Impressions of an ordinary person

అధరం మధురం వదనం మధురం

2011-09-27T21:37:00.000-04:00

అధరం మధురం వదనం మధురం

నయనం మధురం హసితం మధురం

హృదయం మధురం గమనం మధురం

మధురాధిపతే రక్హిలం మధురం

అధరం మధురం వదనం మధురం

నయనం మధురం హసితం మధురం

హృదయం మధురం గమనం మధురం

మధురాధిపతే రక్హిలం మధురం

అధరం మధురం వదనం మధురం

నయనం మధురం హసితం మధురం

హృదయం మధురం గమనం మధురం

మధురాధిపతే రక్హిలం మధురం

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వచనం మధురం చరితం మధురం

వసనం మధురం వలితం మధురం

వచనం మధురం చరితం మధురం

వసనం మధురం వలితం మధురం

చలితం మధురం బ్రమితం మధురం

మధురాధిపతే రక్హిలం మధురం

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వేనుర్ మధురో రేనుర్ మధురహ

పానిర్ మధురహ పాదో మధురం

వేనుర్ మధురో రేనుర్ మధురహ

పానిర్ మధురహ పాదో మధురం

నృత్యం మధురం సఖ్యం మధురం

మధురాధిపతే రక్హిలం మధురం

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గీతం మధురం పీతం మధురం

భుక్తం మధురం సుప్తం మధురం

గీతం మధురం పీతం మధురం

భుక్తం మధురం సుప్తం మధురం

రూపం మధురం తిలకం మధురం

మధురాధిపతే రక్హిలం మధురం

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కరణం మధురం తరణం మధురం

హరణం మధురం స్మరణం మధురం

కరణం మధురం తరణం మధురం

హరణం మధురం స్మరణం మధురం

వమితం మధురం సమితం మధురం

మధురాధిపతే రక్హిలం మధురం

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గుంజా మధురా మాల మధురా

యమునా మధురా వేచి మధురా

గుంజా మధురా మాల మధురా

యమునా మధురా వేచి మధురా

సలిలం మధురం కమలం మధురం

మధురాధిపతే రక్హిలం మధురం

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గోపీ మధురా లీలా మధురా

యుక్తం మధురం ముక్తం మధురం

గోపీ మధురా లీలా మధురా

యుక్తం మధురం ముక్తం మధురం

దృష్టిం మధురం సిష్టం మధురం

మధురాధిపతే రక్హిలం మధురం

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గోపా మధురా గావో మధురా

యష్టిర్ మధురా సృష్టిర్ మధురా

గోపా మధురా గావో మధురా

యష్టిర్ మధురా సృష్టిర్ మధురా

దలితం మధురం పలితం మధురం

మధురాధిపతే రక్హిలం మధురం

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Can not make peace with the Devil

2008-12-26T12:51:00.008-05:00

At the outset let me make it clear that this post is addressed at the Paki terrorists, their supporters from Paki military and the Paki politicians. This post is not aimed at the ordinary Pakistani citizens who are being completely suckered by their own politicians, military and terrorists created and supported by their own military establishment. Everybody in the world knows that Pakistan is ruled by its "Military" regardless of which civilian government is in power.

To stay in power, it is important for the Paki military and the politicians to keep the image of India as "enemy number 1" in the minds of the ordinary Pakistani people. That way the Paki military and the politicians can get away with not improving the lives of ordinary Pakistani people while pillaging and plundering them in every which way.

There is also another reason for the Paki military's extremely hostile stance towards India. The Paki military wants a revenge for their humiliating defeats in the three wars with India. They want to defeat India and they have realized that they can not defeat India in a conventional war. Hence in 1989 they started to indulge in terrorist acts in Kashmir and slowly spread the terrorism to other parts of India. The Paki military realized that they can inflict massive damage on India without the fear of any counter-attack if they engage in proxy war of terrorist attacks, because it is not a war in the conventional definition of the term. Today in their proxy war they employ terrorists to attack India on a daily basis in not only Kashmir but also in many north eastern states as well.

