Deepanjan Nag's Magnum Opus

It's amazing how eager people are to share their thoughts and feelings, if only you let them. I posed 3 questions and got replies within minutes.   Which is a better place to live and work in, India or Pakistan? If you are a rebel and killer soldier Pakistan. India if you like to worship rats and cows. i have never been to either, but i think that india would probably be better. ofcourse india neither right now, have you been paying attention to the news? if this place r both better then why do people frm pkistan /india move to other place for work.....? Of course Pakistan. Hera at least God is one. Snakes and rats are animals like cats and dogs.Cows urine or any urine is dirty and impure. Pakistanis pray to God to save them from the torment of fire. They garnish their religious food with concentrate of rose and flowers. If drops urine falls on their clothes or body they wash it and clean it. Not India, because they are numerous Gods,a

This must be one of the gloomiest transitions into a new year. Life's complexities have spun out of control and I can only long for my halcyon childhood years.   Can someone please resuscitate me?

Here were my resolutions for 2007. Space Aplenty . I've lost focus. 0/1 Reduce Weight . Never bothered to pay any attention to it. 0/1 Blogging...Must Do Less Of It. Reading...Must Do More Of It . I indeed blogged less. I read lesser. 0.5/1 Cooking...Must Learn Some . Nay, I didn't add to my knowledge base. 0/1 Procrastination...Must Stop . I didn't procrastinate procrastinating. 0/1 French...Gotta Learn Some . I learnt none. 0/1 Washing Clothes...Shake Off The Lethargy . My clothes continue to rot. 0/1 Expense Management...Must Be Regular . It was working initially. Once stopped, it never revived. 0.25/1 Editorials...Must Get Hard Copies . I didn't. 0/1 Weekends...Spend More Meaningfully . Didn't happen. I'm not sure if the entry of Andromeda into my life changed things for the better. 0/1 Final Score: 0.75/10 = 7.5%   There'll be no resolutions for 2008, just a fresh start.

The to and fro office rides via public transport were a real pain. The filth, noise, sweat, crowd and jerks aggravated by ill-disposition for the day. The return trip was unforgettably forgettable. The conductor walked all over the passengers (twice over me) with utter disdain and an old guy coughed over my fist and spat in the bus.   I now have a terrible backache.

It's that time of the year when one stops to look back in retrospect at the year before it fades into oblivion. While most people are in a festive mood to celebrate the ushering of the new year, I'm slogging 12-hrs-per-workday in my blessed cubicle. To make matters worse, I'll have to be at the office tomorrow (Saturday), throughly disrupting the weekend feel. I don't dislike working. What I hate is work spilling over. To put it laconically, I'm seriously annoyed.

Nothing is as good or as bad as it looks. Reality is always somewhere in between. When you listen to 2 very conflicting versions of the same event from 2 different parties, how do you decide what to believe and what to dismiss? That's a tricky situation confronting us very often.   It's a dilemma without a solution. We are left with nothing but instinct and discretion to aid us in reaching a verdict which might sometimes be flawed and aberrant.

Oscar Peterson was one of the rare Jazz legends I didn't get to know through Dad.

It's Christmas time again and discovering the occasional red star hanging from a ceiling shouldn't surprise anyone.   The heavens above have a real red star ( Betelgeuse ) that's most prominent during the winter, and forms the vertex of the Winter Triangle .   Merry Christmas to Everyone!

Words aren't needed to feel something, but they've always been the staple crutches for thinking people. And for reasons that have now begun to frustrate me, I feel I'm unable to think vividly about anything. Something stunts it. Is it the mounting work-pressure that's having the debilitating effect on me or the guilt-feeling that's been consuming me for being manipulative, for twisting the rules of the game, for knowing in my heart of hearts that I'm not the sweet and innocent guy I once was and known for, for not utilizing my time more constructively, for neglecting my responsibilities and for not really being me?   I think it's the combined effect of many factors...often disparate. I feel despondent and wanna break free.

