Diary of an Idiot

Unexplained experiences in Pune

2010-08-21T22:49:00.004+05:30

It has been more than a decade but the moment is still fresh in memory. Don't remember the exact time now, but it was sometimes between 1996-1999 during hot months of May-June. One day when going towards Kothi Gate from department (Pune University Computer Science Department) around 2:00pm, when it is quite hot during the day, at the crossroads near the department it seemed as if something touched my hand or my hand touched something, and it felt as if I touched cold ice. Rest of the body except that part of the hand was hot in sun and that part of the hand was quite cold.

Perhaps some kind of invisible thing - could it be convection current? could it be some invisibility experiment at university?

Phishers targeting Indian Income Tax Payers

2010-02-25T16:24:00.016+05:30

Recently I got an email (claiming to be) from refund@incometaxindia.gov.in that went like

Dear Taxpayer,

After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of (INR) 13963.00 .

Please submit the tax refund request and allow us 6-9 days in order to process it.

A refund can be delayed for a variety of reasons.
For example submitting invalid records or applying after the deadline.

To access your tax refund, use the form attached to this email.

Regards,
Department of Revenue,Ministry of Finance,Government of India

It also had an attachment

Content-Type: application/octet-stream; name=income tax refund request.html
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=income tax refund request.html

Size of attachment was 4 lines, 5 words and 26037 bytes, with newlines being CRLF. The content of this html file was a small Javascript doing a document.write(unescape('.... a large escaped string ....')), and it showed like attached image, except the following missing line at the bottom of the page in the image.

Note: For security reasons, we recommend that you close your browser after you have finished the refund process.

Here are the headers of the mail.

From: "refund@incometaxindia.gov.in" <refund@incometaxindia.gov.in>
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Cc:
Subject: Refund income tax department
Date: Wed, 24 Feb 2010 11:48:07 -0500
Return-Path: <refund@incometaxindia.gov.in>
Delivered-To: email-id-blocked
Received: (qmail 16162 invoked by uid 0); 24 Feb 2010 17:00:24 -0000
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Now spams on mobile too

2009-08-15T16:47:00.002+05:30

Have been getting telemarketing category of spam SMSes for quite some time and getting used to those. However spam category of spam SMSes have started giving competition to telemarketers these days, like the following SMS that I got few minutes back. It goes like

Number: TM-SPDC UK
Content:
Congratulations! You have won $3,000,000 in this year's Shell Mobile Draw with pin SPDC-IN. To claim, e-mail your pin to Rev. Williams on: wmark1529@yahoo.com

Registering in NDNC (National Do Not Call) registery or DND (Do Not Disturb) lists of service providers has resulted in lesser number of advertisement calls, and at times when you tell the telemarketeer lady about your NDNC/DND registration, they are prompt to end the call and often take care to update their database(hopefully) about whom to call and not call.

What about the Junk/Unwanted SMSes? High time that technology upgrades are made to detect SMSes sent in bulk at service provider end (and in handset?) and marking those as spam in mobile inbox. May be, we need to add some new header bits/bytes in SMS protocol for this and move on to SMS v3.0, sooner the better.

Is colour of halo around moon a warning sign?

2009-06-06T12:05:00.002+05:30

Last night I was startled by the colour of halo around moon. I have seen brownish and greyish halo around moon many times since childhood, especially during winters, that is taken as an indication of dewfall. But this was greenish in colour.

Later around midnight, there was storm with rains.

Expansion of GOD

2009-05-21T18:37:00.003+05:30

Well... well... it is not about omnipresence of GOD is, but whether can it be a short form indicating something about the forces that run this Shristi. Till few weeks back I also did not know it, even I had never dreamed that the word GOD could also be an acronym.

Few months back I had attended a monthly meeting at R.I.M.Y.I. where for past few months Geeta Jee (daughter of Yog Guru B.K.S. Iyengar) is attempting to explain meaning of Bhagwat Gita adhyaay by adhyaay, each adhyaay (chapter) normally taking couple of meetings even when touching at the surface. It is where I first heard of Trinity in GOD.