The Mumbai attacks show us that, now they are planning to take this proxy war to another level, where they plan and execute terrorist attacks in metros around the nation causing huge loss of life. Their calculation is that if they execute these terrorist attacks a few times then it would cause so much damage to an already frail communal harmony between the Hindus and Muslims that a communal war will flare up. Then they can send more terrorists to India causing large scale killings to make sure that the communal war becomes a civil war. And the Paki military calculation is that this can be achieved at an extremely low cost to them. I think the Paki military is absolutely right in their calculation.

The Paki military also has a trick up its sleeves on the diplomatic front as well. Even while waging this ultra low cost terrorist war against India, the Paki military makes its politicians issue frequent statements to the world media about how they themselves are victims of terrorism and how badly they want good relations with India. This will make sure that the world media, the left leaning Indian politicians and the communist traitor parties of India go gaga over how Pakistan's good intentions are not being made use of by India and how India should never think of war as an option.

We all have seen this strategy of Paki military is being executed extremely successfully and the Mumbai attack is a sad manifestation of the success of Paki strategy. We the ordinary citizens of India can be very certain that attacks like the Mumbai attack will start happening at ever increasing frequency regardless of what our netas try to lead us to believe.

The only way to stop this Paki military sponsored terror is to first acknowledge that we are at war and then fight the war with all our might. We should make the cost of waging proxy war prohibitively high for Pakistan by forcing the Paki military to engage in a full scale war. The Pakis keep threatening India that they can fight back but I seriously doubt it. Case in point - the Americans have been launching missile attacks at will, on Pakistan's north west frontier province and did the Pakis ever dare to fight back? They have not so much as fired a single solitary gun shot against the Americans. That proves that Pak being ready to hit back is more talk than substance. It is time for India to call the Paki bluff and time to conduct surgical strikes on the terrorist training camps inside POK and elsewhere inside Pakistan.

The longer India waits without engaging the Pakis in a full scale war, the more it bleeds and the weaker it gets and who knows India might even disintegrate into pieces to the delight of Paki military. For over 20 years India has tried all the peaceful options to get rid of the terror menace from Pakistan but guess what - you can not make peace with the Devil. War and extermination is the only way to deal with the Devil and now is the time to do that.

The criminal politicians of India

2008-12-24T21:22:00.007-05:00

I have read in most news papers today about the brutal killing of a PWD executive engineer in UP by a Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) MLA and his gang of criminals. BSP supremo and UP chief minister Mayawati has ordered her party MLAs to collect money to the tune of 1000 crore rupees to celebrate her upcoming birth day in January. Her party MLAs most of whom have criminal backgrounds went on an extortion spree collecting money from Business people, Industrialists and government employees that have the potential to earn money through means other than their salary.

Local BSP MLA Shekhar Tiwari is believed to have demanded a huge amount of money (50 Lakhs) in connection with the birthday celebration of party leader Mayawati from the engineer Mr.M K Gupta , who is understood to have turned down the demand. That lead to the killing of the engineer by the henchmen of the MLA.

Mayawati is one of the most corrupt politicians and one of the most pompous. She goes around in Luknow with an army of 350 policemen and an assortment of 34 vehicles in attendance. She considers it her birth right to spend the tax payers money for leading an extremely lavish and extravagant life and for furthering her own personal agenda. Can you imagine how egoistic one has to be to want to celebrate one's birthday by spending 1000 crore rupees in a country where one third of the population does not even get to eat two square meals a day.

We the people of India may have gotten Independence from the Britishers but now we have our freedom stolen by these hardcore criminals who claim to be our leaders. I am not hopeful of us ever gaining independence from these murderers and criminal gangs that rape,plunder and pillage our country. These ruthless criminals who rule our country today make the British rulers look like saints by comparison.

Lowest quality Crime Scene Investigation

2008-12-23T19:26:00.003-05:00

Recently I had come across a news item regarding catching of a car thief in Finland. There was a car stolen in Finland in June which was later found abandoned close to the spot from where it was stolen. Police in their investigation of the crime scene (the car in this case) have found a mosquito in the car. They have extracted a DNA sample from a sample of blood found inside the mosquito. They checked the DNA sample against the DNA samples on their database and found a match and caught the car thief. I was simply amazed at the attention to detail of these Finnish police and the quality of their Crime Scene Investigation.

