Three Books

I have always been wondering how can some one read the whole novel at one shot or in one night . However intersting that novel may be , the numerous award it would have won,might have been the Best Seller for numerous times. Still , after certain number of pages ,I used to feel sleepy . But this idea changed when I read " Five Point Some one " then " One night @ the call center " and now the latest one " Mediocre But Arrogant " .
I am sure if you belong to youth community of India and have spent some time in hostel you would definitely find atleast some part of the novel writen from your life .For the series of chapters you might feel that everything whats written in that book belongs to your life and suddenly a new chapter arrives which is not altogether related to you. But it has been written so well and the story moves in such an appealing manner that its difficult to stop imagining yourself in the place of the main character of the book. Chetan bhagat and Abbey might have used slangs through out their writing but it definitely makes the story more interesting . While reading some of the chapters in these books specially " Five point some one " and " MBA" , I was jumping on the chair and asking my self again and again .. " Adi why didn't you do all these things .. OR why didn't this thing happened with you OR I wanna go to college again and do all these things .. " If you have read these books and belong to IIIT you can very well understand my fealings.

The Hyperinflation

As the world sees Germany: A nation that caused two most disastrous and economy ruining wars.The Germans have a very strong drive in them to make their country a superpower . Although, their nation does deserve to become one. But , the over enthusiasm in the people results in failures and ultimately leading them into a forlorn position.After the First World War, Germany was forced to sign ‘The Treaty of Versailles’ which marked its defeat. The treaty was of a great humiliation for Germans and finally they had to pay huge amount to the US ,et al. This lead to the most turbulent inflation world has ever seen.
As the Richard Evans says in his book “ The coming of the Third Reach”, the value of Deutsch Mark (German currency) declined at an unthinkable rate.In December 1918, the value of U.S. dollar was just above 4 marks on the exchange in Berlin.But, it became 12 marks in April 1919. And then it reclined at such a bedazzling rate that the value of a dollar became 17,000 marks in Jan 1923; 4,621,000 in Aug and finally crashed to 4,200,000,000,000 marks in December. An unbelievable figure! I know these figures seemed to be cooked up, but the harsh reality is that they are not! Definitely the inflation was terrifying.
Money lost its meaning completely, only things which were left important were the food, shelter and some of the vital needs. Employees, after collecting the their salary,that too in sacks , used to run to the departmental stores for buying out things, fearing that they will become unaffordable in the next few seconds. A small incident will be enough to explain you the abhorrent effects of the hyperinflation: A lady ordered a dish worth marks 5,000 for her meal in a restaurant. After an hour when she finished eating the dish, it was worth 8000 marks. Isn’t that making you insecure? Suppose you happen to have only a small amount in your pocket that can get you a meager meal to fill your stomach and you happily order that small quantity. After eating just a bite of it you realize that now you don’t even have enough money to pay for that bite which you took in your mouth a second before.Exactly, that was the condition of germans at that time.A correspondent of a newspaper reported in 1923 :'In the shops the prices are writen and posted hourly . A gramaphone at 10 a.m. was 5,000,000 marks but at 3 a.m. it was 12,000,000 marks . A copy of Daily mail was sold at 35,000 marks yesterday but at 60,000 marks today.'Whole Reich was in total chaos until a new currency was not issued ,not depending on the global trnsactions but on gold.
It was definitely one of the worst inflations that world has ever seen .

P.S. If you are interested in European history this book is worth reading“ Coming of Third Reich “ by Richard J. Evans.
Thanks Jaya, for introducing me to this book.

In Her Shoes

We went for a movie yesterday, " In Her Shoes" . Except PJ no body liked the movie . The only thing which I liked in the movie were the few lines ....

i carry your heart with me (i carry it inmy heart)
i am never without it (anywherei go you go, my dear;
and whatever is doneby only me is your doing, my darling)

i fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet)
i want no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows(here is the root of the root
and the bud of the budand the sky of the sky of a tree called life;
which growshigher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars aparti carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

- E.E. Cummings

A Student's Day Out

In our school days ,we used to get various reasons to curse teachers and the principal. My class used to be of studious nature . All the students putting their maximum energy into studies . Most of our grumblings for the teachers used to be for marks and if some energy was left to grumble then it used to go against the strict discipline in the school.
Teachers who were boring deserved chalk rains on their head, specially
Ms. Jhandiyal. One character whose every turn towards the black board used to get her atleast 4 to 5 chalks on her head . Since her last name was Jhandiyal," Jhandu Balm " was the best nickname we could accord for. This made her entrance even more interesting . Instead of yelling "Good morning ma'am",as we used to for every other teacher, singing a special song for her, gave us immense pleasure and respect to her ;) The song was

♫ ♪ jhandu balm jhandu balm
peeda hari balm
sardi sardar peeda ko pal mein dur kare
jhandu balm ... jhandu balm .. ♪ ♫


