Dependence on technology

Well, This post is coming as a consequence of me being cut off from having mobile connectivity as described in my previous post. Problem is not yet solved, but it got me thinking. It was extremely frustrating initially, and the frustration increased. But now after 4 days of absence of connectivity, I am starting to make peace with the situation. I started wondering how dependent I have become on my mobile. I remembered good old time when I did not have one. In fact, I got a mobile from my own stipend during my Masters. I have never been addicted to SMSing or other kind of mobile addictions people have. I only use it to call people and receive calls. When I am away from my home, I use it for at most an 40 min to an hour and when I am at home, well, I hardly use my cell phone. So I believe that is is just psychological. But this is just scary. A little disturbance in life and I lost peace of my mind. And there are two faces to this situation. Either you make peace with whatever situation ( injustice, unprofessionalism etc ) you are faced with, or you fight back. In the former, probably your conscience will bug you, reminding you that you did not take a stand. You just sat back and just made peace with the situation. In fact, that's what we all are good at. We just turn blind eye and just try to make peace with it. I think, now I understand the situation of India. At every stage, for every service, one has to put up so much fight, that at the end of it, people just make peace with it. They trade their rights ( right to get justice, professional service etc ) and money ( bribe ) for their peace of mind. May be that's why we fair much better at happiness index even we top the charts of corruption. Probably, in a long term and in a bigger picture, peace of mind trumps everything.

Airtel Sucks!

Well,
I think title tells everything that this post is about. I got an airtel SIM on 9th May and submitted all required documents. I got a call from airtel to verify the details I had filled in and I gave appropriate answers. The trouble started when I got an SMS on 29th July saying that my documents were not in order.

I went to Airtel Customer Care at Malleshwaram, Bangalore. Resubmitted all of the documents and filled the form again. They assured me that my mobile connection will not be affected now. 10 days later, suddenly, without warning, they barred outgoing as well as incoming connections. When I went there to enquire, they said that it has been barred due to 'Zero Usage'!!!!

Needless, to mention that I was using this number the whole time. Neither I ran out of balance nor validity. They made me talk to their "(mis)manager" and he asked me to submit the document, yet again!!! I do not see any connection between "Zero Usage" and my documents. After enough shouting, they told it will get activated within 4 hours. When their 4 hours did not get over after my 20 hours ( may be Airtel operates in some sort of parallel universe! ), I went again to Customer Care at Malleshwaram.

Not to my surprise, there were couple of customers already shouting for one reason or the other. I took my turn to shout at them, and now they reduced the time to 30 minutes. I am yet to gain a knowledge of the way time operates in their parallel universe. I am still waiting for my connection to get established.

It is a loot in broad day light, as they even refuse to return my balance in the event of them not able to provide me connectivity!

I have been using vodafone for last 4 years, and used MTNL 3 years before that. Never faced a problem like this. The only thing I would recommend is to keep away from Airtel.

May they rot in Hell!!! Oh, wait, I forgot that they are themselves the creators!

નાઝિર નો શેર

‘પ્રભુના શીશપર મ્હારૂ સદન થઈ જા તો સારુ,
ભલે ગંગા સમુએ મુજ પતન થઈ જાય તો સારુ.’
-- નાઝિર દેખૈયા

મરીઝ ની રચના

ઠોકરની સાથે નામ તુજ લેવાય છે ઈશ્વર,
તું કેવો અક્સ્માતથી સર્જાય છે ઈશ્વર.

હેઠો મૂકાશે હાથને ભેગા થશે પછી જ,
કોશિશ જ્યાં પતે ત્યાં જ શરૂ થાય છે ઈશ્વર.

જો દૂર પેલી વસ્તીમાં ભૂખ્યા છે ભૂલકાં,
લાગે છે તને દૂરનાં ચશ્માં ય છે ઈશ્વર.

કે’ છે તું પેલા મંદિરે છે હાજરાહજૂર,
તું પણ શું ચકાચોંધથી અંજાય છે ઈશ્વર ?

થોડા જગતના આંસુઓ, થોડા મરીઝના શે’ર,
લાવ્યો છું જુદી પ્રાર્થના, સંભળાય છે ઈશ્વર ?

એનામાં હું ય માનતો થઈ જાઉં છું ત્યારે,
મારામાં જ્યારે માનતો થઈ જાય છે ઈશ્વર.

