Pain Again ...

I felt this when I was leaving my country, my parents, my house and now it is coming back- An awful feeling of leaving people.
These three years have meant a lot to me. I have come across many people, learnt a lot from them.
To be honest, I am known as an introvert, busy with my own things not related much to the outside world. But for the past few months, I met few people who have not just pulled me out of my world but also showed me a very different aspect of life. Amazingly, they were in my life when I needed friends around, unknowingly they helped me heal and stand again. I was never so close to anyone.

The day I received my offer letter, I was excited to tell my friends as I have achieved what I wanted.
I was in my living room, my friends were all surrounding me and only one thing came to my mind “I am leaving”! That moment took me back three years when I was standing in front of my parents telling them about my intentions to come to US.

I just wanted to stop there, not tell anyone, just shut myself up, actually just not go. Soon the news spread, people have started congratulating me and I always have a grin in my face. Feelings like, “they just want me to go”, “why are they so happy that I am leaving” has started rushing in my mind. I know my friends are happy for me and are trying to support me, but right now I just need someone to hug me and say don’t go.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

“127” Hours, the only movie till date that I could not finish watching.
Heartbroken to see a man helpless.

The director has done a great job in making audience visualize themselves in Aron’s place. When the boulder dropped onto him, my heart sank. “What is he going to do?” was the first thing that came to my mind. I guess many knew the story but I was among those few who had no clue about it. As the movie started taking its toll loads of things started coming rushing to me, How can he use the things he has within his reach? Then there were “if only” thoughts haunting me. If only he had told someone where he was going, if only he was accompanied by someone, if only he had been more careful, if only he had chosen a different route. Clearly those thoughts were also going through the head of the real Aron Ralston.

The movie also has a feel of "Castaway". A feeling of being alone and left alone,helpless.Boyle had made a successful effort in making me feel I was living that situation.
The scenes about his dreams –sleeping or otherwise – taking him back to his childhood, to his parents made me cry. When he started imagining himself with the two women he met before his fall and the party they invited him to, and then about the beverages of all flavours which was then followed by the “Gatorade” shot he had left in his car, I was done. I walked out of the theatre and couldn’t watch it anymore. I read about this movie and then the book later.

127 Hours makes you think about what a person can endure and learn as they fight for survival. This is not about nature vs. human or survival. After thinking over this episode I realized, Ralston did not loose his arm instead he gained his life back. Surprisingly, this has now bought an affirmation in my life. Can just think about four letters here.. Life here I come!

Let there be light

“Harry Potter" mania is certainly ramping up, with the release of the movie “Harry Potter and harry potter and the deathly hallows “I watched this movie the other day. Harry Potter movies have always been a disappointment to me. I watch them to see the director’s cut. But this time I had many things going in my mind. It has been a common drama when a movie is release which is based on a book; people watch it and critize the writer to death. I do the same, but this time I wondered what else they could have done to fit in a two and half hour show. I myself felt it too lengthy after two hours.

Movies based on books can be hit or miss. I remember the time when I read “The Notebook”. The book made me cry in pain. I lived their life throughout. The movie also did a good amount of justice to the book. The Notebook is a novel that a person can read very quickly because it is engrossing and very light. It is a romantic drama that absorbs the reader. No wonder this book was turned into a movie . It inspires the reader and gives them hope that the power of love can transcend any obstacle. Definitely the movie was a hit.

If you ask anyone today whether they would like to read a book or go watch a movie, the popular answer would be a movie if the person is a teenager. Since movies are far and above much popular entertainment medium, most people would rather be entertained by spending a couple of bucks and hours experiencing visual and audio effects.

The question then becomes, is a Movie really a better entertainment medium for those who have read the book? Most often you would hear “NO”. Which then brings out a question, why are we biased towards a story that takes lot of time to finish as better entertainment than a story which has a “visualization effect” to it ? The answer is imagination.


When reading a book, we are so engrossed into the story line that we make a picture in our mind about the whole story.It is our imagination that is at work which makes us intensely feel about the situation which we care ourselves as a person and leave the rest as a background story. With this in mind, it would be very difficult for a director to get the exact same picture from our mental cabinet into the screen. But if this is the case then why don’t people read a book on a lazy afternoon, rather than wasting bucks watching a movie? The answer is time. We are influenced and ofcourse drawn towards time commitment of a couple of hours vs several days.
In conclusion, when asked Movie or a Book, It becomes a personal choice. I have always loved to read rather than watch because I feel that gives me a passage to let my imagination take a magic spell.

