Good Luck Octopus Paul : FIFA Finals

So, just a few minutes to go when the long awaited FIFA World Cup final arrives. A huge population of the world grabbing beer sitting in front of their TV sets, thousands of pubs trying to accommodate more and more people just to see how true Octopus Paul was! I might not be knowing enough about football as a game, but still I possess a fair degree of sanity to question people’s belief on Octopus Paul’s prediction.

Well, you might say that the psychic Octopus Paul has not gone wrong so far in the World Cup, but haven’t there been so many other miracles, which was merely a long drawn coincidence. Although, I fail to admit that this psychic octopus is making the teams win or lose, still I do believe that this World Cup final is going to make us witness a 1000 watt, electrifying, and super exciting football match between two teams that have beaten all the odds and have made their ways to play each other in finals. Good luck Psychic Octopus Paul.

Am I Blessed To Have Saved My Job?

Honestly speaking, yes, I feel lucky to have saved my job despite seeing my peers being laid off. Results of current recession are well evident in surroundings; companies facing loss of wealth and employees facing loss of their livelihoods.

In my view, to a large extent it's the economic downturn that's driving people out of the employments. However, that's not all that accounts for these current layoffs. Being an Indian I.T. professional, I am witnessing few organizations still registering growth but these companies are deliberately cutting jobs and saving costs in the name of global recession. The recession has given them a tool to say, goodbye, to employees who the company wasn't able to get rid of, otherwise.

Another thing that I saw duing the I.T. boom in India was that the people were bagging handsome jobs just because of ample availability of I.T. jobs, thanks to globalization and outsourcing. Many of these jobs were being offered based more on employers' immediate needs and less on the competence of employees. Thousands of I.T. grads were getting good jobs although I doubt, all of them were actually as worthwhile as that.

Now that the companies are facing scarcity of wealth, people are learning that a big apartment, a nice car, and a handsome salary, required something more than their mere presence. A stroke of luck can be longer than typical duration of stroke but it can't be a lifetime, just in case you thought of salvation being an average performer. what say?

Why I hate Orkut...

Why I hate Orkut...

...or any other social networking portal, such as Facebook, MySpace, hi5 etc. for that matter.

Yet another insignificant news that I am going to get rid of this means of flimsy connections, called Orkut. Like my usual self I am going to be verbose again stating the reasons for it. Firstly, why did I choose to join something like Okut? Of course, Orkut itself helps you with answers, and the options are, friendship, dating(men/women), business contacts..etc. To add to the list, keeping the connections alive, and few others were the another objectives.
Recently, I realized that I just no longer fancy any of these things for the following reasons:

Friendships: I am not looking forward to continuing to see a herd of sometimes fake intellectuals, desperate Mirror-cracking looks-types ladies, guys-not-allowed-sorta-lesbians, those self-proclaimed geniuses who are geniuses getting laid with chatty little chicks. Trust me, I have seen jerks doing that..few of them might as well be in my own friends' list.

Dating: No I don't fancy dating anyone anymore, got in touch from something like Orkut. Possibly, because I have stopped projecting my fake self out in the space and do not look forward to having somebody trying to impress me with her pretentious charms (which actually are nasties and result of some desperation). Of course, chances are fairly minimal anyway that somebody would actually try to impress me.

Business Contacts: Orkut simply sucks at it, people who are here for this, are simply habitual to mixing business with pleasure; Believe it or not!! Better choices than orkut are, ryze, linkedin, xing...and so on.

There are certain other aspects to it as well, such as keeping in touch with old pals and many others. To answer this, I find myself questioning myself and yourself... how many times have you actually cared about a missing old pal? My answer is not more than once-twice in the last year. And, even if I did, I never bothered writing him/her a scrap. If the pal was worth missing, I must be having his/her e-mail, which does the job for me.

