Angry, Happy, Jovial, Dumb, Morose...and the list is endless

Its typical of the way we classify people....we bracket them into boxes as boring, sad, jovial, adventurous....and on and on and on....

But the reality really lies in the fact that each person encompasses ALL of these qualities or behaviors and more.......and our perception of people is just a very narrow view of them depending on the circumstance that we encounter them in...

I guess when you read this..it seems as obvious as the fact that night follows day..but the next time you try and make a comment about someone "that chap is a bore", if you can still have this in mind, it might just make you think twice...!!!! Atleast it made me...and that made me wonder........Actually practicing keeping an open mind is WAY tougher than thinking or talking about it...

Passion for technology ...contd

Before you start reading, let me warn you that this definitely qualifies as a *RANT*

Software Architects and “Passion” for technology.

A lot of the time when talking to people who are in the field of software technology itself, I get the distinct feeling that people feel that “passion” for technology is the same as having a “knowledge” of technology. I tend to disagree. And Strongly.

In no way, is KNOWLEDGE (either in breadth or in depth) of technology the same as a “Passion” for technology. There is a HUGE difference between the two. Knowledge of technology is what provides the technical know-how to create a solution. BUT, “Passion” is what ensures that this know-how is used in the best and most suitable manner.

Let me cite a simplistic example:

Common SQL best practice: Dont use Select * in your Select statements. But, i have come across a specific scenario in my projects where i thought it made SENSE to use Select * because the usual drawbacks associated didnt apply in this case and the benefit was flexibility, which we wanted.

So, if i go just by the standards, i would end up writing a lot of different SQL statements for something that got very cleanly handled with just one statement.

What i am trying to highlight here is that there are always standards and references but not always is the decision to choose which is applicable and which is not, IN A PARTICULAR CIRCUMSTANCE, always a straight forward or a obvious one. And in such situations, I think it is the “Passion” that I refer to, the “FEELING” to do the “correct thing” which makes a difference as to whether the selected choice is the best choice.

I thought about it honestly and wondered if I could just call this feeling “Common Sense” but I decided against calling it that because I have myself been in a lot of situations where my “Common sense”, if I use it, points me to the right solution, but I have honestly not “CARED” enough about technology and have had no qualms about choosing the worse of 2 available options just because the worse one was more convenient or faster or easier or something i already knew and did not have to spend time learning about.

Think about it: You must have worked with people, maybe even yourself, who made mistakes inspite of knowing that what they were doing were a mistake. I definitely have detected loads of code review defects, which i thought should never have been there, especially coz the developer agreed point-blank that there was no justification for them not implementing it. This is a direct result of the lack of the very “passion” that I am referring to.

There is another commonly used argument against “Passion” which is that people with “passion” for technology are so absorbed in it that they will ignore the customer needs / project constraints. I again disagree.

a. I think it is more of a assumption that people have that a person with a “Passion” for technology is oblivious to customer needs / constraints. I think any reasonably intelligent person understands that there are ALWAYS constraints in doing anything and that applies to software as well, just like to any aspect of life, for that matter. So, the assumption that someone who is passionate about technology will forgo all his customers needs or benefits or all the constraints that apply to his work, outside of his control, seems to be more of a knee-jerk reaction to the “geek” cliché rather than anything else.

b. I dont see any reason why a person who is passionate about technology will be any more oblivious to his overall environment than a person who is not passionate about technology. Does being passionate about technology make a person unreasonable or vice versa? I think neither.

c. A Passion for technology is not something as narrow or restrictive as “I like .NET” or “SAP is the best”. A passion for technology is the belief that SCIENCE (which gives rise to technology) can and is being used to provide and create SOLUTIONs to PROBLEMS that exist. And anyone who thinks with that defintion of technology would probably not be easily swayed from his customers requirements or constraints that exist.

So, at this point, to rephrase a question once put to me,

Would you rather have a architect who is passionate about technology and who can understand and work with it within his client’s needs and constraints

OR

Would you prefer to have an architect who understand the clients needs and constraints and knows technology (but doesnt really care much for it)

Independence Day.....

