Piracy and India

It was kind of a shock to me when I saw people in the UK buying softwares. Not anything rare but stuff like Windows OS and MS Office. I was like, are you kidding me? No smart fella would buy these softwares. These are so available from your friends and if you dont have one, the wonderful world of torrents are always there.


After a few days I realized that the people here buy softwares not because they are dumb but because they are honest and needless to say, you might also get prosecuted for keeping pirated softwares. I have read people getting fines as much £3000 for downloading illegal songs.
But in India its a different story. We don't even realise that we are doing something wrong. Its unfair to expect that the piracy laws will be enforced when they have to enforce so many other things such as curb on Valentine's day celebrations, safe screening of My name is khan(for which they had to do over time) and facilitating honour killings. Its not just a fault with the police but we as a society have our morals screwed up in our minds. What we find immoral in the east are sometimes totally opposite to what it is in the west. In the east bribing some one is fine but having sex before marriage is a no-no. In the west its a total opposite because the former is an immoral thing(without any arguments) as well as unlawful but sex before marriage is seen as a personal choice.


Any ways coming back to piracy I am amazed as to why people cant choose open source soft wares against pirated ones. They are not only free but they many of them have much more features than a proper licensed soft ware. But I guess you can never think that straight when you are in India because 1) Pirated softwares are so easy to get and 2) Pirated softwares are so easy to get!!


Probably you have to come out of India to see our world with a pair of eyes from this world to realise many things than just piracy alone.

Lets start building a nation

Recently the visuals of Ram Sene vandalism flashed across the country. There was a huge media outcry then, but I can see that it is already fizzing out. Fewer and fewer discussions and protest happen around the incident and soon everyone will forget and get on with their lives. The only ones who will never forget are the victims themselves. But how much of a role should you expect from the media for similar incidents? They cannot take the complete responsibility to safeguard our societies from such criminal acts. Numerous incidents of atrocities happen as a daily affair in the rural India. Some get reported in the media but a lot goes unreported. After all the so called media operates mostly in urban areas, because even theirs is a money oriented business and they would try to cover only those things which would interest their urban audience.

If we just look around, we live in complete mess in our so called advanced societies of India. From the start of the day till the end, we go through utmost tyranny which we don’t deserve at all. I as a citizen after paying 30% of my earnings to the government do not deserve my city to be in such pathetic state. Your wake up time has to be adjusted because there are power cuts and water cuts. You have to start early because the roads are full of utter chaos. There is not even a decent public transportation system even after so many years in a city like Pune, leave alone other parts of the country. When I say decent, it means basic cleanliness, at least a place to stand when you are travelling, and minimum required frequency. Sometimes walking becomes a better option than buses.


On top of all this, political parties do whatever they want of their own will like the Mangalore pub incident and there is nobody to take action against them. A few grilling interviews by the media, some hoopla by the police and fanfare by the public, the case is closed. Have you ever imagined the sense of insecurity that such victims would be going through? In their own country, in their own land they have to live with fear day in and day out. Leave a lone a big political act, even slum dwellers do anything and get away with it because there is some party backing it. We might look down upon these people as uneducated and jobless but they are smarter than us. They know how to use these political outfits for their own benefits.


I am not writing this to put some sense into people who indulge is such vandalism or asking you to join politics and clean the country.I am just trying to remind you the greater power we have and to use it which is voting. You must have thought in the back of the mind that there is nothing new in this! It’s just like one of those ads in the TV encouraging to vote. I’ll still use the voting day as my day off or probably plan a vacation that day. Even if I vote it’s going to make no difference so why vote. But no! Imagine if the so called middle class starts voting. These political parties will turn to us and listen to our problems too. They are also in that business for their personal gains and they will listen to only those who give business to them. Once we show our power to these people, they will start doing things for our benefits. Again the reason would be the same which is political mileage. But the difference is that it would be for our benefits. It wont be very soon that everyone starts voting and it will take a while before all of us become aware. But to start with we can at least register our immediate family and get them to vote. We can try to speed up this process and keep trying in every election. It wont be far when every political party is fighting for to bring developments in a city to woo voters. Political outfits protesting and working hard for genuine issues, rather than rioting or hurting innocents. Then we would be able to bother about our own problems, rather than getting tensed about traffic or power cuts or even garbage cleaning.


