Diya Mirza (the poor man's Aishwarya Rai) , once revealed in an interview how she would skip meals to be able to afford the cab from her way back from work, back in her struggling days. That was long back, but I guess the information stayed with me because I thought the story was kinda inspirational.

Or was it?

Diya Mirza could have taken a bus/train/tram from work as well. That way, the whole skipping meals sob story wouldn't have been essential any more. But that was Diya Mirza. Or was it?

Our generation suffers from a weird insecurity. Let me give you an example. Back when I worked at a consulting firm, everyone came to office in Levi's denims. Well, to be truthful not everyone did, but more people did than otherwise. Now that I work at a product based organization (where the average pay is considerably higher), most people I come across dress in more sensibly priced brands. I once went for an interview at Google India, and the interviewer came dressed in a fluorescent orange turtle neck that I'm sure came off a flea market for not more than 150 bucks.

We seem to have reached a stage where we do what the market demands of us. Another example? How do you explain the obscene percentage of students who chose

1) Engineering degrees

2) Software Jobs

3) Management degrees

in that order? Hell, software doesn't even pay more these days! And I have lost count of the number of people who hated their engineering courses, went on for management degrees and then hated those even more.

Personally, I always feel the pinch every time someone goes for higher studies in the US. Why? I have no idea. I would enjoy creating an android app or optimizing an SQL query far more than say, mugging up a network packet structure; but the market tells me that the action is abroad.

I recently bought one of the best (and the costliest) phones in the market. The price was certainly way out of my league, but I still did. And now I think:

1) The screen is definitely huge and gorgeous, but I spend almost 18 hours a day in front of a screen which is 4 times larger; the PC monitor. 9 hours out of these 18 are spent in front of two such display panels.

2) Games do run butter smooth; thanks to a dual core processor, but I would prefer the FPS games that run a tad awkwardly on my single core PC any day.

3) My office is just a 20 minute walk away, and I could do without any music during this journey.

4) I really do not need most apps on the go, as I have better softwares installed on my PC; and I am in front of it most of the time anyway.

Point is, I still love the phone. Forget love, I am crazy about it. That's in part because I can appreciate the elegance of the product and the design of the software, which a big section who buy such phones cannot. (Not because they are dumb, but because they aren't into engineering per se).

And buying a phone is just the start. After the phone, I bought an elegant case for it which incidentally cost me more than what I would get for reselling my old phone. Now, I have realized that the 2G data connection on the phone can hardly do any justice to its abilities, so the solution seems to be an obscenely priced 3G data connection. Next, I would be buying 500 bucks apps on the market. At the end of the day however, playing Need for Speed on my PC is still going to be a hands down better experience.

I remember a health drink ad which talked about how we should run or fall behind. Well, we are running, but where are we running to? And what are we running for? I completely advocate running for a goal, but truth is, most of us are completely clueless. I still remember when a trainer asked this question to a training room of 15 people.

What do you want to become in life?

It's a simple enough question. One that I am sure every 5 year old can answer at the drop of hat; Pilot, soilder, actress, teacher and the like. Most people out of a class of 15 answered what sounded like,

"I want to fulfill my responsibilities to the best of abilities; rise up the value chain and network across my peers".

That's one answer that my simple brain cannot make any sense of. Is that what you are running for?

So what are we losing out on? Relationships? Perhaps values? Baba Ramdev can tell you more about them.

What I feel that we as a generation are losing out on is creativity. I know that for sure when I look at someone wearing a (fake) solid colored tee with "being human" written in a simple font in white, and I feel, "this doesn't look bad".

How do you sneeze? Yes, you heard me right. How do you sneeze?

Do you go all aa-aaa-AAA-SNEEEEZEEE!! or one of those "fich" sneezes that a person would miss if he happens to be opening a can of soda?

Why? Because my friend, it's important.

Now that reminds me of that Dabur Lal dant manjan ad where Sunil Shetty tells a beefed up guy (who cannot bite an apple) how teeth should not be neglected. Well, neither should the sneeze.

