My entire domain is going for an outbound tomorrow.

For the non-IT and non-geeky audience:
Domain stands for a group of people working in a similar business.
Outbound stands for a term propagated by those “HR” folks. It means going on a picnic, but with some specific objective.
HR stands for nothing. The abbreviation HR stands for Human Resources.

So, tomorrow, an entire bunch of software engineers (called techies by HR) are going to roam the campus of a resort.
The HR folks, who have been sent by God to reform the techies, shall organise some team building exercises.

We shall hold ropes and tie them together and run around screaming.
By doing so, we shall know our comrades better, we shall gel with them better and we shall all start lunching together.

HR folks in the meanwhile shall hand out trophies and smile at everyone that looks at them.

I can’t wait for tomorrow.

The strike that struck India yesterday was foolish to say the least.

I am not against the concept of people or political parties protesting against any policies or matters of governance.
What I am definitely against is the idea of bringing the entire machinery to a halt.

Airlines, transport organisations, industries, banks and all financial institutions put up their feet on the desks and dozed away yesterday.
A cumulative loss of millions of dollars for the country.

All this led by the Left wing of the government.
Ironically, the strike was held by the members of the government against the government.

Now, the Left is against disinvestment of public sectors, and more importantly, it wants to curb the amount of FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) coming in to the country.
What the Left fails to see is that the sectors in which we have had greater FDI have done significantly well in the past few years.
The telecom sector and the insurance sector are prime examples.

The Left, with its communist leanings, has failed to look out of their edited copies of the Communist Manifesto.
While they have been immersed in that age-old book, the world has moved up to capitalism, embraced globalisation and proved that selfishness is not only a virtue but is also essentiall for the well being of the community at large (I can visualise the leftists rolling up their sleeves to bring me statistics on the rural folks. But then, what exactly have they charted out for the betterment of the rural folks, I am yet to see).

Even China, the world’s largest communist state (albeit with dictatorial traits) has not been able to adhere strictly to the rules of communism.
In the recent past, China has had 10 times more FDI than compared to India.

The Left needs to look at this and more importantly, needs to throw the ragged book that it has been living by for most of its years.

If the Left doesn’t do that soon, it might find itself out of striking distance at the centre.

Last night at the entrance of Barista there was a little girl selling roses.
She insisted that I buy a rose from her.

At a time when she should have been safely tucked in bed after her homework and dinner, she was out there on the road trying to make a living.

There are many such children who are forced to shed the robe of childhood early and take on the mantle of adulthood, even if it fits them loosely.

Now, I offered to give the little girl some money and I didn’t want the roses so I told her to keep the money and keep the roses as well.
She told me that she couldn’t do that.
If she accepted my money, then I would have to take the rose.
I told her that I don’t need the rose.
But she persisted that if I don’t take the rose then she wouldn’t take the money.

That was indeed admirable, especially considering the fact that it came from such a little girl.
She could have easily taken the money and kept the rose, but she didn’t.

And that made me think as to what was more important – Self-respect or the opportunity to go to bed with a full stomach?

She earned my respect, she definitely did.
But did she earn her daily bread?
I hope so.

Dhi Only One bows to the little girl wherever she might be, and prays that life will not be so harsh to her in future.

Happy Birthday to the Soldier.
Alright, belated Happy Birthday.

I couldn’t write on my blog about this event nor could I email since I was busy traversing the roads often travelled in the Himalayas.

Coming back to the Soldier, I remember meeting him sometime in the 7th or 8th standard.
He was this queer, timid and highly conscious about his reputation kind of a guy.
During lunch, we guys used to indulge in throwing stones at each other (I fail to remember what pleasure it gave us, but I am sure it did).
The Soldier found this too demeaning and couldn’t let it blotch his reputation so he stopped lunching with us.
We, in the meanwhile, continued throwing stones.

After that brief meeting, I again met the Soldier, a lot more refined by our tastes, in 11th standard.
Albert Pinto too joined in then and I think we managed to get him to be more normal like others

Ladies, the Soldier is suave and intelligent. (Come on, its his birthday after all)

There are, as of now, two blogs being updated by him:
http://thelifeofpai.blogspot.com/ and
http://chaoticthots.blogspot.com/

We went for the times quizfest together, which was a feast for us.
For the record, we got to work together with two girls from Bishop Cotton.
For another record, we didn’t get to work with the two most beautiful girls from Bishop Cotton.

We got our names printed on newspaper (so what if it was the Times of India?)
We also went to Kalpakkam and won a quiz and (oh boy oh boy)…censored.
We went to Delhi…censored.

We used to hang around Basweswar Nagar.
Ruff deserves a special mention, the Soldier was very close to him.
Ruff was amazing and I too miss him.

The Soldier is now Pi – Belated happy birthday once again dude.

Rum tart with black coffee can do wonders to your soul.

With that seemingly innocuous looking but inherently profound statement, I announce my return.

Details of my trip coming soon.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am off on a week-long vacation.
I shall be back on the 26th of September 2005.

Sitting on a bench outside a tea shop, I felt very good about life.
That’s about Dhi Only One.

Burning the midnight fluorescent lamp, Socrates continues to fine tune the output of his mp3 player on his Windows XP based computer.
Plato, in the meanwhile, is reading a Greek newspaper.
Greek philosophers (especially the fictional ones) don’t talk much around midnight.

Until we meet again, good bye and good luck to you all.

Woke up at 6:00 am.
Drove around and measured distances for the walkathon.
Chilli deeply engrossed in his wireless networks book, early in the morning!
Nice breakfast.
Started reading Godel Escher Bach.
Interesting book, needed a revisit to Formal languages (Context free and all that regular expressions stuff).
Decided to buy Bach’s music, while Britney Spears played on television.
Dinner with Chilli and Achuth at Chung’s.
Sporadic occurrences of cute faces.
Got my computer working again.
Been on it ever since it started working again.

Currently playing – Take a picture by Filter.
Could you wanna take my picture? ‘Cos I won’t even move….

…And I feel like a newborn.
And I feel like a newborn, shaking and screaming.
- Filter

Disclaimer: The characters Socrates and Plato in my previous posts have nothing to do with the original Socrates and Plato who existed some time back on this planet. My characters are indeed purely fictional and the resemblance of their names with those of the real philosophers is purely coincidental. Additionally, everything that I ascribe to these two characters was not necessarily a view held by the real Socrates or the real Plato.

I had to put in this disclaimer since many readers came back to tell me that Socrates didn’t really say this or do that. They also said that he never ate curry in his lifetime.

I also learnt that there were no washing machines in that era.
Too bad.

Socrates gives a very detailed explanation regarding Love and Knowledge.

Socrates: Love is something you want when Knowledge is not sufficient.
Knowlede is something you want when Love is not sufficient. Therein lies the difference and the similarity, depending on how you perceive it.

A couple of seconds pass by in silence.
Three more seconds pass by in silence.

Plato (in a pondering manner): Now, that’s Greek isn’t it?

Socrates goes in to check if his washing machine has done justice to his robe.

Plato (looking at Socrates’s robe): Teacher, what is more important – Love or Knowledge?

Socrates: I need to first go put my robe to the laundry, else this curry stain will not go. Keep your question for a later time.