New Year and a New Trend

As my avid readers would have noticed till now, that all my blog posts are extremely well researched and backed up by scientific proof and years of careful observation and research.

Thats what makes this blog stand out from all the ones you see on the right side of this page under the heading Fellow mumblers. They write whatever they want to. 


But not me. I know I have a higher purpose in life to relieve mankind from its narrow minded thoughts and philosophies and fill it with all the blullshit crap (Have you noticed how these two words mean the same thing but are often used together as if they would mean something else. But again: I digress ) theories that I dish out on a day to day basis.

But all that ends now. I am going to start a new trend in the new year. I am also going to be like the millions of other bloggers out there, and write without whim or wish and write small posts about whatever comes to my mind at any point of time in a day. Be it a one liner or a 1274 Page epic (Work in progress-- but more on that later)

So for today.. Its:

Eurekkaaa !! I just rewrote Murphy's Law:
The probability of a problem occurring is directly proportional to the amount of confidence that you have that a problem will not occur.


In laymans's terms: Whatever can go wrong..will go wrong.

THIS IS COSMIC BLASTING OFF !!!!!!!!

Santa is Screwed this year - Work in Progress..

Two posts in one week. Woww.. I must be on a roll. Considering that I have only written 4 posts in 2010.  As usual, I have no theme in mind (yet), so bare with me.
It's time for Christmas and New Year now, time for making new year resolutions yet again, but do take a heed of what were your resolutions of last year and how successful have you been in keeping them ?
Do reply in the comments below.

Just thought of something to write about.  Now this post is going to go the same usual way of me preaching more of my useless philosophies/theories so please feel free to close the browser tab (Yes Tab as I hope you are still not using IE 6).
Last night I was talking
to one of my friends and was preaching about something which you might call as the X Gene, the quality which makes some one the leader of the pack, the Alpha Male/Female. I like to call this the Animalistic attraction.

There are some people around us who always seem to be the centre of attraction in whatever they do or whatever situation they might be in. People just tend to follow them , they are selected as the leader in every venture no matter the scale.
They are always part of the group of people others want to be a part of .......... ehhh.. what the hell... I am bored... So this post ends here now... and I am gonna publish this right away.

P.S. As you can probably tell (and if you can you must be a freaking genius) .. I started writing this couple of days ago, got busy and had to leave it half, and now I am in no moood to complete this today.
May be I will pick this up later and complete another one of my Bullshit theories.



UPDATE: I did complete this theory and it can be found here: The Animalistic attraction


THIS IS COSMIC BLASTING OFF !!!!!!!!

Philosophical Nomad

I have noticed something about the way I write my each blog post (This is a generalization so as most of the other generalizations; it can very well be false). Whenever I start a blog post, I start by using:

“Been a long time since I last wrote something, I have no idea about what to write, but thought of writing something”.

After this I usually dish out a whole lot of crap philosophies which I have and keep on going and going and going, until I realize that I am using Microsoft Word to write and if I copy paste this post into Blogger the really bad HTML formatting which the MS Office software suite uses is going to screw up the HTML formatting of the blog page. So then I spend another 2 hours messing around with the HTML code and finally come up with something presentable. (This explains the difference in the fonts/colors/font size of each of my posts).

Most of my fellow bloggers have a definite theme to what they write, about food , about Sarcasm, poems etc etc. But me, No Sireee... I write whatever crap I want to. My ever reliable and faithful readers keep on coming back to this blog hoping for some sort of a theme or a post which makes some sense to them.

NEWS FLASH for the Readers: But since you don't click on any of the Ad Links on this page and as a result I don't get paid by google, I am not going to take your requests into considerations and keep on writing what ever the hell I want to. After this blog post I am giving you a dead line of 2 months. Keep on coming to this blog. Keep on clicking on Ad Links and the day I reach 10$ in my Ad Sense Account I will start a poll to allow you to choose what I write about next.

Moving on: Now since I last wrote something here, Lots of things have changed over the past 6 months in my life. Starting with: The country I live in.

I moved to Sydney (Australia - for those of who are geographically challenged) at the end of July. I was working on a project at TCS Kochi which needed my presence at Sydney to better co-ordinate and work on it. So I did a lot of shopping, packed my bags, said good by to old friends and started on my way to fly to Sydney.

I have been living in Kerala for the past 2.5 years now (in July) and even after my endless attempts to learn to speak and understand Malayalam I have failed miserably (specially after I was threatened by my Malayalee friends to give up trying to learn Malayalam or face dire consequences).

