एक सुंदर ग़ज़ल

भूली बिसरी चंद उम्मीदें चंद फ़साने याद आए

तुम याद आए और तुम्हारे साथ ज़माने याद आए

दिल का नगर आबाद था फ़िर भी

जैसे ख़ाक सी उड़ती रहती थी

कैसे ज़माने ऐगामेदौरां

तेरे बहाने याद आए

हंसने वालों से डरते थे

छुप छुप कर रो लेते थे

गहरी गहरी सोच में डूबें

तो दीवाने याद आए

ठंडी सर्द हवा के झोंके

आग लगाकर छोड़ गए

फूल खिले शाखों पे नए और

दर्द पुराने याद आए

p.s. this is a gazal i heard and found worhty of sharing.... if anybody knows the shair, plz let me know

freedom of responsible speech

Just now I read news 'Bloggers can be nailed for views'. In a case the supreme court ruled against a boy, who started a blog against shivsena, ordering him to face a criminal trial in maharashtra court. To many, it may sound ironical. even TOI has depicted the news as if it is a violation of freedom of speech.the users comment also echos the sentiment. so is it really a verdict to limit the 'freedom of speech'? the answer is a big no.

the courts verdict can be easily misinterpreted to 'preventing bloggers from blogging'. however, it is important to note that the court has asked the boy only to 'explain his conduct'. these days we are becoming more and more aware about our rights. but at the same time, it is equally important to remeber our duties. and one such duty is to be a responsible citizen. the matter is not about supporting or opposing shiv sena, but about taking responsibility of your views. when we tout our right to 'freedom of speech', we conveniently ignore the duty of expressing ourself in responsible manner. the blog is being legally challenged, and so the boy should be able to defend it legally in a court of law. if not, the blog bcomes an inlawful activity, which should be duely terminated.

with the advent of citizen journalism in India, the authenticity of claims can often be questioned. this verdict sets a kind of protocol for all such people. it asks them to take responsiblity for their claims. if we are not able to acknowledge what we have expressed, then we are in no position to express. after all it takes strength of character to tell the truth

Be and plan the change you want to see

recently i read an article titled yes we can in BS weekend. it spoke about how some young indians are doing their bit to bring about a change. the article mentions success stories of peopl varied kind. there backgrounds are different, the issues they are working on are different and yet they have few things in common.first of all, these people have passion. that is something you cant bring a change without. they have the desire and courage to ' be the change you want to see'. this is something prerequisite for change. but aprt from this, many of them have planned for it.

feeling angry, or agitated about something is common to most of us. whenever there is an issue, we get agitated over it, discuss it for few days and forget it. that is where these people differntiate themselves. they not only have the fire, but the vision to sustain it and convert it into something constructive.

with the rising number of online groups and communities, which saw a surge after the 26/11 attack on Mumbai, many of us feel that technology is playing a key role in bringin about this change. but with example of all these people, the reality points other way round. an exception could be that of 'jaago re' project, in which technology is playing major part . last checked, nearly 3.5 lakh people have registered on the site. so far it is limited to major cities only. we need to see if it really increases the falling urban voter turnout. the other online initiative by nisha susan ( the pink chaddi campaign ) is too necessant to comment.

earlier people thought, and many of us still think now, that a movement is spontaneous. that is why gandhiji was against having any property for party. in his views, people will fund the cause if they deem it fit. but today, the scanerio is changing. may be it is becaus epeople have become more rational. earlier, they were more emotional. consider, for instance that Vinoba Bhave launches his Bhoodan movement today. even with his personality and respect he commanded , the movement will not be as successful as it was. this is where 'planning for change' comes.

the example of sanjay sondhi mentione d in that article drives this point home. he decided to leave his job when he would turn 45, and made financial planning to make the change ' less painful'. today at dehradun, he is working on few environment protection projects.

so the new motto is 'be and plan the change you want to see!'

on morality and ethics

These days, we are learning business ethics. Under this subject we are coming across various theories about morality and ethics like utilitarian and Kant's etc. what intrigued me is an assumption which is accepted by almost all. ( or let's say by our teacher for that matter) the assumption is that anything you do, which does not have implication on others is considered amoral.

Now for novice readers, amoral is something that need not be considered by morality perspective. It is neither moral not immoral, it is just out of scope of morality. The assumption sounds good, and it holds practically in all situations where morality issue is present. But is it really correct to assume that morality is only a matter of consequence?

For example, stealing a car and killing people by reckless driving is immoral. but what about playing a game which involves same act? If we accept the assumption, playing such a game is amoral.

However, in categorizing the game as amoral, we are ignoring the mentality. The game may not have any consequence on others, but the person who loves to play such games takes pleasure in immoral acts like stealing and killing, isn't it? Thus we are judging the act by its consequences alone. It is practical in most cases, and yet by ignoring the intention we are making a fundamental mistake in deciding upon the morality of an act.

What is your take? Should we judge morality by consequence? Or should we judge it by intention?

Behind the sun

Today, we saw a Brazilian movie "behind the sun", as a part of our curriculum. After a long while I've seen a good movie. The story was intact - not a strong one - but it was the presentation which took it to an altogether different level of experience. The imagery used by the director is simply marvellous.

The story is narrated by a boy, who doesn’t even have a name! His family has a small sugarcane field, and they produce raw sugar out of it. The whole routine is so monotonous, that there is not much difference left between the oxen and them. The movie starts with the boy walking in the woods at the dawn, where he narrates the whole story in flashback. He has a family of four, Pa, ma, him and his elder brother Tonio.