Generator (Karta Brahma)

Organiser (Bharta Vishnu)

Destroyer (Harta Mahesh)

Our ancestors hid lot of knowledge, atleast mystical, in easy to remember words and verses so that it could easily be carried forward unaltered, and hoping that someday someone could(would) decipher it and know what all they had learned then. Still there could be much more than what meets the eye.

When will we wake up to the risks of living nearer to power lines?

2008-12-29T19:59:00.000+05:30

Read an article in Amar Ujala on 22nd December 2008, that briefly discussed about the risk of blood cancer/lukemia in people, especially young kids, living in homes under/near high voltage electricity lines.

As per the article, British government has prohibited construction of homes and schools within 200 feet from these lines. When will we wake up to this risk in India, where I have seen housing complexes within 20 feet from these lines and still newer projects coming up within 100 feet from power lines.

MSN Live Search: Same query different number of results

2008-09-18T02:25:00.001+05:30

May be what I have happened to chance upon at MSN Live Search (search.live.com), is a characteristic of other search engines like yahoo, google as well. Any expert out there, who can explain the whys of this seemingly discrepancy (feature)?

I tried 3 expressions of same example query in succession at search.live.com and got 3 different number of search results.

1. (site:.ke OR site:.tn) AND mogadishu
resulted in a page mentioning "Web 1-10 of 497 results"·

2. mogadishu AND (site:.ke OR site:.tn)
resulted in a page mentioning "Web 1-10 of 777 results".

3. (mogadishu AND site:.ke) OR (mogadishu AND site:.tn)
resulted in a page mentioning "Web 1-10 of 610 results".

In this example, number differences are not that great, but I had noticed a significant difference in these numbers, with a different search initially.

What are your expectations as a user in above example?

Tremor and Animal Instincts

2008-09-17T23:12:00.000+05:30

Yesterday night (17 September, 2008) at around 03:15AM IST I experienced a tremor lasting for around 2 seconds (as it felt), must have been 5 or greater on Richter scale. Didn't find any mention of it in today's ToI edition, unless I missed it. Some time back, I got to know that some people experienced a light tremor around 5-5:30am.

But the dogs in lane knew of tremor around 30mins to an hour before I experienced it. They were bark-weeping in a different tone around that time. Someone in neighbourhood had tried to quiten them twice.

Perhaps some kind of energy pattern/magnetic field changes happen/build up in the area before the quake finally hits and these animals can sense it well in time. Only if humans could understand lesser animals!

Back from hibernation

2007-05-21T01:41:00.000+05:30

Wow! time runs soooooo faaaaast! It is already more than an year since I accessed this blog last. And so much has changed here in past year. The new look of blogger is cool, atleast the font (as it appears in Mozilla) in this text window look pretty and soft.

Had thought of starting scrabbling here once in a while again, in past couple of months, but it kept on going down the stack time and again. I think Stella Roy deserves the credit for me posting this entry. I don't know, how and when she picked up my email address from wherever, but got an email from her in my mailbox mentioning about her new blog postings. You know the way you get spam mails these days, so I was very apprehensive to open the email first and then click the links mentioned therein. I am here, as I checked the link details a bit before clicking and found it could be tried. Moreso, mail contents didn't look like from a usual spambot, bit of collegian style around this part of Maharashtra (I was wondering, but her blog about religion being a reason for being denied a place to stay in Mumbai, cleared it all). Luckily I had remembered my earlier blogger account name/password, so could get in without much hassles and followed the googlinking process.