You have a Friend's Request

I remember I use to love to scrap friends, write testimonials. I use to check orkut in every 2 minutes for new scraps.
It isn’t too long since the facebook mania has haunted people. I read different blogs, articles on how facebook is much better which made me create an account. Guess what, all my friends were already in it.
I remember my first day in facebook, I was trying to understand the application and I had 35 requests already. These were not friend’s requests but requests to join some application. For a while I stayed away from it, but I confess facebook monster took me down. I too started with Mafia Wars and Café World. Phewww… It was difficult to delete it completely from my account.

I have observed that, a social network is a social structure between certain individuals that demonstrates how they are connected, whether they are casual acquaintances or if they have a close personal relationship. We went to a party the other night and met few people through a friend. Eventually I started hanging out with them, so thought of adding them to my “Facebook” account. Again woohoo hoo … All my other friends have already added them. This is a cool way for people to meet, make friends and eliminate possible awkward conversations.

But has anyone thought of the availability of your personal profile on the Internet for many people to see, even recruiters for that matter.
Also the time that is spent to play those games. Trust me on this, you get addicted to them no matter how firm you are.

A social skill is one of the most critical topics today. Being able to hold conversations and relate to other people helps people not only in their business lives but also in their daily lives. With the creation of, first, instant messenger and now Facebook, the young generation is beginning to become more dependent on these technologically based ways of communicating. Facebook makes it easier to meet a people, which as everyone knows, is the most difficult part of starting a relationship, but do we realize that we are becoming addicted and dependent upon this social network. If we continue to constantly use these social networks as our primary means of communicating I fear our social skills will slowly diminish. I fear the day when people will fail to have face-to-face conversations.

Ahhh.. Am I taking this to extremes?
Anyways! I am not a frequent facebook visitor anymore, but I agree I met many of my old friends through facebook. Facebook has always given you options, using which you can control your profile and your available information. Facebook may seem like another pointless website for people to waste their time on and I have definitely witnessed many people waste an unfathomable amount of time on it, Facebook is an easy way to keep in touch with old friends and meet new people and if used properly will not hinder but enhance people’s social skills.

You are holding it wrong!

I remember the day when Steven Jobs officially introduced iphone4. I was eager to check out videos, conference announcements and see press releases about this product.
But this was Steven’s least favorite presentation. Might be because millions had already seen iphone 4 after Gizmodo got its hands on the prototype.

Honestly speaking I don’t think that affected anything. People are still crazy about Apple products and will always be. And why not, People are been dreaming about video calling for a while now. It has a very high resolution; it showed us a new way of multitasking.

With an excellent reputation in the market; people wanting to have it and competitors envying it, I really can’t find a reason why Apple is always reluctant to except software issues if any. Come on at last it’s a machine. Apple replied back to the reception issues that customers are facing saying that it’s just the physical location of your hand that is wrong. Official statement from Apple says:

Gripping any mobile phone will result in some attenuation of its antenna performance, with certain places being worse than others depending on the placement of the antennas. This is a fact of life for every wireless phone. If you ever experience this on your iPhone 4, avoid gripping it in the lower left corner in a way that covers both sides of the black strip in the metal band, or simply use one of many available cases

So now Apple is also trying to teach people how to hold mobile phones, sorry let me correct myself... how to hold IPHONES. As of now moving the reception antenna to some other location is not a solution.

This makes me wonder, I have always blamed Microsoft for their theory of using their customers as a geniis, but is it the same with Apple.

Whatever may be it, I think iphone has built a reputation that I still love it.
But yeah... in a company where I work this would have been a “design defect” .

Take it light!

I need to make a confession to myself. Few people that I have met in my life have influenced me to a great extend. But unknowingly I have started expecting certain behavior from their side.

Looks like it’s a natural tendency. Strange thing has happened with me. I heard about my friend dating someone who I know. I was disappointed with him. And the fact that I cannot confront him as he hasn’t supposedly told me yet , made it more vulnerable. Suddenly after a week I realize I don’t want to talk to him.
This makes me think what went wrong or rather what is that I did not like. Is it the fact that he is dating or is it that he is dating a wrong person?
The real question is am I the person to even talk about this. I always had a picture of the girl my friend should date, the qualities that she should have. May be it bothers me that his girl friend does not fulfill my expectations.
But is that it or am I just making myself feel better by saying this.
Honestly, there is something more to it. I use to idolize my friend. I use to think he can never go wrong. He is dating his best friend’s ex., that to without talking to his best-friend. Yes, that’s what is bothering me. It scares me, what would happen when his best-friend will figure it out. Will he be upset or just throw some random viscous comment and move on. Does my friend deserve this!

Today sitting in office trying to get work done I ask myself, should I really be bothered of all this. Should I really be the one to predict? Should I really be the one to judge? He did not even care to tell me. He chosed an easy way out of this. May be that’s what is good for now. May God Bless them both and give me the vision, the strength to Take It Light!