I might like to showcase my photo album, or my writing skills, or something creative that I think, I am good at. However again, albums, why not picassa, flickr, ringo, or something like that? Who cares to look at what I shot and where I was shot so beautifully, is likely to view those albums there. Writing skills..No, the writers around here aren't doing anything great to the world..better if they start earning their bucks doing freelance work, and again, join some other business portal for that, orkut ain't a platform for showcasing, it's rather meant for bragging and faking, potentially.

The only people who it supposedly should benefit are, Internet marketers, spreading the word about their stuff out to masses. Sadly, as it's seen that Orkut pages don't rank on search results, leaving Internet marketers dealing with better shit than Orkut.

Oh, for a moment I was afraid, I would end up losing those many fans of mine! What the heck, I realized that the people in my fanlist are not my actual fans, most of them became my fans in anticipation of having me as their fan. The real fans of mine, as I reckon, talk to me..share an air of agreement, admiration, consolation, constructive arguments, but do not show it off to people. So..if you care to actually popularize me, get in touch, I'll give you the definitive ways to get off on the right foot.
P.S: Almost all the girls out in orkut, regardless of even no beauty, no intelligence, just because of fairness of their sex, apparently have more fans than their equally stupid male counterparts.

Testimonials: so, they are mostly copy-pasted, sometimes are just a collection of some ASCII characters forming some weirdass images, sometimes copyleft poems, sometimes are one of those shoot-at-sight WTF text pieces. In few cases, they are actually meant..but are written with a decoration that looks too pompous to be true. E.g. every girl in town is the sweetest friend to be had, ever..and so, is the another and another and another girl in his friends' list. I remember, so many guys writing the same sweet-flowery stuff to more than one girl in their list..yeah, a few could actually have one of those girls trading on their copy-pasting skills. And having written all that, I ask myself, what are they good for, anyway? They don't get you money, don't win real friends for you, and as for dating as an objective, not many ppl write how good kisser a person is, or how lovely that sexy piece of hourglass is, so, how does that impress people..yeah, one thing that surely does, that is, the number of testimonials..so, the bigger number of posts you make on new/active communities..you eventually start getting all that..of course, your networking capabilities do that...and these new people writing all that, seldom mean their testimonials for you.

Technically, Orkut is a brilliant software product (now) by Google, But hey, so is Picasa, Google Docs, Calendar, Groups, and many more, which are actually serious in nature. They are serious because serious people drive them, unlike many in Orkut. Now the question is, how come this sudden realization? Wasn't I yet another member of it so far? My answer is, Yes, I have been one and even at the point of writing this, I am still one. Do you think the opinions and observations above are formed in just a day or two? No, they took me a while before I could realize all the stuff written above...and here I am!

Joint family and Nuclear family (Answer to Comments)

No, I dare not agree with most of what you guys have written! Not because you have written anything wrong, it iss because the post (Analytic View: Joint Family and Nuclear Family in India) is conceived in a very wrong way, the interpretation is flawed to the core, in cases of most of the guys who have commented. If you read the full post in entirety, you'll realize that the post tells you about the advantages and disadvantages of both the systems AND the ways to get around the problems in case of joint families. Read it again to believe what I am saying.

Maliji:

You say that joint family is a panacea for Indian males, and so is a nuclear family, in my view. When you say, "in male dominated Indian society..." you're actually blaming males for being chauvinistic, not the joint families. Indeed, in the poorer sections of Indian society, the nuclear family suffer more from the male-dominance and even violence on women, because there are no other women to understand the pains of fellow ladies.

If you blame joint families for unhygienic conditions, death of children, or any similar crime, you're absolutely unjustified because no family system teaches you to commit crimes. It's just how you're brought up, what are your educational and financial backgrounds, and at an individual level, how much respect do you hold for women. Any individual pray of any such diseases (yes, I said, diseases ) would commit crimes regardless of what family system he is in.

If you say you're going to break the families into nuclear ones in the name of helping Indian women, please be sure to have enough similar sort of social workers along, who are ready to support elderly-aged people as well, such as your own parents. Do it when you think there are enough in number affordable old-age homes that are not run by your fellow social workers.

