Another year gone by

And here we are... The last year was pretty momentous one for me. I managed to get hitched. Which is partly the reason for being quite for so long. Marriage has kind of mellowed me down (hmm.. and bloated me up as well). Blame it on the stress free days. It is kind of comforting to know that when you get home somebody will be there for you. And when you wake up in the morning somebody is next to you. And breakfast/lunch/dinner on the table which actually tastes good, doesn't hurt either (I help with washing the dishes and doesn't mind that)

Apart from the obvious change I have decided to put a bit of theory that I am reading into practice. Recently I got my hands on '7 habits for effective people' by Covey. Well, I usually don't buy self-help or self-improvement books. But the phrase 'effective people' caught me. I have to admit that the first time I glanced at the title, I substituted 'successful' instead of 'effective'. This got me curious and I wound up buying the book. But it wasn't just a read-through-it-and-forget-about-it kind of book. It describes some simple habits which can help you over the long run. And the first habit I am trying out is - "Be Proactive".

That was just 2 simple words. But implementing it in practice is a pain. What it implies, for me at least, is to not just crib, but do something about it. Well, there was a lot of stuff written. But essentially it boils down to this. And this post is kind of something I have been cribbing about for some time. So here it is... :-) Lets see if I can make this a habit!

There... I have added Twitter

There... I have added Twitter account to my blog!!! Nobody can accuse me of lagging behind in technology!!! :P

After a looonggg time....

After taking the resolution to be a regular blogger as a part of my New Year Resolutions I finally found the time to update my blog now. I am not going to offer the usual excuses of work, or rather over-work, and insufficient time to pen down my thoughts. Instead, I would like to take the braver strategy of offense, being the better form of defense, and state that I was putting my thoughts into action where it matters more! Rather than penning them down, and eventually forgetting about it altogether.
But, truthfully, I think the reason would be that I was plain lazy. I found the time today to write this post, only because I was taking rest at home for the last two days, recovering from flu, and was getting bored to death.

OK, then! All the trivia aside, what am I going to ramble about. I didn't have the faintest idea when I started. There were numerous incidences since my last post... the roller coaster ride of the stock market, a few grisly murders in the upper echelon of the society and some lesser publicized ones at the lower end, a cricket tournament which reeked so much of cash and glamor that it was hard to make out as a gentleman's sport any longer and the Slap-gate saga that took place half way through it, political maneuvering in elections making king makers out of independent "rebel" candidates, movies that are far moved from reality filled with computer generated imagery, and yet some which still manages to touch our heart, the run-up to a presidential election that has threatened to overthrow gender or race discrimination, but not both, an Olympics which is throwing up a sand storm of protests which seems to politically divide, rather than unify the world, and which might still, hopefully, bring a totalitarian regime to end, without shedding any blood, Spiraling oil prices, Fluctuating dollar values, Threats of global recession... The list seems to be endless.

But I think I will write about a different incident this time. One that might not have been noticed by everyone, even though everyone must have seen it one time or the other. It is based on comments made by US president Bush regarding spiraling food prices at home. The gist of the explanation provided by him is this.

Third world nations like India and China are prospering, resulting in a higher number of people in the middle class. This translates to a higher food consumption, since you eat more when you have more money. The Indian middle class is more than the combined American population. So that is where your food is going, and that is why prices are increasing, since there is less to go around.

Right? Wrong! There were quite a few feathers ruffled in India over this. The Times of India published an article, listing the dietary practices of Americans and Indians and statistically proved that an average American eats roughly twice or more grains than Indians and much more of meat than Indians, besides that India is self sufficient in food and a net exporter of food and in no way causes food shortage.

Conveniently, many people play on the pride factor, anti-american rhetoric and forget about the main point here. WHY are food prices increasing then? Even in India, the food prices are increasing. My view is that there are multiple factors involved here. Let me take the domestic scene first.

At one hand we have farmer's committing suicide because they can't make a living out of agriculture. This implies that the rise in food prices does not seem to have created better living conditions for them. They are being denied the fruits of their labor. Where is the increase in price coming from then? There is only one place it could come from. On the way from the farm to the market shelves. In other words, the distribution system. The agriculture sector is suffering, not because we eat more, but because of the failure of the distribution system and the lack of incentives to the farmer, who, in turn, is turning away from food crops to more lucrative channels. The farmers who remain with food crops are not getting the returns that they need to survive.

In the international scene, the Americans, and for that matter most of the first world, consumes much more processed food, compared to the rest of the world. And they are mostly net importers of food. This results in additional processing cost as well as some wastage during processing of the primary raw materials. Compound this with the problems of rising transportation costs, additional processing cost, increasing labor cost, we get an additional spike in prices for them.

And all the while, the population of the world is increasing, never decreasing.

What is the solution for this?

I cannot claim to have any solution for this. But from a layman's point of view, the solution seem to lie in better distribution system, utilizing areas under cultivation optimally and providing better returns to the farmers, cutting out the middle men, and maybe a return to a more organic and natural, instead of processed food consumption.

Happy New Year!

