Time and again I’m taught lessons in humility from my friends, strangers and history. And each time I’m amazed that why didn’t I think or felt the same way. I’m amazed because I feel the ideas are so alien to the majority of people I know that they are too good to be true. Since I was a kid, when I was told by adults that people are selfish to the present now, where I see numerous backstabbing or schemes of envious co-workers or the cut throat competition in college - I’m convinced the humble man or woman are just a precious few.

I can think of two incidents of humility right out of my mind.

First, when I was in the 2nd year of college, I had contacted a company as a freelancer - and they had agreed to hire me and my friends to work on maths problems which they wanted to build for the IIT JEE (a very popular and arduous engineering exam in India) I was very happy that I will get paid for the work. Till one of my very good friends - Aadarsh Baijal said "I think we can even work for free for these guys, since by working on these problems we get so much better on our own maths." I was so stunned, you might not see it as humility but I was thinking of just about getting the money (when you are in college getting pocket money is very important isn’t it?) - but for the first time in my life I realized that how by doing something for free I could still benefit yourself - an idea very alien to me at that time.

Second, when I was in the 4th year of college, I tried to do some consulting work for IT companies. I was meeting my first potential client and they said - "We have an urgent work for us to be done within 2 days, can you do it for us for Rs. 3000". It was my first client meeting ever, and I was with one of my friends. We were very cocky, had no clue of what market rates were for the job, and greedy for money. We assumed that we should negotiate, and obviously since we are college kids the client was trying to pull one of us by asking us to work for so cheap. Plus we had our heads in the sky since we were from IIT, so we started our bid from Rs. 15,000. The client had a shocked look on the face, and I realized we had done something really wrong. Needless to say, he showed us the door within minutes. Later on, I spoke to one of my mentors and he said -"You should have done the work for free since the person was in desperate need, and later asked him if he could give your reference to other people in the market". I was stunned, for I was again so short-sighted. And again, I felt a small favor can go a long way - and I was foolish not to realize it.

These incidents are from my life. The third incident where I got amazed was when I was reading the obituary of Irena Sendler. The lady helped hundreds of Jews in Poland, and yet she was appalled as being treated as a heroine, and said - "I feel guilty to this day that I didn’t do more". Now this is true humility and selflessness.

I wonder if I will ever be this humble …

 "Character is what you have left when you’ve lost everything you can lose." - Evan Esar

I came across this quote, and it made me think deeply of my life. Of the things that I do daily, how many do I do for my character? I do a lot of things for a lot of different reasons - money, love, fame, recognition. But, have I given my character due attention it deserves? What will be left of me when I have lost everything - my job, my family, my home, my country, my clothes? Am I selfish? Do I speak lies often? What are my emotional afflictions - jealousy, anger, procastination? Do I have enough of empathy? How do I face defeat? Do I behave when I win? What is most important to me - honesty, truth, hardwork?

This one quote, made me think - think about my character. How does I look when I’m naked under the testing eyes of my own conscience? Do I find myself to be of good character - not just moral but also of humane character, physical character, mental character, professional character?

Do I really understand what it means to have a good character? Should I not set a goal to metamorphose myself into one having impeccable character like all goals and plans for my life?

I think I need to give it due thought. I will try repeating this quote to myself each morning, for a start.

(Written just before boarding my flight to Singapore)

After touring the Indian IT pentagon - Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Mumbai and Pune. I looked beyond our own shores after all my job title says - "Evangelist (Asia Pacific)". So next fell in place - Seoul, Chicago and Singapore. Though for the context of this entry I should also mention the connecting airports - Paris, Taipei, Kula Lum Pur and Bangkok.

As you can see I can quite fairly comment upon each of these airports (well I can talk about the cities as well, but that is for another day). I’m also tempted to add-in the other airports that I have been to as well - San Francisco, Boston, Frankfurt, Vienna, Graz, Delhi, Kolkotta, Las Vegas and Hong Kong.

Some might argue comparing Indian airports to the others is not fair, but again wait till I start explaining and you will see my point.

Well the real point or rather an observation that I’m trying to make is this you can’t find a better marketplace than an airport for a consumer like me. This is something that I have observed after the long lists of bills that I have accrued from hitting the numerous eating joints and various shop at the departure and transit lounges of these airports.

I think it all started with the mentality that - "the good stuff is always cheap out of India", which was compounded by the guilt of not having bought any chocolates or goodies for office colleagues and friends. This ultimately resulted in a frantic search for something which was value-for-money (or rather cheap but yet in copious quantities) - which turns out that most airports offer in vast quantities of candy stores and patisseries. So you have a number of options to buy those things that you are going to give away for free and never going to get benefits of materialistic nature - yeah yeah I know benefits of friendship - but still!

Anyways, all this "donation shopping" again and again - made me more mellow in terms of spending money so the person who used to save all his dollars from visits to US starts eating bagels and donuts worth 15$ at Bangkok airport. Followed by Sake at Singapore airport and a 20$ McDonalds breakfast at Hong Kong airport. Talk about loosening of purses!

I know what you must be thinking - well if you are hungry ain’t you feed your stomach man? Hell ya, but I tell you "airport spending" is a progressive habit. And, in my case it spread to spending on - books, electronics, alcohol, in-flight shopping, etc etc …

I think this is also attributed to the Zen-like built of most lounges - there is nothing you could do except shop! Its like putting steaks in front of a hungry lion. Normally when I go to bookstores, I have a couple of friends around me who don’t let me spend more than an hour in the shop. But, at the airports I’m alone and the whole market it to myself. Think about consumer freedom and marketing mind games. Trap a consumer in a place where each nook and cranny asks for his money, if he is not tempted by the books, what about the electronics, or the liquors or maybe the parfums? Have you ever noticed that you start feeling hungry in a couple of minutes waiting for your flight at the airport - maybe it is the shiny bistro spewing all sorts of yummy cooking smells in the air.