As you said about yourself that you don't check on your MIL more than once weekly, should one understand that she wants you or your husband to check on her frequently because she likes to boss around? If so, either you or her, is wrong! Because generally, people with desires to feel belonged are not rare as we're still human, trust me. Why can't one think that marriage means that you got into a FAMILY, instead of tying up with just ONE man? None throws the children away after they're born, because it's the desire of feeling belonged and belonging to someone! Why do you even get married, when you could just live-in with him instead? Isn't that to feel belonged?

People who are educated and have read their curricula can definitely use their vocabularies to defy the existing systems, in the pretext of being called, progressive. But isn't it just an unfair advantage they get out of their devoid-of-values education, which makes them capable of manipulating with words, figures, and talking about all sorts of things except the real human values? I wouldn't have called the educational system flawed or devoid of values, if the progressive people around would have utilized their earned skills to improve the systems, not to confront them to benefit themselves as individuals.

Anonymous #1:

"My point is, why should we not opt for nuclear families? When a girl can leave her whole world behind and come to marry a guy she loves, why is she then supposed to stay with his parents as well??? Did I date his parents for 5 years? Did I get married to his entire family? Why can't we stay separately?" Your words! My comment is, No, no one stops you from going nuclear if that seems to solve the problems. My post was about the troubles and their resolutions, unfortunately the readers were just too quick to read it and understand that I spoke about the problems and careful ways of dealing with them, didn't I? Of course, I could state about the solutions when I knew that there are problems existing.

Every relationship in the world definitely suffers one or the other day for one or the other reason. When the number of relationships around a person becomes more than one, everything must be woven in a way, no thread of it loses its shine. Otherwise, you may end up adding merely patches and leaving no sheen anymore.

People who say, why should they be adjusting to get accommodated into a family with in-laws, should understand that the in-laws are doing the same thing with you. If you say, you dated their son for past 5 years, why didn't you put this condition across to him before starting dating? No, you couldn't do it then, as you perhaps might not have thought of this dreary change that you had to go through. And similar was the case of their parents, who now had one more person in their family, they also didn't give birth to you. The level of feeling stranger to each other is reciprocal, not only yours is higher, trust me. Such situations are carefully handled if you WANT to work things out, if you don't, just get into a nuclear way. Of course, other pains are awaiting you, just be prepared to not be complaining. This is precisely what my post was about.

Anonymous #2:

Your comments are nothing more than statements full of male-bashing. If you think traditional bahu are being ill-treated, come and educate old in-laws instead of breaking things. After all, revolutions begin at home, don't they? Change yourself in a way that's fruitful for you and your loved ones, yes, I am talking about your husband as well, if not his parents. Ask him by writing him an anonymous e-mail if he doesn't love his parents.

Pallavi:

Again, as I said that there do exist lots of problems in the system, but what are we doing about it? What are YOU doing about it, except ranting? If your husband loves you, ask him to teach his parents in a matured fashion, and still if the problems aren't resolved, part ways. However, ranting, yeah, it's very easy and relaxing, isn't it.

Anonymous #3:

I agree with you, why to get into a hell when you knew what it was going to be like! Your comments about education and educated Indian mob are true as it has taught them clever ways to use tongues instead of using minds and reading hearts.

Why Are Men Two-faced?

I thought of writing this article on long debatable topic when one of my very close female friends came up with this question after she had another big fight with her boyfriend. I suddenly realized that it's worth jotting down a few thoughts.

If I ever come across a museum that is dedicated to psychology I would definitely want this question to be there along with another thought provoker, which has always intrigued all male minds "Can anybody understand a woman?"

I would leave the second question to be answered by someone who is as idle as me and has same misconception about his/her IQ and EQ as I have. However, I believe these two questions are like two different sides of the same coin.

As far are as my view is concerned, I believe that all life or non life forms are multifaceted and men being one of them, are born that way. MULTIFACETED. I don't think any woman would ever have a problem with that quality until it starts creating trouble in her life. Some common examples being:

1. Even the guys who drink too much, start having a problem when their female counterparts develop a similar tendency.
2. Healthy flirting of guys suddenly starts symbolizing “loose character” when women want to have to a go at it.

