For Everyone and No One

How Old is God?

2009-04-12T22:06:00.000-07:00

Yesterday while having a late evening snack at a fast food restaurant, I happen to overhear the coverstation betweek a 6 or 7 year old boy and his parents. The boy was so full of energy and he was in the midst of conducting a mini quiz competition for his parents perhaps imagining the patrons to be the audience and me imagining having a front row seat to this event. The quiz master was in a hurry to shoot out all the questions he had prepared and I found it hard to think about the questions while busy witnessing this bundle of energy permeate the room.
As the questions kept flowing, one particular question caught my attention. The boy asked his two contenstants "How old is the earth?". As soon as I heard this, my focus completely changed from the food I was eating to this intriguing question and I was going through the list of possible answers I can come up with. The quiz master was getting irate with his contestants as they were busy talking about something they thought deserved more attention than the question posed to them perhaps not realizing that thinking about the answer to this question might change the way they live their lives. Finally after a stern warning from the kid, the mother answered "1 million years" and the father answered "100 million years". I was getting anxious about what the answer would be from the kid and he went on the say the following: "The earth was much older than the answers given and that it was older than any person". When I heard this answer, I had a sigh of relief since I was secretly hoping that he doesnt say it was 6000 years old, a number that a popular mainstream religion believes it to be. But as I was basking in this feeling of relief, came the shocker. The boy went on to add to his initial answer the following: "The earth was older than anyone, but younger than God and that God was the oldest". Before I could comprehend how a yound kid could come up with such an answer, I wanted to ask him a question myself... "How old is God then?" But since the rules of a quiz show doesnt premit a member of the audience to question the master, I decided not to indulge this idea any further.

But one thing I do hope for to happen sometime in the future is for the kid to pose the question to himself ..."How old is God?"

Who is a Best Friend?

2009-01-13T19:37:00.001-08:00

Someone whom we constantly talk to so that we can listen to ourselves...

"Show me a Hero and I will write you a tragedy" - F. Scott Fitzgerald

2009-01-07T18:58:00.001-08:00

The above words from F.Scott Fitzgerald kept playing in my mind as I was reading the statement from the Chairman of Satyam Computers Mr. Ramalinga Raju where he explains the accounting irregularities of the firm that he founded and built. A true Hero whose business acumen helped build Satyam , a son who made his father proud with his achievements, a beloved leader of fifty thousand employees, a social reformer who created programs for the upliftment of people from various strata in the society, a wonderful father to his two sons and now … ? I wonder which act gives more joy to the society – Celebrating a Hero or witnessing a tragedy?

Prejudice

2009-01-06T16:12:00.000-08:00

I was reading an interview of Clint Eastwood on the web and during the course of the interview, one of the questions that the interviewer asks is about Filmmakers's responsibilities and the depicition of violence in movies. Clint Eastwood replies that he grew up watching violent movies but that didnt make him go shoot people. He goes on to say that the healthy mind doesnt get affected by this and then remarks " Those Columbine guys? They were sickos to begin with." In that instant, my mind had interpreted COLUMBINE as COLOMBIAN and thoughts about the drug cartels and the kidnappings and the violence assoicated with such things were flashingly rapidly. And for a second I thought how Clint Eastwood could make such a prejudistic statement? I couldnt believe what I thought I had read and went back and read the line again and thats when it struck me that he was referring to the guys involved in the COLUMBINE Massacre. Well that put to rest the question of who the Prejudist was... But I just wondered why I ended up with such a connection in the first place and the only thing I could think of were the movies that portrayed drug wars and all the violence associated with it. Borrowing from what Clint Eastwood said, I could say that my prejudices will not make me go as far as shooting people, but can filmmakers assume that all minds that watch movies are healthy minds and where do they draw the line?...

Cruelty to animals, REALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-03-07T17:49:00.000-08:00

I came across this incident where a Golfer killed a bird with a golf shot while filming a documentary. The golfer claims, he only tried to scare the bird away.The animal rights activist are trying to sue him because they feel he did it on purpose and that the bird is a rare species and is protected by wild life laws. I couldnt help but think about all the millions of chickens and cows being slaughtered all year and the ones that I eat :) . Unfortunately cows and chickens are not rare enough to deserve special protection. Is it their fault that they can be easily bred? Or is it our fault that we didnt take a liking to the meat of these other creatures and didnt try to breed them in bulk? So why are some species more precious than others? The answer to this question might lead us to the reason behind the amount of aid received by Hurricane Katrina's victims from the US government.

Microsoft+Yahoo = Sony+Toshiba

2008-02-06T18:38:00.000-08:00

Hold on! I am not suggesting that Microsoft and Yahoo together is quivalent to a Sony Toshiba merger. Since most people have an opinion about Microsoft's bid for Yahoo, I thought I would add my 2 cents to it, here it is - A man named Fumiaki Sato wrote a book called "A Scenario for the Realignment of Japan's Electronics Industry" where he talks about how the Merger of Japenese electronics manufactures into two huge corporations would help maintain profitability in the long run. I came across this book in Business Week(http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_19/b4033083.htm)
Since a lot of the execs managing businesses are supposed to reading business magaznines, I am wondering if they got the idea for Microsoft Yahoo merger after reading this book?