A sneeze is more than what you think it is. A sneeze is an extension of your personality. Think of the chick who sits 10 cubicles from you in office (and despite your extensive efforts, you haven't been able to get introduced to). She knows how you look, and she knows how you sneeze. If you are capable of sneezing loud enough, that is. Btw, if you are one of those guys who thinks that women do not go by looks, think again. How many good looking girls have you told that looks don't matter for you? You can do the math.

So what does a sneeze tell about you? Lots actually.

There are the lion heart sneezes that threaten the window panes and there are the sheepish weak "fich" ones that get you all irritated. There are indecisive "aa-aa-aa-chhi"'s that will take forever to come and there are the violent "HAN-CHHI" that speak of anger and frustration in the underlying souls. In short, there are as many types of sneezes as there are people.

Just as websites have digital signatures, human beings have sneeze signatures. You can copy the content of the website but you cannot copy the signature. Just as you can copy a human, thanks to modern cosmetic surgery, but you cannot copy his sneeze. You might ail or age or be sad or happy, but your sneeze will sound just the same.

Luckily, I happen to be blessed with a powerful sneeze. When I sneeze, one floor below and above know. When my Dad sneezes, two floors above and below know. When Grandpa would sneeze, half the village would know; I attribute the degradation in sneeze quality to the adulteration that has crept into human civilization over time.

So my friend, this rainy season, work on your sneeze. For you never know, you might get caught in a little drizzle and start sneezing. And you will never realize when you let out a sheep sneeze and lose the girl. You look cool, fine; you dress cool, great; it's time you sneezed cool.

As Grandpa would say, "A tiger fears you only as much as you fear it. Where it wins is strength and desperation". It's in moments like these than a tiger sneeze could turn the balance.

There are three types of people in this world - Normal, Genius and Frustrated.

To illustrate further, I would like to give you an example.

Three people named Normal, Genius and Frustrated walk into a bar. There's a band playing a very catchy tune. None of them has ever played any musical instrument before, but they're all impressed with the music. All of them develop this desire to learn to play the guitar.

So far so good. The story was uniform. Not any longer.

- Normal toils hard to learn the guitar. Ten people say they do not want to teach him because he understands no music. Ten others refuse to teach him because he is not gifted enough. Normal doesn't give up and after what can be called a fair amount of time, he is able to play the tune decently well.

Normal invites his friends for a party and shows of his skills. His friends clap and Normal is happy. He goes off to sleep contented. End of story.

- Genius picks up a guitar. After some time alone with the guitar, he is able to understand how the thing is supposed to work. Some more time, and viola! Genius, is able to play the tune. But does Genius stop here?

No. Genius has a great inspiration and he creates a new tune that is kind of groundbreaking stuff. Next the story can go in two directions.

Rockstar Genius goes on stage somewhere and plays his tune. Instant fame and recognition. End of story.

Shy Genius hides his tune somewhere until a smoking blonde manages to dig it out. She coaxes him (:P) into playing it in public. Instant fame and recognition. End of story.

- Frustrated is kinda lazy so he takes a long long time before he actually picks up a guitar. During this time he is very frustrated because he is not picking up the guitar. When he finally does, some pretty teacher agrees to teach him. She is fairly impressed with him because he is able to learn it really fast. After what some people would call a small amount of time, he is able to play the tune.

Frustrated (like Normal) decides to invite his friends for a party where he wants to show off his skills. Another associated desire is to ask his Teacher out after the play (She is also invited). Frustrated plays and all his friends clap.

But this isn't Normal's story, so it gets complicated. Teacher tells him that he is really cute and talented, but she already has a boyfriend. Some *&#$@? friend tells him how the rendition was almost as good as the original. (Incidentally, he had mentioned this to Normal as well, but weirdly enough, he seemed fine with it).

All this is too much for Frustrated. He continues to go to sleep jittery and frustrated.

I rest my case. :)

P.S. Not to be taken seriously

Sitting on a bench in a railway compartment munching a stale hot chicken patties, it occurred to me that life was not fair. For example, the stale hot chicken patties that came without tomato sauce (courtesy a shop at the station) had cost me fourteen bucks. Not fair. First, the only place where I could find chicken was in the name. Next, the little square piece of baked or fried or whatever dough had cost ten bucks the last time it went down my food pipe. Which was probably 2-3 years ago. But then, this one tasted as if it had been fried 2-3 years ago as well.