Compare that with the police work of our Indian police. The Crime Scene Investigation that takes place in our country is easily among the lowest quality in the world. I think more than 95% of our police personnel do not even have the basic training in crime scene handling. Higher ranked police officers that have this training in Crime Scene Investigation never are the first people to reach the crime scene. In fact IPS officers and other higher ranked officers hardly ever visit a crime scene. In any case, by the time the higher ranked police officers visit a crime scene, it is already hopelessly contaminated. There is not any meaningful awareness in the lower ranked police personnel as to the basics of how to protect a crime scene from contamination. That is the main difference between our Police and the Police in the developed countries. I hope one day, the powers that be, recognize this major shortcoming in our Indian police work and train the first responders in crime scene handling and protection.

The Purple Frog

2008-12-06T07:59:00.002-05:00

The strange looking creature below is a Purple frog, discovered just five years ago in Western Ghats of Kerala in south western India.

Image Source: WikiMedia Commons

Scientists have given it the name Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis, from the Sanskrit word for nose (nasika); batrachus, meaning frog; and Sahyadri, the name of the mountain range where it is found. According to scientists, it's related to a family of frogs now found only on the Seychelles islands, which split from India 100 million years ago.

Click here to go to Wikipedia page for Purple Frog.

Mumbai terror attacks

2008-11-29T13:28:00.006-05:00

Everybody in the world knows that this despicable terror attack is funded and planned in Pakistan. Sure there are some local contacts who helped them but no one is naive enough to believe that Pakistan's ISI is not involved in a major way. The primary goal of the Pakistani masters of terrorists appears to be to create an impression that India is an unsafe destination for investment and make it look as unsafe as Pakistan. They want to hurt India's booming economy. They want to create an atmosphere of suspicion and vitriol between Hindus and Muslims and they hope that that atmosphere will result in communal clashes sullying the image of India in the eyes of the world community.

These Pakistani masters of terrorists are trying to create a justification for this massacre based on a cooked up theory of systemic suppression of Muslims in India. Nothing can be further from truth but if you keep repeating a lie long enough then it might stick. In any case there will always be some gullible people who will believe that propaganda and even start propagating it themselves. Also there are any number of politicians and political parties in India that would not hesitate to cash in on the supposed systemic suppression of Muslims and try to turn that into electoral gains.

One of the most important goals for our government should be to make sure that the terrorists and their masters do not succeed in their propaganda of lies. There are hundreds of millions of Indians living in poverty and that includes Hindus, Muslims, Christians and others. Hence, to say just the Muslims are impoverished is nothing but propaganda and a ruse to divide the communal harmony. The Indian government should counter this propaganda with facts and use all the devices at its disposal to disseminate that information to the world. But I am old enough to know that our Indian government is totally lethargic and impotent and will do nothing to counter the terrorist propaganda.

In our country there is an absolute lack of political will to fight terrorism. These politicians view Muslims as vote banks that can make or break an election. Consequently there is a perception in most political parties that being strong on terrorism would alienate these vote banks. I hope our politicians rise above their petty political interests for once and think in terms of what is best for the country - like enacting a strong anti-terror law. I also hope that these politicians stand together on the issue of hanging that terrorist (his name escapes me and am too lazy to google it) who was convicted of bombing the Indian parliament. Hanging that terrorist will send a strong message. Right now the only message that we are sending to our enemies is that we are divided and weak kneed. No amount of barking without biting is going to change anything.

Satanic attacks in Mumbai,India

2008-11-26T17:28:00.014-05:00

It is reported by various news agencies that Islamic terrorists conducted cowardly terror attacks in several locations in Mumbai,India on Wednesday night and killed scores of innocent people.

Anyone who kills or maims unarmed people

- is an utter coward
- is an agent of Satan and against God.

I have a close friend who is a Muslim and he told me many times that Islam never condones terroristic acts such as these perpetrated in Mumbai tonight. These Islamic terrorists are betraying their religion of Islam by these utterly cowardly acts. Because of these selfish and power hungry Islamic terrorists, millions of innocent and good Muslims are now being looked upon with suspicion wherever they go. These Islamic terrorists are bringing bad name to Islam and damaging the good name of their religion beyond repair.