Attention spammers: Somehow get on her mailing list or whatever it is, to get notified of her new posts and then you will have some masaala to train your spambots or atleast yourselves.
:)

Bio-engineering gives hopes to people with damaged body parts

2006-04-06T10:59:00.000+05:30

Came across a hopeful article in Pune Times of India yesterday about bio-engineering body organs in lab and successful implanting (Bio-engineered bladders successful in patients, lab grown bladders an important step in replacing diseased tissues and organs). This took me down the memory lane some 4-5 years back when I had come across a some small news article about possibility of human organs grown in lab, after which I had talked to a friend about possibility of getting a good liver in future, something that my friend had spoiled thanks to habit of drinking in youth.

Many many years before, I used to wonder if we could have some medicines or potions - potable or sprayable at affected parts, that could be used to make the cut organ grow again, something similar as it happens in plants, something similar that happens in foetus development stage - a cell starts multiplying to generate a particular organ. These kind of advancements generate the hope that it will also be possible in near future.

OpenSource is Incomplete without OpenIdeas

2006-04-01T19:48:00.000+05:30

I think and strongly feel that opensource work is incomplete without openideas. In my past experience I have found that people in two different parts of world can face similar issues in daily life and can come up with similar or same ideas/solutions; and they might not know about each other's work for years altogether. Will, only the person who goes public first, have rights to those ideas and solutions? What sense does it make?

I don't know how to express it, but it looks some kind of demeaning-of/disrespect-to human mind and it's thinking capabilities. I am not satisfied that I have translated what-I-wanted-to-express into words here. May be over the time I will be able to express my thoughts and feellings about the same more clearly.

I feel to give completeness to OpenSource initiative, we need to have OpenIdeas as well, whereby people over the world can share their ideas with the community and let ideas breathe freely beyond the prison of patents. OpenIdeas will act as a forum for people to help in the cause.

Hoping that OpenIdeas gets to see light of the day and lives. I have conveyed above feelings regarding OpenIdeas in a mail to Richard Stallman (rms at gnu period org), let's hope something fruitful comes out of this for the people of world.

To start with I have already shared lot of my ideas (crazy-fancy-useful) with community at http://www.geocities.com/shimple0/techcorner.html .

Notion of part time working in software companies in India

2006-03-30T20:57:00.000+05:30

I wonder if it will be a enlightment for people running software companies in USA, Western Europe and Australia, that 40-45 hours/week of work committment is considered as part-time working by software companies operating in Indian subcontinent. May be they want to do it in their respective countries as well, but their governments and labour laws are the hindrances they haven't managed to get rid of or circumvent.

A significantly large no. of companies representatives that contacted me directly or indirectly in past 15 months, get highly put off when told that I won't be able to give them more than some fixed hours of week. Couple of them mentioned that they are looking for 10-12 hours/day 6-7 days/week kind of work commitment; others have tried to act fair (in talks) about work culture and ethics at their place but later revealed the hidden agenda. Software development companies in India look for full-time workers, whose 24 hours/day of life they can control.

Fault also lies with Indian workers, who anyways have spoiled the habits of companies abroad and taken away bread and butter resources of many local people. Give them a slightly bigger piece of pie than they expect and..., well when they themselves are ready to be milked, why would corporate sharks leave any opportunity to drain even that last drop?

Sometimes I wonder if it is case only with IT workers that get more lured by the a dollor being equal to many rupees?

Fault of Chickens

2006-03-13T13:22:00.000+05:30

Millions of chickens are being killed these days because bird flu is spreading in them and a quite high no. of them might not be infected though. I find it bit weird. Why only chickens? Just because humans eat them for satiating their stomach? If they feel that they will also get infected by bird's flu, they should restrain themselves from eating chicken.

It is bird flu, so quite likely that many more types of birds have been infected already and it doesn't bother humans as they don't eat those other birds. If killing all the birds in a region in the wake of a bird flue, is the solution that people follow, how long will it take that some more species become extint from the face of earth? Already many are on the verge of it.

