Amazing ...

Guys and (specially) Gals,

http://home.earthlink.net/~twoeyesmagazine/issue2/sultana.htm

Read the above story ... i just finished, and still am kind of trembling with excitement ... feminism, sci-fi or sheer intelligence, and all of it from a lady born in Bengal of 1880 - who "was not allowed to attend school, or even to learn Bengali or English, to prevent contamination from non-Muslim ideas" [http://www.sdnpbd.org/sdi/international_days/Rokeya/index.html ] ...
She started learning English only after her marriage, and "wrote Sultana's Dream [the story in the above link] in 1905 to test her proficiency in English"

I am not only astonished at her talent but also because today is the first time I read about her / her work.

Hope some of u guys would have known her before reading this post ...

Shadkam Islam
http://shadkam.islam.googlepages.com/
http://shadkamislam.blogspot.com/
http://shadkam19.blogspot.com/

A "really" Happy Independence Day

According to The Guardian, “India is the best place in the world to be born right now”. Somewhere else in the British press, they were busy celebrating "the arrival of a golden (Indian) age".

OK, let us come out of our anglophilistic [or, westophillistic would be more appropriate :)] mindsets (which makes us respect an Amartya sen, only when and once they have been recognized by the west). So even if we ignore what Guardian commented - we know that India is now THE HAPPENING THING, indicated by numerous things which our medias, both electronic and print, have been enlightening us about all these days preceding the independence day and beyond.

But not only that - We, I, can also feel it as an individual. Parents of most of us would perhaps had never dreamt that we would be sitting in AC offices, doing nothing [most of the time :)], earning paid vacations to Europe / US [and if u r in TCS, Uruguay / Nicaragua and may be arctic / antarctic, and may be moon too :)], (some of us) would earn so much money in a month that it took the parents a lifetime to save, would fly, would drive cars [and other than ambassadors / premier padminis / marutis :) ].

So many factors combined to give us this lifestyle, this progress, this 'giant leap in human development index' - like technological advancements (mobile and internet come immediately to mind), but these revolution in technology had thrown an opportunity to the entire world - not just India.

The reason why Indians could tap it, where as most of the rest of the developing world could not, or being more correct, politically and otherwise, why India could tap it more than the rest of the world, is - we had few people, few visionaries, which rest of the world did not. This blog entry, on 60th ID of India, is a tribute to those people.
Here they are:

Nehru

Praising him now a days is one of the most politically incorrect things in here (unfortunately). But it was his vision of what he called 'the temples of modern India', which created, among other things, the IITs, perhaps our most valuable & respected brand name in US (and the developed world) today. I need not waste time, yours and mine, commenting upon the IITs :), but let me share a conversation I had with an American colleague outside our office building (somewhere north of DC), where I was waiting for a friend and he was taking a smoking break - we started talking casually and he was curious about where I graduated from. Upon me mentioning one of the IITs*, his comment was: "O man, IITs!!! ppl who don't get admission there come here and study at MIT" - [M for Massachusetts, not for Manipal, mind u :)]

Rajiv Gandhi

His name here may be surprising to most of u. Cause almost nothing has been written about his visions (or, whatever has been written, got over shadowed by bofors / shahbano / shilanyas etc ). Anyway, i think it was 1986, when i read an interview he gave to some kids (i think on the occasion of 14th nov), for a children's hindi monthly called Parag. At that time, very few things (toffees, biscuits, summer vacations and daadi's stories) made sense, and this interview was definitely not one of them. It was not till i finished BE and joined Wipro and till terms like information revolution started appearing in the media, and grew familiar to me, and to most of India, that i recalled one of his comments from that interview.
Rajiv to kids: "aap logon ne parha ho ga ki qareeb 200 saal pahle duniya mein ek audyogik kranti aayee thhee. par ham us mein peeche rah gaye the. Dunia me ek aur kraanti aane vaali hai, 'soochna kranti', aur is baar hamein peeche nahi rahna hai."
And then he went on to mention that he was working towards bringing computer technology to India - so that this time India wont fall behind.

Apparently, it hasn't.
Thanks to him, (and i m sure many others too).