Wishing Everyone a HAPPY NEW YEAR! I guess this will be my last post this year. I am taking a new year resolution to be more regular next year. Hope to see y'all more frequently.... Seeyaa.. Have a great time and stay good...

Deep Blue

I have been feeling blue recently. The last few days in particular. There is something about the end of a year that tugs at my heart. It is the time to be with your near and dear ones. Being away from everyone is having a kind of negative effect on me. Despite all the claims of the world becoming a global village, I am finding out that nothing is a substitute for the physical touch. There is something therapeutic about that touch. Nothing can beat that physical proximity. Another reason I guess I am feeling so blue is the shocking news I heard a few days back, about the demise of one of my batch mates during my graduate studies in Wisconsin. It was totally unexpected. He died of cardiac arrest. We used to smoke and drink a lot during those days and there were a lot of occasions when we shared a drink or a joint at the Memorial Union. The more I think about it, the more I feel that I would have ended up in the same position had I remained in US. When I came back to India I cut back a lot on my substance abuse. And now I am almost clean. Not that I was an alcoholic or a chain-smoker. But I had my share of them. A lot of credit also goes to my friend who put a stop to all that. I wouldn't claim that I have a healthy life style now. But this news somewhat sobered me up. I was not thinking of it overtly. Maybe I have not yet accepted it completely. But it is always there just beyond the grasp of my conscious brain. Which is why I am writing this post. I don't know if I will submit it. Since it seems to be growing somewhat personal in nature. But I think I need to let this out in some form and right now this seems to be the best way to do it.
Is it the dog-eat-dog competition to stay on top in this world which is causing all this? The tensions that we have to face in life is increasing over time. The race to earn more, own more, spend more, enjoy more... where is it leading us? Weighty questions... I am still searching for the answers. Maybe I will find it someday. And with it, the key to happiness. From what I have learned in life so far, the questions may be same for everyone, but, the answers, different. If the answers I find can help you, I will definitely post them here, once I find them.

Photography Actually...

I know, I know. Its been a long time since I posted anything. I could probably blame my work schedule for that. But to tell the truth I have not been doing much in the last couple of weeks. But then I got caught up in creating websites... That is right. Yours truly have been creating websites (More of web pages actually...), thanks to google. Google has a little known service called googlepages . It is one of their google labs products. Apparently anyone with a google account can create up to three webpages. I say 'apparently' because it has never shown up in my google apps or services anywhere when i sign into my google account. But the undeniable fact, is that it exists. And so... I have created two webpages in google. One is, a rather selfishly titled one . And the other is a webpage on digital photography. Now you might be wondering, 'This guy! And photography! Oh, he is so talented!'. Whoa, Slow Down, Slow Down!!! I am not much of a digital photographer. Of course I own a camera, and i know which button to push to get the picture (hmphhh... got the picture? hehehe.. pun intended...). But then around four weeks back, the photography bug bit me (metaphorically I mean, not an actual physical photography bug... hmm... Are there photography bugs?... Argghh.. Anywayyyy...). And I get this sudden inspiration for photography. I look around and find that, voila, my camera is broken. Now any other person would take it as a sign that the camera committed harakiri, rather than get itself sullied in my hands. But, NO! Not me! I consider it as a sign, to move on to a better camera, one that will appeal to the artistic side in me, and, of course, one that doesn't feel like i am holding a credit card rather than camera and is built on sturdier material. Anyway, finally after much searching I found this NIKON D40 camera, on Amazon, which kinda called out to the inner photographer in me! (Noooo... It didn't scream 'Help!HELP!'). So currently I am a proud owner of one such (hapless?) specimen. You would probably see the results of my digital err... ah... ART... in a few days on this very site. Alright then, it is time that I go and polish up my photographing skills... Ciao!!!! (Camera yells.. 'Help!' in the background... indistinctly... finally dying out in a whimper...)

Back after a break!

And back with a bang too! First off, a big thanks to all my friends who wished me a Happy B'day! It was a very hectic B'day followed up by a very hectic weekend. I actually managed to make it home for a long weekend after almost a month and a half. It was heaven, just sitting around and lazing in my home.
Apart from having to pretend not to have heard mom's snide comments regarding your's truly reaching marriageable age, and occassional proposals that i would turn down offhanded, the break was rather enjoyable. I did manage to met up with old friends, visit some temples and generally spend the day sleeping in. With all the food (sweets and otherwise) that I consumed in the last three days i feel as if i have gained around 5-10 kilos, mostly around the middle.
Work is going on in a hectic (snigger...) pace as usual. Hopefully an initial release would be out sometime before the end of this month.
Speaking of releases, this weekend saw a couple of movie releases that I desperately want to see. One is Shivaji (The Boss), starring Rajni and the other one is Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer. Both of them are opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of cinematic style, but there are two common threads of grand budget and total unbeleivabilty in both the films, which make them quite attractive to me.. :-D .. Oh, and there is one more film I really want to see... Shootout at Lokhandwala! I heard that Vivek Oberoi has put in an awesome performance in the movie. And that "ganpat" song makes me laugh every time I hear it.... especially the "kaishwarya" line due to the history between the two.. Anyways, enough from me. Signing off now to do some actual work... Hmmm.. Time for a coffee break before I start I think..