If I remember it correctly, in the mid of sixth standard a new math Teacher came as a replacement for our favourite teacher . Obviously , how could we tolerate him ?Replacing our dearest of all teachers was as if committing the most sinful crime on this earth. It was impossible for us to leave him like that and it was also impossible for him to rescue himself from our pranks. Renaming the teachers was a religious and unavoidable ritual for us , so the great fellow got his new name as " Chuha " and for some of my friends who didn't liked the name thinking it to be lesser appealing cliche' named him " chuchundar".Still things were going fine until the half yearly results were out . And that was the day when chuchundar's most horryfying dreams came true . All of us got very bad marks . Our eyes were burning in anger . Only the water of revenge could extinguishit. And, there we were with a chewing gum ( Pink coloured Frutella !!!) ,as our weapon . Sticking the most enjoyable time pass of that times was the best option we had . Fearing nothing ,we just went ahead with it . Adding to his pains , we continously poured ink from our pens on that little chewing gum , so that it can very well take our message written with that ink to him "You chunchundar, get off from our class". All of us were punished for two days ..
I am really sorry to Mr. Chandru and all the teachers who became victims of our pranks.

mera number kab aayega ??

Most of my cousins are just above my age,but they are married and are happy too :)). Some times I feel there is a Queue in every family and one by one a person is popped out and is married. I always wonder when will my family queue start? Had I been in Indore (native) currently and helping out my father in his business like every good marwadi boy, I would have been luckier at least in the marriage aspect ':)'

Why did one come to this IT field?? Rather, this competitive field where one is required to do an MBA to get to a good/high position in an organization. And the situation becomes worse when his parents know about this fact and are not ready to talk about his marriage for at least 3-4 years or till he doesn't complete his PG ':(' .Though one tries to bring up the topic or even asks his younger sister again and again to bring up the topic when everybody is around, knowing the fact that on merely listening something a person starts thinking about it. Alas! everything falls on deaf ears.
And one's heart cries, when some beautiful girl's offers are rejected by his parents with a humble reply,"our son is going to study further and not going to marry" for 3 more years to come. Simply, keeping one out of the market (marriage).
I hope, you understand the (my) pain.

Socialist face of a Capitalist

Privatization has played a major role in the tenure of past two governments . Since ,Vajpayee's premiership , right from Hotel's owned by government , worth mearly a crore to the juggernauts like ONGC , BHEL , NTPC worth billions of rupees each has been part of this new agenda of privatization . Yes , it definitely makes sense to make things better . From the state of sarakari and non - performing ,its good to see them turning to the state of very well performing and much more organized than earlier . Specially the selling of the non -performing hotels like Ashok , etc . has been one of the best results. Boom in the sensex , if not fully then atleast a part of it can be attributed to some blue chips of India like ONGC , NTPC and BHEL . The boom from 4000 to 5000sensex points was very much carried by these Indian giants and not by the FDIs . But the question is "how far can this privatization be done ?" . I can not see the parliament being privatized as the people getting over there are not able to make right decissions or are unable to perform .Similarly, it can be said for most of the Courts ,where the right jurisdiction is not done in most of the cases. Does all these things means that we should give them in the hand of private bodies? I do not agree to that atall ... Though , the conditions won't become that seviour atleast for 50 years from now, if not more . But even the privatization of Airports and Railways can not be digested. If this goes on the days are not far when the movers and shakers of Indian economy will own all the roads, water , etc and you will have to pay heavy toll-taxes for every movement you make out of your home . Definitely , no body will tolerate to see an Airport to be renamed as "Ambani's parking place for its Air Crafts" or "Manikchand's place for its exclusive cars" . I might be very strong while commenting on the issue but the crux is that there has to be a limit.

Want a date with GT

This is my dream : to have a date with Porsche Carrera GT . The specifications are


Engine
No. of cylinders 10

Displacement 5.7 liters

Maximum power (SAE) 605 hp @ 8,000 rpm

Maximum torque 435 lb-ft @ 5,750 rpm

Maximum engine speed (revs) 8,400 rpm



Surely , all the SPORTS CAR lovers will be in love with it .