Why I am starting to believe in rebirth...

2007-11-02T18:46:00.000-07:00

Recenlty I joined the social networking bandwagon and became a member in Facebook. Initially I was skeptical about it, but later as I tried it out it had a few things that kept me interested. I found an interesting application called Virtual bookshelf, where you can list the books you read and want to read and the cool thing is you can view the bookshelf of your friends as well. So I came across this book called "Buddha" in one of my friends book shelf . Later when I visited my friend I found that it is actually a graphic novel(comic) that was originally written in Japanese. The last I remeber reading comics were during the days when my Dad used to get me Tarzan comics. I reluctantly started reading the first few pages and was immediately sucked into the book and so I took the book home and completed it in a day or two. But the sad part is, it is a 8 volume series and my friend doesnt have any other volume. How all this relates to rebirth...? Well after reading the book I did some research about the author Osamu Tezuka and found that he was a "Manga"(comic in Japanese) artist in Japan and was a legend. Just a few days ago I was making a list of all the things that I liked to do and it was a very big list consisting of things like sports(cricket, tennis, golf, chess), reading, visiting different countries, various professions I am interested in other than my current one and the list was getting endless. And just in the types of books I liked to read there were so many genres and here I am introduced to another one "Manga". At that moment, I pretty much realized that there is no way I will be able to do all the things I want to do in this lifetime and therefore rebirth is probably the only solution... If only we are given a database of things that we did in our preivous lives, the task in this life would be much easier... :)

Book Review - "How Life Imitates Chess..." - Gary Kasparov

2007-11-02T17:38:00.000-07:00

Gary Kasparov is to Chess what Sachin Tendulkar is to Cricket. A book about either of these Masters of their trade is something every sports fan will love to read. And to read a book by the Grand Master himself about the preparation and thinking process he went through during the course of this career is worth every penny! I came to know about this book through a blog that I visit frequently and ordered the book immediately. I just finished reading this book and the experience was as mesimerizing as wathching a Sachin Tendulkar century against Australia. Quite literally, it was like being let in on the master plan that went into a successful heist against a maximum security bank. This book can be read in three different ways, 1) A chess fan who wants to go to the next level can read the book as a coaching manual that teaches how to prepare and think for tougher battles. It does not have any chess specific teachings like opening gambits or defensive techniques. But it is like a gym workout for the mind of a chess player. 2) A person from the coporate world can learn how to organize, strategize and execute under varying degress of pressure and the same time continuoulsy seek challenges to elevate oneself to the next level and 3) Anyone else who wants to know what it takes to become a champion and even more so about what it takes to continue being a champion for decades without losing focus. I guess it is time to declare CHECK MATE...

A Turkish Delight

2007-10-15T22:02:00.000-07:00

I just got back from attending a lecture by 2006 Nobel prize winner for literature, Orhan Pamuk from Turkey in Seattle Arts center. I walked into work today thinking of numerous tasks that had to be completed when my Turkish team mates informed me about this lecture. I just could not believe the conincidence. Just on friday, I had read the speech given by Orhan Pamuk after receiving the award. It was very interesting and intriguing at the same time. He had spoken about things like why he writes, what drives him and things like that. So the opportunity of listening to him the very next monday was something I couldnt resist and also the fact that I have never attended a lecture by a Nobel Laureate before. I had a lot of expectations from the speech and was waiting to be blown away. It didnt turn out quite that way, but it was fascinating to hear an author talk about his passions and the process of writing his novels and how he transformed himself from a painter to a novelist. Even more fascinating was to watch this man trying to stike a balance between his political beliefs about the Armenian genocide and keeping his novels politically correct. My next stop to unravel the complex mind of this individual is the non-fiction book he had written called "The Other Colors".

My Lost Friend

2007-10-15T21:53:00.000-07:00

The day I got my annual review, I was happy with it since it is a reflection of the work done over the course of the year and it went quite well. I was thinking how to celebrate it, should I buy a new TV, an xbox 360 or buy some golf clubs, etc etc at which point my day dreaming was cut short by my wife's phone call. I had to get the car from her to go to the scheduled car service. As I was driving, an orange object just above the audio system, shining in the very little sunlight that we get in Seattle caught my attention. It was a Ganapathi statue that my wife had got from India. As I was looking at the statue, I realized that I did not thank God for what I had received today, the invisible friend whom I had looked up to on several occasions over the years in times of need and distress and thanked whenever I received something I was happy about. I was wondering when was the last time I had thought of him... well it was a few days ago when I was contemplating if he really existed in the first place.The German Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once famously proclaimed "God is Dead". Were the events of that day a stark reminder that I've actually lost him?