PS: - Many of us don’t have voting cards and many more of us don’t even know the difference between an assembly election and a general election. There is a fantastic initiative by a few good Samaritans and their website is called www.jaagore.com. They have all the information relating to voting and they even track your voter ID card registration for you so that they don’t get lost in a government heap. You’ll be amazed at the amount of information they have and I am sure many of our myths about voting would also be cleared. There are only 25 days left to register for the voting registration as of 20/02/2009 so please register fast. Please go and vote this general election and let’s make our land a better place to live. Jai Hind!

When Zombies Attack

It was 6 am and I was already in the local train to lonavala. Wearing a zombie look some passengers just remembered the movie "dead men walking" seeing me. I had to find a full vacant seat so that I can rest myself and surrender to my drop dead sleep. Every monday it was the same story to travel to mumbai early in the morning. And staying in the suburbs of pune meant that I had to catch the first train to mumbai from lonavala. That means a broken journey with a broken sleep and a broken head with frustration.

Securing your sleep from lonavala to mumbai is all up to you. At the station you have to be among the first to enter the two unreserved compartments. Otherwise you'll lose your seat. You have to run and catch the bogie much before its halting position to secure your seat. Even if you are the 10th person to enter the compartment your chances to get a seat rapidly approaches 0. The 8 or 9 people who enter first would catch every aisle which is 12 seater reserving seats for their colleagues.All of them being railway employees, they don't behave anything less than the owners of the train.

After a nice sleep in the local train and a cup of tea I was fresh at the lonavala station. I had to get ready for the race. Winners will get to sleep and losers will watch the winners sleep :). My fellow racers were in place and the train was in sight. The engine just passed and all of us were waiting for the imaginary gun shot to sprint. Hearing the gun shot in my head I start running and manage to be the third to enter the compartment. I jump and occupy the vacant seat but before I could settle, there was a hard pull from behind and I was on the floor. Everything happened so fast that it took time for me to realize what had happened. Somebody had pulled me off the seat. My bag was thrown to one side and I was on the floor facing the section under the window. With blood boiling I turn around and place a hard blow on his face. It was my assailant's turn to be on the floor now. But before I could declare myself victorious; situation was changing for the worst. 30 to 40 people were inching towards to lynch me there I guess. My knees were kissing each other and my brain was getting ready to say good bye to me. I had to think of something. At the spur of the moment an idea struck me. I took out my Army dependent's card ( as my father is in the army) and flashed at them saying that I am a captain in the Indian Army and if anyone hits me they are gonna get screwed for their life time. Everyone's reaction was now changed from fight to flight. Most of them now had an apologetic face and some even offered me a seat anywhere I wanted. I could even hear many of them saying "Sorry sir, galti hogayi..... maaf kar do". I couldn’t believe that the trick worked. No one dared to question me. I was surely having the upper hand and to add to my position I was showing an enraged face. I knew I couldn't control the ire on my face when I was so much bursting with laughter from inside. Before I would be busted I decided to even show some mercy saying "Its OK. ho jata hai".

The journey after was never so good. An otherwise calm person I was amazed at the way I reacted. May be the zombie inside me had indeed taken over.

Traffic

"Traffic!" A word which we see almost everyday in the newspapers. Flesh trafficking, child trafficking , arms trafficking and the worst of all...drug trafficking. Bastards take away the invaluable stuff from our country to trade with others. But here the blog is on which most of us go through everyday ....(literally) . Just traffic or vehicular traffic if your minds have got clouded by the word "drugs" above.

As usual I was ready to get to office but almost 10 minutes late not from the usual time but what I target to leave at everyday. I pull my bike making a plan for the lost time to reach the office on time (again a moving target :) ) . Vesturing a racer's spirit I start my bike imagining how I would be looking on the bike from all camera angles as if it were to be a movie. An involuntary thinking phenomenon as a result of being a movie freak.

With all set I reach the first signal of my route in no time. But from here on you are in the line of action. The signal is red and vehicles are not moving much to my surprise. (Read the sentence again ). At any signal any two wheeler's motive would be to try to reach the front of the halted traffic even if it means to get on to the opposite one way. They say if your will is strong no roadblocks can stop you. Only problem is that they become a roadblock for the incoming traffic if the opposite traffic lights turn green. Vehicles to all sides are in the middle of the junction fighting their way out . Profanity is at its peak. Somehow I get out of the junction and try to speed away through the empty road as most of the vehicles are stuck behind.

Lured by this rare situation of a pune road I open the throttle to reach 60 and suddenly the rickshaw who was charging at more or less the same speed comes to a halt all of a sudden. It was nothing but somebody had waved him to hire the rickshaw. This is part of the instant response system of pune rickshaws because if he gets a little late there is a good chance that an empty rickshaw behind him could get that customer. Other vehicles dont give a damn and are charging ahead as if in a bull race. Swearing at him I speed away to regain my pilot position of the charging traffic. If Americans were to watch this through a spy satellite it would definitely look like a barbarian war down here. Vehicles at such impatient speeds to jostle down a defensive battalion in front of them.