Independence Day TV…

It was inevitable, with all our television channels and all our scores of news channels, that something like Independence Day would fall prey to the same commercialisation that everything else has fallen to in recent times..

There are all sorts of channels and programs having NOTHING relevant to Independance day being advertised all over TV and Radio, all just trying to cash in on the “holiday” and use it to their advantage to get the maximum number of eyeballs and eardrums for that day.

There are movie channels trying to exploit the afternoon of Independance Day to get us to increase their TRP’s by watching “KRRISH”

There are news channels trying to exploit it by conducting some INANE first ever Indo – Pak opinion polls...

There are positives to everything and probably the saddest but greatest positive here is that were it not for the ads promoting KRRISH, a LOT of people may not even remember that it is in fact India’s Independance day today.

Sad but true.

National Anthem at the movies…

I was one of those people who treated the idea that some Maharastra government came up with to play the national anthem before every screening in theatres in bombay with scorn and contempt. To me, it was just another inane, nonsensical political gimmick....

But, everytime since, whenever i have stood before the 70MM screen and watched the National Anthem being played, I have, in all honesty, really relished it because ever since leaving my school, where the national anthem was played everyday in assembly, i had NEVER ever got a chance to sing / hear the national anthem and forgotten what a great feeling it really is....especially when you sing along to it.

Its sad that other than people who represent the country officially, the common man, whom that very flag represents, rarely gets a chance to even hear it, leave alone sing it in any aspect of his normal life.

So, in a warped up way, i am thankful to whatever politician came up with that idea, for whatever his reasons may have been, because it gives me a rare joy everytime i go to watch a movie. It takes me back to school in a very nostalgic way.

One last word…

Wordweb seems to think that Independence = “Freedom from control or influence of another or others”

If that is a correct definition of Independance, then honestly, from 1997 to 2007, havent we been going in the OPPOSITE direction?

After all, our markets are dependant on others now. When NASDAQ falls, so does the BSE. Our economy is more prone to get affected by external factors. Even our Nuclear program now has external influence on it. We are dependant on others more and more now than we were before 1992. Am i just being simplistic or maybe i should just take WordWeb with a pinch of salt?

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY.

Rains...and the Casualty section...

Its been a few years since I have actually been in Bombay for the entire monsoon (last was in 2004) and I have missed it...
Rains, especially the crazy kinds that happen around here is just something that i am so habituated to that anything less than that makes me so left out...
Its been raining almost non-stop for 48 hours now...and incessantly throughout the week....And if my manager found out about the time i spent at the window, i would have to log in half the week time atleast as leave :)

I happened to be in the Casualty section of a local hospital earlier this week and it was raining just as much that day...and in the short half hour that i was there, there was a steady stream of people of which atleast half of them were there due to some accident caused by a mixture of the rains and the poor civic infrastructure in my city....
Weather like this definitely doesnt do any favours especially to the vast majority of the people in this city for whom life is generally a struggle, without the added pain caused by circumstances like this.

Listening to Kailasa's latest. Liked most of the album but special mentions for CHHAP TILAK...lovely song...and the title track..JHOOMO RE....loved it...
Reading : David Copperfield :)

Re-living my childhood, as some like to say....but i maintain that i never grew up....

Cheers,
Me

P.S: I love the queen of rain...
P.P.S: As brain gets more and more addled, mails get more and more intermittent....so till next time, Good Afternoon, Good Evening and Good Night :)

Extras....Dostoevsky and Bheja Fry

Wonder if you ever noticed some of the so-called extra’s in any scene especially in ads and in movie scenes. By extras, i dont necessarily mean the lesser known actors but just those who are in the frame of action but not in the spotlight. Most times, i have found that the expressions on the faces of these people are so hilariously funny that its worth missing the real dialogue of the scene or the catch phrase of the ad to spot the look of cluelessness stamped on the faces of these chaps...