I guess, any female reading this article would definitely want to add innumerable points to my list but then, that is not my purpose.

Let me try to put my point across by an example:
What will happen if I tie you up with a piece of elastic strap and then you try to get free from it by pulling it away. The most probable result:
It would try to grip you more tightly. In simpler words every action has an equal and opposite reaction(For the technically oriented minds that's the Newton's third law of motion)

I guess the analogy applies perfectly (I won't mind if a lot of people don't agree with my analogy) to the moot point in discussion. Hitherto, Men have been so used to dominate the women race that they just can't accept the changing face of women liberty and as this outward force of women liberalization grows the internal force of man dominance also grows. (A case of direct proportion) But for this please don't blame only men. We are just a part of a natural phenomenon just like in a bicycle, a pivot on the shaft of the elbow, which connects the pedal to the chain does not know which way the bicycle is moving. It's there executing its task in the best possible way without knowing the final effect of the effort it is putting in because it has been there since long and it has been made to work that way.

As I said earlier, given the power to do so, even a non-living thing like an elastic can show the resistance to change. Don't you think expecting a complete turn-around in men's psychology overnight is a little unfair?

We have been rigid and orthodox and hip and modernistic depending upon personal suitability and honestly speaking when I say "we" to an extent I am also a part of the community I am representing (I don't want to talk about the utter and complete liberalization of women when I myself do not have an absolutely rational psyche but if I say I am part of that community then I am among the ones on the circumference already trying to see things from a bigger perspective.

But, to a major extent it is because of the the way we are brought up, the way we are made to behave socially, and the way we grow up seeing things around us. But then, you might say "Guys, haven't you ever heard of something called being proactive?" Yes, we have and that's what we all are doing but then a process, which took hundreds of years to sink in can't be uprooted in day or two , even with the very high level of rationality and determination. We have been conditioned that way since ages ago and hence, this thought is very deep rooted or you can say it is not something we do with our conscious minds. It is something embedded in our subconscious minds that we exhibit in our behaviors.

I guess the race from mars is not as bad as it is considered to be. It is just in that intermediate phase of life, like a potter's pot, which appears to be something very absurd and ugly but actually is in the process of beautification.

Ego and Self-Respect Differentiated

Many times we try to prove ourselves right by naming our statements of ego as our claim of self-respect or self-esteem. While saying so, we really forget what differentiates ego from self-respect. Everyone will agree to the fact that people lacking self-respect are not respected outside and are vulnerable to the danger of their own guilt. Ego, on the other hand, leads us to the situation where we think that we are superior and that's where our value in others' views starts dwindling.

Therefore, I define ego as a result of our comparison with others, sometimes, on some false basis, or sometimes, due to some earned achievements. Sadly, the achievements do lose their worth if they account for your ego.

Your achievements or some extra-ordinary qualities should give rise to a respect in yourself that you've earned or possessed them. It must not be like, it was you who could achieve it, not the others. Never forget that you are not the only one gifted. It's just the good combination of need, time, and efforts, that made you feel so. A while invested in thinking deeply that you're very good at something but others are not bad at the same time, will make you more polite and respectable socially. This respect is completely different from your ego, since, in the latter case you don't judge others on the basis of something, which you have extra in you.

To Relationships, A Confused Answer

What's in a relationship that keeps the fire burning? A broader question is, what exactly are these relationships for?
What I find as the scaffold for these building relationships is comfort, comfort of talking, sharing thoughts, being cozy and even, sometimes getting physical. Just comfort!! As comfort is the key, which in turn, is a joy indeed. The joy brings in certain responsibilities too, hand in hand as they say, no pain no gain. I just don't understand why am I writing all this, which might be called a "CRAP" by peers of mine...don't know what state of mind lets a person think like this.
Maybe, this is my simplistic approach to find the reasons why people in relationships suffer because of these relationship, while enjoying them, all at the same time.

Whatever...Joy and pain both are ingredients essential to the recipe of the dish called, life.