My eyes darted to the pretty gal in the corner of the compartment. She was smiling at some apparent joke which her dull looking boyfriend had cracked. Not fair again. I was single, sweaty and grumpy while that guy was having a good time.

Life is also strange. Lets take the patties example. The vegetable patties is triangular while the chicken patties is square. I tried hard to figure out some apparent reason that could justify this fantastic choice of shapes. Probably the difference ensured that the vendor would not hand over chicken patties against vegetable orders as a mistake. I gave up thinking. Maybe I should have bought a vegetable patties instead. They seemed to sell more; that meant it was less probable that they would be stale. I have the best of realizations at the worst of moments. Life isn't fair at all.

Back to the gal. Perhaps I was a bit harsh on her boyfriend. If that was her boyfriend at all. I of all people should abstain from judging people by their looks. Its funny how we do the things that we expect others not to. Nah, Life is a weird and unfair concoction.

Why did the patties vendor sell me the stale stuff? He certainly did not intend to sell stale patties to me when he had placed his order. He was bad at inventory control. I remembered that they had taught me inventory control back in my fourth semester. Weird. I am a software techie who has a one in a million chance of ever having an inventory. They keep teaching the wrong guys. Our mathematics department had put me through a lot of trouble mugging inventory control. I wished they had spared me the trouble. The vendor selling the stale patties deserved it more anyway.

My thoughts were stopped mid-way by the gal. She stared at me. Or so I thought. I am never confident when gals look anywhere around me. A part of me tells me that I was the intended recipient of the gaze. The other part tells me that the gal looked at everything except me. By the time I make up my mind, the gals are long gone. No wonder, I was single and grumpy on that bench.

The train stopped with a jerk. The gal and her probable boyfriend walked out. I was done eating the patties. I realized that I had patties crumbs clinging to a substantial portion of my face. Even the bag on my lap had minuscule crumbs all over. I have never really learnt the art of eating cakes and patties. I took out my handkerchief and started to clean up the mess.

What do you do when you have nothing interesting to write about? And when you desperately want to post something?

The answer is simple. You post something boring. :D

The college cultural fest was a cacophony of people, emotions, expectations and what not. That is why I love fests. From excited first years dying to get their few moments of on stage fame to frustrated fourth years scouting for pretty first year gals. Everything about a fest is big and interesting. At least to me. Students about to pass out getting all nostalgic and ending up in tears. I loved every moment of it, even that. Call me unemotional if you want to.

But what I noticed for the first time was a sound guy. Not a guy who was sound but a guy who was a part of the company that was responsible for the audio. On the last day, at around 3 am in the morning, I suddenly noticed that he was fast asleep in a big space behind the console. A rock band that called themselves STEEL and their fans STEELERS was performing, and that should give a fair idea of the decibel levels around the place.

That moment, I just tried to view things from his angle. What did a college fest mean to him? Another sleepless night, irritating high decibel amateurish music, sweating people who would jump rather idiotically to anything and everything that's being played and raise loads and loads of dust in the process. Think about it.

What meant moments of a lifetime to such a vast multitude of people, meant a plain frustrating day at work for him that paid poorly. Isn't it wonderful that such vastly contradicting perceptions of the same thing can exist in such a packed atmosphere blissfully oblivious of the others presence?

Life is damn interesting!

Life's weird.

It's been a month since I wrote something thanks to exams. All along, I had been planning to write that post. But one evening I watched October Sky and I am writing about something so completely different.

It's a movie about following your dreams. Dreams that sound so impossible that the world laughs at them. Dreams that do not seem logical, not even remotely possible. It's the story of a boy who dreams such a dream and then realizes it.

I'm not an emotional person, I never get too sad or too happy and cannot recall the last time I shed tears. But watching the movie got me so emotional that I'm writing a blog post about it. And guess what, the movie is no tragedy. It ends on such a happy note!

It was then that I realized that I'm a person who lives in and has always lived for his dreams. It's pretty odd for me to get so moved by a movie, but yes, I am moved. And why shouldn't I be? 'Cause a person without dreams is a dead person. Nature did not risk creating humans(given the havoc we have played with it), just because it wanted one more species that would eat, sleep, drink, go shopping, party and slug on in a job he never dreams about.

