Happy Valentines Day

Yesterday night I thought of watching few highlights of the emphatic Indian victory over Pak, but to my utter dismay all the news channels covered one single story; about V-Day and protests surrounding it. Come February, it has always happened that everybody gears up for some or other reason; the florist to catch a market for red rose, the card maker to foray new varieties of v-day cards, the lovers obviously to find a milestone in their life, politicians to invoke a new controversy, and media houses to breed a new story. It all happens for a single day that’s today February 14^th, Valentines day.

Protesters have gone rampage across streets. Mobile marriage vans are on roads to pick budding couples and try instant marriage. Pamphlets putting curbs on young girls freedom for this particular day are being distributed. They say: Valentine day is a foreign concept; a conspiracy promoted by the west to ruin our culture, corrupt our youth. Needless to say, these people are fanatic.

Culture is never a stand-alone entity, its not a contented silent lake, it’s a free flowing river, where rivers of different cultures merge. The question here is if valentine day alone is ruining our culture, then so is every other foreign concept. And to start with first foreign concept is our adaptation of English. Now think of Indian life today without English, I am sure we will find ourselves as aliens to this world. Therefore the right note is to capture the best of the foreign culture, and I am sure, we Indians have done it right, and very carefully.

The so-called watchdogs of our society, should they determine, what we should eat, how we should celebrate? Should they determine, whom should I talk to, and whom should I not? Can they imagine their life today, without a mobile phone, without a printing press where they print their glossy posters and pamphlets. Why they don’t see them as foreign concepts as well? They can’t. Nirad C. Choudhury was right; We Indians are hypocrite enough to understand the realities.

But the problem is not only with them, but with this Gen-Y as well. Today valentine day is all about packed wallets. Parents encourage their children by giving enough pocket money (they feel, they missed the bus, let their children don’t miss it), market adds fuel to it, and media creates the hype. You have got 365 days, and why only today, why such a casual (!) way to celebrate love. Why a rose, at a cost of Rs. 15/- (Rs 5/- on other days), why an expensive gift, why a candle-lit dinner? Why to make a divine concept like love, a diabolical one? Why for the sake of the hype?

Let’s stop talking; about puppy love, and culture ruination. Let thousand cultures merge in our great Indian culture, but let the souls find love, peace, mutual affection.

Just celebrate life. Have fun, watch pogo!!

~Swarup

Valentines Day, 2006

Being Married

There's popular proverb in Hindi "Shaadi ek dilli ka laddu, jo khaya woh pastaya, jo nehi khaya woh pastaya..". After being married for almost six months, I am still confused about my own status in this regard.

Nothing comes easy in life. So is marriage. And if you'll look into the sides of a typical Indian marriage, things are too far complicated. It's just a labyrinth of kinship. When two people get married, they involve at least a thousand people on both the sides. It's just not an easy matter for them, neither for the couples nor for the parents, the relatives, the event managers et al. Making it a ceremonious affair is more about the status than joy. Once the marriage is over, those one thousand people, the guy who danced in the baaraat, the guy who served in the feast, the girl who prepared the garland simply forget the couple. Nobody really bothers whether they are leaving a happy life or not.

Ergo, post marriage life is all about the struggle of two people to build a unified contained world where they can easily breath. Irrespective of whoever they are, they learn to be happy with whatever they have, wherever they are. It's a lot about sacrifices, compromises for each other and moreover a mutual understanding between two very different personalities.

If I say, I am happy with my marriage I will be lying.

Let me not be a Hypocrite.

If I declare "Now I am lying", I am lying or telling the truth…. ???

Paradox….

byte, char *, String

Life for a techie does not move beyond that. Whatever great software you develop, you always play around those things or variants of them. Sending, receiving, wrapping, unwrapping, encoding, decoding, parsing, generating, displaying, entering.. huh... anything else ? Hope all typical actions of a software are covered. We junk ( I love to call it joonk ) s slash w space E R dots do no great things, but paid handsomely. Sometimes I wonder, how come my company pays me for this junk piece of code I am writing.

When I first touched Computer, I thought this and only this should be my career. This is such a great job. Programming a rotating flower in BASIC gave me the joy I never had since then. And the Rest is history ( of course for me, my friends and closed ones ).

All my interest died when things became too much monotonus, doing the same things again and again. what keep on changing are specs, requirements, platforms, toos, languages, bosses, companies, teams, colleagues but inside I will be still playing with strings and bytes making fool of myself.

It's a curse that I am carrying being a techie..

~Swarup

jealousy...

Well.. my first step to blogging. Just learning the ABCs of this new culture. I feel, I became a late comer. Never in my career I've been late for anything ( except few ). There's a nice oriya proverb "Ghore no poshunu chalo baji lani" which means "hitting the door before entering the house" ( any better translation..there should be .. I guess ). And here I am, again discovering that guy of whom I will be jealous forever.

The fault of that guy.. He bears my name.

Way back in Jan 1997 when I first created my yahoo account, I couldn't get the user id "swarup" then came the gmail, again the same thing. To my utter disappointment today again I couldn't get the swarup.blogspot.com URL. That Swarup guy, it seems technogically far advanced than me and I have never been able to catch him in the race. I wish him a very Happy New Year.

I dont find anything wrong with myself If I am jealous of that guy. Think positive. had man not be jealous of bird, he would not have invented the aeroplane.

High time dear Swarup. The domain name swarup.com is still available for sale, its time I should arrange some money..

Friends.. are you listening.. I need some credit..

~Swarup