Also, he added, with things like these, he wanted to take India to 21st century ...
How prophetic words, and whatta vision ...
It is his vision that we (particularly the IT people) are living today.

Narsimha Rao / Manmoahn singh

The architects of economic liberalization that swept (and continues to seep) India (well, at least the urban middle class and beyond), off its feet, catapulted it to the forefront of world stage. Somehow, i feel this jodi was not given the credit that it deserved, neither in India, nor in the world. This jodi was to India what Deng was to china, and perhaps more - cause unlike Deng, they were working in a democracy. While Deng is universally recognized as the man who put China in the big league, this jodi is not as much recognized as it deserved to be (it is just my observation, and it may be wrong - i hope i am)

PS: Read India as "urban India" - for, unfortunately, rural India, like most of the rest of the world, could not tap this opportunity in such a big way - which should be and is a cause of concern, but let us celebrate what we have achieved, instead of feeling guilty over what we should have but not - achieved. Also, the still existing poverty in rural (and urban as well) India, and other things associated with it, are not 'because of the progress of Urban Middle class India' - it is indifferent of it. And though indifference is questionable and should be corrected, it is not objectionable - i guess.

So Happy Independence Day guys (and gals) - and salute to those who are responsible for the most of the "Happy" part of the above greeting.

Shadkam Islam
http://shadkam.islam.googlepages.com/
http://shadkamislam.blogspot.com/
http://shadkam19.blogspot.com/

* though my college became an IIT after my passing out - i took the liberty to not to bother him with all those details :)

Searched, to my pleasant surprise, could find clippings from Chanakya ... Listen to / watch this one [aisi hindi na dekhi thhee na suni thhee] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7V0w9u1CsI

Apart from being hindi mind-twister,
it would be nostalgic for some of us (who were old enough to have watched chanakya on DD those days), and prehistory for some of us ... but either ways, it would be nice :) ...

Weekly Updates
Over the weekend i happened to go to Luthra's den ... and though I had been there before and was expecting it to be as messy as Ashu Gupta's hair - I got a cultural shock still - it was as full of electronic items - most of em stale (seem to be no longer in use) as a govt primary school toilet in UP is of, well :), s.h.i.t :) [stale condition applies, here also, in its entirety :)], and as guy's minds are full of, well :), gals [stale condition does not apply here :)], and as Anurag's mind(?)* is of wipro policies / politics / quarterly results ...

i found, apart from the regular stuff of 5 laptops (4 of them so dusty ki they look straight out of harappa / mohan-jo-daro :), a LCD TV, a home theater system, 3 professional class cameras, and numerous others which i, owing to my not so great knowledge of gadgets, can not name, all crammed into a space u get by combining a dozen janitor's closets together [volume wise, crammedness wise, gandagi-wise, and otherwise :)], - a brand new 30 inch LCD monitor :), on the kitchen slab, near the sink, placed on top of some dirty vessels, tilted but not falling, just like the leaning tower of PISA ... :)

Here went the conversation:-

An Astonished Me (will be called AAMe. though abbreviation, my bong friends will feel at home) :Luthra, y did u need to get this one bhai, u already have this 36 inch TV, and all the lappies have got their own monitors ...
Luthra: [silence for 10 secs]

Arshad Miyan : Array, zaroorat ki kyaa baat hai ... mil raha thhaa ... le aaaye :):)

AAme : But y have kept it on the kitchen slab, so near to the sink, and on top of toBeWashed vessels ... maid will certainly maanjofy it if she finds it there ... :)

Luthra: [once again the same answer, silence :) for 15 secs]

Arshad Miyan : Array, bhai ... kaheen aur tab rakhein ge jab 'kaheen aur' jagah ho gi ... :)

Anurag / Ashu / gydec25, commento!!

Also happened to finish Dan Brown's this weekend, and life is again back to the normal aimless phase - till Dan Brown comes up with his next novel ... :), that is.
Nepolean is rumored to have not understood the meaning of fear for first 9 years of his life ... something similar occurred while reading Angles and Daemons - i did not know what a thriller is - before reading it ... :) Jabardast che ... maza aa gaya ... I liked it even more than Da Vinci code - and the other Deception Point, is also at the same level as A&D. Guys .... read em.

