I tell you all this news. In last six moths I just realized how difficult and painful it is to lie to your friends...

That's how I will describe my CAT campaign this year. This year I made one change in my tactics. I joined TIME test series this year. It has more number of papers than IMS and different style of papers. I thought it was about time to change my strategy when I failing to make the final strike for past 2 years. Till now I have given 6 AIMCATs and my performance has been all but inconsistent. I started on high this time around with 99.2 percentile. But after that I have not been able to continue this start. My percentiles in the next 5 AIMCATs have been 92.6, 99.7, 97.7, 96.8, 93.6. I have been surprised by my last AIMCATs performance. I expected a better percentile than 93. I knew that I had an average Verbal Section but expected DI and QA to propel my percentile to 95+. It didn't happen that way. Talking about the studies for CAT, well, I cant really talk about it as I have not done any. I know I have to work harder now, that I dont have much time for studies because of work. ...

I wanted to publish this since long time, but always postponed it, waiting for the right time. Well actually it is not a dialogue, since only one person is speaking.  This dialogue is from my favorite Cartoon serial DragonballZ and is spoken by my favorite character Vegeta . The scene is in the climax of the serial, in one of the final episodes. To give you an idea why I like it, let me give you some idea about DragonballZ . The characters Goku and Vegeta are one of the most important characters in the series. Goku, the protagonist, who is actually an alien from a planet called Vegeta and is one of the last of his race Saiyan . But unlike the Saiyans who are naturally aggressive, fight-loving, brutal, strongest warriors in the world, he is very calm, naive. He hates to be a Saiyan, when he realizes that he belongs to such a killing race. According to his blood line and roots on planet Vegeta, he is a third grade soldier in the Saiyan Army. On the contrary, Vegeta is the Prince o...

I know, I know, I am posting too many quotes these days. But cant help it when I find something like this: "We can try to avoid making choices by doing nothing, but even that is a decision" - Garry Collins

"There's a time to let things happen & a time to make things happen"

Diye jalte hain, Phool khilte hain Diye jalte hain, Phool khilte hain Badi mushkil se magar, Duniya mein dost milte hain..... Diye jalte hain... Jab jis waqt kisi ka, Pyar juda hota hai, Kuch na poochho, Yaron dil ka, Haal bura hota hai Jab jis waqt kisi ka, Pyar juda hota hai, Kuch na poochho, Yaron dil ka, Haal bura hota hai Dil pe yadon ke jaise, Teer chalte hain Diye jalte hain, Phool khilte hain, Diye jalte hain..... Is rang roop pe dekho, Hargiz naaz na karna, Jaan bhi mange, Yaar to dede na, Naraz na karna, Rang ud jate hain, Roop dhalte hain,  Diye jalte hain, Phool khilte hain, Diye jalte hain..... Daulat aur jawani, Ek din kho jaati hain, Sach kehta hoon, Saari duniya, Dushman ho jaati hai Umrabhar dost lekin saath chalte Diye jalte hain, Phool khilte hain, Badi mushkil se, magar, Duniya mein dost milte hain Diye jalte hain..........

Hey Anup, sorry yaar. I wont be able to publish the post I promised you last week. Its still incomplete. You will have to wait for a week or two.

"Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment."

Currently, there has been a controversy over the admission process of first year Junior colleges in Maharashtra. This year the S. S. C. results were very good, much better than the previous years. More people passed, but the number of seats didn't increase with the same pace. Hence, the obvious question of admission. The state came up with 2 solutions. One with a district quota of 70 per cent which I think was totally foolish. If there are not enough seats to accommodate all the students then what's the point of reserving seats for locals. And how will you break the regions? Who are locals and who are outsiders? The second one, which I thought was a good solution, used percentile system to normalize scores of students of all three boards( SSC., ICSE and CBSE). The percentile will be calculated by finding your score with respect to the average score of top ten students of that board. It has been challenged in the courts. Personally, I thought it was a good move by state be...