The only thing that these Islamic terrorists are achieving by their cowardly terroristic acts is to unite all other religions against Islam and I do not think the consequences of that would be good for Islam.

God has no religion. Humans for their convenience have instituted different religions as a means to get to God. Anyone who commits terroristic acts in the name of religion is against the God and must be considered an agent of Satan and as such all terrorists are agents of Satan. In the end God will win and Satan and the agents of Satan will lose.

This is still a developing story and there are hostages believed to be held by these agents of Satan who perpetrated these attack and the NSG commandos are in the process of hunting down and exterminating these agents of Satan. I am sure the NSG commandos will exterminate every last one of these agents of Satan.

It is reported that 3 police men have so far been killed while protecting the innocent people from these agents of Satan.

May God bless these brave NSG Commandos and the police men for their valor and sacrifice.

India’s worst enemies

2008-07-10T19:16:00.008-04:00

Okay, here is a question - Who are India's worst enemies ?

Pakistan ?
China ?
Religious fanaticism ?

Actually none of the above are its worst enemies. Yes you can categorize all of them as enemies but not the worst enemies. That infamy strictly belongs to our own Indian politicians. No one had inflicted and continue to inflict more damage to our country than our current day politicians. The utter politicization of the nuclear deal which is an issue of utmost importance to the future of our country by our unprincipled and deceitful politicians provides yet another example of the damage being caused to our country.

I have been following this nuclear deal ever since it was first announced by President Mr.Bush and PM Dr.Manmohan Singh. As an ordinary citizen who has no agenda other than the best interest of the country in mind, I was very happy when I first heard/read about it. I though that the nuclear deal would be welcomed by every political party of our great nation because it is in the best interests of our country. I thought for once - just for once, our political parties would put aside their self serving agendas and all consuming pursuit of power and money, to support the deal in the interest of our country.

But boy was I proven wrong! (and big time at that). Every political party has tried (and still trying) to use the nuclear deal to further their own political agendas. It proves once again and beyond any doubt that our politicians have only one thing in mind – their own welfare. They could not care less if the country and its populace goes to dogs.

Given below is my analysis of our wicked political parties stand on this issue...

The communists
Their main agenda is to make sure that India always remains subservient to China. Their loyalty to the Chinese government and Chinese interests has been well known for decades. They supported the Chinese during and after the Indo-China war. They think India was at fault and India was the aggressor in the Indo-china war. They had never once raised their voice against the countless incursions of the Chinese army into the Indian territory. They had never once raised their voice against the Chinese supply of the nuclear weapons and the missile technology to Pakistan. If they could have their way then they would want all of us to serve as slaves of their Chinese bosses. Click here to read a news item about a recent communist intervention with the functioning of our government and tell me where you think their interests lie...

Let me make one thing clear, I am not against the Chinese people, I have nothing but respect for them - I am just against the Chinese communist dictatorship and their Indian surrogates (the Indian communists).

The BJP
BJP is the main party that was in power when the Indo-US relations really started to bloom. I can not understand how they can be against the nuclear deal. If anything the N deal would make the country less reliant on fossil fuels – and that is a good thing. But guess what – elections are less than an year away and it is time to mislead people and create issues out of non issues. They have only one thing on their mind – that is grabbing the power in the next general elections and they will stoop to any level to achieve that goal.

Mayawathi’s BSP
When Mayawathi came to power, she has said that she would become the PM of India one day. She already has the BC,SC/ST vote bank on her side and she is now targeting the Muslim vote bank. She knows Muslims are generally inclined against the US and she is trying to take advantage of that. One way to get close to Muslims is to oppose the nuclear deal and call it an Anti-Muslim deal.

This way she will be able to kill two birds with one stone ...

- She can try to make inroads into muslim vote bank and destroy her main opposition party… the Samajawadi Party ( because it depends on Muslim vote bank).
- Get a step closer to becoming the prime minister by winning more LS seats - Nuclear deal is her ticket.

