Born Again

Been watching the Mark Ruffalo and Keira Knightley starrer Born Again. So relevant now.

'We take a chance from time to time

And put our necks out on the line

And you have broken every promise that we made

And I have loved you anyway

Took a fine time to leave me hangin' out to dry

Understand now I'm greivin'

So don't you waste my time

Cause you have taken

All the wind out from my sails

And I have loved you just the same

We finally find this

then you're gone

Been chasin' rainbows all along

And you have cursed me

When there's no one left to blame

And I have loved you just the same

And you have broken every single fucking rule

And I have loved you like a fool'

Rolling in the Deep

There are occasions when the emotions over-power you so much that you are lost for words and can't express your feelings clearly. Adele has captured my current feelings in her 'Rolling in Deep' better than I could ever have.

The catchy lyrics and the earth shattering visuals aptly represent the sorrow and anguish of unrequited love and betrayal. 

I am never interested in revenge. In the long run, everybody gets what they deserve - a.k.a Karma. For all those who caused this terrible anguish, there is a special place in hell reserved for you, and it is called late realization. 

Reincarnate.

Dear Diary,

Life hasn't been easy at all, over the last two years. In fact, what I thought would become the wisest decisions of my life have turned out to be (at least for now) huge misfires. Over the last one year, barely a day has gone past when I haven't prayed to god to restore sanity in my life. 

The simple and uneventful life that I had had its own charm; the days were glorious. That doesn't mean I will stick to the past. 

Just like in the past when bad news came in blocks, I have resorted to inward thinking and spirituality. I am taking a deep look at what I was, what I am and what I can be - and oh, it has given me some new lessons.

A few things that I have learned.

• Self Deprecation is not always perceived as strength: The view that only very psychologically strong people can be self deprecating is seldom shared. While you want to be seen as humble and down to earth, other people see it as sign of weakness and take advantage of that. 
• Rationality is a rare thing: Irrationality is a part of human behavior, even when making very important decisions. 
• Different value systems : When people think what they do is right, and when their immediate group validates it, they are impervious to other's opinions and beliefs.
• Human opinions are fickle : Repeating the same lie over and over can change people's opinion, so much so that they will start believing the exact opposite of what they believed in the first place. 
• Everyone has got an opinion: When your life is eventful, and not outwardly positive, everyone has an opinion on what happened and how these could have been avoided. However, people don't realise that the best intentions and best efforts do not always yield good results.

Though things have been hard, I have tried hard not to fall behind in any aspect when compared to my peers... and I must say, I am doing good here. I consider this period as one for deep thoughts and self re-building. For years, I have likened myself to the mythical bird Phoenix - it rises from the ashes of its predecessor...over and over.  This time too, I must.

#BeingMallu and the Pheno-menon called Trends

A playful hashtag, #beingmallu was trending on twitter for a full day, starting 1 PM on 09-Jan-2012.  Thanks to all the mallus worldwide, #beingmallu was trending globally. Yes, globally. I too chipped in. There are a few good posts on the trend.


This tag had me thinking. If a few earnest Malayalis could influence the global twitter trends atleast when the Americans are sleeping, is it a reliable indication of the trends worldwide? I guess a rudimentary analysis is in order. Let's examine.

One might think that the tag was trending due to the large number of educated mallus worldwide, what with the 100% literacy and all. Oh yes, among these is a huge percentage with access to the internet - for example the large number of practically jobless Software Engineers Kerala has exported (Exhibit A - me). Could be. Or, it could be also be due to the fact that a few hyperactive handles did most of the tweeting. There is nothing wrong with this, of course. From my basic analysis of various twitter handles, one thing that I have understood is that unless the person behind the handle is a celebrity (or fast becoming one), regularity of tweets and piggybacking to popular issues are the only ways to gain more retweets and followers. This really is a chicken and egg situation, a non-celebrity has no choice but to keep tweeting about the issue of the day to gain further audience. Yes, kinda like politics. Of course the tweets have to be either useful, funny or ideological. Once the hashtag reached the top spot in India, it truly reached the tipping point. It woke several sleeping handles up. For instance, I could see several #beingmallu tweets per second by 5 PM. This should have resulted in the hashtag staying at the top globally, despite the peak activity time of the Brits (assuming they are the lot who tweet in English the most, after the Americans). 


Still... Does it mean that twitter trends mean people are genuinely interested? What could be a better indicator? Who else has better idea of what's happening around us? Of course, it's Google. I firmly believe that the Google trends is a better indicator of the national interest than the twitter trends. Google trends clearly provide us a better picture of all and sundry things that people search in Google. Twitter adoption in India is still low. Hence, the twitter trends can be influenced by a few hyperactive tweeps. Google is far more popular and the base is huge. As a result, Google trends cannot be influenced that easily. On any day, I would rely on Google trends to know the mood of the nation.


PS1 : There is copycat #beingKannadiga trending now. What? #beingMallu is a plagiarised version of #beingGujju ? Imbossible! 


PS2: All the above statements are based on just observations and here say. So all of them could be absolute rubbish. 

PS3: Shameless plug of my tweet.