So, the next time someone tells you that your dreams are preposterous, stop listening to him. It doesn't really matter whether you live to see your dreams convert into reality. For if you can dream, you are better than every pathetic idiot who doesn't. And sometimes I hope I always had a dream to run after. Coz if I run out of dreams someday, what would I do?? Yeah, the society might consider me successful, but I would be no better than the labourer at a construction site who has forgotten how to dream. Perhaps we should teach them how to dream as well.

So DREAM ON GUYS!

For dreams might not always make success stories, but they do make extraordinary stories.

Love nerds, hate nerds - You can't deny that nerds are everywhere. Nerds aren't normal guys - So it's better that you learn to identify a nerd when you see one.

Here's a checklist of what you need to look for to know that you are looking at a nerd.

• Glasses - Look for those spects. A nerd is incomplete without them and a nerd without them is not a pure nerd.

• Nerds can't stand people fumbling with technology. Just try fumbling with a gadget! If he doesn't say," Lemme show you how to do that", he isn't a nerd. Moreover, nerds despise people who do not respect technology.
  

• Gamers - Nerds are avid gamers. And they are very appreciative of skilled gamers.

• Try saying a bit of bullshit about Albert Einstein - (Caution) A nerd might knock out your teeth. At least he's bound to raise a big hue and cry over this.

• Nerds don't like being called nerds. *wink*. But they like to think of themselves as nerds. Nerds are complicated people after all.
  

• Nerds prefer beautiful technology to beautiful women any day. However, no nerd will ever accept this.

• Nerds are the among the few genres of homo sapiens who do not want to trade genres for something else. They are very satisfied and happy being nerds.
  

• Nerds are poor at paragraphs. They work better with bullets and minutes.

How do I know?
Because, I'm a big time NERD! *grin*

MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR (all belated) to all my readers.

For the past few days, I've been frustrated with the way things have shaped up. My work on the search program and the IC tester is stuck. To add to that, the final year project on 3D IC testing algorithms has still not taken off. My singleton status prevails and I continually keep switching between ready to mingle and not ready to mingle *grin*. I'm still trying to beat that time posted on that NFS Most Wanted track by that guy on the internet. And I'm yet to start getting used to with JAVA.

In short life isn't that rosy now.

Now, people continually keep switching in and out of states of frustration like these. We all have our own strategies to keep stress and frustration at bay. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. Sometimes things get better by themselves and we credit that to the stress buster algorithms. But we never stop trying, do we?

So I decided to post my stress buster algorithms in the hope that you will give me an insight into yours. (In case you haven't noticed, there's a comment link at the bottom of this post).

This is what I do.

• Stop sleeping all day - The more frustrated you get, the more you sleep. The more you sleep, the more frustrated you get. Vicious cycle.

• Shave - If you are a guy who doesn't shave regularly. If you do, grow a big stubble and then shave *wink*.

• Sport - Indulge in your favorite sport. But mind you, if you lose, things can get worse.

• Don't chat - Stop chatting on the net. It increases my frustration levels.

• Stay away from the Internet - If you have a slow connection, this is a must. Even if you don't, it might still help.

• Indulge in something creative - This can be very very tough. But if you are successful in doing this, the battle is over.

• If you are a foodie, get a big heavy delicious dinner. Don't, if you want a size zero.
  

• Splurge, go shopping - What the mags say. Probably valid only for women. One of the main reasons why men get frustrated in the first place.
  

• Get up earlier than you ever have and stroll a mile - Works wonders!

But remember, the most important stress buster is that you try one of these stress busters! Waiting for your tips.

If you are an engineering guy staying in your college hostel using an internet connection shared over a LAN, you know what I mean. If you aren't, read on.

If you are a person with a fat wallet and a high speed internet connection, you will never appreciate this post. You might say, a slow connection means pages load slow, isn't that all? No, you buggers, it is NOT.

Here's what happens when you have a slow connection.

* Pages load slow. Ha ha ha.

* My monitor cost me 10,000 bucks. I dread that some day I will hammer it. No hammers in my room.