Khaasi : remember the guy in the Anchor toothpaste commercial that you brought our attention to once :))))

Just finished reading Crime and Punishment...its a nice book, i thought. But i must say that you have to read it to understand the starkness and at times hopelessness in atmosphere that the author is capable of creating...Definitely not light reading and I used to find a regular dose of PGW was needed to help negate some of the after effects that a book like this is capable of creating. A lot of good / bad things can be said about him but no one could accuse him of being a ray of sunshine, this Dostoevsky chap :))

Saw Bheja fry. Short, Funny and if you like characters, definitely a must – see :)) The I-T officer inspired by music may sound cliched but turned out to be a genuinely HILARIOUS character well acted out by Vinay. Kudos.

Peace,

Me.

P.S: I cant wait to see Spiderman- 3 !!!

Buddha hoga tera baap ......

Thats the catch phrase plastered all over the hoardings over most of the major stations on the central railway on my daily route...and i must say...i love it !!!!! :D :D

Using a popular slang phrase which a lot of us might have heard in anger...in a pretty comic way...is something that really tickled my funny bone :))

I think that the creative team who thought of the usage of this phrase, coupled with the name of the tv series that it is advertising...”Mera Bharat Jawaan” which in itself is a rip-off from the ever so popular “Mera Bharat Mahaan” deserve to be applauded for what is, to me, a sheer stroke of genius...

i wonder who these really imaginative people are...who are capable of just coming up with these ideas.

BTW, the ads for the series itself is out on TV and that is hilarious as well....wherein there are a bunch of geriatrics, led by the perennially old aged A.K.Hangal, mouthing the above dialogue and showing off their attitude....nice!!! :)

Peace,

Me.

P.S: I think A.K. Hangal must have been born old. I do not recollect any movie / tv series of his in which the character played by him was aged less than 60 years old ..he truly deserves the tag of the “Old Man of India”

P.P.S : If any one can recollect any movie / series that features A.K. Hangal wherein he has deviated from his trademark age, do let me know. I have a morbid curiosity to see what that would look like. It is impossible for someone of my limited imagination to even imagine that.

P.P.P.S : Disclaimer : The series mentioned above is not even out yet, i think, and the ingenuity (IMHO) used in its nomenclature is in no way necessarily reflective of the same standard in its execution.

The Great Gatsby.....Trekking time....

Read this book last week....loved it...the story, the style of writing...F.Scott Fitzgerald has written a gem of a book, IMHO.
Its a thin thin novel but i was totally absorbed in it till the end.

Went for a trek last weekend, to a place called Harishchandragad, in Maharashtra. The 3 day trek was good exercise and a lot of fun.
Rode in a truck, slept under starry skies, lived in a cave, climbed a lot, relieved myself out in the open, saw a snake and a scorpion at arms length, peered off cliffs at 4700 feet above sea level..and generally had a ball of a time.

Its crazy how the clammy feeling of fear can blank out everything from your mind...even if only temporarily.

It would be great to share those scenes with with you but given my abhorrence for cameras, I will have to wait for science to be able to print memories from the recesses of my brain in order to do that. :)

Anyways, have a great friday tomm and a great weekend ahead.

Peace,
Me.

2 quotes from the Great Gatsby :

1. Reserving judgements is a matter of infinite hope.

2. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning——
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

When it rains..it pours

I travel in a local train to work and since its a good half hour everyday...i generally have something to read or listen to inorder to bide my time.... I have a small mp3 player that has some songs that i generally listen to when in the mood...I am a bit careless with my player and generally tend to drop it every so often....(No respect for hard earned money, my parents always complained)

I recently dropped my player at the platform on Dadar station and something really unique happened to it since then...Probably some component got badly shaken up but the net effect of that is that now....when i play a song, the lead singer / music takes a backseat and the backing vocals / music is pronounced for most of the songs। I am guessing that the wiring for channel which carries the input for the leads somehow has got messed up in the fall....

