Man over tiger

I remember way back around 1998, there was a hut near my house. A guy who lived there worked as a grass cutter at the Mysore zoo.

One unfortunate day, the gates to a tiger enclosure were accidentally left open when he was cutting grass on the open area meant for tiger. The tiger ventured out into the open and saw an unfamiliar scene of two numbnuts cutting grass in it's space. Predictably, it attacked this guy while his colleague climbed up a tree safely.

 A Garuda jeep passing through the area was alerted and immediately, the officers rushed in and opened fire on the tiger, killed it, thus saving the man. He would recover from his injures soon, so that he could return to being a wife-beating drunk.

Less than a year later, one night, while returning home drunk, he fell into a drain, smashed his head and died out of excessive bleeding. His wife Manjula, a 10th standard drop out, was given a job, her first, at the zoo as a clerk. She would go on to write SSLC which made her eligible to earn various promotions.

I couldn't help but feel that Manjula's financial stability, independence and a more peaceful existence was denied for an extra year by heroics of some Garuda officers who just like most of us, valued the life of just one of the billions of humans on earth, over that of the tiger, a species that barely number in thousands.  Waste of an innocent life of a magnificient animal, the tiger, that acted on natural instinct and also perhaps of a few government bullets.

Pulchritude

How beautiful you are as sit in the yonder
I marvel at the resplendence and wonder
how many eons did the almighty take
how many lifetimes, to such beauty make

How many hours have I peered into that bewitching face,
to find a shadow of his mistake, amidst that grace
Where do the curves on your eyebrows, begin and end?
from where did such a musical perfection descend?

It would be punishing to see you wear a frown
or a hint of last night's sorrow drowned
in even a single tear down the skin flown
yet hidden today behind a cheerful tone

I need no more answers, I've witnessed the most beautiful dawn
I've no more dreams, I've seen your charm
I wish for the gift of soothing music, to pour
and immortally describe, with justice, your allure

New Firefox add-on auto-comments on anti-Modi articles, calls author paid media

Helsinki. Finnish software start-up Crowd Tech just released a new Mozilla Firefox add-on that enables users to detect any articles with an opinion against Mr.Narendra Modi and automatically generates and posts a comment against the author after calling them "paid media", while offering other customizable abuses.



The announcement took the social media circles by storm. Most people hailed the effort as timely and supportive towards the "Indian youth", but there were a few people who found it appalling. On the company's Facebook page, which got 800,000 likes within a span of an hour, a certain Ritu Roy commented "A Finnish company making something like this? C'mon guys is this what we have become?". However, within 3 minutes, her comment was bombarded with replies calling her a 'Kangressi', 'Congi' and 'educated illiterate' among other things. We tried to contact her but she has now deleted her Facebook profile.



We later got in touch with the company asking why they chose to release an add-on like this, targeted at Indian consumers when the company calls itself a Mobile Apps developer, Mr Juhani Katainen, CEO of Crowd Tech, replied "Start-ups have a tough time cutting into the market, you need investors, you need to build an image and for that you have to grab attention, we just can't waste our time having a conscience. We studied Google search trends for a while, we realised that the Indian audience was huuge. I mean Justin Beiber and Lady Gaga might have some following, but we needed some real numbers."

Click to enlarge: This development model is a success

"Once we realised we are looking at India, our only problem was choosing between supporters of Shah Rukh Khan, Salmaan Khan and Narendra Modi. Some group called 'Akkians' also showed up, but we never understood what they were talking about."



We decided to put the add-on to test with the help of an ardent NaMo supporter who goes by his Internet alias "I hate sickiluars" , a techie in a reputed software company, to put to test this add-on which has since gained over 847k users, at the time of writing this article and has in a matter of hours climbed to the top of "Most popular" and "Top rated" sections of the Mozilla add-ons page.














"This is a work of art. It has so many features. It can detect any opinion article on any media and tt has such a huge list of abuses starting from ones like 'congi', 'sickular' etc to serious ones like 'Italian b**ch', 'Go back to f***istan you f***ing ISI spy' all vetted with asterix symbol to avoid profanity filters." says our friend with a twinkle in his eyes. "It also seems to have a bit of AI as it suggests '1984' if the article contains '2002' anywhere, 'pappu' in reply to any comment that says 'feku', 'CoalGate/corruption/scam' etc if the article contains 'malnutrition'".



"I think the crowning feature is the auto-comment, where the user doesn't even have to be involved. It leaves a short and crisp 'Paid media' in the comment section of all articles. Sometimes, it leaves this comment on pro-modi articles also,but  I'm sure its a bug that will they fix soon.". Crowd Tech did confirm that they are working on this as a priority.



When asked if he wished for any additional features he was very quick to point out a few "To begin with, it should be 'kangressi' and not 'congressi', the later sounds too polite IMHO. Secondly, it should allow multiple usernames because sometimes we have to leave contradicting comments, like blaming the west, saying they don't understand India, when they call NaMo communal or violent, but embracing articles where they support him", but he sums up with "A lot of people are losing their jobs everyday because they are spending too many office hours searching and commenting on anti-Namo articles, Crowd Tech is doing a really noble job by reducing that time, saves a lot of jobs, I would like to see more add-ons like this".