Just as I am about to regain my position, a lady from an alley suddenly enters the main road with no signal. Forget the signal , she herself doesn't know how many vehicles are coming and at what speed. Outraged I honk for so long that it would have drained half the battery. But she doesn't seem to have heard all that. Thanks to the mummy outfit. Oh yes, you heard it right. Lady riders in pune wrap themselves from head to toe with no amount of skin exposed something like a militant. If real militants were to pass pune on bikes the only thing noticed would be the overgrown ladies :) .

Keeping my balance I manage to stay on the road and reach the flyover. The 100 feet road suddenly reduces to 50. The trick here is to stay in the middle so that you are the first when you enter the bottle neck. The rest of the 50 feet part of the flyover has been under construction from past four years and expected date of completion is not released due to discrepancies.
Apparently the two official astrologers of the civic department are having a tiff over their estimation and the same and will be released only after they reach at a consensus. The completed flyover has its own architectural magnificence too. Its constructed in a Z shape when the actual path below is straight. No sane engineer would be able to find the reason behind this mystery design.

Finishing the fly-over next to cross is the most dreaded signal. Waiting at this signal motorists have had breakdowns . Its a solvable bottle neck but our civic department likes to have some fun seeing the joke everyday. The bottleneck is created by water tankers who fill water occupying half the road. But water is more important than this chaos. So none raises a question. Waiting for 15 minutes for our turn to escape this point I enter the final leg of the public road which leads to the esteemed IT park and the last leg of misery. It appears like a 4 lane highway but if you measure it, it will be only 30 feet. To top that rickshaws and trucks are parked towards the sides. sometimes even double parked leaving only bicycle to move lavishly on the roads. This is their own way of encouraging others to switch to the non-polluting mode of transport.

Cutting through all kinds of vehicles (from trucks to bullock carts) I finally reach my office with an anticipatory joy of getting into the Air conditioned building. It is some reward for the survived soldier. Camouflaged clothes with pollutants and smoke all over the skin I look nothing less than a soldier.

Estimates say there are at least 10 accident deaths in Pune everyday. I would like to call them KIAs.

A tryst with the ghost - 2

I know what you're thinking about. Doesn't this guy have anything else to write on? What is this, his fantasy about ghosts? OK OK. I pledge. This is gonna be the last one on this particular ghost :). This one goes this way.

We were a bunch of people fresh out of college and with a job. Not just any job but a call centre job. After that short stint in that profession ,I so much love that job. You get everything that a man craves for. Yeah you got it right my friend. Its so damn easy there. I don't know what makes the people over there different from the rest of Indians or makes soo much oomph. I learned this word recently and I have been using this word wherever I can.

After getting a month's free stay in a hotel we had to fish for an apartment. Finally we got the right building. There were 18 of us who got 3 flats from the same building. Looked like the owner had a vision from god and his only purpose in life was to rent-it away to us 18. Or was he expecting some visions knowing that we work in a call centre :)) .

We had to stay in a make-shift apartment for two days before moving to the our respective houses as the real ones were undergoing some repair. All the girls were put up in a flat in the 2nd floor and the guys were in the fifth floor. All was going well. It was a dream to stay with so many chicks all around. Oh yeah I didn't give the split yet. We were 6 guys and 12 girls. We were lucky bastards and you'll curse us more when you know how lucky we got with them!!

All were going well. We kissed good night (just to get a hollywood flavor) to the pretty women and went to our room. Me and Atul were sleeping or trying to get sleep in the front room. Other 4 were split in the two bedrooms. We were trying to get a sound sleep remembering the sleepless nights of conversations with Americans ahead. Just as we were inches far from the dream land I heard foot steps walking from the entrance door towards the terrace. I got up to see who was walking at this hour ,but couldn't see anyone. Atul also had got up with the same feeling. May be we were sharing the same dream. A strange creepy feeling ascended from our toes. It was impossible to dismiss that, but we wanted to think otherwise and tried to get sleep. Just after a little while somebody was banging on the door as if the supporting actress who often get raped in bollywood runs for cover.