Maybe I should take more care next time before buying that 35$ book at the Chicago airport, which costs Rs. 695 at the Indian ones?

Air travellers beware!

Just installed Microsoft Windows Live Writer … this is a test post.

I met with a group of hyperactive bloggers last Sunday, it was awesome. All of us are already together at the Blogaloreans google group. I think it was great meeting a lot of other people and fellow bloggers. We had lots of great discussions you can read about them blogs from fellow blogaloreans. Meanwhile, I created a logo for the group, which I’m putting it up here.

If you are a blogger based out of Bangalore, and would like to be a part of the group then join in the google group and blog away…

Here is the logo:

I simply can’t understand how soon I could have grown a year older! Damn, it feels just like yesterday that I was feeling so old becoming quarter of a century.

I had a good time on my birthday this year, had some bumps from friends, some champagne (I know this something that never happens) and some Tiramisu cake (thank you guys). I was really glad that Makhi could make it just in time before the zero hour from Delhi. It wouldn’t have been fun without his eudemonic nature. I did miss Jayant and Atika, though - having them around was always fun. But, the highlight of the day was the lunch … ah … don’t ask the details … but “everything happens in threes” … maybe I should stop having lunches at TGIF … they aren’t lucky for me.

Oh yeah, I did love my phone ringing continuously today. It normally stays pretty silent.

Though I do condemn Dhruv and Pragya for not calling me up.

Now off to some sleep… like one of my friends remarked … “Birthday is the only day I’m made to feel special by people, I should have them more often.”

Like all kids born and brought up on a healthy dose of nationalism, I have always taken pride in my country - India. Though I admit as I have grown in age my optimism and confidence have taken a strong beating. This is because, when I was young I was satisfied by the next ice cream, the next chocolate or the next game of cricket. As I grew, I started to think about getting higher education, then getting a job, and now I want piece of mind (or do I? - am I not in the rat race too?)

As a 10 year old, I used to believe that the bustling traffic on Delhi’s roads was a sign that my country was progressing, that everybody hurrying to work was a good thing - everybody was doing their bit for the country, that my dad buying a new car meant my country also prospered.

When I grew a little older, I read about Utopia and heard about a guy called Plato who became famous writing about Republic. These works talked about an ideal state - just like one Tagore described in his poem:

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake

And with all the golden ideals that we as students had been taught, the diversity of our culture that had been impressed upon us again and again in every class, and the stories of nationalism with its huge share of patriotic sacrifices and heroes that inspired us - I truly was confident that we were the best nation in the world.

But then I grew up, I started having ideas of my own, I started observing news, facts and ideas from around the world. (And of course, the world became flatter) A series of event unfolded before my eyes - the first coalition government, then another, then another (in fact one which stayed only a fortnight in power), riots in the street with Mandal commission report, demolition of Babri Masjid (that monster of religious terrorism), the ongoing rape of Kashmir, the Bombay blasts, the stock scams and the final straw was then the riots in Gujarat. Just like each crime a person commits or lie they tell leaves a scar on their self-esteem. Each of these events shook the foundations of my faith in the greatness of my country.

Maybe because we were never taught world history other than world wars, in fact even now I don’t think there is even a hint of global economics in textbooks. I had never before compared my country with others, so I went around thinking that we were indeed very close to Utopia. I do not say that my nation is worse than others, but I grieve to think that we have committed those mistakes repeated by other nations in the past - we Indians who are taught in school that we assimilate the best of all cultures - could have done better. We could have kept our eyes, ears and most importantly our minds wide open.

And now I find myself transformed into of those frustrated and disenchanted Indians, who sometimes fear that is it too late already? Can nothing be done? When I think about what could be done, I always come out with only one answer - we need a strong leader. But, maybe in this world of 21st century, the definition of a strong leader has changed - it is not about leading from the front but about leading from within, no one person can captain this change - it has to be several thousands (out of the billions we have) of inspired souls who collaborate with each other, have to take charge and get together their teams of willing and enlightened people to focus each systemic problem that we suffer from. (My strong belief is that we suffer from lack of education and closed minds the most)

Then and only then, I could find meaning in the oft repeated slogan - “Mera Bharat Mahaan”.
(My India is great)

Wordpress has an annoying bug of adding <p> whenever there is a line break in the content.

To switch if off you can do the following:

1. Open the file - wp-includes/default-filters.php
2. Find the line: add_filter('the_content', 'wpautop');
3. Change it to: remove_filter('the_content', 'wpautop');
4. Save the file.
5. We are done.

Artists Unlimited is a simply amazing group of artists that I was introduced to by my friend Mohit. A group of more than 80 young musicians, actors and other talented individuals have joined hands to create something bigger than the whole. And surprisingly their music sounds superb!

This experiment or I should say motley group of young turks is a great inspiration for me - for it tells me that people in India are willing to join together hands to achieve something. And more so, for I presume artists are a very fickle and egotistical lot. Getting together into such a huge group requires a subtle humility and maturity - that this group is working fine and producing excellent music is testimony to the fact that all its members have a maturity beyond their years.

Frankly, I feel a surge of pride & happiness in my chest - for these people are my countrymen (and women) - that they become a source of inspiration for collaboration and unity to other young’uns in other fields and professions is my fervent wish.

I wish this group and its members the very best of luck.

Finally created my technorati and delicious profiles. Writing this entry to claim my blog.

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