Goes with the new blog title

Years 06' and 07' were not particularly good for me. Those in the know will understand why. But, I am happy to note that most of the troubling aspects of 06' and 07' have been resolved and 08' looks to be more promising.

Which is why I sat down a few nights ago and decided that the whole new year's resolutions thing is really not as bad as it might seem and so came up with a set of resolutions that I would like to execute this year. So far:

1. Pick up an Indian classical instrument. For many years now I have been toying with the idea of learning the flute, but with me being in Glasgow, etc. I never got around to it. Lately though I have been taken up with the sarod so am planning to go ahead with that. The reasons are manifold. I have always wanted to learn about the Indian music system and what better way than to dive deep into the straight end. Second, it just sounds damn good. Third, I love the levels of concentration that I achieve by listening to classical music, so am expecting that playing a classical instrument will enhance the experience even further.

2. Learn a new paradigm and language of programming. I toyed for a while with Ruby-on-Rails, C#, etc. and I said chuck it all. I come from a Mathematics background and as such I have realized that I enjoy engineering challenges which have a lot of Mathematics involved. Thankfully I decided to go down the embedded route and even more thankful that I joined a start-up called Mobiapps which has been throwing me into the deep end of almost all areas of embedded systems the past few years. For many years I have brushed past functional programming and now have decided that it is what I need to learn next. Haskell seems like the obvious choice and what with me being from Glasgow Uni, I am very much inclined to use GHC. It still bothers me that I skipped functional programming as one of my electives when it was being taught by one of the best in the field.

3. I wanted to restart this blog and that has happened now.

4. Restart cooking which I tremendously enjoy and used to do a lot of in Glasgow. I think I am quite good (this is at all of you who queued up outside my kitchen to get rasagollas in Glasgow). I find it extremely relaxing and I find it quite creative.

5. I used to conduct classes on Advaita and though I still read up lots on it, I would prefer to share it as conducting/ teaching is the best way to learn and crystallize one's thoughts.

This is bad.....Working late late nights

It is now 11:37:52 pm and I am still in the office because everything that can go wrong is going wrong. If there was one thing that stupid Murphy got right, it was his law. Poor sod, wonder what all he went through to finally hit upon this law.

Which brings me to a common strain among the knowledge workers of current India. We Indians are suddenly having it so good that we don't want to give any opportunity to lose it. And working like donkeys gives us the sense of not losing this.

There are two ways of looking at it. One, that we have been stamped upon so much and for so long that the outside world just did not realize what kind of potential is being wasted here. And literally all the work that is being thrown at us is just not enough to satiate the Indian corporate appetite.

The other way to look at it is that we drown ourselves in our work to forget about all the miseries that are facing us out there. An amazing outlet has opened up to vent all our frustration through. The flip side is we are losing out very badly on our personal lives. This has a very debilitating effect on our families and it is a vicious cycle. To forget all the problems we work harder and harder and because we work harder the problems intensify. The poor Indian is caught in a whirlwind of misery.

Where do we draw the line?

Traffic eases in Silicon Valley of India

Today I had one of the smoothest drives while getting to work. And that's because the auto-rickshaws (tuk tuks of Thailand) have gone on strike the entire day. All 75000 of them. And my god what a relief that is!

And here is the stupidest reason why they have gone on strike: Because the govt. has decided to up the fine amount for flouting some rule. How can anyone strike to oppose an increase in the fine amount? They shouldn't be flouting the rules to invite the fine in the first place.

Anyway, what today showed is how peaceful the roads of Bangalore can be without the damn autos. 75000 autos might not be a lot compared to the total vehicle population, but what is not realized is that auto drivers flout every existing traffic rule and in the process cause the most awful jams that give the common commuter high stress levels even before they reach their destination.

The complete solution is not in getting better roads and more flyovers and wider ring roads, etc. The basic problem is that commuters on the roads of Bangalore do not know basic road etiquette. The govt. should be focusing on ensuring that our driving schools impart this knowledge as well and the driving test should be stringent enough to fail people who do not stick to these rules.

What will an ignoramus do with the most sophisticated tools in the world if he does not know how to use them?

Kickstart

Testing.....testing.....testing.....
Bharat to blog world.....Bharat to blog world.....Bharat to blog world.....

Blog world: Shut the hell up and start blogging!

Bharat: *sigh* Story of my life. Try to be polite and nice and this is what you get.....ok let us get started then. Actually, not today. Tomorrow.

Blog world: Idiot.