A gazal by manoj khanderia

જરાય દોસ્તો ખબર નથી કે, અમોને શાની સજા મળી છે,
કશુંય તહોમત નથીજ માથે, વગર ગુનાની સજા મળી છે…..

વિનમ્ર થઈ ને કદાપિય્રે કે કરી ના ફરીયાદો જીંદગીમાં,
રહી રહી ને ખબર પડી કે, ન બોલવાની સજા મળી છે…..

ઘણીય વેળા ઉભા રહ્યા તો, અશક્ત માની હટાવી દીધા,
ઘણીય વેળા સમયથી આગળ વધુ થવાની સજા મળી છે…..

અમારા ઘરમાં અમારા અવસર ઉપર નીમંત્ર્યા બધાને કિંતૂ,
હવે અમારી સભાથી અમને વહી જવાની સજા મળી છે…..

– મનોજ ખંડેરીયા

Screen capture utility

I was looking for a utility that can capture screen session in linux. Finally, I found it!

http://recordmydesktop.sourceforge.net/

Research and its impact on our lives

Well, I am sure that many of us are now aware of the "sixth sense" and how it can revolutionize the way we interact with the surrounding. For the ignorant souls, here are the a couple of videos,





The best thing about it is that it will be open source. I would really bow to the guy if he really kicks the fortune waiting for him if he patents "sixth sense" and make it available to masses to make some real change in the lives of people.

Another good news I got to know today is that some student from kolhapur has developed a system so that the electricity can be generated from the water supplied from overhead tanks of buildings. Everyone knows the principle of electricity generation from water, but getting such a nice idea of building small turbines so that it can be used in any building is awesome. I would really hope to see such ideas being implemented in day to day life. Do not know whether builders will make it a practice to incorporate such technologies in their project or not. Having solar cell panels on the roofs is also another source of green energy. Rain water harvesting and many other cool ideas are already there, all we need is to embed and embrace these ideas in our day to day lives. Will we embrace them in time, or whether we will dig the well only when our a** is on fire? Only time will tell, but I sure hope that we wake up sooner than later...

Nice sher by shakhadam abuvala

Copied from the status line of my friend sanjay vaghela.

કેવો તું કીમતી હતો સસ્તો બની ગયો
બનવું હતું નહીં ને શિરસ્તો બની ગયો
ગાંધી તને ખબર છે કે તારું થયું છે શું
ખુરસી સુધી જવાનો તું રસ્તો બની ગયો.
- શેખાદમ આબુવાલા *"ખુરસી"*

Yeh Mera India - Sher

Well,
I was looking for it and found it here (http://mayankshukla1.blogspot.com/2009/11/ymi-ye-mera-india-sher-o-shayari.html). Copying here for my own record :-). Thanks to mayank for posting it.

किरण चाहू तो दुनिया के सरे अँधेरे घेर लेते है |
कोई मेरे तरह जी ले तो जीना भूल जायेगा ||


साथ भी छोडा तो कब,जब सब बुरे दिन कट गए |
ज़िन्दगी तुने कहा आकर दिया धोखा मुझे ||

हमें इस चिस्त से उम्मीद क्या थी और क्या निकला |
कहा जाना हुआ था तय कहा से रास्ता निकला ||
खुदा जिनको समझते थे वो शीशा थे न पत्थर थे |
जिसे पत्थर समझते थे वही अपना खुदा निकला ||

जिसने इस दौर के इन्सान किये है पैदा वो मेरा भी खुदा होगा मुझे मंज़ूर नहीं |

अगर टूटे कीसी का दिल ,तो शब् भर आख रोती है |
ये दुनिया है गुलो की जी इसमें काटे पिरोती है ||
हम मिलते है अपने गाओ में दुश्मन से भी इठला कर |
तुम्हारा शहर देखा तो बड़ी तकलीफ होती है ||

One of the greatest chess puzzle

Lately, I have grown a bit of interest in chess, thanks to Ramprasad. He pointed to this page. Truely, an amazing puzzle indeed. Holy Grail!!!!

Just copying the positions in FEN here for those out there who are curious to solve it first :-).

Bq1B1K2/3PpN2/P3Pp2/P1p2P2/2Pk1b1R/1p6/pN1P1P2/QR6 w - - 0 1

White to move and mate in 4.