Basically it’s a story of two families fighting for land. A story of never ending vengeance, where one family kills one member of the other family, and the other family takes it revenge by killing the killer. The cycle goes on and on for generations. There’s an excellent dialogue by the boy; he describes the whole affair as "An eye for an eye, until all are blind".

The elder brother of Tonio was killed by the other family. Tonio kills the killer, and then asks for a truce to the eldest of the other family. Nobody in the family is willing for a truce, so when the eldest comes out and tells Tonio that truce is granted, for a moment, we expect that finally he has recognized the futility of the whole bloodshed. But the next sentence sounds even harsher on this background. He actually says “we grant you truce.... truce until the next full moon” the whole scene is very good piece of script writing. The life of Tonio, as the eldest points out is now “split into two halves”- the twenty years he lived before and the fifteen days left with him. On the background a clock is ticking. Referring to that the old man says “... it say one more, one more, one more.... for you it says, one less, one less, one less.....”.

The whole movie is loaded with such powerful dialogues and imagery. E.g. there is a scene in which the boy is discussing about going to circus with his elder brother. The elder brother, Tonio, warns him the father won't like it. The boy remarks that they are like oxen. On the next day, the oxen are shown to go around the mill by their own. In just one scene, the director underlines the obligation that everybody in the family should follow the same path without thinking...

Indeed, the movie is more about presentation than it is about the story. So my “review” may not convey the whole beauty of it. But all I can say is that it’s a must watch movie, for all those who look at cinema as a serious art.

google sketch 3d: new business model?

Recently, i came across Google sketch 3d. it's a tool in which you can create a model of any building and put it on Google map. thus Google is providing a product which in turn will enhance the quality of their own service.this is very different kind of business model. usually there is a bifurcation between provider and consumer. but in this particular business model, there is very thin or no line drawn between the two parties. it can be argued that the customers give their money to provider on which the whole business runs. but that does not affect the quality of the service or goods provide by the provider so directly as in this case. It is really interesting to see the developement of such a business model.
this kind of business model is not a new one. companies like Unilever have tapped into the public talent pool before at nominal cost. but in that case there was no disguise. I mean, they were asking ideas from people and good ideas were given credit. however in case of Google, the beauty lies in this disguise. they are getting resources in the disguise of user. can this model be implemented everywhere?
in case of non-IT industries, this model seems very much unpractical perhaps due to the fact that it has never been explored before. the essence is to provide such a service to customers which will increase quality of your own services. in case of IT industries, or particularly web-sites, this is easier as the concept of people generated content is not so novel. however, in case of other industries, the concept of people generated content is not explored enough. perhaps the co-operative sector might come up with something like this.

personality of software

The title sounds strange, isn't it? Few days back I read an article about it. the author was of the view that like any creation a software also represents personality of the creator. To me,it sounds a bit hard to digest.A software, after all is a piece of logic which satisfies any particular requirement in the best possible way. once the requirement is fixed, the 'best' logic of fulfilling it is obviously fixed. that piece of logic can represent its thinker does not fit in.
But when I pondered over the matter I began to realize the concept. first of all the key factor is requirement. working in a typical Indian software company, I'm used to get requirements like a ready meal. but if you are going to develop a software as a product, understanding requirement is the toughest part. you must fit yourself in the shoes of end user, which is not a cake walk. you should understand their lingo, their concepts, their average intelligence, and above all their style of working. A software as a product must assist user in whatever (s)he does without it. it should not change the working style in any significant manner. at the same time the software provides its user with a new lingo. before the invention of orkut, scrap was a synonym to junk.
the best example of this representation can be the MAC OS. Steve jobs, the founder of MAC said he gave all the beautiful looks to MAC because he learned calligraphy in his college days.apart from such clear ways like looks etc. there are other even subtle factors in software which represent the creator. e.g. a strongly logical person may build a software which works fine but does not have a good look and feel. another might build an average software which is balanced on all factors but extra- ordinary in none. even the variable names given can throw some light on the creator's nature.
but once we accept this,we can instantly say that we give quite a lot of unnecessary importance to software. a software, for example can perform billion-trillion operations in no time but it can not invent a new operation. it can calculate distance of all galaxies, if provided with required inputs but it can't infer anything from it. in short a software can imitate humans, but can not replace them.

something on life

recently I saw a new movie 'gods must be crazy' . it is about, well nothing in particular. it's really hard to tell it's story & yet it reveals the limit of our understanding.
in our daily routine we do many things. we follow various customs & practices, some from our culture, some from our profession.but most of the times we follow them rather mechanically. getting my point? let me elaborate.when we say, for example, 'good morning' to anyone, most probably we say it as a habit. or in worst case just to impress others. I don't think many of us really, wholeheartedly wish a 'good morning' to anyone. & it's not simple to do so. we have so many things running in our head, that we seldom pay attention to what we are doing.
It's like we are running blindfolded. we think that we are going in right direction & we take necessary steps to avoid collision with any obstacle. in fact our situation is not so different from a gamer stuck in some virtual game. at times we hear voices which we know are not from the game.and they are really tempting. but we don't go after them. we convince ourselves that these are distractions & we need to achieve our mission in the game.
in the movie, there is one tribal villager whose children accidentally boarded on a hunter's truck. he's running in search of them following the track of the truck & yet in the way he helps all the people that he meets. & that too when he knows none of them. in fact he is not able to talk with anyone of them & yet he understands that they need help & readily provides it.
I know this might sound like a fairy tell with a hero on completion of one mission & helping everyone on the way.... but it's not exactly like that. his journey tells us to dwell at every moment of life. it tells us that it is not the goal but the journey towards it is what enriches us.