As far as the nature is concerned it takes care of things, if let to work. It will help species develop resistance against disease. I have found occurences of grapes with seed in bunch of seedless black grapes, green grape in a bunch of black grapes. Though many companies have been doing their best to gain control over production of fruits/vegetable by flooding the market and psychology with more yield of seedless varieties. But it is fact that these engineered varieties don't taste as good as the natural ones. I consider it a fortune to have tasted grapes with seed in childhood. Newer generations born and brought up in seedless era won't even know what they are missing, keep aside what will they read about the vegetables and fruits.

Everything evolves, good as well as not-good and evolution of both is necessary for the evolution of each other. Nature will do it's best to do it's work anyway and humans will do their best to not let do it.

The adventure of getting Income Tax Refund

2006-03-08T16:12:00.000+05:30

For past couple of months I am having adventure of trying to get refund for A.Y.2004-2005. Though not a big amount (a small way up in four figures) when compared to many others' whose grievances I came across via simple net search.

Pune Income Tax office records show that refund order has been sent almost one and half year back, perhaps it has got lost in post somewhere. Seems a sure possibility because when I had a chance to look at the record copy of relevant document, it indicated some issue with dot matrix printer used for printing the address (perhaps some pins not firing or bad ribbon), as the pincode was not clearly printed in the record copy and address was bit mauled - state happened to have got changed there. No wonder I didn't receive the refund order sent by post.

I am looking forward to the day when refunding of income tax directly to taxpayer's account gets actually implemented all over India. It is not much of hassles to an account alive for an year or so for collecting the refund from IT department, than taking rounds of ITO in vain. Moreever it will reduce some fuelling to corruption. Often people have to part with 10-15% (even more in some cases) as commission normally to receive the refunds.

The current procedure for asking for a refund that has got missed out for whatsoever reasons, involved a process of indemnity bond on Rs. 100 stamp paper and xerox of some documents. Since stamp papers are out these days, one has to go for franking and then paying 100-150 Rs. to notary for doing his bit. Not many banks provide franking services and that too is limited to certain branch(es) in city.

I wish if procedure for claiming refund against missed-in-post/lost/expired-date refund orders could be made simpler. Just an application on plain paper or filling up an online form with relevant details.

Atleast income tax department could put information on it's site about - what should a person do in each case, the documents required to be submitted with application, franking/stamp-paper value for indemnity bond, whom should the application be addressed to, better still if formats of these applications also put on site that people can use by filling in the the factual information as per their case. As my experience has been, it takes quite some energy to figure out what, how etc. related to such kind of issues from local income tax office, especially when you are not conversant with the local language.

In case someone related with income tax department or responsible for information on their site, is reading this. Can you look into above request?

Feet tell as much as your face does

2006-02-07T17:12:00.000+05:30

Ever had a feeling that your feet tell much more about you than your face does. We are trained to manipulate our face expressions but that's it. Last month I had gone for Annual day function at R.I.M.Y.I.. At the end of function there was a lunch programme. There unknowingly I started observing the feet of people standing in the queue and found something strange. These feet were telling quite a lot about the shape of person's face and the general frame as well. Looking closely it felt as if they are telling about the psyche of the person as well. For around half and hour or so, I had been in this observation state that kept on puzzling me. In between I also looked at my feet and I saw them the way I had never seen them and yes it did tell me something about myself, something registered that I can't express.

I had these feet related observations later as well, but not as intense as on that day. Later on I was talking to one of my teachers at P.U.C.S.D. who told me that somewhere Gurdjieff also mentioned about similar things and that everyone has a specific combination, in which even if you change only the nose of person, it will result in a different person. I think I understand to some extent what Gurdjieff might have meant or wanted to express, when I see in the light of my other past years' experiences and observations as well.

Future of employment

2005-05-12T16:09:00.000+05:30

Hiring is Obsolete - came across this article via Slashdot. It's true that future of employment will be changing in coming years. An article I read in Times of India last month or so, about many people moving towards working in temporary mode, as in work for couple of months and go for relaxations or do something altogether different. They are not bothered/worried about usual benefits(??) of being an employee and long term stability.