If only we had eyes for the beauty that surrounds us.

Anand is back in India (Bangalore) after spending 1.5 years in Malaysia. He leaves for Ranchi on Monday and flies back to Malaysia in a month.

Though I find it very difficult to say 'No' to anyone, I overcame my inhibition today. Feels liberating.

What ails Yahoo! so much? I know Google looks like a nemesis, but giving up so early hardly seems warranted.   Yahoo! Support must get people who meet the following criteria: Understand thoroughly what they are supporting Understand simple English Have at least an average IQ   I'm annoyed with the support the tech team provided me when I complained about a glitch that now affects the IM status indicator (embedded to my blog) when I'm online via SMS. It fails to show my status as Online even when I am.   When Live Chat failed to resolve the issue, I was promised a reply via email to address it within 48hrs. They kept the promise...and that's when I realised I must have been talking to the wall.   Very depressing...especially when it comes from my favorite Internet destination.

A mail I received: Deepanjan, Thanks for the audio featuring Boots Randolph in your 07-04-2007 blog entry. I was listening to "Rockin' around the Christmas tree" by Brenda Lee and was curious about who played the sax. Turns out it was Boots. He sure could play... Thanks again. Regards, Xxxx Xxxxx

Ah, the joys of doing nothing are immutable!

The title repeats from the recent past...and this time it isn't a misnomer. Zoya is now engaged to Doron!! I'm so happy for them!!

Why do women give up their maiden names after tying the knot?

It's now more than 9 years since my first two email ids were created (on the same day), hosted on Yahoo! and Hotmail servers. I've come a long way since then and changed countless mailboxes.   I've promised allegiances to innumerable mail servers for now-unfathomable reasons: Rediffmail because it wasn't the ubiquitous Hotmail or Yahoo! , USA.net because it looked nerdy and macho, 123India because of POP support and multiple From addresses, Fastmail because it was nifty and worked well as a web-based client for multiple Hotmail accounts, HotPOP because it was eponymous, Gmail because the reasons were very compelling, and countess others.   I know it's a hassle for others to keep in touch with you if you constantly keep changing ids. A rolling stone, after all, gathers no moss. So I even had a mail forwarding id with BigFoot . The one thing that set my mailboxes apart from those of the others was my zero-tolerance for spam. Okay, maybe I faltered a bit

What happens when you receive a mobile number with a missing digit? Try to interpolate, of course!   You're out of luck if the missing digit belongs to the lower end since that's where they're relatively arbitrary. It's only at the higher end that they tend to be more structured and predictable. But how do you know where the absconding number originally belonged? If it's a high-end 9, it's child's play. If it's the digit directly after that, and you're aware of another number from the same locality, you're in luck once again.   That's what I did today and it worked. I'm not a total telephone tyro after all! Social networking and stocking all those continually piling numbers can be beneficial in more ways that generally believed.

This is a fantastic article.

An approaching weekend is almost orgasmic. What heightened the pleasure today was a remark from someone.   We were having a siesta-time team meeting, the type that drones on and on about the only three things that hog the agenda: work, work and work. It was towards the end of this stretching exercise that our no-nonsense TL abruptly asked me in all earnestness where I had received my education. Finding me flabbergasted, she asked if I had studied abroad. The disparity between the agenda for our meeting and my educational background was too much for my semi-slumbering mind to fathom.   That's when she said, "Your communication skills are excellent!"