So as I was leaving Kerala after 2.5 years through the immigration check at the Kochi international airport without knowing a single word of Malayalam, I was stopped.

My ticket to Sydney was going to be via a really long route of Kochi-Abu Dhabi and Abu-Dhabi to Sydney

I was inquired as to why I am travelling to Sydney, via Abu-Dhabi through Kochi, since my Hometown is Raipur and my passport has been issued in Bhopal . 

I was being informed that the customs department suspected that it was a fake passport and Visa and I was trying to illegally travel to Sydney.

I informed them that I have been working with TCS Kochi for the past 2.5 years and also presented my Id Card of the company. The best part was that the TCS Id Card shows the address of the office as Mumbai (for all of its employees). So that didn't help a bit in convincing them that I have been in Kochi for official reasons,

Finally I was presented with the strangest of requests: I was asked to speak in Malayalam to prove that I have indeed been working in Kochi. Now from my past posts you would be aware as to the extent of my Malayalam knowledge. So after a lot of arguing and fighting (with the custom officers), I was finally allowed to pass through. Thanks heaven that I had reached the airport 5 hours in advance as I was held for 2 hours explaining myself.

Finally after travelling through Abu-Dhabi I landed in Sydney on 26th July 2010. The day of my birthday, The day I turned 25.


Been in Sydney since then worked a lot many weekends and late nights. Been to some places around Sydney. From Memory: Snowy Mountains, Canberra, Opera House, Sydney Harbor Bridge, Manly to Spit Walk, Helensburg, Wyong, Wollongong etc etc ( May be I will write a travelogue later at some point of time )


Other major changes in life: I have started to cook,  and not just small daal-chawal stuff. Full fledged professional Chef Ishtyle. ( May be I will post some of my recipes and pictures of dishes later at some point of time)
(See .. See..My faithful readers how much you have to gain if you click on some measly links)


I have been preaching to some of my friends on how we can use Ad Sense and manipulate and attract searches to your site depending on the words used in the blog post. For example since I have used the Words like TCS, Kochi, Sydney, etc etc. If some one uses a combination of these words on google, My Blog post would rise up in the search results and their would be a higher chance of people coming to my Blog.
Some people call it as targeting effective keywords. For example people out of college and and into TCS usually search for TCS ILP at Trivandrum, TCS joining dates etc etc, now since I am using these words I might get more readers.
Then reason leads to believe that why not create an entire post out of only keywords which people are searching for (of the more shady kinds). That might lead to maximum traffic to a blog. (Well..maybe I would do that as well later at some point of time)


It is time for my coffee break now. So this post ends here. I am sure there might be multiple grammatical mistakes above, and I will correct them at some later point of time when I read this again. 


Till then:


THIS IS COSMIC BLASTING OFF !!!!!!!!

Lost and Found

Sometimes during a slow day when nothing seems to be happening. One single event can be so touching that it can put a smile on your face for the rest of the day. Where a series of unrelated, improbable events can combine together to change someone's life for ever, but might not affect you at all. Today turned out to be one of days for me.

Being a Saturday I was at home, relaxing watching some or the other movie as usual. Now I am a member of the EMS Kochi Library here which i visit once a month or so. I had borrowed a book from the library about 2 months ago (The Inscrutable Americans) . Suddenly I decided that its high time I returned the book and at around 2:00 PM in noon left for the library.

I have been in Kochi for the past 2.5 years and have been a member of this library for almost 2 years I would assume. I have been in and out of this place numerous times, issuing and returning the books. So as would be assumed my only interaction in this place would have to be with the Librarian. But since I don't speak Malayalam and the Librarian does not speak English/Hindi we never interact, we have never even smiled or greeted each other out of courtesy.

So as usual I went up to his table, gave him the book I wanted to return and without a word went in to search for a new book, after around 5 minutes when I returned with another book, I was asked by the Librarian to pay fine of 72 Rupees as my last book was overdue. Now this conversation to me according to my understanding happens like.

Librarian: "....... ....... .......... FINE ......... ........... ........... 72 Rupees". The rest of the words alas I cant understand as they were in Malayalam. So gathering that he wanted me to clear my dues I paid him the amount.

While he was making the bill for the fine, he suddenly stopped on looking at my name-surname in his records and asked me with a worried look on his face, "....... ....... .......... .......... HINDI.......... .......... ......... ??" Now I again assumed that he wanted to know if I can speak Hindi so I nodded my head in affirmation.

At this he pointed me to come with him into another large reading room which was empty and had a few Table Chairs in it. He pointed me to sit on a chair and went out again closing the door behind him.