Building blocks for machine life

2005-05-12T15:34:00.000+05:30

Not all of these works, researchers/technologists would have thought of using in building machines that look, walk, talk, think like humans and also are more fault tolerant, heal faster, can repair themselves quickly.

Simple robot that can make copies of itself from spare parts (May 12, 2005) : These could repair themselves if parts fail, reconfigure themselves to better perform the task they have been set, or even to make extra helpers. Offspring version can make further copies. It is only a toy demonstration of the idea, but lead researcher Hod Lipson, of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, has bold plans for these intelligent modular machines. Combining this with the biology of self-repair and of replication would make huge changes to the field of robotics.

Generating artificial organs (October 28, 2003) : Tejal Desai, the 31-year-old associate professor in biomedical engineering at Boston University, was recently honoured by Popular Science magazine as one of the 10 most brilliant scientists in America for 2003. After four years of working to make cells grow on chemically modified surfaces, she developed a microscopic device, that, when implanted in diabetic rats, delivered ongoing, regular doses of insulin. It’s a hollow bit of silicon, few millimetres in size, perforated with 10-15 nanometre pores, filled with living pancreatic cells producing insulin. The holes are large enough for the insulin to diffuse out, but small enough that the pancreas cells stay inside and the rat’s immune agents don’t enter and attack the cells. The silicon means that the body cannot reject the tiny pump. As long as the body produces glucose, the cells respond with insulin. Once you have an implant that contains cells, theoretically, it can last indefinitely, acting like a bioreactor and functioning like artificial pancreas. The most important thing is to keep the cells alive inside the capsule and ensure they get enough nutrients and oxygen.

Flying cars waiting for you in future

2005-04-19T21:03:00.000+05:30

I have a dream for long time, past 10 years or so, when there would be little aircrafts available for use like we use two wheelers, personal cars. May be one day I would design a light weight but sturdy air travel vehicle for myself so that I can roam above the ground, high up in the sky like birds and see the world as it looks from up there. May be I would be able to own some such vehicle in future, if I lived by then. I expected small personal airvehicles to be available for common use surely by 2050. But this slashdot article seems to suggest, it could be even possible before 2040, may be by 2030.

Search engines simplified for simpletons

2005-04-07T18:54:00.000+05:30

I guess it is more than an year now, when I was trying out some service (possibly search related) at hotmail.com and they had an option about giving some feedback to them. At that point no search engine provided a search facility that dealt with a simpleton querry like - "Where is TajMahal?" and gave more precise answers to this querry rather than loads of results. I had filled in that feedback form, if hotmail search engine could provide such kind of features in (then) near future, it could put it differently ahead of other search engines. No feedback came from them. Well, it couldn't have been expected either as the been-filled-up form mentioned not to expect feedbacks.

Came across an article on slashdot that mentioned about google providing similar service now. On further readups I found couple of other projects and search engines (www.answers.com) that were giving similar services good enough.

feels happy that as a user of search engines I felt a need for improvement there that voila! somebody has even taken steps towards that.

Meeting a Guru

2005-03-24T12:22:00.000+05:30

Had been at Delhi Railway station in morning yesterday, with the intention to catch Avadh-Aasaam for some onward journey. Found it so packed that getting inside even without my luggage had been a gruelling task. I dropped the idea later, as if I could get inside somehow, next couple of hours of journey would pass on standing in tight bin-packing (have had experience of such journey in past, longest being once on pune-delhi route for around 18-20 hours. Moreover it didn't make much sense to try this adventure when bus service to desired place was available almost every 15 minutes, though that takes around 1.5-2 hours more and even more if one ends up in traffic jam on highway.

So I stood there on platform for next 10-15 minutes, seeing the train depart slowly, with some mixed feelings inside, wondering why did I waste time to come to railway station and bought the train ticket (that I could cancel with minor cancellation charge), by now it would have been around an hour's journey on bus.