We were equally frightened and forgot that we were in an apartment with minima 100 people around us. When you get that feeling ghosts cannot do much. They lose the battle like swines. I like beating them often like this.
Noone wanted to open the door. The bang was on........ Suddenly Kiran mentioned about the girls in the second floor. They might be wanting some help. Yes! It must be the girls. Everyone ran to the door. I was opening when the bang no 31 was in progress. I slid the latch down and opened as fast as I could proclaiming the arrival of the savior.

I had frozen there. Don't know about others. There was no-one at the door. It was impossible by any law of physics to get away to the stairs in that fraction of second. Because the passage to the stairs were atleast 15 metres away. I even checked the duct to confirm. The about to get raped girl might have jumped into the duct to save her "aaabrrooo" . The most invaluable thing for women in Indian cinema. All the parallels match here for all regional film industry too. If I could manufacture this "aabroo" , I would have been the richest guy in the planet looking at the amount of rapes happen here every day.

But noone was there in the duct too. No one wanted to go to the stairs and take a peep below. We locked the door and got in. Everyone ran to the bedroom inside. No one wanted to sleep at the end of the mattress. I somehow managed the third position. If I were to be attacked I would be the third one from left side and fourth one from right side. I was quite safe. The ones at the ends were already passing out I guess. Somehow we slept back after the hectic ghost chase.

Suddenly it was thundering or may be it was B-17s pounding hyderabad. Whatever it was, it didnt sound friendly. Was the ghost back at the door? This time it should be banging with the strength of 10 arnold sized ghosts atleast. We had no other choice but to check on what was it. Somebody announced that it was 4 in the morning. yes!! that word "morning" gave us some relief. Moreover ghosts are not allowed to operate past 1:00 AM. Even the rarest of the ghosts cannot be operating till 4 in the morning. We reached the door. It wasn't the door. It was coming from just outside the door. Could it be cult worshippers in search of the evil? I had heard that cult worshippers made strange sounds in the jungles of rajasthan. Just like any story even here there were rumors that nude women danced during the procedure. And if anyone sees it, their face would get as ugly as it can. Just as all the wonderful stories, even this one had a twist in the end. Otherwise who the hell would been in hyderabad.

No one wanted to open the door. Atleast I didnt. This time Atul gathered all courage and opened. Our eyes had swollen to accommodate the worst sight possible. But again there was nothing! But the deafening sound was still coming. We looked left from where this 100000 dB sound was coming. We could see something. After a frantic moment we got back into our senses .We were laughing our asses off. It was the sight of a "griha pravesh" or house warming in the neighboring flat. There was a oldie with amazing strength in his arms banging on a mridangam.

I never thought that this thing can make such horrible sounds. That's why noone must have thought of amplifying this instrument. Finally at cracking atleast one of the puzzles in the night we felt a little OK. We got to our beds and didn't even try to think about the incident that night. It might haunt us in our dreams too.....

A tryst with the ghost

Well the previous post blew up on my face exactly as I thought. "Debut" got into the place where "etcetera" is sitting happily now. Finally I had to learn this stuff the hard way -reading the help page. Now I know I can never be vivekanada of web sites. Its said that he understood the whole page by reading the few lines at the beginning and the end. Ofcourse, I'm talking about books here!!!

I'll beat myself up if I dont put in this incident and I dont want to expose my geminian traits once more. So it goes like this....

It was a boring evening and as usual we had nothing to do, except gossip. And whenever we think of doing something exciting. only one thing makes it to the top slot.....booze!. But this time nobody's house was empty with their parents gone to the natives. We had to find a place. I terribly dislike boozing at the bar. The thought of going back home after getting to that high ....puts me down. So I prefer dozing off there amongst my collections... smirnoff bottles.

Just as we were thinking of a place our dear friend Anush came up with the revelation of an empty abode somewhere near to his place. Empty houses could be anything. Nobody leaves their houses empty when the real estate is so kick-ass high. These thoughts comes to anybodies mind.... but as the wise note goes...."Booze can kill anything". So we decided to try it out. And if all is good...we have a permanent place to quench our thirst(s).

On the morning of the great day, the most excited of us yudi and vivek had got a bulb to light up two rooms of the house. They went to this best house in the town to fix the lights of one bedroom and another kitchen. They did some cleaning so that we could have a spend in the night!.

All preparations were done and finally the hour had come. We all got into our bikes happily with chakna, chicken , wafers.....whatever adds to the booze and ofcourse with the booze. The most excited event had started. Steven had got some debonair to quench his own thirst as he was a teetotaller. Well it remained like that only till he went to college the following year.
"Everyone attains nirvana someday".

