Exerpts from an enlightening conversation...

Today was a day of reflection. Reflecting on my actions, my life, my ideals, my studies( not a lot in this context) and life in general. It started when i was writing my exam. The alphabets on the question paper started dancing and i was transported into another world. And to cap it all I had a thought provoking SMS chat with Sumedha( my fellow Assistant Editor- ECHO, junior in school and a good friend).

The day started with me wondering about how I have spent the past two years in college. How I have portrayed myself and how my actions have been. Not a great lot i must confess. I was probably too overawed with the concept of college that i spent too much time in the beginning of 11th keeping my mouth closed( in the sense that i did not participate too much in class discussion or talk to a lot of people. It would be fair to say that nobody knew me during the first few months of college.

Is being known to many people a necessity? In a sense it is because when you fall from a small pond called school to a large lake, the transition is sometimes difficult, especially when you had the alpha male kind of image in school. When you are used to people recognizing you and greeting you at every turn of the corridor in school, the hustle and bustle of a multitude of people draws you into a shell of your past glory. I will willingly admit that I did get into one such shell, a shell of denial of all things that does not make sense to you. A shell of snobbism and narrow mindedness. It took quite a while for me to realize what an ass I was becoming and by that time it was too late, and Im stuck with an image that I dont like... atleast with my college-mates.

This is a perfect example of an identity crisis. This arises when you are unsure of yourself. When you are not sure how you want others to think about you, to form their impression about you. This problem arises only when you either have a less-than-ideal set of friends or you set too much store by what people think about you.

In my case I think it would be the fear or being talked behind my back. It is quite a crippling and irritating thing to deal with. Firstly, thre are people who without ever having spoken a word to you conclude that you are incapable of certain things, then you have to deal with some people who listen to you speak just to find fault with you. In such a scenario, speaking your mind is almost out of question.

I am probably dwelling too much upon petty things. There is a whole world out there and the slander of a few people might well not decide anything, but it is always better not to antagonize anybody. Total Political Neutrality... the art of remaining politically neutral... That is he mantra for life.

Copenhagen..

For the first time in the history of civilization, man's incapability to attend to nature before himself was exhibited in plain view in the Copenhagen summit of 2009. Delegates and ministers sat through grueling hours of talks and debates which left them mentally and physically drained. But a lot more than their strength is going to be drained, this time in a permanent fashion, thanks to their hardheadedness and their refusal to compromise on any of their selfish demands.

Agreed, the world is facing an economic crisis. many millions are unemployed, many thousands have lost all their assets, but isn't money, like energy, indestructible? It can only be transferred from one account to another. The amount of money in the market today is the same, or rather more than the amount of money that was in the market an year ago. By money in the market i mean the number of people who are willing to invest in the market. Money still exists, but possibly in the wrong hands and being used for the wrong purposes.

If president Obama can give 50 billion dollars worth aid to Pakistan albeit a place from where nothing comes back to him, can he not spare a fraction of that amount for the welfare of humankind? Its not as if the USA is a saint. Statistics show that the average consumption of energy per person is the highest in the USA rather than in any country. So it becomes their primary duty to do something about this issue. The other developed countries are happily blaming the developed countries, but wasn't the bulk of the pollution done during the gunpowder age and the industrial revolution when they were the developing countries?

The absolute bullshit attitude of many Indians trying to think on the lines of the developed world disgusts me. The question i ask you guys is... Do you think the developed world ever thinks on our lines, do they think about our problems, our limitations and our efforts in trying to solve heir problems and cleaning their turd?

NO THEY DON"T.

And why don't they? because they don't have anything to gain from them.

If a nation is so bothered about this climate issue then i would love to see them invest in the ecological sector.

P.S. I pity the hundreds of delegates who went to copenhagen and could not even get to do some sight seeing and were all the time sitting in comference halls without participating in the discussions.. God sure gave them strong knees.

Chance gone begging...

Yesterday I was taking a casual stroll (sniff, one of my last till may next year.. :( ) and my eyes fell on a couple of girls, one of whom happened to be staring in my direction. As is my way, I politely ignored the stare and was walking when I heard her remark "CGA 180" to her friend... A harmless enough comment for someone who has never heard it before, but me being a good listener had heard in college just the previous day that CGA stands for Cute Guy Alert and the 180 is actually the angle through which the other girl had to turn in order to see him.

So i acted dumb and turned around to look at whomever she was referring to... But there was nobody behind me and then I understood that her comment was for me. Being the charming gentleman that I am, I faced her with a broad smile and said "I'm flattered. Thank you".

Their fair faces went completely beetroot red after I said that and that expression on their faces was something to savour. ( Poor things... I kind of pity them :P )

Anyway I am sure they would have given me their phone numbers if I had asked them but I really did not have enough currency to be able to talk to them. So i just laughed and walked away leaving them to their blushes.

So a chance gone begging..

I'm proud of myself.. :) It's not everyday that someone thinks I am cute. After all its me.

ciao

IPTV

We recently subscribed for the BSNL IPTV( Internet Protocol Television). For all of you who do not know what IPTV is, don't bother trying it out. Why? Because it sucks.... With a capital S.

The receptionist, or the term they give for it... customer coordinator is a lady with a sweet voice and as dumb as she's sweet. She will not know half the things you want to ask her, but the half that she does know will be explained with such enthusiasm that you don't get what she's saying anyway. So if you want to waste time and have got nothing to do then by all means call up this number 18602669929 and enjoy talking until you are unable to take it any longer.

Coming to its features, there is hardly anything to rave about. It has all the usual channels( most of them useless as always) and the few channels which you actually want have to be bought and when you actually buy all the channels you want then you will end up paying more than you would pay for your monthly cable connection. But one advantage is that it will not be prone to the vagaries of the Hathway cable and the clarity is quite good. It does get stuck occasionally due to the fluctuations in the internet connections.

Final Verdict.. NOT worth your money.. try TATA SKY or something else.