While I turned back to walk towards the platform exit, I saw a woman dressed in almost black clothes (black from dirt, oil etc.) and unwashed, dirtful hair and body, carrying something very softly in her hands and walking as if nothing mattered. I realised that I knew what she was carrying with 'sahaj bhaav', before some policemen nearby started discussing about it within themselves. It was human shit that as per these policemen 'pagli' was carrying to eat??? When I heard the words I realised what I had realised that I knew.

Normally seeing shit around made me quite uncomfortable in childhood, and seeing it on railway tracks I also have felt like coughing, spitting, moving away from site, and yet I was here standing and watching her walk on platform with no feelings. Those 30-60 seconds (frankly speaking I didn't have any idea of how long it had been, as it looked a big deal of time) I felt I was able to see things as it is, without any biases or preconceived or picked-up-from-environment-and-education notions. I wondered why this strange feeling/behaviour I had with respect to human and dog/cat shit? Cow/bufallow, horse, goat, birds etc. shit didn't evoke those strange feelings inside me? And cow/bufallow shit I have even hold in my hands and made 'upale' and designs out of it for a garland used for offering to fire during HOLI. Some fed-in notions since childhood perhaps that cow shit is pious and others not.

When I came out of my state of realisation, I walked towards exit, but something had changed me by then, looking at human shit on railway track didn't have that earlier strength of strange feelings.
I knew the answer now - why had I come to railway station first instead of going to bus station directly.

Making of a reasonable homepage

2005-03-08T23:54:00.000+05:30

After being back in pune, it's more than a week now. making webpage has consumed more time than I expected. One or other issue/content enhancement/layout idea keeps on coming and stretching it. But I have also not been working consistently on this.

A hapazhard webpage was initially put in december/january. Making a decent and contentful page takes time. working over resume page took quite some time and revisions, as effectively I was making resume freshly. Lesson to be learnt - keep on updating resume also with time, as do for other documentation etc. in workplace. It's also beneficial in case you have very less time before sending a resume.

I haven't started applying yet. Have been postponing it till get the homepage and links referred in resume in shape, but looks like that I will have to do that even w/o that, the way homepage is taking time. Atleast I should be registering on couple more of job and freelance work websites now, as things take their own course and time to materialise. Have registered on naukri.com so far and it's still not more than 50% finished product.

Mail from some consultant had come telling me that I was sunil and I had earlier sent him my resume. I replied to him giving URL to my resume and correcting that I was not sunil. I don't hope that things will be the way I am looking forwards to, with this person and company for whom he is searching people.

I had planned to start formally applying, rather contacting the people who had earlier contacted me or whom i had informally enquired in recent past, since 7th, yesterday, but doesn't look like it will start even today. But I should send mail to atleast one contact today.

Now I need to work on freezing the contents of homepage page by page. In no case it should extend beyound 15th March. After that once in a while routine maintenance in couple of weeks, mainly because free-homepage hosting sites require some site updations etc. in a month or so to keep them active. But now I will simultaneously work on other tasks as well and reduce homepage work to parttime from full time. Let's see how this week turns out.

Being nowhere yet everywhere

2005-02-16T12:46:00.000+05:30

Had left the organisation I had been working for, in first week of january and had been attending some gatherings to charge myself. Past couple of years have drained me significantly, when I look at myself, I find having aged more than 10 years or so in 3-4 years. However, age increased in terms of experiences and understanding of life as well, though not as much.

Working in closed and artificially cooled environment, lack of sufficient fresh air, sufficient dose of sunlight, most of the time sitting in front of idiotbox (aka computer) etc. has had a very bad effect on health even affecting mobility of joints. Good that I reduced usage of mobile around 2 years back, since I realised that initial usage of mobile has had effect on my memory also, apart from giving me headaches these days when I use it for couple of minutes. Headaches are also caused by earphones as well. I wonder when people with headphones on, play so lound music that sitting couple of meters away from them, it is clearly audible to me.

