An alternative to Indian Cricket

The hoopla around Indian cricket, especially about the cricketer has been so much that many of the folks today have forgotten our great national game-Hockey. Hockey appears nowhere in the discussion of sports within India. I will not be surprised if a 5 year old kid talks about Sachin Tendulkar's batting prowess or the number of wickets Anil Kumble has been piling up in his career. The kids will probably start believing that our national game is Cricket! What a shame! Honestly how many of the folks know Dhanraj Pillai? With the exception of the knowledgeable few, others will ask, Dhanraj who? That is unfortunately the sorry state of affairs.Stop.

Looking at the brighter side of things, there is equal if not more hoopla about soccer in the recent days. Looks like the whole country is getting excited about soccer, everyone wants to watch it, play it, talk about it all the time and definitely yearn be part of the world cup one way or the other. If we can take any cue from all the passion and enthusiasm, maybe it is high time we start thinking about a serious soccer team representing India. Gone or the days when we were rejected a place in the soccer because we couldn't play with our shoes on. Given the right focus and the coaching, we can form quite a strong team to find a place for ourselves in the near future world cup soccer.

If we achieve such a great task, will soccer turn out to be an alternative to Indian cricket? I can't wait for the alternative to take shape!

Do you know the purpose of your life?

If you do, then take a minute off to explain it to my friend Xavier who is being haunted with this question in the last 24 hours :).

Btw, we just had a small discussion on this over chat, the excerpt of which I have pasted below(my two cents worth of what I feel can be found in here).

Xavier: See my recent post
Srini: hang on
Srini: holy freak
Srini: such questions are considered sacrilegious in our lives
Srini: certain things are too be consumed not confronted with!
Xavier: so Can you link to that post asking your readers to post their views at my site
Srini: ooh yes..I can..will do it
Xavier: Many people just live life without asking what is the purpose of life.
Srini: I don't think thatz true
Srini: everyone does ask the question..but hardly does one find a convincing answer
Srini: and just because folks don't get a convincing answer, no one wants to think too deeply about it
Srini: btw, a purpose need not be a very high level complicated stuff and sth that should be world renowned and stuff
Xavier: But waht is it you are aiming for
Srini: it can be as simple as fulfilling our duties as a son, as a father, as a good employee, as a good citizen and above all as a good devotee!
Xavier: so can it be simpleified as lead a good life
Srini: yes..it definitely can be
Xavier: I am looking for personal experiences
Srini: but it can be equally a subjective opinion
Xavier: it is a kind of self-examining question
Srini: if I may call it "introspection"
Xavier: yes, that is a right word, 'personal introspection'
Xavier: Actaully this post is the first of many on these lines
Srini: ok..so u've got more comin huh?
Srini: I don't mean to discourage you or sth, but if you don't seem to find an answer after a while, it can lead to quite a bit of frustation
Srini: so beware!
Xavier: yep. it will be following up this idea.
Xavier: i am not actually looking for answers, I am looking for solutions
Srini: isn't solution close to gettin an answer?
Xavier: 'personal growth' to be precise
Srini: how do u say growth translates to purpose?
Xavier: answers are close-ended, solutions will be recursive
Xavier: you'll have to wait for the future posts for that ans
Srini: need not be all the time. Sometimes a solution can lead to the ultimate answer.
Srini: I can wait..I have been waitin for 26 years now to find that answer. Not sure if I will find it in this life...but I will keep my fingers crossed and see if I can see the "signs"
Xavier: So you think there will be an ultimate answer
Srini: I don't think..I know for a good fact that there is an ultimate answer
Xavier: Hmmm...
Srini: this is the biggest treasure hunt of our lives..we just have to watch the signs, follow the white rabbit that can lead us to the answer!
Xavier: following the signs alone will not help
Xavier: acting upon them will
Srini: thatz true..once u notice the signs, u will now what to do and how to do
Xavier: true
Srini: so maybe u shld now have an eye for the signs!
Xavier: i am learnign 'semiotics'. I guess that should help
Srini: what is that?
Srini: some Da Vinci kinda stuff?
Xavier: study of signs
Srini: aah ok..all the best..learn it well and grab the signs
Srini: lest the quest for the purpose of life go on.....

Title change

After some thoughtful consideration, I decided to change the title of my blog from its existing "Far from the madding crowd" to a more relevant one viz., "Pot Pourri".
When I started blogging in the early days, I did want to stick to topics that are more isolated in nature and does not talk about our daily wonts, but more and more I started blogging, I could not stay aloof from lot of mainstream activities in day to day life. Having digressed so much from the intended purpose, I decided to change the purpose itself! Pot pourri (suggested by my alter ego) seems to be the best fit that will be the 'uber' title for all the applauds and praises, rants and ramblings, facts and fictions and sometimes thoughts stemming out of my non-creative mind!

Hope my blog posts will find at least a thread of relevancy going forward.

Programmer's reply

I got the below contents as part of a forwarded mail. Definitely worth reading it and of course having a check on how many of the answers we have given so far! Btw, I have said almost everything at some point of time! :)

Top 20 replies by Programmers to QA when their programs don't work:

20. "That's weird..."
19. "It's never done that before."
18. "It worked yesterday."
17. "How is that possible?"
16. "It must be a hardware problem."
15. "What did you type in wrong to get it to crash?"
14. "There is something funky in your data."
13. "I haven't touched that module in weeks!"
12. "You must have the wrong version."
11. "It's just some unlucky coincidence."
10. "I can't test everything!"
9. "THIS can't be the source of THAT."
8. "It works, but it hasn't been tested."
7. "Somebody must have changed my code."
6. "Did you check for a virus on your system?"
5. "Even though it doesn't work, how does it feel?
4. "You can't use that version on your system."
3. "Why do you want to do it that way?"
2. "Where were you when the program blew up?"


