A tale of two cities

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.

This is not the blog of Charles Dicken, so don't expect the summary of his book here. I have just borrowed the name of his book and opening lines as well (Though I must tell you these are among the very best, you will ever read). The name of this book just clicked, as I thought to write about my workplaces. After joining the present company, it so happened that I am continuously moving between two places Baroda and Surat. Now often or then I found myself comparing the two cities. Whenever anybody asks me about my place then the answer comes without a second thought, I am living in Baroda. But to be honest, I have spent more time in Surat.

But the reason behind my proclaimed affiliation with Baroda seems to be the apartment, which I have been

Confused thoughts about public reaction

Overreactions of the public have been often identified as the major reason behind any of the controversial issues ( sometimes doing good, some other times doing no good to the society), which can be regularly found in the newspapers and 24 x 7 news channels. Weather it be the case of Ganguly's exclusion from the Indian cricket team, khooshboo's idea on premarital sex or the discussion on the length of skirt worn by Sania, everytime some self-proclaimed contractors of social justice and euphemism try to use these as the tool to make themselves alive in the memory of general masses. If you are putting various politicians in this category, then you are pretty close to whom I am actually referring to.

An incident, which can be irrelevant to everybody except those who are directly involved; is being blown out of proportion. You must have witnessed the various interpretations made by some media geeks regarding the mute discussion between Dravid and Ganguly just before the start of the first test match in Lahore. Everybody is having their own opinions about everything which they see, observe or feel. If people are expressing it, sometimes this is categorized in the overreaction category as in the case of Ganguly's exclusion and Swami

Vegetarian Engineer

"I am working in energy sector and it's my moral responsibility to save energy. Now onwards I will not eat chicken; so that it can have a natural death and in future, will generate some hydrocarbon." - reply of a young engineer, when being asked about the reason behind his vegetarianism.

Hats off to the fantastic thought.

But even if you eat it my dear friend, I guess it will ultimately convert in hydrocarbon only, subject to many other favorable conditions.

Swami Ramdev

These types of things make me laugh. I am referring to the current Swami Ramdev episode. Let me tell you that I am not an ardent fan of him, but yes respect comes naturally for the people who are serving the people selflessly. Now the CPI leader has alleged him of selling drugs, which contains animal residue. I don’t know weather there is any truth in the allegations made by Ms Brinda Karat, but I do know that there are many more important works, which should take precedence over this whole issue.

Most of the followers of Swami are attached with him due to his wonderful knowledge of Yoga, which cured many of them, and not because of any religious reason. He is giving the Hindutva some weightage, but only after the full course of Pranayam coupled with many more yogas. So he is developing himself as a secular practitioner of Yoga and Ayurved, who is trying to restore the lost pride to this age old form of medicines.

Significant drop has been observed in the soft drink consumption, majority of which is being seen as the

To serve, not to be served

Education and literacy are two totally different things, albeit many people don't know the difference between them. Literacy refers to the ability to read and write, while education is the whole process of imparting or acquiring knowledge and skills. Though it's a very limiting definition of the word education, but you must have understood the basic difference.

Now , for understanding the situation in context of our country, lets go through the census results. The total population of India as at 0:00 hours on 1st March 2001 stood at 1,027,015,247 persons. With this, India became only the second country in the world after China to cross the one billion mark. The population of the country rose by 21.34 % between 1991 - 2001. The sex ratio (i.e., number of females per thousand males) of population was 933, rising from 927 as at the 1991 Census. Total literacy rate was returned as 65.38%.

One night @ call centre.

After reading the last few blogs of mine, you might be thinking that, this blog will condemn the harrasment of the woman working at call centres, which the country has witnessed recently in Banglore. But no, that's not my intention here. As nobody can write about all the bad things happening in society all the time, so its altogether a different blog. "One night @ the call centre" is the name of the latest book read by me. It was written by the same author, who had written "Five Point Someone". Both the books are great, but I particularly liked the later one.

There was only one confusion about this five point thing. In IIT Kanpur the grading is based on a ten point scale, which nearly characterizes the students having five point something (Though many people believe that grades are not the true reflection of the intelligence). In my college, grading was based on a five point scale. So I guess that if the author had been a student of my college, the name of the book had been "Two Point Something". Though I should tell you very frankly that it's tougher to get two point something grade as compared to five out of five, because you have to pass in all the subjects while maintaining a perfect D in all the subjects (I know that many four pointers will not agree to that, but I am).

Sorry man, here I was supposed to write some thing about his other book. I'll not write any comment on this book, rather I'll try to give the brief introduction to that book, which may help you to make your mind for

Concept of NON - MALE

Hey, you shouldn't worry, as I am not going to write anything about the 50:50 public or stuff anywhere related to that world. In this article I'll write about the empowerment of woman in highly technical fields especially in engineering side.

When I search my database for the name of the women who established themselves as the leaders in this field, I found that there are very few entries. You can blame it to the traditionally male dominated society or to my poor general knowledge. I have left this decision to you only. The very first name which strike my mind is Kalpana Chawala. Some others are ......... no, there is no other name in my database. Even if I will try to do this recalling exercise for rest of the world, Marie Curie is the only name. Even she is a chemist by profession, whereas we will limit ourselves to the core engineering only.

Nevertheless, hats off to these ladies. Also I don't think, if the similar question will be asked to any normal citizen of this world (a.k.a. normal IQ, normal EQ and normal SQ), he will be able to tell about more ladies.

We, the people of India

Before saying anything, I just want to say that I do not consider myself to be an acute critic of whatever is happening in society. But the sole reason of writing here is to express my view in front of others.

You people must have seen the major news covered on the news channels during last few days. Previous year ended with a rape involving a South African model in Mumbai and new year started with the flurry of sexual harassment cases against the women in New Delhi. It is shameful for our society. Rather I should say that it is shame on we, PEOPLE OF INDIA, being the part of this society.

If you are a regular listener of prime time news on any of the national news channel, you must have heard about the series of murders of elderly couples in New Delhi. Two days back, a family was burnt alive in Raghopur, just because they were suspect in a case of missing buffalo. Two person were shot dead in a

I believe I can fly

Writing down my new year's resolutions on a paper has never been there in my scheme of doing things. I tried to write it here, but again it seems that this will not be possible to pen down so many things. So again I will take the help of a beautiful song written by Mr. xyz, to define what and how I want to do in 2006..

I believe I can fly

I believe I can touch the sky

I think about it every night and day

Spread my wings and fly away

I believe I can soar

I see me running through that open door

I believe I can fly

There are miracles in life I must achieve

But first I know it starts inside of me, oh

If I can see it, then I can do it

If I just believe it, there's nothing to it

Hey, cuz I believe in me, oh

Hey, if I just spread my wings

I can fly

I can fly

I can fly,

Fly-I-I

After reading all this, don't say that I cannot fly. I can do whatever I want to do. Rather anybody can do whatever he wants.