The best part of this is that I am now seeing my old songs in a completely different light...the same song can sound so distinctly familiar yet distant when the voice that you are hearing is that of the backing vocalists...and the lead is but a shadow in the background। Ditto for the instruments.

I am also hearing notes that I never heard in the song ever (There is only so much clarity you can get on a cheap portable player :)).

The feeling of seeing what was once centrestage and the cynosure of all eyes being relegated to the wings and those seemingly unimportant non-entities taking pride of place by an abrupt and sudden twist of fate is a unnerving and a humbling feeling...

Till I bug your lives again, Good Bye and Good Luck (A really really good movie. Thanks, Nikhil, for the recommendation)

P.S: Two mails in quick succession, you must be saying, if u managed to reach this far :) Congrats.
P.P.S : Leave you all with a poem. A wonderful one albeit sad. So ditch reading further if you are in a good mood :P

When we two parted - Lord Byron

When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted,
To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.

The dew of the morning
Sank chill on my brow
It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
And light is thy fame:
I hear thy name spoken,
And share in its shame.

They name thee before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o'er me
Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,
Who knew thee too well:
Long, long shall I rue thee
Too deeply to tell.

In secret we met
In silence I grieve
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive.
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?
With silence and tears.

A Moral Dilemma or am i just too touchy ?

On the flight back from Seattle to Amsterdam..2 weeks ago…I was lucky enough to get a aisle seat (thanks to 24 hrs internet check-in) which is always a great relief. Though I am no Gregory Peck, squeezing my legs into the cramped economy class leg room is a huge pain and with a 10-hour flight ahead, I definitely don’t want to get stuck in a middle seat…

So, as I was sitting blissfully happy in my aisle seat trying to decide which movies were worth my attention, I noticed that there was a BIG Indian fellow in the adjoining aisle. This chap must have been definitely taller than 6 feet in height and a good 3 feet in width…and he didn’t seem thrilled by the prospect of the long flight ahead but was probably buoying himself with the consolation of being a little more comfortable with his feet stretched out in the aisle….

I have no idea if u have seen dreams being shattered in front of your eyes but this was the closest I have got…A middle aged Indian lady who had the seat next to our big fellow came and stood in front of him in the aisle and REQUESTED him to let her sit in the aisle seat…citing her AGE as the reason for wanting to sit in the aisle seat….Our chap, brave lad that he was, started to explain that he had specifically picked this seat as it has more legroom and that it was extremely difficult for him to fit into a MIDDLE seat..At this, our dear lady actually cited her age and her health as reasons and made a blatant and poor attempt to try and act old and frail.. In the face of this emotional assault coupled with our sometimes silly emotionality, our poor Indian hero succumbed and actually made way for that lady and sat himself in the middle seat….

I still vividly remember the crestfallen look on his face as he squirmed uncomfortably in the middle seat. I couldn’t help steal glances during the rest of the flight to check on our Indian hero and I think his face reflected his pain so clearly along with the expression of “If only I hadn’t…”
The scary fact is that I kept wondering what I would have done in his position and it is a toss-up as to whether I would have acted any different.

I wonder if it is all the so called values instilled in us during our formative years that prevent us from having the courage to stand up for our rights resulting in us ending up as suckers for a sob story.

Moral Dilemma : Respect / Concern for the aged and infirm V/S Being taken for a ride by pretenders

Cheers,
Me

P.S: Some great Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan songs : (Been listening to them for some time now)
Daata ke ghulamon ko.. Haqq Ali Maula .. Hae Kahan ka Iraada sanam.. Gham hain ya Khushi hain too… Dulhe Ka Sehra…

P.P.S: I haven’t heard a singer yet whose voice reflects pure passion the way Nusrat does. Brilliant!!!!

P.P.P.S : This P.S’ing habit is a relict of the Infy KEC-General days J Don’t remember the name of the guy who was most famous for it back in the day. Chandrashekhar Garre, was it?