* before girija puts it there, let me only do it

http://shadkam.islam.googlepages.com/
http://shadkamislam.blogspot.com/
http://shadkam19.blogspot.com/

Surprising ... isn't it. While growing up DD was something like a punching bag to us ... and it appeared that nothing in DD was good ... but believe me - today after accidentally finding one of em and then searching / finding and listening to the others - i ended up getting a feeling Jagjit Singh has no nicely voiced thru "ye daulat bhi le lo, ye shohrat bhi le lo"

Njoy ... and if u have time [which is something none of us, the software engineers / managers can claim to not to have :)], do let me know ur feelings about em ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7OkWpfTz1U [mile sur mera tumhara]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBbSbCczYeM [bharat ek khoj]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpT3TqsNqBY [ek anek ekta]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9RVgTX55vo [jungle-2 pata chala hai]

--
Shadkam Islam
http://shadkam.islam.googlepages.com/
http://shadkamislam.blogspot.com/
http://shadkam19.blogspot.com/

Have u ever wondered how volcano's craters look like ...
I am sure u did - and so did i ...

But today I went a step further and actually saw it :), yeah u guessed it right, on wikimapia ...

http://www.wikimapia.org/#lat=40.820776&lon=14.426336&z=15&l=0&m=a&v=2 shows the one in Vesuvius, Italy. Remember the chapters in our little old (chho chhweeet) 2nd / 3rd / 4th std books ... :), which had it mentioned some where in them.

Here is another one in Japan, and this one, hold your breath [but not too long, please :) **], is active - or, for some of you more-logic-oriented (baal ki khaal nikalne valon) types, was active when the photo was taken .. :).

http://www.wikimapia.org/#lat=31.579852&lon=130.659285&z=13&l=0&m=a&v=2

For best effect on this one,
go to http://www.wikimapia.org/#lat=31.579852&lon=130.659285&z=13&l=0&m=a&v=2 first, and then gradually zoom out ... - Mast effect hai ...
** I don't want to be held responsible for inadvertently causing u to (voluntarily) suffocate to death :)

--
Shadkam Islam
http://shadkam.islam.googlepages.com/
http://shadkamislam.blogspot.com/
http://shadkam19.blogspot.com/

What you get when you put JFK and MLK together?

Barack Obama.
I guess ... or at least he is the closest to an ideal answer (in my humble opinion) out of the available world ... :)

He is perhaps the most exciting and fresh-breeze type thing that has happened to US political stage, or perhaps world's political stage - since JFK [Clinton caused some fresh air too :), though of a different, unmentionable kind :)].

I think he is the single biggest combination of 1) willingness to change the world - to make it a better place, 2) the power to do so (if he wins), and 3) the oratory skills which can and hopefully, will propel him to that power - since JFK.

Before hearing him, the best oratory skills I had ever witnessed was that of MLK ("I have a dream" and others), but this guy is equally good at it, and unlike MLK (and like JFK), he is and would be part of the establishment where he wont have to struggle as hard as MLK to influence things. Cause (though it is a fact too obvious to state) good intentions alone cant make things better. One needs to have the power to translate those good intentions to actions.

Here are two of his addresses I liked the most (so far),
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r-90rO4rZA [Chicago]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9r-XG_VJZDw [Selma, Alabama]

Some other quotes from him which I liked, are below, towards the end of this entry.

PS: Though it may raise an eyebrow or two, as to why me, a person sitting half the globe away from US, is so interested / impressed / hopeful / wishful, in / of / that / that - the person who is a probable candidate for US presidency ... But as Arundhati Roy has put it in one of her speeches - US, unlike any other country in the contemporary world, or any other empire since time immemorial, can be considered a world empire - and all of us humans, notwithstanding our geographies (however remote or distant they be) - its citizens. Though I wont go that far,
but I feel, and Obama himself has put it in one of the speeches very beautifully [(as usual :)]:
"This President may occupy the White House, but for the last six years the position of leader of the free world has remained open. And it's time to fill that role once more. ... America cannot meet the threats of this century alone, but the world cannot meet them without America. We must neither retreat from the world nor try to bully it into submission – we must lead the world, by deed and example. "
What Obama is targeting for is the leadership of the free world, and so it is natural that the free world would be interested in him.
Some tidbits (which I liked a lot) from his various speeches:
"I know that I haven't spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington, but I've been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change."