As everyone says ..breasts and booze are the best combination, we had got specially ordered tandoored breast pieces....(Vegetarians may clarify the context). All were trying to get most out of the 750 ml vodka and the chicken. Everybody sacrificed wafers and chakna for the others. It was true love for one's friends.

Steven had seen enough of debonair and may be thats the reason he had to visit the toilet although we were the ones who were drinking. He went to the toilet with a torch that we had carried. Yes the planning was all done days prior to the d-day. No one noticed Steven had come back or may be because anyone who goes to a toilet has to come back. Silly thought! Where else can he go from a toliet. Ofcourse there are black holes in there but that can just transport cockroaches or just small cockroaches.

I thought of mixing some debonair and with vodka and turned to Steven. It was then I realised that Steven was not just sitting there. He was all sweaty and was like a soda can out of the refrigerator with bubbles. He could be sweating , but not this much. I asked for the debonair with my senses still enslaved but he wasnt responding but was just gasping heavily. I asked him little louder but his face was in sheer shock. I sensed the seriousness and shouted to him aloud in panic. Others got into action soon after. Steven just couldnt speak beacause of the heavy amount of air intake. May be there was no space left for words to come out. The bravest among the group Yudi enquired on where he had gone and ran to the toilet. He was back there in just the same second. Did he really hit the black hole of the real sense?? Whatever it was he too was freaking out. He shouted to get out of the house the very moment. Everyone knew there's something wrong with the toilet. Suddenly our enslaved senses killed the most powerfull to victory. We got to the toilet and all were equally flabbergasted. There were blood stains all around. Surely there was some murder and the killers might be just returning after disposing off the body.

No one needed a "command" to start running..... but all had heard this command from deep inside. While running to the bike nothing made us turn around. Suddenly Mr.Smirnoff was the least of anything.... Our legs were not exactly doing the act of running. We felt as if someone might just catch our backs. No one wanted to be the last amongst us. The last person has 99.99% probability of getting caught by the invisible hands. This was a confirmed statistics from all the movies that we had seen. The bikes in sight made us feel as if we finished the first leg of the race. The bikes wouldnt start or the legs would get slipped or the ignition was not ON. Whatever errors to start a bike are there was happening with us. One two three , four all bikes had started but I was still getting it to start. Suddenly it came to my mind..... choke!!! I screamed ch0.........ke!!! The machine finally broke its silence. We were out of there in minutes. Everyone of us were riding as if we just attended grand prix. After covering quite some distance the first bike slowed down at the neon street light post. All stopped. No one talked for some time. The shock in our spines was finaly getting down. Yudi laughed and suddenly we were all laughing. Strange things happen at strange times. Who can laugh at such a time. We discussed all possibilities of the worst nightmare. There must have been a murder or rape. A girl or may be a man. Vivek was telling that there could have beeb more than one murder. But no-one was really listening to anything. Everyone wanted to get home. We all went to Yudi's place. No one had the nerve to go back home alone.

Finally the day light was there. It seemed like the most wanted thing of the recent past and hoped it could stay like that for a few days. I mean just days and no nights. We got up one by one still in a feeble shock. We went home...., one by one. It was a sunday and that did bring that regular pleasent feeling to our mind.

Later in that week Yudi came running to the school. He had heard that it was a haunted house and there had been seven or eight murders. This is the best thing about haunted houses. Every year the number of murders increase. Anyway we didnt have a good enough reason to deny that story. On contemplation of the story the whole thing had become more fiery. Was it really a ghost?? We wanted to get out of the recent version(supposedly true) more badly. Nothing scares anyone as ghosts. May be a game of badi would relieve us. Soon after class we headed to the badminton tournament. The first game itself had brougt us back to normal. Everyone just hoped that things stay the same way.......for some time.

Debut

This is my debut into the blog-life..... hence I have made the post as "Debut" ... I just want that name to stay for this posting, but you never know. Crazy things happen with web sites.... things what you do, not necessarily turn up the way you want. I am now thinking what will I do if this word "debut" follows me for whatever I write here.... damn if it happens.. . But I feel OK, coz of the confidence that I write codes which creates these stuff(things called as software). yeah I know its silly but all software engineers feel that they understand and can deal with stuff they havent remotely dealt with. Now take my case. Except for flicking pre-written codes I havent used "www" in my three years of work life. And see my confidence!!

I am already having second thoughts as to continue writing this blog and complete saying for what I originally started this. yeah..... I belong to the fraternity of geminians....Wonderfull creatures only if they could take timely decisions.

OK.. Enough. I have decided to take it to the next posting....May be my lazy ass just triumphed over my brains.. I have started feeling numb and shitty already!! :)