I have nothing to write. I close my eyes and recall all the listless things that happened during the course of the day worth writing home about. Nothing. I try harder. Still nothing. Sure, I've stocked a few ideas that I'm hoping to elaborate on in future posts but I'm not really willing to spill the beans just yet.   Ah, the brainwave! There's this particular document that I tried to hardcopy yesterday...at least 10 times! My desktop showed no snag messages, but as I eagerly dashed for the printer, I discovered only a stack of others' printouts each time. Whatever happened to mine and where was it disappearing ? The enigma continued even today with yet another failed attempt. Printer's devil gobbling it up?   On a different note, have you tried to print on both sides of a sheet using a laser printer? The printer groans aloud and rattles like crazy! Since I try to conserve paper, I often choose this option, which leaves  the heavy-duty device quite shake

Itzhak Perlman plays a beautiful violin concerto as I type this post. I'm reminded of an incident in 2001 concerning a Wagner concert being conducted by Daniel Barenboim in Israel.   Wagner is serious taboo in Israel. He, though a luminary of the highest magnitude, was known to be a staunch anti-Semite. Though he died before the Nazis came into being, he did provide anti-Semitic inspiration for them, for whom he was a cultural icon. Hitler admired Wagner and his music was played at Nazi rallies.   Barenboim, himself a Jew, asked those in the audience who objected to Wagner's music being played, to leave. His audacious statement was cheered by a majority in the audience, though a few left in silent protest. It was a victory over hatred, it was a victory over racism and, ironically, it was a victory over a great deal of Wagnerism.   I'm sure the great man would be put to shame by the clemency of art-lovers who rose over personal inhibitions and racial sentiment

F.r.i.e.n.d.s has this episode where someone (who was it?) confesses to always closing the bathroom door even when there's no one in the house.   Was this weird? I do it most of the time. I tried departing from the usual practice today and the exercise was kind of uneasy. I almost grew paranoid of someone wandering in and inadvertently invading my privacy. I was particularly harsh on myself trying to recall if I had indeed shut the front door.

I'm a bit confused by the coverage the Northern Lights are getting. According to AP: Scientists think they have discovered the energy source of the spectacular color displays seen in the northern lights. New data from NASA's Themis mission, a quintet of satellites launched this winter, found the energy comes from a stream of charged particles from the sun flowing like a current through twisted bundles of magnetic fields connecting Earth's upper atmosphere to the sun. I thought scientists always knew it. What's the 'discovery' then?   Ah, here's the follow-up: Although researchers have suspected the existence of wound-up bundles of magnetic fields that provide energy for the auroras, the phenomenon was not confirmed until May, when the satellites became the first to map their structure some 40,000 miles above the Earth's surface. I'm a little less ignorant now.

Remember the good old days of Doordarshan idiocy? Ya, it's almost nostalgic now but some of the propaganda aired back then used to affect my nerves. One of them even espoused cobwebs in the house because they trapped flies and moths.   Hail Mother Nature!

It's easy to differentiate Bach from Handel and Tchaikovsky from Stravinsky. But telling apart Mozart from Beethoven takes its own sweet time. I've just begun to notice the nuances.

I miss you, Dad.

A few of my friends bought tickets yesterday to the 3rd test match between India and Pakistan being played in Bangalore. I'm all for the fun of watching the action unfold live in front of you, but should we need to corroborate a widespread malpractice in order to revel in the fun? These guys bought the entry tickets in black, fishing out Rs500 for what would have generally cost them half as much.   Wasn't there any twang of guilt in doing so? Don't people realize they're fostering a social evil? This isn't a one-off instance. Movie-goers regularly pay for tickets in black without a moment's hesitation, so what if the flick purportedly has a social message to disseminate and the audience will have their receptors working in top-gear to assimilate as much of it. They'll emerge from the theatre all-dazed in the afterglow of their newly acquired sense of purpose in life. It was well worth the 'extra' they paid to begin with. Hypocrisy to the hilt!