"My parents shared not only an improbable love, they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation. They would give me an African name, Barack, or blessed, believing that in a tolerant America your name is no barrier to success. They imagined me going to the best schools in the land, even though they weren't rich, because in a generous America you don't have to be rich to achieve your potential. "

Shadkam Islam
http://shadkam.islam.googlepages.com/
http://shadkamislam.blogspot.com/
http://shadkam19.blogspot.com/

Today is Friday the 13th :)
Which reminded me of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd0hi6zw6to (ulta walking scene from Exorcist), the scariest, or in fact the only scary scene from any horror movies I have seen so far ...
Watch it at your own risk ... :) - well, on youtube it does not look that scary, but while watching the movie, with the one having had (more than) enough tense moments before this scene already, and when one had already, many times in that short period of time, reached the verge of getting scared ... :) - it looked scary ... :) - believe me ...

Read on if u have time, and r a soccer fan

Riquelme would, on 15th, be playing perhaps the most important match of his career, which would also, in all probability, be his last one ... :(
He is one of the 2 players (in post Maradona era, that is) I have been a big fan of ... the other being Zidane ...

http://football.guardian.co.uk/worldcup2006/story/0,,1800201,00.html is a nice article about him.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oalFqegl8kk is one of the most exciting goals I have seen, involving Riquelme or otherwise (but this one involves him :), off course) ...
This is one of his 5 goals in this Copa America, so far ... which makes him the second highest goal scorer after Robinho (6) in this tournament (again, so far) ...
Hope he scores a at least a couple more this weekend (and Robinho doesn't) - and becomes leading goal scorer of the tournament, Amen.

In spite of being such a great player, a fulcrum around / with whom the team moves, he looks so humble, so very humble ... so very approachable, and there lies the line cutting him distinctly above other contemporary stars :)

PS: Also Messi's goal ( http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/2m20U43OnWEYghKLH ) which I sent yesterday, is indeed as extraordinary as we thought :) - Argentine coach's words (below) confirm this -
"Messi's goal made me feel like closing the stadium there and then," said Argentina's coach Alfio Basile. "Only a genius can do something like that. It was an extraordinary feat that moved everyone."

Cheers,
Enjoy the weekend, with some exciting soccer, and hopefully an Argentine victory on the night of sunday/monday ... [Sambaran, what say ya?]

Shadkam Islam
http://shadkam.islam.googlepages.com/
http://shadkamislam.blogspot.com/
http://shadkam19.blogspot.com/

Excerpts from Bhagat Singh's last petition ...

Excerpts:
"... Let us declare that the state of war does exist and shall exist so long as the Indian toiling masses and the natural resources are being exploited by a handful of parasites. They may be purely British Capitalist or mixed British and Indian or even purely Indian. They may be carrying on their insidious exploitation through mixed or even on purely Indian bureaucratic apparatus. All these things make no difference ..."

What a great visionary he was to foresee that the exploitation of toiling masses was not going to stop with just the British leaving India and power coming into Indian Hands - when rest of India, almost in entirety, believed so.

Also, though most of you guys may not feel comfortable in accepting it, Aren't Arundhati Roys and Medha Patkars the ones furthering the cause Bhagat Singh lived for, and died for ... :(

Another quote from it is "... power is the greatest justification in this world ..." - coincidently the subject of my previous blog entry "Six Day War ... " :(

PS: http://www.shahidbhagatsingh.org/ has a lot of such material on Bhagat Singh (in case you want to visit), which I had been looking for, on the internet, but was not getting anywhere, this site included. I think recently they have updated it with all these contents.

Shadkam Islam
http://shadkam.islam.googlepages.com/
http://shadkamislam.blogspot.com/
http://shadkam19.blogspot.com/

Bahut bade nalayaq ho.
Gadhe ho ek number ke.
Kisi kaam ke nahi ho.
Tumahara kuchh nahi ho sakta.
Ye Kyon kar rahe ho?
Vo kyon nahi kiya?
Chup chaap nahi baith sakte?
Ye time hai ghar aane ka?
Jab main tumahri umar ka thha ...

