honey, I shrunk the media!

Media - a magical word. The plural of medium - the agent or instrument that communicates/conveys. While the television and newspapers and similar agents still act as the mass media, there arises a highly volatile, still powerful ‘personal media’.

Getting your writing published in any of the media was considered rare earlier. I still remember my first ever write up that was published in the daily newspaper, I had kept the cutting for a long time before I eventually lost it. The whole school was proud of it for the few days that the item appeared. And today, I write a blog and it is on the Internet!, for the whole world to see! (the whole world doesn’t want to read this rubbish, of course), but technically, it is there to be seen, whether anyone wants it or not. Something so unreachable is now available to anyone who has the interest and time. The very fact is amazing.

You cannot talk about personal media without mentioning the I-pods. These Apple’s kids are amazing and have brought lot of attention to personalising music. The other day, I saw a gadget that can play your ipod music on your car stereo, it can be used on static radios also. All you have to do is attach the transistor to the gadget which is already attached to the I pod and set it to a frequency that is empty(not used by other transmitting stations). Anyone in the radius of 50-100 feet can tune into his/her radio on the frequency that you are playing the music and listen to your music. and the people who use it, are not transmitting just music :)

Coming back to my blog, though I can call it ‘media’, it is definitely not mass media, it’s a highly personal media, I project only what I think is interesting and the things I think are important gets mentioned. Similarly I find millions of other people in this same media, they share the internet space and are part of the media.

Their views gets published, turns up at internet searches(google,msn) – this way, other people get to read it, some people who read it, think over it, sometimes act over it, and that is great. Sometimes, its not so great also. Anything that can be used, can be abused also. Internet probably is the most abused medium among all the media. The positive and the negative of this medium is the same, that it is ‘Available’. Available for use, available for abuse.

But for now, lets look at the bright side of it! Think what great things we can do with this gold mine. Viola! The media is personal

Books to buy (Compulsory this semester)

I was discussing with my friend, the best places in Chennai to buy pirated books and suddenly remembered the college days.

During my 2 years course, there was always a list of books that the college wanted us to buy compulsorily. Each one of us either had to place orders through the college, or buy a copy and that copy should be shown to the coordinator. He/She is said to note this and add it up to our internal marks!!! Anything that the students were supposed to do in the curriculam, was directly or indirectly and sometimes proportionately linked to the internal marks.

The college authorities took all this trouble to make sure that no single soul has been individually deprived of the knowledge and literature that the book provides. (its a pun... please!)

But in fact, these 'compulsory' books are the ones that are never, ever actually taught or used in the actual curriculam. To prove this to you, I will just give you the names of few compulsory books that we had to buy for the second semester; 'Power of positive thinking'. 'Case studies in Accounting'. Case studies! in accounting!! can you believe it?? Not even once during the classes were these books mentioned. Anyway, you get what i meant, right?

We being sensible hostelites (ahem), never really saw the reason to have more than one copy per 5 of us, or maybe 7 of us. Of course, there were few students who would buy each and every prescribed book and read it cover to cover. I dont mean them, I am talking about normal people, like me ;)

One of us would buy a pirated copy of the book and take it to the coordinator to show him/her and then hand it over to the next in waiting and that person would do the same and this will continue till all of us were convinced that our internal marks are safe. The bright part of this was, when I vacated the hostel, I did not have to carry away too many books. All my books fitted in to one compact cardboard box.

To Believe

Whats the most difficult thing you have ever done in life?? Few answers i got from my friends: To think, to forgive etc., 'To believe' tops my list. To believe and have faith in things that do not have statistical backing and reasonable explanations.

Imagine a situation where a majority of the populace believes and has faith in a particular something, but when you try to make sense out of it, you never find any.. The mind always looks for sense, atleast mine does. When I am told something, or read something and am required to believe in it, I try to explain things to my brain using science, using the evidence available. its simple- how difficult is it to believe something when it can be proved?

Unfortunately in some cases, the issues that are widely believed in, are never explained by science. For example, intuition. I never believed in it, in the sense that it has to be believed. I was happy to rename it as coincidence. The only reason i believed in coincidence was because I could explain it. its not complicated. but intuition? well..

Of late, i have been reading many books that has strong thoughts and as a result, it set the brain thinking. While I was at it, my unbendable brain, which never accepted anything that was not explained by science started thinking about few issues that science could not explain. Intuition and Faith.

I am not saying my thinking system is totally freaked out, I am just saying that now, instead of living just by the facts and by the rules, I have started taking the minute and minor risks that science or statistics cannot explain. yes, iam surprised by the results, yes i will continue to be surprised till i believe more.

yesterday, at 7 pm, i took the guindy kathipara route to the mount road instead of my regular 8 kilometer muddy and narrow short cut and reached home in just about half an hour and its only 6.5 kilometers. It was a regular weekday and usually the Kathipara route means 1.5 hours on the road in incredibly heavy traffic, not to mention that 7 pm is just the height of peak traffic. anyday my muddy road takes me home in forty minutes, so all these days i used that except yesterday. Yesterday, i just had this totally confident gut feeling that its better to take the kathipara route, i never doubted it. all the same, i was surprised to find the traffic considerably less.

See, I know i am not making too much sense here, and thats exactly the point. sometimes, you just believe and act. Yes, of course its difficult! now you know why i said believing is the most difficult thing?

Giving it some time

I was trying to use an application on my computer system. Though this was everyday stuff at work, the computer today was not very co-operative. it just kept on hanging every few seconds. And this was just the beginning of the day! just 10 AM in the morning. I had a helluva lot of work to be done and the phone was ringing incessantly- calls from all the ppl to whom i owed the work.