Typos aren't half as bad as having an illegible handwriting - a fact that's reaffirmed  each time I have to reach out for pen-&-paper.   But this is not a duel between Fonts and Calligraphy. This is about the tangible feel of a book verses the many alternatives we are being bombarded with everyday.   What's it about a book that makes it such a delight to possess, besides the carefully crafted words it contains? It could be many things - pulling a book off-the-shelf, feeling  the weight of holding it, the texture of a page (rough or glossy), factory-fresh or vintage odour, the feel of flipping through the pages...sometimes leapfrogging to the contents, index or glossary, bookmarking, cracking of the spine as you open a new hardbound book, running your fingers below the line being read...the list is unmatched.   The e-age has brought in a lot of also rans into the fray, jostling for our attention. Desktop PC's, laptops, PDA's and smartphones have now

As opposed to what I was expecting until a few years ago, the IM fraternity, instead of unifying into a single, interoperable platform has more-or-less unified into two islands.   ICQ-AIM-Gtalk forms a formidable camp. The MSN-Yahoo! alliance seems similarly impressive. If we discount the innumerable social-networking specific messaging platforms, we are now left with 2 platforms that don't talk to each other. While 2 is definitely better than the fractured platforms we had until recently, I would have much preferred having only one IM client resting on my system tray.   While Google's disposition towards open standards has become an industry benchmark, the others are yet to follow suit. Microsoft carries a legacy thought process that it's not willing to jettison - and with good reason. Yahoo! isn't nimble enough to learn the changing rules of the web and AOL is beset with its own problems.   I've waited long enough to see the unification of IM. Getting

One of the prettiest women in the world

This is one of those rare nights when I'll have to forgo dinner. The burner ran out of gas just as I was boiling water for noodles. I could have asked the other folks (who were away at a mess) to get me something, but decided against it.

writing a great deal reading a great deal more I feel excruciatingly guilty when I think of all the things that I could have read...but didn't. I feel worse when I think of all the things that have yet to be read...but never will be. I feel worst when I think of how ignorant I am...and always will be.

people slip into my slippers. What's really surprising is that they don't even have the ghost of an idea they're inconveniencing others.

People hardly take advice. Yet, I'll excuse myself once again and be foolhardy enough to advice you to stop reading this post. I know it's no use, but I'm hopeful you won't disappoint me.   Stop! Enough! Didn't you hear me? I've nothing to write about - no juicy stuff on the lives of my neighbours, no scientific revelation, no metaphysical banter, no cosmic insights and no worldly tale. Seriously, there's nothing here for you, nothing of interest I mean.   And yet, you continue in the same vein...but I wouldn't blame you. We're all equally headstrong and contemptuous of others' wishes. It's amazing how we convincingly defeat mounting skepticism even after treading past the half-way mark for substance. What is it that makes us such crazed optimists in the face of undeniable evidence that starkly point to the contrary?   I don't know...and yet, you continue unabated. Now that you're nearing the end, I'm sure your optimis

Life's like spaghetti. It's too complicated for my dwindling intellect. I'm too enervated now to apply my brainwaves on any post of substance. Maybe this weekend...

The video of our team outing spread like wild fire in office. It was a treat watching T wobbling on the dance floor!

My phone wasn't recharged in a long time and it kept nagging with audio alerts early in the morning. My first task when I grudgingly got out of bed was to plug my phone and satiate its appetite for charge.   Here's a Hindi song I genuinely loved as a kid. I remember those moments when it would softly waft through the air and captivate me. I'm still very much in love with it. Singer: Zoheb Hassan Song: Chehra Get this widget | Track details | eSnips Social DNA   The title of the post is completely divorced from the body. I used it since it kept rambling all over my head and I liked the sound of it. There, I've praised it enough and hope it'll get off my mind now!

Today has been a very emotionally strenuous day. While I'm emerging through vital lessons of life dazed but wiser, I feel a tad guilty for being manipulative. I also feel terrible for having turned down a call for a casual get-together with old pals. Sorry guys, but today was just one of those days when I was not in my elements. I confess I'm really bad at fulfilling social obligations. However, I would certainly like to make it to the rendezvous that happens next time.   I have reasons enough to be thankful to my blog for wording my thoughts that I could never have otherwise. This post subtly words a lot of emotional upheavals. It also remains uneasily muffled.