Now at this I was obviously very speculative as to what was happening here, as I had no idea why I was made to sit in a separate room. After some time the Librarian returned with another one of his colleagues who spoke a spatter of English.

Now the next 30 minutes turned out to be some of the strangest of my life. What I am writing here is of what I understood from the spattering of English, Hindi and Malayalam combined in the conversation we three had in that room.

The Librarian took out a sheet of paper from his pocket which was a copy of a letter in Malayalam and also his phone. Then they had most unexpected request for me.

His colleague explained to me that the Librarian's Uncle has been missing for the past 23 years when he ran away from home leaving his family behind. His Uncle was supposed to be a man of 68 years now.

After 23 years they had finally received a letter about him from a small village in Gujarat. Now I don't even remember the name of the place from the letter. They showed me the postage stamp on that letter which contained the name of that place.

Now this small village is supposed to have some famous temple where people from far and near come and stay for years and years serving the visiting devotees. This letter was written in Malayalam by a visitor there who had found the Uncle in the Temple and after some conversation with the Uncle had sent out this letter.

I have no idea what the content of this letter was, and I am taking a wild guess that it said Mr.Krishna Kumar (The Uncle) is in the temple at this place in not a stable mental condition asking his family members to come and collect him.

Now the librarian had managed to acquire the phone number of the Sub-Inspector of the police station in Gujarat (I have no idea how) and he had called the SI , Mr Bavaria in the morning, but since Mr Bavaria did not speak Malayalam the conversation didnt make any sense to both of them.

The Librarian wanted to me to call up Mr. Bavaria and enquire about his Uncle.

Now the above conversation seems simple enough but it took all of 15 Minutes using the little bit of English that the colleague spoke for me to gather this.

So I called up Mr Bavaria, a Sub Inspector in a small village in Gujarat and asked about Mr Krishna Kumar (Uncle).

I explained to him from where I was calling and why and told him about the letter. The SI informed me that the gentleman who had wrote that letter had brought the Uncle to the police station and he was there with them as of now.

Now very happily I informed this to the Librarian who as expected also got very excited and ran out of the room again. After a few minutes he came back and asked me to tell Mr. Bavaria that the Librarian and his family would be coming to Gujarat in the next few days to take his uncle and if the SI can then meet with them as they don't speak Hindi/English/Gujarati.

After getting a confirmation from the SI that the family members are most welcome to come and take the uncle away with him, I finally kept the phone.

Got some very enthusiastic thanks from the Librarian (Whose name I still don't know).


UPDATE: No, I still had to pay the fine for the book.

I would be editing this post over a period of time as I am not at all happy with the way I wrote it. I just wanted to jot everything down before I forget it

THIS IS COSMIC BLASTING OFF !!!!!!!!

The City Beacon(s)

Sometimes a city becomes a living organism. It develops a personality of its own. Myths develop about the city. People start relating it to their life, Hell it even becomes their life. They think they can't live anywhere else but there. People leave/change their jobs just so that they can stay in the same city. We Indians have a special attachment to places that we stay in, and this is more true then ever when we talk about ...where else but 'BOMBAY'.

What can I have to say about the 'Maximum City' that hasn't already been said so. Better still, Who am I to talk about this city when I have never even stayed there. Maybe to the millions of residents of the city and my readers from the different parts of the world, I can dare to give a third party unbiased outside opinion about the city.

Bombay is one of the few cities in India that is known the world over. Its our very own Big Apple, The City of Dreams, The (Indian) City that never Sleeps. The names given to this city by the people who love and hate is probably as wide spread as the different people who live there.

People come from all over to chase their dreams, to make money, to live the good life. Some are pushed/forced to stay there even if they don't want to. Its these diverse group of people that give Bombay the character that it needs. Don't get me wrong, the buildings, the buses, the local trains,the roads, the over bridges represent the body parts of this living city. But for me its the people who are the soul and the life of this place. Imagine just for a second, any train station in Bombay, the picture you would have in your mind is one of huge rush. Trains coming in, going out every few minutes. Great 'hulla-baloo'. Now again imagine the same scenario, the same trains coming in and going out. The same announcements blaring out to you about the 9:23 fast local to Dadar. But this time imagine that you are the only one on that platform. Heck ! The only one for many kilometers around. No one but you.

Now depending upon your inner feelings, you can either love this emptiness (Like I do) or hate it.

In this city no matter where you go, you are never alone. There would be tens of others people grinding along with you trying to rush to some place. Every one seems to be in a constant race with each other. As , If they fail to catch this last local, their life would come to an end. But than again, their lives do come to an end due to these very locals. People fall off them, People jump in front of them. Or sometimes, Even Blown out of them.

