photogaphy and facebook

The great art of photography:
You click a button on your camera. Nature is quite beautiful.
Then you go to Adobe photoshop. Do a few standard tricks ther: hue saturation, sepia mutiny, sometimes bnw. And there it is.
I dont understand whats the big deal in being a good photographer.
I keep seeing a bunch of monkeys uploading stuff on facebook and ppl commenting left and right over their photography skills.
And btw, I hate it when ppl use photoshop on their pictures. On every picture !!!

And talking of facebook. Man oh man. Its even more disastrous than orkut.
The kind of shit you have to read there. I mean who the fuck is interested in your boring lives.

There are just a bunch of very nice guys who post some articles which I wouldnt have found elsewhere. So trying to stand the bucket load of crap for a few decent articles.

Random Updates

-- Its not easy living outside india. Its difficult and perhaps a good learning experience.
-- Life forces upon you a lot of friends. But as time passes all filtering happens and all the random people who you had to make small talk with phase out. Whats left is the goodness of a half dozen friends.
-- Kaminey is a nice album. But there are some albums where both Vishal Bhardwaj and Gulzar are trying too hard. The love song Pehli baar mohabbat is a little too sweet. And what does "gilhari ke jhoothe matar khaye the" means?

Rabbi - Bilqis

After meaningful songs like jugni, rabbi wrote another great one in 2008 in his album "Avengi Ja Nahin".
Its called Bilqis.
It talks about tragic events that happened in India in the past few years.

1. Bilqis Yakub Rasool: A victim of the Gujarat riots. 3 March 2002. 14 family members killed. And she was raped by gang of rioters.
2. Satyendra Dubey. Killed on 27 Nov 2003. For reporting corruption in NHAI Golden Quadrilateral Project by writing a letter to the Prime Minister. Requested the letter be kept private for his safety.
3. Shanmughan Manjunath. Killed on Nov 19 2005 for trying to expose adulteration in petrol pumps.
4. Navleen Kumar. Killed on Nov 19 2002. Stabbed 19 times. For trying to free the land from unlawful landholders to their rightful owners.

Some other people who found the song touching and described these events:
Bilqis and Bilqis

And if you listen to this song carefully there is a guitar playing the theme of the national anthem of India. And the lyrics goes "Jinhe naaz hai hind par wo kahan hain" (Where are those who are proud of India).
And we make so much hue and cry about our moral values and ideals and oh yes the big one: cultural strength.

Personally the murders 2,3,4 are important as they show corrpution and injustice in India.
But 1 is beyond all this. Its beyond the legal system. You cannon punish 5000 people who commit these crimes.
It is a failure of the human spirit. I am not sure if anyone of us can believe that someone can do this to someone. Kill all 14 people in a family. A family you do not know. A perfectly good set of people. Just because some religious leader ...... . I dont think I can even begin to write this. How can people be so idiotic and so hateful.

26

You can (at one point of time) have one and only one thing you love.
Just crossed 26th birthday.
There was no one who wished me in person. There were a few who called. Mostly family and out of compulsion.
There were a lot of people who knew and did not call, or chose to sms to avoid any conversation. Thanks to such considerate people :).

Birthdays are no big deal unless there is someone really happy that you were born :). And it may be a moment of happiness for them. You are very lucky if someone thinks so.
You being happy on your birthday is axiomatic.
Which reminds me of the utterly wrong argument that i have heard a myriad times.
This is what people argue (mostly as an argument of co-incidence):
"Out of all the planets what was the probability that there would be life on earth"

If you have ever made this argument, please dont. Because its NOT an argument. If you were on planet X you would be saying the same thing abt X. You are in the relative frame of X and your relative velocity is zero.

Taken for granted

There are some happinesses which we just take for granted.

