Got 16 minutes 23 seconds?

Then watch this...and spread that smile

Not this time

I had to put this across: a poem by Prasoon Joshi. Pls share
Is baar nahin

Is baar jab woh choti si bachchi mere paas apni kharonch le kar aayegi
Main usey phoo phoo kar nahin behlaoonga
Panapney doonga uski tees ko
Is baar nahin
Is baar jab main chehron par dard likha dekhoonga
Nahin gaoonga geet peeda bhula dene wale
Dard ko risney doonga,utarney doonga andar gehrey
Is baar nahin
Is baar main na marham lagaoonga
Na hi uthaoonga rui ke phahey
Aur na hi kahoonga ki tum aankein band karlo,gardan udhar kar lo main dawa lagata hoon
Dekhney doonga sabko hum sabko khuley nangey ghaav
Is baar nahin
Is baar jab uljhaney dekhoonga,chatpatahat dekhoonga
Nahin daudoonga uljhee door lapetneyUljhaney doonga jab tak ulajh sake
Is baar nahin
Is baar karm ka hawala de kar nahin uthaoonga auzaar
Nahin karoonga phir se ek nayee shuruaat
Nahin banoonga misaal ek karmyogi ki
Nahin aaney doonga zindagi ko aasani se patri par
Utarney doonga usey keechad main,tedhey medhey raston pe
Nahin sookhney doonga deewaron par laga khoon
Halka nahin padney doonga uska rang
Is baar nahin banney doonga usey itna laachaar
Ki paan ki peek aur khoon ka fark hi khatm ho jaye
Is baar nahin
Is baar ghawon ko dekhna haiGaur seThoda lambe wakt tak
Kuch faisleyAur uskey baad hausley
Kahin toh shuruat karni hi hogi
Is baar yahi tay kiya hai

Agla Indian Idiot Kaun?

1. Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi: http://www.breakingnewsonline.net/2008/12/mukhtar-abbas-naqvis-lipstick-remark.html

2. RR Patil: http://www.informationcell.com/news.php?id=92722

3.S Achuthanandan: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Kerala_CM_insults_slain_Majors_dad/articleshow/3781262.cms

WHY AGAIN?

Randy Pausch....

...is no more.

He died yesterday, at the age of 47, fighting terminal cancer.

What Randy has left behind is more important, at least for me. When Randy stepped on stage last year to give his "Last lecture", he was getting ready to inspire millions, terminally ill or otherwise. What did Randy talk about in his last lecture? He talked about living for the moment, to the fullest. He talked about "brick walls", about "taking help to realise your dreams". And he also talked about "How the dreams will come to you". You can look up Randy Pausch's last lecture video on youtube (3 million downloads) here....but beware, its 1.16 hrs video, and, it needs some level of emotional strength to watch through it. If you cannot take the time out for the video, do take a look here for an excellent write-up. Also recommended is the book, that came out after the video.

Randy helped me kill some of my notions about life...not that I did not know about them, but to see a terminally ill person putting it across to you in clear,concise messages, perhaps, did the trick. He also taught me something more ... he gave me a point of view that I need to pass on to Aarushi,very early in her life.

Pass on the hope & the optimism by spreading Randy's message.

I have got my leave.

Bid me farewell, my brothers!

I bow to you all and take my departure.

Here I give back the keys of my door

and I give up all claims to my house.

I only ask for last kind words from you.

We were neighbors for long, but I received more than I could give.

Now the day has dawned

and the lamp that lit my dark corner is out.

A summons has come

and I am ready for my journey.

Tagore

Happy dancing: Spread the infection around

I know I am late on this one...its been there on all the big blogs over the last week: Matt & his almost clumsy dancing, accompanied by a haunting melody.

Statistics first, the video was uploaded on Youtube on 20th june 2008, which means it is exactly a month old today. It has been viewed 7,285,989 times, which means 3 views every second. How much more viral can it become? A simple, almost goofy video generates interest that companies spend millions of dollars to generate. (I am sure Stride did not spend that much).


Why did this become a such a huge viral? May be because it generated the same feeling amongst millions, that I felt when I first saw this video: Happiness, qualified and unconditional happiness. It brings out the optimist in you that Life Matters!

The background track is the musical rendition of a verse from Tagore's Gitanjali. Its English translation goes something like this:

"The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.
It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.
It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth and of death, in ebb and in flow.
I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life. And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment."

Truly, if I may use, Connecting People.

To the one I love....

....today marks the sixth year of us being together, though many more years before that we met. We embarked with no ambitions, no dreams....just happy that we both were together. We have changed, both you & I, the teenage romance no longer there, but your presence is my comfort, something that cannot be described. And yes, there is also the lovely gift that we both cherish, the gift you gave me on 21st Sept, 2005. Happy Anniversary, Beloved

When You Are Old
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars

NREGS Impact

I had blogged about the rural employment guarantee scheme (NREGS) earlier. An interesting story in The Economic Times & The Times of India today. The report indicates that the Bihar NREGS scheme has worked so well that migrant labours from Bihar have decided to stay back in their villages in Bihar! This has led to shortage of agricultural labourers in Punjab this cropping season. Is this good for migrant labourers from Bihar? Yes & No. Is this good for Punjab? No. Is this good for NREGS? resounding yes. You can read the story here

My earlier post on NREGS is here

"Why are all the people he looked after being punished?"