#BeingMallu is when you can correctly spell Thiruvananthapuram, correctly name Kochi and correctly say Kozhikode.
— Aravind Naick (@aravindgn) January 9, 2012

Dear Assistant

For quite some time over the last one year, I have been thinking about going online 24 * 7. My thought was that having internet on the move is going to help me immensely with the GMail access and Google Maps and the Wolfram Alpha and what not. This meant that I ditch my perfectly fine simple mobile phone and buying a new smart phone. Finally I caved and after due deliberation, I bought a top of the line android phone last month. The fact that I am not a huge fan of either Apple or Microsoft made the selection process quiet simple. 


Needless to say, I was super excited at the prospect of being a full time netizen.  With in hours, I got the 3G activated. Also, I WiFi enabled the home. I went to the android market place and installed all the apps that I ever wanted, heard and some I have never even imagined that I will ever use (ToI app in my mobile? sacrilegious!). I was also considering about the purchase of 32GB data card so that I can 'carry my entire music collection' with me. But I didn't. Thankfully, my senses (a combination of laziness, stinginess and the fact that I don't have a music collection) prevailed and now I am richer by 1.5K. 


When I started this post, I was trying to say how the device has failed to improve my productivity, in any way. Then I started thinking, and now I realize how dependent I am on this tiny cuboid. Sure, the device has been very good at killing my time - I have spent hours playing Asphalt 6. But, I have used it extensively. I read while I'm travelling, eating and some times even in the loo. So, there is hardly a dull moment. Also, the combination of GPS and Google Maps is deadly. I freak people out by showing up at locations in remote gullys, with out asking directions from them and by booking movie tickets as we talk. 

I am impressed with you, my dear assistant. You are my HAL 9000. You bode well for my lifestyle of instant gratification. Please don't become a villain.

Ramblings

Okay, so I have moved to my own apartment since the last post. But, hey, the last post was more than 14 months ago. Ever since I moved in here, I have been staying here on rent (euphemistically called maintenance charges). The cost is higher than what I used to pay as rent when I was sharing the accommodation. But, the benefits are certainly there - 24 x 7 power, nice view and security (noun). The most important thing is watching the reaction of my friends when they hear that I own an apartment in Bangalore - though that implies that I am a loser. I don't let anyone know that my mother partly funded it, else it will confirm the previously mentioned implication. So, psst...


I certainly miss the company of those guys who on occasions made my life hell, but presented me with some of the most memorable moments of my life. However, there is one big advantage - that since I am staying alone, I can continue my crazy lifestyle. I sleep at 3am, wake up at 10 am and on weekends, I watch CNBC and CNN at 4 am. That's when the Americans have their best programs aired. Although in hindsight,though I despise the fact that I do so, somehow I love to live in the moment. Not only have I succeeded in earning a reputation among my friends and family about weird timings, but also succeeded in getting some of them to follow my route. I have always given satisfactory explanations (in my mind) as to why I do this. I am hoping that I can change all these soon... Ah, who am I kidding? I will change it only if I have to. I that sort of guy who keeps himself awake till 6 AM, if he has to go to some place then, rather than sleep at 12 and get up by 6. In short, Newton formulated inertia and Jim Davis modeled Garfield after me.

I do realize that with this back ground image and my profile photo up there (not the Garfield one - although if I were a cat, I am very sure I could have been him), it looks as though I am going to jump off the cliff. No... I am not even remotely considering anything like that. Life is monotonous, boring, repetitive, yet fulfilling and hopeful. Recently, I was trying to write 3 essays - 300 words each - and they took me a month to complete. Needless to say, my confidence took a heavy beating. That was when I decided that I will write a blog entry with out absolutely any prior thought. Smug with the false sense of confidence, I am off - off for another long night. 

Crikey!

It has been a while since I last put my language skills for the betterment of humanity. When I was having my dinner today, I suddenly had this sudden unexplainable urge to spread the wisdom that I have been accumulating over the past several months. There is no better way to explain that feeling. May be, it's just the boredom caused by the loneliness of staying alone. When the economy is rebound, the young and the restless gets ambitious.As a result, the content and the lazy people lose their room mates.

Over this period, I have started using the social networking sites like never before. There is hardly a day when I don't visit facebook and twitter. While performing an ego search in google, I found that my tweets are all indexed by Google and other sites there by eternalising my online presence. Only a year ago, the results of a similar google search were not relevent beyond the second page. This time, it's relevant beyond the sixth page. All thanks to twitter and FB. If you can be bothered, you can see my recent tweets to the right side of this panel.

I started this blog entry keeping one idea in mind - html5. This is the technology which is going to change the way we perceive the web application today. But, that will be covered in the next post. Just don't want to trivialize html5 by talking about it in the same post which includes the boring details of my life.

Some say that the best way to overcome an addiction is to get so high, so often that you are tired of the junk. You are no longer able to find any kick from the stuff. So you discard that and move on to some thing different. I believe that this has happened to me. The only difference here is that, instead of actual drugs, I am tired of cricket telecasts. There were so many t20 matches in the past few months that by the end of the IPL Season 3, I was watching the matches mechanically, out of habit. Interestingly, I was watching a movie at the time of the IPL final. May be, it was just because RCB lost to Mumbai in the semis. I no longer rush home to watch a cricket match. I have over come that addiction. Or..., should I say I have switched to a new drug? The BBC TV series Top Gear has amazed me so much that now it's a part of my daily routine. OK. I am wrapping this up for another episode of TG Seaon 9. Crikey?