All you Guys:
Imagine the one person who comes to mind while reading the above (married guys: think other than your wives) ...
Invariably, most of us would answer ... DAD ...
:)

I asked only the guys above cause gals somehow never get to experience this. I can't understand, how come God has spared the daughters of this daily daant-phatkaar-hadkaana etc ... :(
Why should only the males have to get blasted ... for first half of there lives from there Dads, and for the remaining half, from their wives ... :( ... Only the interval, when one goes to college / onsite, offers a badly needed breather.

Karan Johar, in KKHH defines Moms very beautifully. In one of the scenes, "Maan voh hai, jo hamein yeh ehsaas dilati hai ki ham kitne achche hain, hamse achcha koi hai hi nahi"

All these days and years I used to wonder how he could get the definition of Moms so very wonderful and so very correct ... I realized a couple of days back ... during the hues and cries of father's day ... :).

He must have just thought of a definition for Dads, and inversed it ... :)
"Baap voh hai, jo zindagi ke har qadam par, hamein yeh ehsaas dilane ka koi mauqa nahi chookte, ki ham kitne nalayaq hain, hamse nalayaq koi hai hi nahi" :)

Some of the quotes I have heard from friends of mine over the last few years, will prove the above definition :), if at all such a universal truth needs any proof.

• Ashu Gupta (~6 years back): Yaar, !%^#$, Har baap chahta hai ki uska beta amitabh bachchan ho ... Ab other than Amitabh's, duniya kar har baap apne bete se dissatisfied rahe ga ki nahi ...
• Aftab (2 days back - which triggered this blog): Yaar shad bhai, I was not getting job and was feeling utterly butterly frustrated those days - and then I used to think, ki lagta hai, Papa ki bad-dua qubool ho hi gayee ... :)
• From a friend's slam book: Against the most irritating person in life, one of our friends has put his Dad ... and then he justified it - "abbe haan yaar, pareshaan kiye rahte hain, dimagh ka dahi kar diya hai, ye course kar lo, yahan ka form bhar do ... vahan ka entrance de do etc etc " ... [those were the days we were in 12th and our futures (to which we were indifferent, but our Dads weren't) looked insecure]
• Another friend told this joke: A Dad was scolding his son - When Shiva Ji was your age he had already won 3 forts ... Son: When Shiva Ji's Dad was your age, he was governor of a province ... :)
• Another time during one of the parties in Wipro I had taken more on my plate than I could possibly finish (literally :)) ... A senior of mine comforted me by saying "Don't worry, your Dad is not here to scold you as to why you did not finish" :)
  

Khair ... the stuff above was (obviously :)), in light humor ...
Coming to a serious note, Dads are our ideals. For most of us - for things we want to do / become, and for some of us - things we do not want to do / become ... :)

Like every good thing, this blog is coming to an end now ... however, before that, the cause of writing it should be justified ... so ...

Happy Father's Day ...

:)

Six day war - 40 Years on ...

To all of us who hope and expect that problem in west Asia may be resolved ...
I share the hope - earnestly, but not the expectation ... here is why:

Negotiations happen only between people will comparable power … they can happen between US and Russia, India and Pakistan, where the powers, though not same, but are of same order of magnitude … but not between a WWF champ and myself, with my 5'8'' frame …

There is an exception though .. if the entities are living in a society … civil society …

The basis of society (from which man being a 'social' animal is derived) is that society sees to it that negotiations / peaceful and just resolution of conflicts happen between people irrespective the difference in power they weild … If a society can not guarrant it, it is not worthy of being called a society … it is a jungle …

Unfortunately, this is what the world of international politics today is … :(

An urdu couplet comes to mind,

Ye Daur bhi dekha hai taareekh ki nazron ne
Lamhon ne khata ki thhee, sadiyon ne saza payee

[History has been a witness to an age like this ...
When mistake which lasted moments made the centuries suffer ... ]

Shadkam Islam
http://shadkam.islam.googlepages.com/
http://shadkamislam.blogspot.com/
http://shadkam19.blogspot.com/

When imagination and sculptory, both at their best, meet - it produces something heavenly ... something beyond imagination ...

