...shoOOonya...

Marriage is a pretty complex concept ... In India, it is not just 2 individuals who get married but 2 families who get married. Hence the concept of Arranged Marriage is still very prevalent where marriages are arranged / fixed by the family elders. The entire concept of 'Love Marriage' as made popular by Bollywood where the rebellious young hearts go against all odds to get together has made the youngsters somewhat crave for such a fantasy and often mistaken lesser feelings for Love. But of course, many a flames stand the test of time and emerge the so-called 'true love' who eventually lead a 'happily lived forever' kind of life. Some of these love stories go through without a hitch with understanding / open minded parents while a majority of these face stiff resistance from their families and go through a lot of struggle. Some perish (the relationship, I mean) while some fight their families, some others emerge victorious winning the hearts of th...

    Laptops, tablets and smart phones have become pretty common and you are right now most probably reading this on one of these devices. And if you are a user of these devices, then the concept of cloud computing must be fascinating to you. You must have heard about it and might even have used it (knowingly / unknowingly). Cloud Computing in practical application means that you can upload/modify documents/files from one device and it will be available updated on all your devices since the documents are residing in a remote server and not on your device. Think of it as your email (yahoo / hotmail / gmail) which you can access from any device. Cloud computing has actually been around in concept and application for a long time now BUT has gained prominence only recently since the usage of multiple devices has become prominent only recently with individuals having 2 or more of devices like Laptop, tablet, smart phone etc. Also, since we use our own devices these days...

  I was literally laughing at myself (as well did exactly what the picture above shows) when I discovered my error.   For a long time now, I have been reading the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle … and all the while writing his name as Canon in several places. In fact, I have been using both, Conan and Canon, in different parts of my blog.   I am so ashamed and amused by this mistake of mine. I was mis-spelling the name of the author / creator of my favorite fictional character!!

This came as an email forward and I found it interesting enough to share … …………………………………………………………………………………… Moishe the Carpenter, returning home with his week's wages, was accosted by an armed robber on a deserted street. "Take my money," said Moishe, "but do me a favour: "Shoot a bullet through my hat otherwise my wife won't believe I was robbed." The robber obliged. He threw Moishe's hat into the air and put a bullet through it. "Let's make it look as if I ran into a gang of robbers," said Moishe, "otherwise my wife will call me a coward! Please shoot a number of holes through my coat." So the robber shot a number of holes through the carpenter's coat. "And now…" continued Moishe. "Sorry," interrupted the robber, "No more holes. I'm out of bullets." "That's all I wanted to know!" said Moishe. "Now hand me back my money and some more for t...

  The Mayan theme fascinated me. 2012 being predicted as the end of the world and this being 2012; I wanted to read more of Mayan related fiction. I saw the Mayan Prophecy at my dear friend Nikhil's home and grabbed it. After reading the Mayan Prophecy in May, I had ordered the other two books of the trilogy; reading them during July and August. Each of the 3 novels span across 600+ pages and has a heady mix of mythology, time travel (time warps and worm holes), out-of-body experiences, history, technology, weapons of mass destruction, faith/cult/religion, global politics, past-present-future paradox, aliens, human evolution, fantasy and science fiction   Mayan Prophecy begins with Michael, his background (parents, childhood and marriage), his schizophrenia and a new medical intern assigned to him culminating in Michael sacrificing himself and saving the world from total annihilation in 2012. The book introduces a lot of things and creates a mystery around them...

My first month in the new job was akin to my having feelings like 'Alice in Wonderland' … at times Lost, at times Confused, at times Bewildered, at times the feeling of 'What have I got myself into' … and so on. I have written earlier that this job is almost like a career shift for me. A lot of things here are new for me and what I bring to the table is the wisdom and experience of my past 10 years work experience. My skill set from the past is just a small part of my role here. A significant majority is all new to me. Having worked in IT companies till date (Patni, Satyam, Fujitsu) this one is going to be different. I have always been on the delivery side as a Consultant, now I would be crossing over to the managing projects and business development side too Also, the way KPMG works is different from the way my previous organizations worked. Things are different here, remarkably different. The feelings through the first 4 weeks oscillated from excit...

    A few months ago, I wrote about another 'tale of 3 cities' which was more of tale of 3 countries … where I had breakfast, lunch and dinner in 3 different countries. WELL, now my international travels have stopped and my passport is resting but the travel bug is still around albeit on domestic sectors. The first place my new job took me to was Ahmedabad. Since I had been to Ahmedabad, I wasn't so much excited. But now my travels take me to 3 cities which I have not visited earlier. Gwalior, Sagar & Ujjain in the princely state of Madhya Pradesh – 3 days – 3 cities This would actually be my first visit to MP. I am actually excited about this aspect of my job - the India Travel part. I always wanted to travel across India but my earlier jobs have taken me to different countries in past 7 years but seldom would I need to travel to other cities.       Trivia - I was also at Indore (although very briefly) during this visit. I did not re...