And the Number One Reply by Programmers when their programs don't work would be:

"It works on my machine"

So howz life after marriage?

I had to create an exclusive post on this as I have been confronted with this question atleast close to a thousand odd times over these past three months.

I would really love to hear what other married folks would answer when thrown this question at them. In the initial days, it used to be fun to answer this question and I tried to give different answers(sometimes funny ones) to folks. But after a while, I really ran out of options and just started saying "Itz fine!". The first few seconds of exchanging your handshakes when running into any of my friends, acquaintances, relatives or colleagues has resulted so much in a stereo typed conversation that I sometimes do pre-preempt their question; "Marriage life is good". And now, I am thinking my answer should be different.

Married life does not leave one to grapple with the Herculean task of becoming a couple. If left to its own way, I guess life should not be any different from what it was pre marriage. Yes, you have another person sharing everything(or should I say almost everything?) in your life, but you still get to do things you have always been doing and living life in the way that you have always been living. Marriage has its one fringe benefits but does not take away your existing ones at all.

So after beating around the bush for a while, my answer to the question will henceforth be "Life after marriage is as good as it had always been" I am sure all married folks will concur

Reaching the magic number of 100 days

Honestly, I don't know what is magical about 100, but most seem to celebarate the mark of 100 days, the most notable being the Indian movie industry. Recently, even our chief minister Mr. Kuamarswamy celebarated his 100 days of being the CM! Celebaration for what joy is something to be questioned, but I will eschew such thoughts lest it should steer me away from the point of this posting.

100 days into my marriage, I feel good about a lot of things that has transpired over these days since the day I tied the knot. The occasion has been a thing of unending joy for my kith and kin and even today, there are folks who are as excited about it as they were on the so called 'D-Day'. Expanding your relative circle to accomodate a whole set of new folks, visiting them and knowing them better, participating in more family and social occasions have all been a great experience and most importantly of the lot is setting up a new family in a new place.

The ride has been good so far and I am optimistic about the remaining n-100 days for the ship to be sailing in a smooth course. Now, who is going to tell me what the exact value for 'n' is?

Rise of the Phoenix

Is it appropriate to compare my blogging activity with that of a Phoenix? Well, time can only be the answer for that, but attempting to emualate the characterisitic of a Phoenix is fun! Call it cunctation or hibernation; my long silence over these past many months has finally been broken. I am glad today to be filling up this space once again and there will be more to come as the clock ticks. Gone through an ocean of transformation in my life both officially and personally, I have been experiencing a tumble down roller coaster ride comparable to the one from the tower of Stratosphere!


While I will start filling up all the details in my future postings, I will also need to fill up myself with all the othe postings by fellow bloggers.

Here I come...

A Grand Exodus?

I was feeding the old adage, "Oh! its just a stone's throw away" for the past 26 years of my life (that is right from the day I was born) whether I had to shuttle between home and school, my hostel room and college or from my current apartment to office. Many have nursed a grudge against my vantage position of having both my place of abode and place of work in earshot distance and some have even shown explicit pangs of jealousy (more so because of their plight of not enjoying what I've been enjoying for all these years). But then, any good thing has to come to an end. Isn't that the name of the game? I am happy my good times lasted for 26 years and though it does give me the creeps of commuting long distance in the days and months to come, I am only hoping it gives me a new set of experience that I start nourishing and not become a victim of excessive traveling (now whatz that phobia called?).

The reason for all this very post is the fact that today is the last day I am enjoying the fact of staying close to office. Itz a new ball game when I come back on Monday (wow..long hols are always fun:)).

Staying close for ALL these years and now moving away, does deserve a Grand Exodus!

Until later,
On the move....

Message to the future

I happened to stumble upon this site called "F u t u r e M e. o r g" where one can actually leave any kinda message in their website and decide when the message needs to be delivered back to the mail id. I thought this was quite kewl and I actually went and left a message there to be delivered to me 10 years down the line! (hopefully I retain my yahoo id till or vice-versa). Ain't it fun to read about something that I had written 10 years back?

Collage

I felt that this would be the best way to put some of the most prominent thoughts running in my mind over the past three weeks. Read on...

One of my close friends got married and I had a chance to visit Guntur and Vijayawada having some amazing fun out there.

Made a very adventurous journey from Coimbatore to Bangalore traveling in one of the most inhuman conditions that reminded me of my early shuttles between Delhi and Pilani (some 7 years back!).

Been thinking for a while about the havoc caused by the abundance of rain (or lack of infrastructure) in Bangalore.

Enjoy listening to music from the latest gadget that I own (which sports an in-build mp3 player, flash drive, FM radio, FM recording and a digital voice recorder). I hope to start an audio blog soon (fingers crossed!).

Catching up with the "voracious readers" of Bangalore by joining EasyLib (thanks to Xavier)

And last but definitely not the least, I am looking forward to September 5th (with loads of mixed feelings)!

They are in no particular order (no I don't want to use the word "random" here!), and maybe that is why I felt calling it a "collage".