The Missing Tail

2007-10-15T13:51:00.001-07:00

Today morning I was reading about the DVD format wars between HD-DVD and BluRay on news.com. They were discussing about how in a year's time there might still be no resolution to it and customer's are still weary of buying either one of the players. This is very similar to so many situations in life where we are always waiting for something better to come and we miss out on whats available right in front of us. It reminds me of an story I heard sometime back...A man fell in love with a woman and went to her Dad to get permission to marry her. The Dad said that he needs to pass a test. The test was that he has to catch the tail of a bull that comes out from behind a door in a open field. In the field there were three doors. So the guy waited for the first bull and it was too huge and so he said let me wait for the next one, it must be smaller. Then the second door opened and out came a bull that was even bigger than the first one and so the guy decided to wait for the third. When the third door opened, he was very excited to see a really weak bull just trudging along. And just when the bull was going past him, he noticed that it did not have a tail... Wonder how many such tails we have missed in life...

American Freedom

2007-09-28T17:54:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I had been to New York with my wife and her parents. By now we are all used to the amount of security check that happens in the airport but still everytime I experience it, I cant help but wonder, "What kind of freedom does America have?" The politicians gave America a war in the name of securing their safety, but in the process have made the world a much smaller place for Americans. Americans are targeted when they go on vacations around the world. They have to constantly worry about their safety in a foreign land. Is this the type of freedom that America wants? Well a reporter once asked a baseball coach, "Why the World Series is named so, even though no other country participates in it", the coach replied "Is there a world outside America?" Perhaps the politicians heard this ...

Do I really need a MIT degree and a PhD?

2007-09-06T17:57:00.000-07:00

Today I met an interesting gentleman in the bus on my way to the Microsoft company meeting. What should have been a 25 minute ride, took 2 nearly 2 hours. This person was sitting next to me and he had a notebook and there were a few numbers and alphabets written on it and he was thinking deeply. I had a sneaking suspicion that it might be a puzzle he was trying to solve and it was confirmed once we started talking. He then asked me if I like puzzles and I pretended like I did and he explained it to me. It was one of the classical interview puzzles about 4 people needing to cross a bridge, having only one torch light, while only two can go across at any given time and we had to figure out the shortest time in which the 4 can cross the bridge give the time that each person would take.
He said he found the obvious way to do it and it was 19 minutes, but he was very sure that that was not the right answer. He asked me if I can solve it. I vaguely remembered it from the time I was preparing for Microsoft interviews and then figured out the method and told him the shortest time was 17 minutes. He was thrilled and said that he can now enjoy the ride peacefully.
Oh well, I forgot to mention that during our conversation, he mentioned that he is currently working as an Architect on the CLR team and he had an undergraduate degree from MIT and a PhD from Carnegie Melon. I guess I made a great decision by not applying to MIT or pursuing a PhD :)

Dog Fighting, If it is Inhuman...

2007-09-04T18:07:00.000-07:00

Something struck me while following the dog fighting charges against Michael Vick. If dog fighting is inhuman, what about boxing? It is another blood sport, two humans fighting it out in a ring where a knock out is the most celebrated type of victory and most people who watch a boxing match are expecting the same. But it is a legal sport, followed by millions, million dollar pay days for the boxers, with a govering body. So if there is so much hue and cry about dog fighting, then why not against boxing? One argument that some might use is, in dog fighting, the dogs did not accept to fight, where as the boxers do it willingly. Well what animal gives its consent before being slaughtered and served as meat?

Why am I not a Millionaire yet?

2007-09-04T18:02:00.000-07:00

The following blog entry was written way back in 2005 when I had created my blog on blogspot. I failed to write much after that. Hoping to get it back on track

Today morning as I was driving to work( in Dallas) I was thinking about various things and this topic struck me. My drive to work is around 40 mins and
I spend this time reflecting on life and thinking about topics for my blog and various other things. As I was thinking about different things, I asked myself “What if God gives me a Million Dollars today. What would I do with it? How will that affect my life?” and here is what I think I will do
1) Resign my Job.
2) Before I resign my Job I will put the money in a bank.
3) Go back to India and buy a nice car.
4) Then go around the world visiting different countries and chill out till I get bored.
5) Go back and find something to do which will not be too demanding and help some people and take vacations whenever I think I need one and go on and on…
6) Play more video games.After thinking about what I would do, then I thought about

What if Bill Gates gets 30 billion dollars , i.e. pretty much an amount that is equivalent to what he has now?He will continue to be the Chief Architect of Microsoft and continue to do what he does everyday.What if Narayan Murthy gets a Billion dollars?He will continue to do be the CEO of Infosys and grow his company more and work hard everyday.

What if Sachin Tendulkar gets 100 Crores?He will continue to play as good as he can and score more centuries.

What if A.R.Rehman gets 100 Crores?He will continue to compose good music and help put Indian music on the Global map.

So when I look at the above guys, they all seem to have something in common. They will continue to do what they are doing now and strive to get better at it. But when I look at what I will do, there is a big difference. I will stop doing what I am doing right now and try to live life as though it is one big vacation. Is this why God decided that I do not deserve to get a Million Dollars because then I would just spend my time doing nothing worthwhile and shy away from the challenges that life has to offer and stay in my comfort zone. And is this why there are only a select few Millionaires in this world while there maybe so many people like me who just want to lead a comfortable life without wanting to face the various challenges that life has to offer and resigning to the fact that they have to work 9 to 6 their rest of their lives?