Hangover of Ooty Trip

I am still not out of my Ooty trip mode. For every sentence I hear, I make two interpretaions .. One is surely related to sex ;) Ooty trip was full of double meaning jokes . I have never seen or heard girls going for such double meaning jokes ever in my life time before . But , yeah I got to see that too this time . For today's lunch , I went for Asfar's B'day party( IBM friend) . We were around 10 people . And I was not allowing any one to speak atall . For every sentence, which was coming out from the mouths of the people sitting on the table, was interpreted in the wrong way by me :)) . Hence , they had no words to speak after that ... bigda hua adi ;))

Art of Blogging

I was going through Sam's blog today . On the left side of the page he has made entries for the people who blog regularly and given a description of them too . For dear Kunal DABBALIA , the description says , " u dont need topics to blog .. it shud be worth reading ...thts it" . Surely , this is what he believes. I asked him 10 mins back the same question what parry used to ask others 2 months back , " Give me a topic to blog ". He replied ," The art of blogging is to blog on nothing ". Even ,I agree to that now :))

My new Quest

About 2 months back :
If you are doing some serious work after 15 days of partying, pouring all your concentration on the screen infront of you ,and by mistake you have kept your google talk open , suddenly you will get a message on that screen leaving you astonished for the rest of the day. Yeah , that used to be parry's messages " Give me a topic to blog " .

Today :
If you keep your google talk open then you might get a similar message from aditya.maheshwari@gmail.com. :))

Parry , now I understood how desperate a person becomes when he has opened the blogspot.com from the morning and till evening he has been just trying to find a topic to blog :(

In Charisma

More than a millenium back, it was correctly said, "Necessity is the mother of Invention" and that was very much true for quite a long time until 10 years back , when marketing people and company executives became smarter and changed the formula for business .Now, the equation has just reversed . It has become ,
" Invention is the mother of necessity ."
Nowdays , most of the things you buy are not necessity for you . A simple mobile phone , without x-tra special features can also do .But , since the marketing stunts are so strong they allure you to buy such stuffs . You opt for such mobiles either to make your life more luxurious and comfortable or to show-off! Most of the latest things which we see in the market are just a result of above quoted line .They are not atall the need of a common man ,but are defintely made one after its launch . A person doesn't see the usability of it and buy the stuff in charisma . This charisma definitely lead us to the way of better life style . But , while improving our life style we forget that this race is endless. There can be no end to the improvements required for making your life as "The Best Life Style ". So , one need to put a limit for it .

Phobia-e'-workless

How wonderful it would have been if we were able to decide how many hours a day should have .And it would have been even more wonderful, if we were able to decide how many hrs we need to stay in office .Now days I am suffering from a new disease called P.E.W. bole to Phobia-e'-workless .This is the kind of disease ,in which a person is workless and do not want to continue his present state for a long time .He is employed but not given much work to pass 8 hrs . And the medicines to get rid of this disease are also special . However, I have found medicines to get rid of this disease. They are blogging , surfing ,chatting and orkuting . And when even these medicines are not helpful ,then I go for some special ones like Forum , Big Bazaar and Globus which some time turnout to be lil expensive, as I have habbit of spending .

I joke with many of my friends that wherever I go , I dissuade people from work .I don't kick them out of the organization but almost no work gets assigned to them . When I was in IBM, almost no one on my project used to work . As soon as I left the company ,their work has inflated so much that they are working for almost 12 hrs a day , which is quite unusual in IBM ;) . In my new organization also we do not have much work to do . Hoping to get some good stuff to do soon .

Bangalore on fire

The whole nation was in the state of shock when they heard that there is going to be mass killing in the garden city . Bombay and Delhi are very much used to such kind of destructive talks . But it was some thing new for Bangalore . Every newspaper , TV , Radio , Fm ,etc . were just flashing
the news "15 human killing bombs in the city" striking fear in the hearts of the denizens.
To add to the panic ,the police received an anonymous letter stating that mass killing will soon ensue and important places inlcuding the CM's house will be charred . Within few hours ,the city was under high security . A news spread that IBM building in EGL , intermediate ring road has a bomb . Immediatey , all the emplyees were evacuated ( Lucky people they had half day off :)) ) . People were just wondering whether they will get the chance of celebrating new year's eve or not because all the public places suddenly became vulnerable .

The night passed amidst such anxities and speculations .However, on the next day, it was found that all the terror news was a fake . It was just a rumour and trick which some body has tried with the police. I am sure that it was media's plan." When there is nothing to put in to the headlines section , then create it " is the funda of today's media .
A great business sense , I would say!!!

Another IIIT

New place , new people and the new year's eve . Celebrating my new year's eve with not so known people was fun . But still they were not very strange to me as we all were sharing one thing in common that we all are alumnus of IIIT .They of IIIT calcutta and I of IIIT Hyderabad .Out of the two people whom I knew in the group , one had to back out at the last moment and was unable to join us because of this wonderful " bangalore on fire " rumour . Before joining them I was wondering how will I be able to adjust with so different gang but as soon as I joined them things became pretty normal . Though I wasn't as talkative with them, as I usually am ,but still had fultu fun with them .BC seemed to prevail all through out the trip . Listening to all the wonderful girls hostel - boys hostel gossips were as interesting as ever. Dancing with a frolic attitude on the new year's eve had always been my fantasy , which I could get this time . Overall a good trip

Wish u a Very Happy New Year .