1. The comfort of a daily schedule. Often mistaken as 'boredom' :).

2. The presence of old friends. Even if you rarely meet them. Just knowing  that they are there around the corner.

3. Perhaps the biggest one, good health.

Believe me it gets scary as any one of them is taken away. When its your last day at work in a place where you spent several years. Or leaving a place which you called home.

Leaving an old friend not knowing when will (if ever) you see him next.

It is at these times you realized how trivial were the issues on which you spent so much of thought.

Those small irrelevant things which were the cause of so much concern. Like getting late for office. Not being able to buy vegetables for a week. These were really non-issues.

As irrelevant as an year over a lifetime. It really doesnt matter if you spend a year or two doing nothing or anything you want. But we are so busy micromanaging our life that we forget to enjoy and take time off.

Life truly is too small to waste over petty things. And time heals everything. So anything which seems important right now will be forgotten before long.

Google

"And when users are in control, Google really has an opportunity to let innovation shine."

It requires someone with tremendous confidence to say this.
Google is like Federer at his peak. Dont know and dont care who the guy is on the other end of the court. I will smash the ball to a corner when it comes to me. And really Google has done it in the past few years. And its top executive team deserves this. They are truly a great team. Not so sure about the middle management.

Nothing really innovative has come into the web if it hasnt come out of the Google office. Lets just hope it doesnt become MS who would rather stop all innovation and concentrate on all negative strategies just to maintain its market share. They are way too defensive. And google is a good mix. It doesnt experiment too much with the search but other than that it is not too averse to risk taking.

Australian open

I mean it was a sad day you know. But I think I am taking this better than wimbledon you know. Wimbledon almost killed me, you know. I mean this again was anybody's game till the fifth set. Until Federer gifted it to Nadal. He can only choose to lose, you cant defeat him, you know.

What depresses me the most is the commentators who keep calling him the crestfallen federer. I mean seriously, I think he still carries himself with great aplomb. Besides weeping like a child that is :).
Both these guys are really great. Their camaraderie and sportsmanship is commendable. Again, besides the weeping that is :P.

Also I'll add my personal opinion and expert comments on Roger's game:
1. More backhand slice please. Nobody hits it better than you :).
2. More forehand inside out. Again they are just a treat for the eyes.
3. Less backhand topspin please :). Finals are not you backhand practice sessions :)
In short: "Does he look like a man with a plan?". Truly, he is missing a plan on Nadal for the last one year now. And I assume he still doesnt have a coach. He is too proud to have someone coach him 'tennis' :).
But that aside he is still the classiest player around.
And you know, I mean we all would wait for that 14th and 15th, you know, whenever they come you know. Really hoping for all of this happen in 2009 itself.

Satyam and ethics

Do you remember what was the punishment for not doing homework in school was. I do. Some teachers (not all) used to cane the students who did not do the home work.
Lets say I am a good student and finish homework everyday. But for some reason I *could* not do my homework (or just simply forgot) for one day. Would I want to get caned, no. So I copy/cheat whatever to submit it. Now the guy who did home work spent hours and I copied in minutes. So this exercise taught me that cheating is not too bad.
Now the real fault here is that *stupid* teacher who doesnt want to look at the picture but wants to punish every little mistake. And one thing I do remember about some teachers in my school was that they were a frustrated lot of people .

The whole thing starts from allegations on Raju@Satyam being dishonest -> Indians being dishonest. Be it at classroom or boardroom.

I think the systems in our country, schools, the way you have to find your way around govt offices, bribing and what not, are all quite twisted. And they do make an impact upon us. We do not really blame a dishonest man. A bribing official is accepted (nay, respected) in the society. We all know our politicians are the biggest crooks but we really dont mind. So do we really mind Raju here. I think not. If it were left to us as a closed system, we would let him continue. But what we really mind is the hurt it caused to indian corporations credibility in the global market. Other than that I think we are fine with it :-)

About the dishonesty, what I really found detestable is lab reports being forged in school and college to get a straight line. It immideately breaks all the foundations upon which science stands.