This man is Dr Binayak Sen, a top notch doctor from CMC, Vellore. He has spent THREE DECADES giving high class medical care to the villagers of Bhagram Nalla & Dalli Rajhara in Chattisgarh. For the past one year,however, Dr Sen is in a jail in Raipur,accused of being a Naxalite supporter & messenger . A doctor who has delivered results far beyond the National Malaria Eradication Program, singlehandedly, has been imprisoned for the last one year. I do not know if the charges pressed against him are true or not, what I am unable to understand is why is Dr Binayak not being allowed to serve the villagers? Has the state government, in the last one year, been able to replicate Dr Sen's medical services in the villages of Bhagram Nalla & Dalli rajhara? No. The pertinent question here is (and I quote) "When you set up base in a rural area it's because you have a certain faith in the system. How do rural doctors retain that faith, after what has happened to Binayak Sen?"

You can read more Dr Binayak Sen here and here. You can also register a formal protest against his imprisonment here.

Washout at Kotla

KKR is out now. Hope its a better season next year

Idiocy of western world thinking

Its almost like fixing a square peg into a round hole. Get $100 laptops for underprivileged children. Make it open source, robust and kids in India & Africa will start learning! I am talking of the much fabled OLPC XO.What Mr Negroponte missed is a basic insight that in most of emerging markets, the underpriviliged see their children as ADDITIONAL RESOURCE to generate income, and pull out kids from school, or do not send them at all, forget giving them a laptop to learn. Why? Because they face the daily struggle of managing two meals a day.

The Indian Government runs a welfare scheme called Mid day scheme. The scheme uses free meals to draw kids to school. Parents do not object because children get one meal for free, and children get basic education. 120 million children have been covered under this scheme so far. It works for everyone: the parents, the children, the Government.

Mr Negroponte should look at scaleable solutions like the mid day meal scheme, instead of ivory tower thinking on the lines of OLPC. Funnily enough, OLPC has embraced MS Windows platform and hence will now cost $200! A good wite-up here

English : passport to success

English is aspirational, English is the passport to better jobs. It is so evident when you travel to smaller towns and villages and hear youngsters speak. This report reinforces my field experiences as a structured data source

The lord of my generation of fiction

Lord Jeffrey Archer kicks off his india tour . My first book reading session

He can read

Thats your neighbourhood rickshaw walla reading the day's newspaper . Have we under estimated him ?

Welcome to the 30s

Happy birthday mate

WTF

Rahul Gandhi takes bath with special soap.....
And Mayawati's people will believe her !

Future of digital music

Good write-up on the challenges the record labels face in these connected times. You can read it here.

The migrant labourer

NREGS is one of the most extensive schemes launched for rural India . It guarantees work in the village. Yet rural india wants to move to urban areas for jobs. Why ?

Small town India optimism

My day job involves travel to small towns and villages across the country. Just came back from a day long visit to Modinagar & surrounding villages. Some general observations:

• This is the third time that I have seen a village(not town) youngster reply in halting English to questions asked in Hindi. Its almost like "Do not underestimate the village youth, give us time and we will match up to you"




• In neighbouring Modinagar, you just could not miss the "Spoken English" training institutes. There cannot be noise without demand. Its obvious that small town India sees english as its ticket to success. No wonder BPOs are moving to tier 2&3 towns in India



• Every person in the village or the town wanted "to do something". Moving out to look for better prospects is a possiobility for this generation unlike their parents who were married to their village, come what may.

• So should youth from villages move out to nearby cities for jobs? Or should jobs come to them in the villages? You can argue strongly on either side, but for the time being its the former thats driving aspirations in small town & rural India.

FREE is a viable business model

Dated link, but very interesting, will keep updating subsequent discussions around "Free as a business model"

http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2008/02/wired-cover-sto.html

Crayon Physics

Will my three year old daughter learn elementary physics in this manner, five years down the line?

Got a Nokia smartphone? Search Google faster than ever!

Yes, this works on your N series and E series Nokia handsets. Searching is now even simpler
http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2008/02/got-nokia-smartphone-search-google.html

world class airport infrastructure at Hyderabad

No, it was not very difficult to reach the airport in peak traffic from city centre despite a car breakdown. Our entry was dramatic: The security weilding baton on a crowd that had come down to 'see the airport'. But this is a WORLD CLASS airport. The snapshots follow. Apologies for the multiple posting but yet to learn how to post multiple photographs in a single upload from my E90

hyderabad airport 1

hyderabad airport 2

28032008147

28032008143

Extended weekend over

Welcome back to work

Mobile phones as boarding passes....

....is a reality now. When will it hit India?

Remains of the farewell party

All the best SN remain as fearless as you always have been

My latest toy

A digital photo frame for all my pix and video clips

Microfinance has been of interest to me over the past few weeks. Check the
shared item from Acumen Fund blog on the two schools of thought in
microfinance

My window to the wide wide world