Anyways, now I am out of it and can be close to nature and take care of my health and recover as much as I can before taking on another job. I haven't applied anywhere yet. Many people have asked me how could I leave a well paying (well is a relative term and it's meaning varies from person to person) job just like that, w/o ensuring next job at hand? Simple reason is that, I just wanted to relax, to be nowhere for some time and not having any thing on head about joining one place or other.

I don't know, what I will do next? I won't mind even change of profession. Will look for job as a freelancer/consultant s/w developer in future, though I know that not many companies have faith in themselves to venture into work relationships like that and it might be a bumpy road ahead. Though I would like to not work in computers all the time but explore other aspects of life as well. Let's see how it all works out. I have faith in God, whatever happens, happens for good. I have seen this goodness in couple of cases very closely in my life.

Should be back in pune by month end and then would first polish my homepage and then use that as a portal to look for work and people, working with whom could be fun and invigorating rather than draining, a change in life. I expect things to take time to work out as I wish for future, but one thing or other would start working out by april, when I start on it.

Collective energy of Hope

2005-01-17T13:45:00.000+05:30

Had heard a lot about Guru Ramdev (his programs come on aastha TV channel) and his curing many patients via his yoga shivir (camps) from some medical practitioner and common people. Many people had got improvement in their medical conditions in couple of months, even by practicing on their own after watching TV programmes, problems which many years of treatments by doctors couldn't reduce.

Had managed to get a pass for this. Camp timings are daily morning 5:00-7:00am. Had to wake up around 4:00am to freshen up as the camp site is around 15 minutes drive in night, w/o any signal to stop in between, and it's better to be slightly early at camp.

When I reached the site, it was a total different atmosphere. Must be 15-20 thousands people braving the cold under open sky, sunrise happens around 7:00 these days. Tiredness of wakingup so early against the routine was as if never was there. The place was so full of energy, that was charging the individuals also. It was energy of hope, hopes that they will get cured or atleast see significant improvement in their conditions - they have heard a lot about sort of miraculous improvements.

I have experienced tremendous energy of joy, hope earlier also couple of years back. It was some regional newyear day or some such festival, when I happened to be in Thiruannamalai (Tamilnadu). Girivallam (taking rounds of holy hill) route passes through city, as well as small village. It was near that village, in early morning, sun not yet risen but not dark either... people cleaning around their houses and decorating with rangolis, materials varied depending upon their financial standings then, but everyone was full of happiness, some kind of positive energy in that atmosphere... people not chattering around, a soothing calm filling everything, everyone around. I have been on this route couple of times, but this experience there had been so strong first time then.

A Problem, A Solution : Traffic

2005-01-06T12:46:00.000+05:30

A road was widened because traffic issues on that road were increasing with years. There used to be big trees on both sides of the road that provided passers by shade from scorching sun and rainfall. Lot of these trees were more than 100 years old, some even older. Trees were cut amidst protests from environment groups. Road was widened.

The times further to that saw opening of couple of famous food/beverages outlets by the sides, adding to existing good enough crowd pulling joints. Crowd is even more. Though road is widened, but so are the cars and two-wheelers sizes and their nos. Though there are yellow lines, marking the parking area by the road side, bigger size vehicles sometimes overshoot that by 2-4 feets.

Effective roadsize is still the same, perhaps lesser than what it used to be, people density on road around the joints has only increased. If something is not there, it's those trees.

There are other places also in same city, where roads sizes have been widened more than double, a lovely strech of around 2Kms, now doesn't have a single tree to give protect from rain/sun. Since road is quite wide now, average speed of people driving by has increased a lot, making crossing difficult for old and young people. This road passes through residential areas, school and there is only one crossing around half km. from one end, that forces people to drive in wrong directions, causing risk to not only themselves but others. You may not mind taking a U turn of less than a km, but what you do when you have one opening is 50-100 mts from you in wrong direction and right direction is a U turn of around 3 kms and it's part of your daily route couple of times a day. Not only this adds to more fuel expenditure, but at times causes more expenditures of time and money also for people.