Ohhh, man... Working from home can be a real pain!! I have been working like that for last 2 days. And its pretty boring... Well, of course you dont have your boss sitting next to you, but then you dont have all your PJ master friends. I am very careful about my internet usage, so when I my single "left arrow" after doing ssh brings some bytes to my PC, it feels really dizzy :| I got to use my ubuntu for office work!!! but the data resides on my office CPU so its not at all goody goody. Last but not least... I can blog any time :)

"Patriotism does not have a four-year shelf-life, but unfortunately politicians do." - Gabriel from Swordfish

Today, I will tell you about the plot of serial along with introduction to its main character. The story begins with the village Konohagakure where the Nine Tailed Fox attacks. This powerful beast is subdued by the Fourth Hokage, is captured and sealed in a new born baby. This baby is Naruto. Even though the beast is sealed inside the boy, people are scared that the beast might resurface from the boy and get back at them. Hence, everyone in the village mistreats Naruto during his childhood. This induces a great desire in Naruto to become the greatest Ninja ever and also to become a Hokage, some day. And "Naruto" the serial, is about his journey to be the greatest Ninja of all time. Of course, that doesnt mean our friend Naruto is a legend from childhood. He is a prankster. Faliing the Ninja exams thrice in a row. But he is brave and can do anything for his friends. Most of the times I feel anoyed because of his overconfidence and idiotic behaviour(Remember...

"The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from." - Andrew S. Tanenbaum(My Favorite Author)

"Sometimes it pays to stay in bed in Monday, rather than spending the rest of the week debugging Monday's code." - Dan Salomon

After a very long time I had gone for a movie with so many School friends. We were 12 people with 9 boys and 3 gals. It was a nice, refreshing experience to be with all of them again. We were late into the theater because of Viraj who had an Audit in his branch. Even getting to our seats was an adventure, with people sitting in between and then again shifting since it was impossible to pass to the next seat. Now, about the movie. Well, to be honest, I liked it. I like such romantic movies with humor. The young brigade in the film have done a great job. One more thing about the film is focus on the other friends of Jai and Aditi. I liked the way they were given importance as opposed to other movies where the lead characters take away all the camera space. I ll discuss about the plot in my next post from some one else' s point of view. But the biggest news of the day for me, came after the movie. To give you some background, I was sitting next to Kiran, then, Sus...

"Two roads diverged in a wood and I - I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference" - Robert Frost(1874 - 1963), American Poet

Recently I had for weekend trip along with my school friends. These are some of the best PJs which we had during the picnic. Most of them are in Marathi, so you might have to know Marathi to understand them. Jeetu showed me this SMS Ek mulga, eka mulila mithi madhye gheto aani vichar karto chala hiche vyakaran tapasu. toh bolato, "sang priye, mithitala me pahila ki dusra???" mulgi bolte. "tisra" ------------------------------------ While having dinner in d night... Viraj(looking at the Naan): chaan ahet re Susmit: nahi re, naan ahet ------------------------------------ Punyala jatana Dnyanesh mhanala ki apan sagle touchmadhe asto ani to nasto. Asa mhatlyavar nik ani baki saglyanni ekmekanna touch kela ;) ------------------------------------ Nik brush karat hota sunday morning... Susmit: "tuza zala ki" sang Nik: "tuza zala ki" :( ------------------------------------ Snake parkmadhye battery photo kadhat hota. Tyane ek kadhla.. pan mhanala ajun ek...

After a really long time, I am wearing the watch given by Prasanna Pandit to me. Its been five years since he gave me this watch, but I have worn it hardly 6-7 times. When I walking towards office, I just remembered one funny incident involving Prasanna and myself. I would like to share it with you all. It was the day of HSC results. I had returned home, and was getting lots of congratulatory calls. At around 7 o clock, I got a more of such calls. The guy on the other side was talking in Marathi. Well, I thought he was one of my father's friends. He asked me my Maths mark which I told him to be 99. He congratulated me. Then he asked me my overall marks. I said, "570 out of 600". I was really not able to make out who the person was. So finally, I asked him that I didn't recognize his voice and wanted to know who he was. It was none other than Prasanna Sir. He was wondering why I had not called him up when most of the other guys had told him their marks. I...