"Vikas Purush"

Meanwhile, a source from inside Crowd Tech tells us that they are making a mobile app that helps users to write open letters to Pappu, every time he opens his mouth. The last we heard, Chethan Bhagat was very keen on its development. Lets just say that Mr.Modi is 'Vikas Purush' indeed, inspiring such brave new (software) development and not just within India.

Coming home from work

Damn.

It's been 3 and half years or so since college got over and I started working. I must say its not all that attractive.

Once you are done with work, there is nothing to look forward to coming home. Just come, worry about things

- can I find someone to have a decent conversation with
- how I am gonna get my dinner at this hour
- will the traffic be heavy
- will people I do talk with not talk about just heartbreaks or loans that they took and can't pay off
- will I receive at least one mail where I am not in the bcc
- If I can't have any of the above, can I watch something on my laptop without being disturbed

It was fun in college, coming home. Just me, my rides, my computer games. I didn't have to please anyone self-righteous, I didn't have to be nice nor rude to make my point.

Peace was the last thing I searched for.

I'm still a kid, who liked fairy tales but didn't believe in them.

I'm the kid who has been told that he is a grown up and I can't swallow it.

Aforementioned person in beforementioned resume for your presitigious organisation

I am currently pouring through a few resumes that have been mailed to me by people for an interview at my office. I don't mind poor language, but sometimes, some just strike that crazy chord.

Here, take a look at one that made me cry, I can't make this stuff up:




"Dear sir/madan,

I am myself herewith kindly enclosed inside my resume for your good cansideration..."







*facepalm with napalm*

Are you going to kill me?

Note: The draft tells me this is a post saved from 3rd February 2011, the time I had been blogging as busily as a dam building beaver on crystal meth. I had probably saved it to publish sometime around march, but forgot about it. Considering the long awkward pause, I figured I would post it now.
I'm too lazy to go through the draft in detail and edit it for current day, so when I say last year, I probably mean 2010.


"Are you going to kill me?"

It started a few days after college was over. I had pretty much nothing to do except write and wonder when I would get a job. It was a non insomnia phase.
(So, basically, proof that my insomnia has nothing to do with any "ups/downs in life" or something 'worrying' as most people simply try to force me to agree with.)
I had been having a recurring dream, every single day. The first and the last recurring dream till date. It lasted for nearly 6 months. The dream was a bit like this.

I am standing in a dark room or garage or something and there is another guy just in front of me holding up a gun right into my face. I could see the gun and his hand and his silhouette, because there was some sunlight pouring in through a window in a wall behind him.
This guy had me check mate. If I moved a finger, it wouldn't take him much to spray my brains all over the place. So as I knew this, I just stand there with my hands up and say

"Are you going to kill me?"

...and I wake up.

The dream never lasted more than a couple of seconds from the start to the finish.


Now this dream bothered me for one and only one reason. No I didn't think I had some mental disease because the dream was so morbid. I was sure it must have been triggered by some action/thriller/heist/crime movie I saw. No, that was not it.
The thing that bothered me was my own words. Are-you-going-to-kill-me? Why on earth did I say that? It sounded like I was submitting to him. If I knew myself, if there was such a situation, I would make a quick movement, just so that I could go on my own terms and go without surrendering.


Huh..are-you-killing-me? "No, I'm just putting this gun in your face for a while to check how long it takes my arm to go to sleep."

So was my real self a meek, no-fight-left guy? Or was the line also part of whatever movie I had watched? Should I even be analysing this dream?
Why was it recurring?

As I said, this went on for about 6 months and until around this time last year when I got the call letter to my current company and I moved to my work city. It didn't take too long for my insomnia to kick back in.

The first day of insomnia, it must have been about 5 in the morning, I drifted into a light drowsy, semi-awake state. Soon enough, I was in the garage again.

Same gun, same window, same position. My hands were up in defense. But something was different. There was something in my hand too.

I had a gun. Without a hint of remorse in my mind, I turned my hand, pointed it at his head, knowing fully well he would react too and I squeezed that trigger with so much anger, hate and revenge, without batting an eyelid as I didn't want to miss a split second of my hunter's hunting. I heard the shot (Which, I'm sure would be much louder in real life) and I saw my wanna-be-killer fly backward into the darkness and slam into the wall behind him with a thud.


That was the last time I had the dream.

Rahul Dravid - Please don't retire

Dravid has a tendency to announce retirements after awesome peaks followed by a few slight lows.

ODI career - Yes, India gave a poor show at the world cup, but India had won matches in rows before that, under his captaincy.

Test career - He had come off one of his best years and then a slump of few matches.

And just in case he follows trends, - Now IPL - Never seen captaincy like this. King maker. Got the best out of the rookies. But lost in the eliminator.

Rahul Dravid, sorry the script didn't come through at your first best shot, but this is where you don't retire and put the peddle to the metal and get the cup next year. Please?

You get the cup, Indian cricket gets the cup. #FuckFixing

#NammaRahul



*Update*
And thus the fears have come true. Dravid did announce his retirement :|