A problem : A solution

2004-12-21T15:51:00.000+05:30

In some building couple of companies under same management had their offices. Each floor had two western style toilets - one for males, one for females; for past couple of years. There hadn't been many females in entire building, a dozen or so at all the three floors.

One day the receptionist on ground floor found a male using the ladies toilet and questioned him on this. She got to learn that many people did the same. Her response was that she would raise the matter even if the owner of the companies acted same way.

Don't know what happened further, but some days later saw the ground floor ladies toilet labelled as gents toilet.

That receptionist no longer works in any company in that building.

Degradation in daily life

2004-07-11T05:30:00.000+05:30

software industry environment gives a lot. if I look deeply in things, every act of people around have been useful and there is a reason, why they are behaving the way they behave. the reasons beyound their comprehensions often, they are just mediums, like i am.

thanks to these people and their acts, more they have acted in their ways, more it has strengthened the will to be a human being in me, more it has helped me in identifying/finding/seeing/knowing the things, for which I have been striving for many years and make improvements in self.

one such event that happened last week, acted like a conscious shock. some contradictory behaviour of an individual, in organisation i have been working for at present, irritated me a lot and while reading the electronic conversation i loudly muttered 'bastard'. it was quite an shock to my ears - the intensity of negative emotions of other person impermeating me this much!! and then things cycled through before eyes.. how it has been slowly happening in past 3 years.. first a negative emotion in head when someone drove very rashly and caused accident possibility, then a soft muttering when some (not all people are that variety) car/three wheeler/ two-wheeler driver drove in such a way and speed that accumulated rain water on road got splashed over you and spoiled things.. and this soft muttering grew slightly louder and louder.. thankfully, always had enough control to not let it take control of me. how slowly the words like this one have been entering my system slowly from environment, using the causes around.

for others, rather a lot of people in this organisation, as I observed in past 2-3 years, it is a minor thing rather nothing to be paid attention to. for me it was a big degradation in me.

i reflected over this and prayed to god for strength to recover from this and similar self-degradations and aimed at trying to be more conscious and aware about how negative energies try to affect me, try to take control of me.

the very same night, there was a test. while on the way home around 10:30pm in night, at a crossing, a speeding car almost had me, if i didn't manage to apply brakes in time, and surprisingly the brakes got applied as if perfectly. thanks to God, I remembered the strivings, aims and resolutions earlier from the day. and surprising no expletive came out of my mouth, not even a soft mutter, nothing came in feeling, not even in head. one person riding the cycle, perhaps he would also have got the impact?? said something in local language something to the effect about bad driving of car person, i didn't understand all of it, but his emotions were not agitated either. somehow it was a good feeling that I didn't feel even the need to utter an expletive. I shook my head sideways in response to this person. and we both just continued as if nothing had happened.

I learned something unknowingly from this person, whom I don't even know, nor will ever know.

We call ourselves educated and use filthy english words, how different we are then those people whom we criticise, look down upon for their language and behaviours. Saying something in english rather than local language doesn't make it different.

so far since then, it is calm. i have been able to practice calm and every act of individuals around now looks quite different. in b/w for some short moments negativities have tried to take control of me in various ways, but thanks to almighty one or other form of help has always been there to remind me, to shake me out of it. things like a window popup, or a new mail from someone, or the colleague who sits next to me and has been a very good help in this effort of self improvement. he just casually stands up and possibly even unknown to him, why he did that, he happens to put his hand on my shoulder, or someone comes asking for something to divert my attention... different ways and forms of god-sent help. i just have to keep my eyes/ears/mind/feelings open and receptive. if i don't help myself, god won't be able to help me either.