* If you are planning to buy a PC that you would be using over a slow connection, buy a sturdy keyboard. I bang my keyboard at least five times every day.

* Youtube videos buffer so painfully slow. Worse, you leave a video to buffer. When you return to it, the buffering has hung midway. Or you replay and the buffering restarts. JEEEEZZZZ!!

* Take care of your social life-I. I find that elusive gal online and send her a hi over gtalk. She apparently doesn't reply and I sign out. Only to find out later that she had actually replied to me.

* Take care of your social life-II. Every now and then people haggle over what others have been downloading and how badly that has been affecting the speed.

* Uploading those vacation pics on orkut takes away half the fun of the vacation itself.

* Replying to blog posts that open in new comment windows becomes so tough. The comment box stubbornly refuses to load. If at all it does, you cannot save your comment. I missed commenting on Shweta's blog post, The harmless little breeze.

* Beef up security. Out of frustration I once installed a software that sent spurious packets to other PC's on my network and stalled their speeds. Someone found out in a week and I came seriously close to getting mashed up. Expect something similar if you are a marked torrent downloader.

* Beauty specialists reveal that stress can lead to premature aging. Health specialists say that stress can lead to hypertension, insomnia, diabetes and a host of other problems. I say that what is frustrating is essentially very stressful.

I never write about blasts. But this time, I have something to reflect on.

Please do not blame the terrorists. Yes, you heard it right, please do not blame them. They are a bunch of brain-washed, brave, passionate and maybe psychotic guys who cannot tell the right from the wrong. I'm not glorifying terror but think for a moment and you can't deny that the adjectives I have used are apt. Let us not be blind to the truth in our grief.

So why Mumbai? Not because Pakistan is our neighbor, no. Many states back terrorists to strike at other countries. But they do not bleed the way we do.

Do not blame the politicians. We elect them, yes, you and I. And it isn't like everyone has turned corrupt in a few years. This has been on for decades. But we continue to elect the same faces every time. And guess what, whatever we might say, we all know that this is what we would do again.

You see who was responsible for the strike??

What do you think will happen? Diplomatic edge and everything? Nothing is going to come out of it. India cannot strike Pakistan, it's a nuclear power and a strike is out of the question. Even the US cannot, more so when the country is your neighbor.

The US is backing India only because it does not want India to accumulate troops at the border. That will hurt US interests. The US is fighting for itself, not for India.
So, the great Indian circus show will go on for some months. Perhaps a bit more stringent security measures for some time. Then we will forget the wounds. And the netas would heave their sighs of relief.

What would you and I do? We would continue to run after our promotions and our IT jobs and MBA's. We would dream of that car and that apartment and that perfect home. Some evenings over coffee, we would reflect and blame the politicians. We are just not ready to get our hands dirty to do the cleanup job.

Until someone comes and blows up that dream. Then the cycle would repeat. And the news channels would say, life in Mumbai has come back to normal.

A cleanup isn't necessary for the nation. It is necessary to save our own skins.

I'm no metrosexual. Actually, I'm the exact opposite of what you would call metrosexual. The only cosmetic I use is boroline(during the winters to prevent bleeding lips), if you can call it a cosmetic.

Now I've no dearth of friends who fret over what they look like. Some allege this indifference to my very average looks. The indifference might be attributed to the knowledge that no amount of grooming can turn me into a stud. I can't comment. Who knows what a bit of good looks could have done to priorities? But if that be the case, I'm very grateful to be born looking average.

Yes, fretting over looks does irritate me. There are very few things that can touch me enough to irritate me and this is one of them. Do people have nothing better to do for themselves and for the world when so much always remains to be done? I apologize if I sound preachy.

But look at it the other way. I'm no admirer of the classic blonde, but how many average looking gals do I notice on the street? And yes, most guys try to get cozy with the pretty looking gal, while a more refined average looking person rarely becomes the center of attraction. I bet it's the same with the opposite sex as well.

And yes, if I can hone and flaunt my intellect and be dubbed intellectual, why do I fret when a person tries so hard to be called beautiful? On a purely logical level, I guess it's the same.

It's all very confusing, isn't it? And that's why it's so amazing. You can keep debating with yourself for ever.