Friends

One of my colleague said this in morning - Hyderabad folks have started identifying you. May be, yes. May be, no. I don't know their names, they don't know mine. Faces are known but names aren't. Yet, we are friends.

Look in eyes when talking, greet with smile, return smile, shake hand, wave hand, laugh, joke, don't cast hurting jokes, be sensitive, be gentle, be humble and be simple.

This is not a preaching post. This is not written for anyone else but for me. The times when I may start losing myself, revisiting these possibly may help.

Of all the three encounters of tiny spots of south, I have found Hyderabad the most comfortable one. Rickshaw drivers aren't that bad. People are simple and ready to help. The most comforting thing, they speak and understand Hindi.

Now for the fun side. Corporate is the magical word here. Everyone is ready to offer unasked for discounts if you flash your visiting card. Of course, feel free to snatch further discount on it. So far Mangatrai (seng ka personalized jewelery supplier) fellow has given flat 30% discount (without bargaining) on flashing the card. Restaurants (MacDs included!) give you, furniture guy will give you. It's amazing.

And tempting too... We are quite tempted to flash our visiting card to autorickshaw guys and the chai-walahs and the dhobis(yet to find one, though) etc.

When do I return back from Hyderabad? There's no return ticket. Seems like no one wants me back in office. Lessons learnt - never let office get accustomed to peace, serenity for more than 3 days.

All of us are longing to return back home (office, that is). May be the finest prize for all of us would be a return ticket for now.

From Kosheen - Wasting my time
It isn't over if we never begin

From some movie being aired on Set Pix
It's not over until I win

When I was (for some, I still am :) a kid, I never liked to take help from anyone. It would be doing things 'aape-aape'. Doing it self. Call it self reliance. Or independence. Secondly, there would be no 'udhaar' khaataa. No credits, please. The mind/brain/heart was trained in such a way that I would not be taking any favor from anyone unless and until I could possibly return it back in minimum time. And then I don't even know how much time will I have to be able to return it back. May be I won't be there tomorrow. May be the other person won't be there tomorrow. Who settles the 'account'? Possibly my buddy would do it for me. He and my mom are two entities, who I can never repay back in any form. Possibly, I don't even want to :)

I have been trying to get rid of I factor. One of the reasons why you would see "me" occurring in places where "I" usually is applied :p. Will I ever be able to do that? It still gives me pleasure when I am able to do things without taking assistance from anyone. So there are still a few things that I would reserve for self. Do it relentlessly, find ways out and enjoy the little joys of discoveries. These things are never for others, it's for self. When my friends used to suggest me a job where I would be proposing ideas and getting them shaped up, I could not agree to it. Reason being same. Whatever small time discoveries I do, is for self. I doubt if it works at institute level for me.

Few days back someone asked me how I differentiate between self-respect, pride and ego. I don't know. I believe there's a thin line between these three. Self-respect possibly is managing an image of self in view of self and others. Pride is usually linked to boasting in community. You don't boast about self, people will not accuse you of being proud etc. Ego possibly is 'I am always right' thing. But to be honest, I am not the person who could identify what these three things are and how they differentiate from each other.

The I of me is a small universe of myself, for myself. Destroying I means destroying that mini-universe. The creation was automatic. I hope its destruction be automatic too.

Wishing Urja many many happy returns of the day. My cube partner, mentor and quite an inspiration. I so wish I were in mumbai celebrating her bday but seems like me missing out bday celebration is gonna continue :(

Happy bday, dear Urja :)

Meanwhile, may I request either Swapnil or Tahir to play "jai mata di" in background? :p

Today's great day. Am loving it!

Abhudaya (AKA Mowgli fame :)) has scored 91 percent in SSC. Yay!!!

Ashish, my cousin, scored out of marks in mathematics in SSC (120/120) good marks (Okay, I goofed up in hearing this one). I remember him struggling with lot of things during earlier days. But he has managed it quite well. Has come a long way in scoring decent marks in SSC. Commendable thing :)

Chris, my buddy, scored 5th rank in online contest at concept art (see this - http://conceptart.org/forums/showpost.php?s=6fa695dcb02445079094d7112a9bf4d5&p=1804671&postcount=35).

Congratulations to these friends of mine. Am very happy for all of you.

Darn! What am I doing at Hyderabad!! I wanna hug him them right away!!!

Vrushali is participating in another contest in concept art. See this - http://conceptart.org/forums/showpost.php?p=1812830&postcount=3 (theme details for it - http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=126144). All the best to her for results. I wish that her wish comes true :)

I don't like something on TV, I change the channel or switch it off completely(OK, maybe not when Wimbledon is on!!), but the point is you make a choice to change something that you don't enjoy or particularly like.

So, maybe we can change our attitude towards other people as well.

Someone at work posted this article on our internal blog site and thought I would share it. It is an article by David J Pollay.

http://pos-psych.com/news/david-j-pollay/20071002426

This time am gonna be away from home for some 10 days, it seems. Yeah, everyone is celebrating and relishing the peaceful days at my office. Baki khabre break kae baad.

Rest of the pics here - http://www.flickr.com/photos/peeyush/archives/date-posted/2008/06/24/

Not that I believe in a literal Adam and Eve anyway, but the real problem I have with Genesis is the way it puts a global flood right there in the Human history timeframe.

Not only is there >no< evidence for the global flood, but a lot of the available evidence is that this event could not and did not happen. genisis stands or falls as a single document. if one part is not history, then all of it is undermined as a historical document.

The thing is with the flood is that Creationist insist on saying that all the rock strata of the geological record are the result of the global Deluge.

now , hold on.

I seem to recall that the 'Lucy' fossil bones wwee found in a strata below a layer of volcanic ash, and yet above another one. these two ash layers were dated using radiometric dating.

So it seems that the flood happened, silt started to settle, and then there was a volcanic eruption. the dust settled all in one layer. then more non volcanic silt settled - and then another eruption happened, and we get another layer of ash. finally , this gets topped off with more layers of silt.

doesn't make any sense to me. any more that oak trees running to the high ground and leaving all those poor fern trees to get stuck in the carboniferous forests. But, what I wanna know is - how many eruptions are there recorded in the same sewuence of rocks in the geological column?

How many do creationists have to account for happening in the same short span of time till the waters receded?