I was getting very impatient and had ended the program couple of times with Cntrl+Alt+Del. Now, I couldnt do that any longer because I had typed a long and complicated mail and I did not want to end program lest the mail gets lost without saving.

I had had an incredibly long day the day before, infact the past many weeks had been unusually hectic. Yesterday, I had worked for 14 soild hours and that too in a feverish pace, spending just ten minutes on lunch. I didnt wanna do that again today! I had got up in the morning looking for my jeans, thinking today is the casual friday but realised its just tuesday! and to top it all, my computer wont behave and its just the start of another long day!

I was at the end of my wits. What I really wanted to do was turn the table and break the **** computer and tear the papers that were waiting to be reviewd and rip the phone lines which hadnt stopped ringing. But, instead I closed my eyes. My eyes were burning due to lack of sleep. Tonight, I thought(as I used to think everyday), I will have a long, long, peaceful sleep. For a few minutes, my mind went blank and I stopped thinking - it was easy, tired that I was, I could easily switch off.

I opened my eyes few minutes later, to see that nothing has changed. The system was still hung and not working, the phone was still ringing, the papers were still there and one of the project managers had left a CD on my table to install an application(more work for me) I wanted to scream, but I realised that I was less angry than I was before.

I got up and got out of the crazy zone, I just decided to give it some time. after all, all those people saying 'time heals' cannot be total empty heads! My system manager used to tell us to give the system some time while in hang ups. I really hoped the time theory worked on my over worked brain and my stupid over worked electronic box.

I hadnt read the papers, I started with metro plus and soon I was completely engrossed in the news. I didnt bother to answer any more calls. After about twenty full minutes, I folded the papers and got up, completely distracted and feeling better, I returned to my desk and saw that my PC had got back its senses and was out of its trance and that my mail was not lost.

I hit the send button and started on the day's work, afresh, anew. I knew I would feel doubly frustrated and just worser than ever by the end of the day, but that did not matter. This was 'the now' and I was feeling better. Giving it some time helps, a lot! so far proved by experience on human nervous system and a few select electonic machines!

The Alchemist fever

Of late, i have been on a reading fever. I feel like reading all the time - this includes magazines, newspapers, fiction, non fiction, comics, etc., etc.,

When I had finished whatever printed matter I could lay my hands on, I started looking in the internet. Initially I read stuff related to work, then started looking for more interesting things to read. Though I had loads of work, I started copying pages of interest and read them in the seconds-long breaks I had!

Now, I wanted more interesting and substantial stuff to read, I started looking for e-books. Since I didnt know any great websites, i ended up reading some really throw away stuff. The free stuff online is really really trash-worth. Or maybe google doesnt list the good ones!

I never believed in buying books, because as far as I am concerned, books once read are completely exhausted. I never found a need to re-read any book, no matter how nice and interesting it was. While online and several websites wise, I grew an interest in the book 'The Alchemist'. I read a lot of nice reviews and I felt so eager that I actually decided to drive up to T-nagar and buy mysef a copy. I know a friend who has the book, but she is away on vacation, and I just couldnt wait!

So before I left, I thought I would read the amazon reviews. and i saw that more than 1 out 10 have given real bad reviews. No one has given a mediocre review, they either love it, or they hate it. No one says, its an OK read. Its either 'amazing' or 'trash'.

Spirits dampened, I am wondering now which category I will fall in - the love one or the hate one.. and have decided that I will buy myself a chicken biryani for the money that I kept aside for 'The Alchemist' and wait till my friend gets back to the city!

The Cautious Indians and the Armenian air

Whenever someone tries to sell something to me, I am automatically on my guard. This response is not a result of thinking, its just a reaction which is almost a reflex. I do not start thinking about the product or realise it may be useful to me, but its like an automatic switch that flicks on and says “no” the moment I sense that something is being marketed to me.

I realise its not just me who acts like this. I observed that lot of people around have the same tendency. I even spoke to few of them about it. The answers that I got from them were mostly similar. Many feel that our population is the kind that finds a way to capitalise on anything and everything accessible to them. As a result there are people who are selling goods that absolutely useless. Also, our parents keep cautioning us against such people who are ‘out there to grab your money for nothing’. As a result most Indians are overtly cautious about things.

A well read and well travelled friend of mine still thinks that its an Indian attribute to try to make money out of anything at all. Wait till I tell her that, in the country of Armenia, the locals sell cans of ‘Air of Armenia’ to tourists! Technically speaking, thats nothing but empty cans! Ever heard of making money out of thin air? :)

Of course, you can never catch an Indian tourist buying the air. 'Buying air'!!! dont you think its a ridiculous idea? Well, maybe we Indians are too cautious, but that suits us, and our wallets!

Simply Single

All weekdays, I have to get up early in the morning for my morning walk and then to freshen up and proceed to work. Saturday is one day that I get up as late as possible. The later I get up, the better equipped I am to face the upcoming fresh week ;)

Ideal Saturday: Meeting my friends (who are nice to me), and spending the evening reading the newspaper and sipping tea. Sunday starts with church and ends with me finishing the laundry and cleaning my bike.

If I didn’t live with aunty, I would probably fry an egg and make some toast for breakfast. Then throw in some half cooked veggies into a dabba for lunch to take to office. Day is good when there is quality work to be done. Day gets better (sometimes worse, he he) after a call from home; far away home.

Some evenings after work, I just like to take a detour on the way back home and meet a friend over coffee. Get back home, freshen up, finish dinner and hit the sack with a book! Do some easy reading or some useful studying before drifting into sleep.

Can life be any better?
I simply don’t understand why people decide to stop being good to themselves and get married!!! Well, for my mom’s sake at least, I do hope to understand one of these days!