I don't know this city. I have always visited it as an outsider as a guest. I have been there when I was a kid. It was a wonderful place to me. Looking at the ocean, staring up at the seemingly endless buildings. Looking at all the people just scrambling for a place to keep their foot. As a kid I had visited the famous land marks such as the Gateway of India, The Taj hotel, Marine Drive, Juhu Beach, Chaupati beach, trying to be pretending to be posh while secretly hoping to catch a glimpse of some film star while I am on the streets.

But then again I had the chance to visit these same places again some time ago. After 26/11 does the city have any hints that it has changed ? In this case I am not sure that my feelings should be of joy or sadness. But the people seem to be the same. No change at all. The faces have changed. The clothes would have changed in all these years. The cars have become more expensive, the houses a little more ostentatious. But the soul of the city remains the same.

On the other hand, the body of the city still carries the scars of the brutal attacks it faced and lived on to another day to tell the tales to a wanderer like me.

I was horrified to hear the tails from one of my closest friends about how their family was the different spots of attacks moments before they took place. Makes you wonder, what if the timing (The attacks/Or my friends) would have been a little different. I would lose someone who is very dear to me. And they on the other hand, might have lost everything (TouchWood).

So as I sat in front of the Gateway of India 13 years after I first laid my eyes on it. I failed to appreciate its beauty, its grandeur. All I could think of, all I could see were the gaping holes in the Majestic Taj , all I could think of was about the people who lost their lives in that building. I don't feel I am someone who can comment on the sorrow of the people who lost their loved ones in these attacks. But I am damn sure glad that I could once again sit in front the Gate to India with my dear friend, contemplating about my future.

Makes you wonder, even after we all know that the next attack is eminent, we all know that it can strike anytime, anywhere, anyone, what is it that drives us to stay on. I don't know, But I sure as hell would like to find this out someday on my own. I would like to fall in love with this city. Maybe call it my own.

Until that day I would be wandering in and out of it. Wondering, If this city is a 'Beacon' to us all. Or a city that 'Beacons' us to come and discover its wonders.

THIS IS COSMIC BLASTING OFF !!!!!!!!

Am I a Professional Writer ?

Its been almost 5 months since I last wrote something here.

That doesnt mean that I have not been doing any writing at all.

You would be happy to know that I write on a regular basis and get paid for it. People who publish my writings get paid even more then me.

Wait a minute, Did I quit my job in the past 5 months and become a full time writer ? Have some of my books been published, so that I am making money for myself and others ?

Well, as tempting as that sounds to the amateur writer in me, sadly thats not true.

I am still doing what I did last. Then why am I suddenly talking as if I am in contention for winning the next Pulitzer Prize ?

One fine day, couple of months ago when I was in my office at my desk, banging at the keys of a computer, staring at a screen much like this one. An idea suddenly crept up in mind.

" How would I define a Professional Writer in Layman's Terms ? "

Out of habit I hit windows+r (Yes, this linux lover uses windows at work) , typed 'notepad' and started jotting the points that would qualify someone to be called a professional writer.

Now I was doing this without the help of "Google Maata" (as i always say: jisko sab kuch aata) I started writing whatever came to my mind.

Few of the points where:

1) Someone who gets paid for writing.
2) Someone whose only job in the day is writing.
3) Someone who writes stuff that other people read.
4) Someone who writes stuff that other people/companies publish.
5) Someone whose writing these aforementioned people/companies make money on.

Now when I compared this above list to what I have been doing for the past 2 years, I realized I fulfill each and everyone of the above criterion.

Lemme elaborate:

1) Someone who gets paid for writing.

I get my salary because I write code the whole day

2) Someone whose only job in the day is writing.

Yes, either I am writing code or writing documents to elaborate what code I have written and why I have written it.

3) Someone who writes stuff that other people read.

I am a Web Developer. So whatever code I write people read them on websites.

4) Someone who writes stuff that other people/companies publish.

My company publishes my code on their servers.

5) Someone whose writing these aforementioned people/companies make money on.

My company gets paid for the code that I write for the clients.

Now according to some of my rough calculations, based on the last project that I completed. If I calculate the money made and the lines of code that I wrote.

I come up with quite a cool figure of 100 $/Line of Code.

That means if I write one line, someone - somewhere makes a cool 100 $.

Thats not too shabby for a writer who no one knows , wont you say ?

So going by my prevalent price of writing. This post would fetch : 6800 $

Think about that :)

THIS IS COSMIC BLASTING OFF !!!!!!!!