I have turned into a big fan of Gnome. I am the only one in my office who is using gnome. Every one else uses KDE. The user interface of KDE really sucks man. Gnome is more closer to Windows in terms of user experience. Though many of the KDE apps are more advanced than their counter parts in gnome, I still feel that Gnome has enough functinalities to be able fulfill my requirement. After the launch of Banshee I have stopped using Amarok. Not that it is better than Amarok, but its certainly better than that Rhythmbox. Sexiest thing about Gnome is its Termianl. I just hated using Konsole in my early days in office, I wanted Gnome Terminal. Its another story how I got Gnom installed on my system I wanted to enable compiz on my PC which has an old motherboard with no AGP. It broke down KDE and I could use my desktop GUI. So finally I had to call Chandan and installed Gnome. Well, not that I learned from this mistake. I faced the same problem in Gnome also when enabled XGL. Thankf...

This I got from my friend Harshad Telang: http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-myth-of-multitasking

'My ambition is to be a very, very normal guy. A very humble guy, who wants to be the best.' -Rafael Nadal

"A man with a watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure." - Segal's Law

"Anyone who uses the phrase 'easy as taking candy from a baby' has never tried taking candy from a baby."

" People who abandon their mission are scums...... but people who abandon their friends are worse than scums " - Kakashi Hatake in Naruto

"Do not condemn the judgement of another because it differs from your own. You may both be wrong." -Dandemis

Its been almost 3 months since I have started watching "Naruto". I must say I have been really impressed by this animation series. My brother and I had decided to cancel Cartoon Networks subscription, since we had stopped watching it. But then on that day, in the morning I saw Naruto's AD. I thought, well, this is the show which made Divin, who hardly watched Cartoons in the past, go through the episodes in a great hurry. Even Ratna would spend half of her bandwidth for downloading the episodes. It was about time, I watch it too. Mind it, I have been watching cartoons for so many years. The best one has been DragonBallZ. It used to be fun to watch DBZ in my 12th on saturday night 2 back to back episodes at 12 oclock. But then cartoon network never showed the episodes after episode 52 until last year. My interest slowly died away with time. I really loved that show but the show became more and more violent and monotonous. I doubt if Naruto doesnt follwo the same pattern bu...

Kabhi Kabhi aditi Zindagi Mein yuhi koi apna lagta hai Kabhi Kabhi aditi woh bichad jaye to Ek sapna lagta hai Aise mein koi kaise apnne aasun ko behene se roke Aur kaise koi soch de Everythings gona be ok Kabhi kabhi to lage zindagi mein rahi na khushi aur na maza Kabhi kabhi to lage har din muskhil Aur har pal ek saza Aise mein koi kaise muskuraye kaise hasde kush ho ke Aur kaise koi soch de Everything gona be ok Soch zara janejaa tujhko hum kitna chahte hai Rote hai hum bhi agar teri aakhon mein aasun aate hain Gana to aata nahi hai magar phir bhi hum gaate hain Hey aditi maan kabhi kabhi sare jahan mein andhera hota hai Lekin raat ke baad hi to savera hota Kabhi Kabhi aditi Zindagi , Mein yuhi koi apna lagta hai Kabhi Kabhi aditi woh bichad jaye to Ek sapna lagta hai Hey aditi hasde hasde hasde hasde hasde tu zara Nahi to bas thoda thoda thoda thoda thoda thoda muskura Tu Kush Hai to lage ki jahan mein chai hai kushi Suraj nikle badlon se aur baate zindagi Sunto zara madhosh hawa ...

"Success is simply a matter of luck. Ask any failure" - Earl Nightingale

Its been a year since we left VJTI. I really dont remember the exact date. I thought its time to think about what I learned in this one year. A lot of things to be honest. I learned to communicate with outside world. I was just too introvert and shy when I left college. I am not claiming that I have changed a lot in that sense. But I think people can tell the difference. This period has also taught me the importance of failure. I just read the speech by J. K. Rowling at Harvard and she is true in every sense possible. I understood to achieve big things you need to start with small steps. There is short cut to success and hey, hard work doesnt mean success. People so often misunderstand that if you work hard then you will succeed. Its not completely wrong. But what makes hard work actually work is the hard work in right direction. Also, there are times when even this doesnt work. I realised that some things are just not in our hand. We can try our best in best direction, but we cant al...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect

Each time I sit to write a blog post these days, I become totally blank about what I am supposed to write. Afterwards, while working in office I suddenly realize, I could blog on so and so event. But Its same old story when I get back to blog. Kuch achchha likhna hai, par kya???