Out of all the things that I have seen in my reasonably loooong life, nothing but the veiled statue of Rebeca at Salarjung museum brought the above thought ... The statue is that of a girl draped in a veil, except that the veil is made up of very fine / thin cloth, as thin and fine that it is transparent ... and that this transparency has also been sculpted leaves the audiences awestruck ...

Could find one copy on google - Have a look ...

http://www.hindu.com/2006/04/19/images/2006041921010501.jpg
--
Shadkam Islam
http://shadkam.islam.googlepages.com/
http://shadkamislam.blogspot.com/
http://shadkam19.blogspot.com/

Went to GowriPalya this saturday, to meet / interact / contribute with people who are involved in sponsoring poor children for their school fee / books etc, children who otherwise would have been unable to attend schools due to financial constraints. Well, this is something good, and something commendable, but definitely not as exciting or as 'effective in the short term at least' as the other work which was going on there and which I was privileged to witness.

There were people, like Tazayun Umar of Aalim education trust/Human touch NGO, and her team and a set of dedicated volunteers (IT professionals among them), and the very dedicated and energetic Mohammad Shafiullah, who had told me about this and had asked me to come there. The management of this big exercise coming from a volunteer who happens to be an alumni of the famed IIM.
And these people were trying to do to the poor of Bangalore what Mohd Younis did to the poor of Bangladesh. Yes, they have launched a micro credit scheme ... where women are given loans, interest free, and without having to pledge anything for the loan. With that loan the women can start some small business [say getting a sewing machine and with which to stitch clothes] - which would guarantee them a steady income, some part of which would be used for the repayment of the loans. Women were asked to come in groups of 5, and in the beginning only one of them would be given the loan, and loan to others will depend on how the persons of that group, who have been given loans, are repaying it ... So there would be a peer pressure on them to repay it.


It was a really nice thing to witness ... All these days, I used to crib to myself - that most, or (in fact I used to think all of us, including myself) do not do anything on the ground, on the field, we are limited to airing our views in our comfortable drawing rooms over a cup of coffee over a weekend - and feel happy that we thought about the poor, the not so privileged ...

But this weekend visit there changed it ... there are people among us who are doing work in the field - devoting their time, energy, money ...

Salute to them.

Reservations (SC/ST) - why are they justified
People advocating res. based on economic condition are missing the reason of introducing it. One entire section of society has been, for centuries, being deprived of, among a big list, education - as is evident from our history, and this quote ("yadi veda ka ek shabd bhi koi shoodra sun le to usko kaanon mein pighla seesa daal dena chahiye") from one of our ancient sculptures.
As a result of the above, and also as rightly pointed out in many of the anti-reservation comments below, this section of society is condemned with a lot lower average IQ than rest (I m talking only about avarage IQ, exceptions are there everywhere). Unless the govt. gives them some push in form of reservation, these sections may be continue to remain where they have been living for centuries, occupying the lowest rung of the society.
You may ask me - why should a upper caste teenager, who otherwise could have got into IIT if not for reservation, pay the price for a crime that ancient generations of his (or of his caste) committed ...
Definitely, I agree - it does not make sense.
But on the other hand, why should SC/ST teenagers, who would have had same avarage IQ as their upper caste counterparts if not for this centuries of exploitation and deprivation, pay the price either.

If u go with a sense of medivial justice, where eye for eye and blood for blood was the rule, all upper castes will have to be deprived of, forget everything else, education itself for generations (as many as those of SC/STs which were deprived of it), and then only this historic wrong would get corrected.

Off course, no sane person should subscribe to the above view and thankfully - nobody does.
I mentioned it here so that we, the so called upper castes should realize, that reservation is the least that can be done to undo that historic wrong done with those sections.

I also believe that reservation is bad, but it is the least bad thing available out there. And I also agree that as suggested in many of the comments, reservation implementation flaws should be identified and corrected (i.e. after 3 generations availing reservation, no more reservations in that tree, having relevant cut-off marks, etc etc)