I got this as an email forward and loved it. It is Old but it was an enjoyable read nonetheless.   ........................................................................................................................................................   I think a retired English teacher was bored.   You think English is easy?? (read the following statements ALOUD ) 1) The bandage was wound around the wound. 2) The farm was used to produce produce . 3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse . 4) We must polish the Polish furniture.. 5) He could lead if he would get the lead out. 6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.. 7) Since there is no time like the present , he thought it was time to present the present . 8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum. 9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes. 10) I did not object to the object. ...

  This is what I posted in the previous blog post and also mentioned completing the Satyajit Ray series of short stories.   Series Completion Score: (as of 31 st July 2012) The Three Investigators          39 out of 43     Best of Satyajit Ray                 21 out of 21     (Completed) Sherlock: Exploits                    07 out of 12     Sherlock: Misadventures        23 out of 33     Total                                        90 out of 109   So I will now remove Satyajit Ray from the count and reset the scores.   Series Completion Score: (as of 31 st July 2012) The Three Investigators           39 out of 43     Sherlock: Exploits                     07 out of 12     Sherlock: Misadventures        23 out of 33     Total                                        69 out of 88   A total of 19 - 4 of Three Investigators, 5 of Sherlock Exploits and 10 of Sherlock Misadventures left to read from the list above which...

  Continued from previous post …   28. The Second Variety by Philip K Dick   This was not exactly a short story but a long story, as compared to the other stories of PKD that I have read till now. The central theme of man versus machine, with a nice little twist in the climax, along the concept of how humans design machines as a reflection of themselves; raises an evolutionary question. A pretty awesome story; I have to see the movie now. The story is set in a post-world-war-kind of era where the Russians gained an upper hand and destroyed most of Central America forcing people to flee to other countries in South America and Canada while the government and key people have fled to the 'Moon Base'. The war was almost over with the Russians winning when the Americans invented the 'claws' (robotic churning sphere of blades) which turned out to be more devastating than the radiation warheads; wiping out any and every form of human life in the vicinity. The Ru...

  Continued from previous post …   20. The Holcraft Covenant by Robert Ludlum The story has its background in the 1940's around the Nazis and then immediately fast forwards by 30 years to 1970's where the son of one of the 3 Nazi guys is given a huge responsibility of compensating the children of several of those who suffered due to Nazi actions a generation ago. And immediately Holcroft finds himself shadowed and followed by people who want to kill him as well as those who want to protect him. This part sounds like the Mayan Resurrection intro :) which I read at the beginning of the month. Not just himself; he needs to execute the task given to him with the mandatory help of 2 other persons whom he has to trace and find and then convince to join in the mission. There are too many different parties involved and it is never clear to our hero (and us), who are the protectors and who are the killers. The perception keeps changing as story progresses. There were t...

  Continued from previous post …   10. A Strange Night for Mr. Shasmal by Satyajit Ray Mr. Shasmal goes out to a Forest Guest House to spend some time only to encounter a strange night. He begins to see some animals in his rooms at night. At first, he doesn't realize their significance, but then he recognizes them. He also remembers the connection he had with them. Thing is, they are all animals that he had killed during the lifetime. And then, a man appears.   11. Sherlock Exploits: The Adventure of the Sealed Room by Adrian Doyle & John Carr Sherlock and Watson are up against the 'death' of a gentleman (while his wife is fatally wounded) by what appears to be a murderous and suicidal behavior of the said gentleman. Murder doesn't even seem to be a possibility since the 2 were found dead immediately after shots were heard and people rushed to the scene of the crime which was a room bolted shut from the inside. Its deemed as suicide albeit ...

  After an astounding quarter with a total reading going beyond 75, I was not sure if July would live up to the trend or prove to be an anti-climactic month. The demands of the new job were set to reduce my 'fiction' reading time and increase work related reading. As anticipated, there is a non-fiction addition to my reading this month (albeit a light one). A bit of travel helped me to increase my reading score.     The novels of the month were the Mayan Resurrection (Sequel to Mayan Prophecy) by Steve Alten, the Holcroft Covenant by Robert Ludlum and the 3 Mistakes of My Life by Chetan Bhagat. Between them, I continued reading the short story regulars - 4 Satyajit Ray stories, 5 by Philip K. Dick, 9 from the Misadventure series while 2 from the Exploits series of Sherlock Holmes. With the 4 Satyajit Ray stories I read, that completed the 'Best of Satyajit Ray' collection of 21 stories. Wish more of his work gets translated to English. I came to know r...