I was just going through the blog post on IE blog , where I came across a typical Microsoft faltugiri . It says that if you have XP Service Pack(SP) 2 and IE 7 installed and would like to upgrade to SP 3 then you wont be able uninstall IE 7.... Why? Its because if you uninstall IE 7 then you would revert back to older version of IE 6 of SP2 but your current service pack is SP 3. So you would be having a mismatch SP files. Hence in case you want to uninstall IE 7 then you would have to first uninstall SP 3 then uninstall IE 7 and finally install SP 3 again. What the heck is this??? My question to Microsoft is that if I like to install IE 7 then it mostly means I don't want to use IE. Why do you revert back to IE 6. If the user really loves IE 6 so much as to uninstall IE 6 then rather let him reinstall IE 6 himself. To be honest it seems one more of those Microsoft's Strategies to to prevent users from moving on to products other than that of Microsoft's. Recently they laun...

Murali Kartik played the first ever IPL match on 18th April only to be a mere "fielder" in the Kolkata Knight Riders Team. This is the sneak peak in his diary on 18th of April... "Dear Diary, It was a very hectic day at the ground. Not that I had to bowl many overs, but I had to field for so much time. In fact, I didnt bowl a single over. Strange!! I still dont know why everyone was looking at me like that. It all started with Shah Rukh coming to our dressing room to meet us. While shaking hand with me, he said some like "keep well", "one or two misses are fine". I think he is working too late these days. Even Sourav has gone crack. When Mc'cullam refused to keep after his knock, he asked me I would like to keep wickets. If that wasnt enough, during our bowling, when I asked Dada for an over or two, he started laughing. What the heck? If you didnt want me to bowl or bat then why did you pick me the team??? Who do they think I am?  Dhinesh...

Jaane Vo Kaise Log The Jinake Pyaar Ko Pyaar Milaa Hamane To Jab Kaliyaa.N Maa.Ngii Kaa.Nto.N Kaa Haar Milaa Jaane Vo ... Khushiyo.N Kii Ma.Nzil Dhuu.Ndhii To Gam Kii Gard Milii Chaahat Ke Nagame Chaahe To Aa.Nhe.N Sard Milii Dil Ke Bojh Ko Dhu.Ndhalaa Kar Gayaa Jo Gamakhaar Milaa Hamane To Jab ... Bichha.D Gayaa... Bichha.D Gayaa Har Saathii Dekar Pal Do Pal Kaa Saath Kisako Furasat Hai Jo Thaame Diivaano.N Kaa Haath Hamako Apanaa Saayaa Tak Aqasar Bezaar Milaa Hamane To Jab ... Isako Hii Jiinaa Kahate Hai.N To Yuu.Nhii Jii Le.Nge Uf Na Kare.Nge Lab Sii Le.Nge Aa.Nsuu Pii Le.Nge Gam Se Ab Ghabaraanaa Kaisaa, Gam Sau Baar Milaa Hamane To Jab ...

This one is from GMail blog. Top 9 reasons why one should use the archive facility in gmail(I use it): 9. Phone numbers and addresses You never know when you'll need a phone number someone emailed you or an address that was in a signature. 8. Procrastination Sometimes you want to get a message out of your inbox, but you don't want to deal with organization, and you don't want to trash it. 7. Posterity Just because you’re not famous now doesn’t mean that in forty years (or fifteen minutes) you won’t want to write your memoir. 6. Winning arguments “But on May 5, 2005 at 8:43pm EDT you said….” 5. Mailing lists Do you really need to know what Clintobamccain is doing every day? Auto-archive* their messages until you want to donate again. 4. Birthdays Search for “grandma birthday” and voila, find the message you sent her last April. Aren't you glad you archived instead of deleted? 3. That guy Remember that guy you thought you’d never need to get in touch with ever again? 2...

"Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well." - Samuel Butler

For past 1 month I was working on a web site and last week we were successful in upgrading that site. The link is http://mytoday.com/ If you view it via Desktop, you may call it ugly. It doesn't have the decorations and flash of other web sites. The reason for such site is that the site is designed for mobile browsers specially. If you have a mobile with a GPRS connection then any time, anywhere you will be able to visit our web site which eats just a few KB and takes very less time to load. It has got its own live cricket score along with a line of commentary. There is a news section, bollywood section. You submit your reviews about the movies also. My work on the web site has been very limited but I have learnt a lot while working on the site. I will bringing more updates on the web site as and when I am allowed to by the company. Bye for now, have a look at the site... from your mobiles of course...

These days I have been really annoyed by these newspapers, especially the Marathi ones. Every week there is some damn article about Health, yoga, and other topics. Most of these article are similar in nature, as they inform in the same say, what to do and what not to do. Some talk about how to keep your computer use while some about Mobiles. To be honest I really wonder if the person who writes those articles actually applies them in his own life. I am not saying all of them are totally wrong, but if you look around, you will find many many people doing things which are mentioned as "No No" in those articles, but they never face any problems. I am a computer engineer and of course, use computer for hours. Can you tell me how many people sit for just an hour and then have a walk then come back to work. Is it really practical??? Same is with eyes. No doubt you have to take care of health, but there are a limit to all such things. Pak gaya hun yaar.....

"It's not true that life is one damn thing after another; it is one damn thing over and over." - Edna St. Vincent Millay

In last one week I have seen 4 people in my own office using iPhone. Am I dreaming or Apple has finally entered Indian market???

Did you know that one third of all the viewers all over the world are from India. I mean nation "India" and not Indian subcontinent. So just imagine the viewership of Hockey in other countries, especially European ones. Of course, they have much much better infrastructure and thats why they have been successful in recent past unlike India or Pakistan. The FHI (International Hockey Federation) is its best to revive Indian Hockey. But as we have this week what results it is producing. I hope at least the women team qualify for the Olympics.

I have made all the albums in the Picasa online storage as Public. You can have a look at it here . Don't hesitate to comment on the albums.

Secrets are integral part of our life. There is no single person in this world who has no secrets hidden in his or her heart. Its foolish to tell all your secrets to the world, but even more foolish to keep all secret. You have revel them as and when required at the right time. You should have enough trust on the other person who will henceforth share that secret. But what if the trusted person makes a mistake and tells some one else the very thing you want to hide? Imagine the situation when you are at the same place where such a situation arises. The embarrassment is more when the person you don't want be informed is one your best friends. Its a difficult situation. I know it. Well, because I went through all this on last Saturday. I just wonder how that person is feeling now. I can only hope that he still believes me and my friendship.

Yesterday I got a LG KG300 from my company as I am working on a product related to website on mobiles. It requires GPRS and my very own Nokia 2300 model was not adequate. The mobile from company is not new mobile but it has got a very good technical specs, so I am happy. It has got 2 Mega pixel Camera. It was a surprise for my parents and my friends as I had told only 2 people about this mobile phone. Cheers for my new (new in terms of ownership) mobile.

"Patience has its limits. Take it too far, and it's cowardice." - George Jackson

A bad news for all sports lover in India. India was not able to qualify for the Olympics in Hockey. Its too sad that once the greatest superpower in hockey, Indian players would have to watch that Olympics hockey while sitting at home. With Cricketers doing so well Australia, its going to be very difficult for Hockey to get fundings in the future. Here is the news .

http://gnu.org.in/pipermail/linuxers/Week-of-Mon-20060918/054142.html This is what happens when ask for help at GNU.

     Yea, I know it may look strange and even more surprising(to Vikram also). But it happened!!! And it happened yesterday. Well, I decided to give a birthday party to my school friends. We were going to "Sardar Pavbhaji". Before all of us could gather, I had gone to Nik's place, so from there we came to our usual meeting place the "Katta" near Marine drive sea face. While we were coming, I had a brief discussion with Nikhil regarding some of my old mistakes, one of which was lake of passion towards Programming even though I love programming and software. I shouldn't have discussed  that issue, because it made me frustrated and angry with myself.      By 6.30 all of us were present...actually not all. Kalpesh had not come. And I knew when I tell them that Kalpesh would be joining us soon, there would be some grim faces. The reason? His temper. The worst I have ever seen. But not surprising for an Artist... So when I finally told Aditya and ...