Various muslim parties (mainly in J&K)
No muslim party would dare to be seen by its constituents to be supporting any deal with America. If any muslim party supports any deal or anything that is even remotely connected with America then it is committing a political kamikaze. So I really did not expect the muslim parties to support the deal.

Various regional parties
In the age of coalition governments, the governing principle for the regional parties is - "Make money at every opportunity". Hence they go with the highest bidder. So their opposition or support to the N deal relies on just one consideration and that is "whatever maximizes the payout for them".

Congress Party
Everyone knows Congress party is synonymous with opportunism and corruption. If Congress was in the opposition then it would have made the N deal a big issue and tried to take political advantage just like how all the other parties are doing now. Only person in that party who puts India’s interests above his personal interests is Dr. Manmohan Singh. But for him, the other congress politicians would have abandoned the N deal and run for cover by now, because of the huge political cost that is now attached to it.

None of the political parties/politicians (with the exception of Dr. Manmohan Singh) have India's national interest as their agenda.

Do you agree India’s worst enemies are its own politicians ?

There are literally hundreds of articles on this topic. Given below are some links on this topic....

Whose national interests is the Left protecting?
Signing N-deal will benefit India: Kalam
Lalu Yadav bats for Indo-US nuclear deal
It's the best nuclear deal India could've got
No American can treat India like a pet
National interest is at stake
Do we need the nuclear deal with the US?
Left argument on nuclear deal absurd: Congress
N-abling you to catch more fish and play harder tennis

Open these two articles in two windows and read so you can switch between the windows to understand fact/fiction

Don't go ahead with the N-deal: Top scientist
N-deal: Separating fact from fiction

Great Songs - Part 5

2008-04-06T22:21:00.001-04:00

Great Songs - Part 4

2008-01-26T21:48:00.000-05:00

Great Songs - Part 3

2008-01-05T21:12:00.001-05:00

Ajai Shankar Pandey - Municipal Commissioner of a different kind

2007-12-23T13:33:00.000-05:00

A group of my friends and me were having a discussion about Municipal Corporations in India. We all agreed that the following rule defines any Municipal body in India.

Great Songs - Part 2

2007-12-15T21:53:00.000-05:00

Arvind Kejriwal

2007-12-10T08:20:00.000-05:00

We all know that Income Tax department in India exists for the main purpose of enriching the income tax dept employees. It is incidental that Income Tax also gets collected not because of these employees but despite them.

Predictive Planning - a short story

2007-11-18T11:33:00.001-05:00

“It has been two weeks since I had quit my job” said Sudhir.

He is my childhood friend and he had a very high paying and much envied job in the ‘New products’ division in the Indian office of a Fortune 500 software company. I am meeting Sudhir after a gap of more than five years. We are sitting at a restaurant. There are not too many customers in the restaurant as it is late morning and too early for lunch for most people.

The company that Sudhir worked for is a highly admired software firm and people treasure the opportunity to work there and once people get in there, they only leave the company when they retire. Here I am using the term people loosely - when I said people I actually meant ‘techies’ in the software field. Anyway my friend Sudhir had joined that company when they recruited him in a campus interview about 15 years ago. He used to tell me that he was a very well respected employee and had the designation of ‘Principal Software Architect’ which is a highly coveted position within his company. He did not tell me that he quit his job when we spoke on the phone the previous day.

So now I was quite shocked to learn that he had quit his well regarded job. I was in disbelief. I said “You are not serious! – are you ?”

“Why would I joke about such a serious matter ?” said Sudhir.

Still in disbelief, I asked in an enquiring tone “Why have you chosen to quit that comfortable and prestigious job?”

Sudhir replied “It is a fair and reasonable question. To tell you the truth, in my case, it is more accurate to say that ‘I was asked to go’ rather than to say ‘I had quit my job’ which makes it look like I left on my own accord.”

Then that naturally led to my next question as to why, he, who was a very ‘well respected employee’ was asked to go.

Sudhir started telling me what led to his current predicament……

It all began three years ago on a warm summer morning in the month of May. I sought a one-on-one meeting with Brian Carter. He was the Vice President of the new products division where I worked. Brian had started as a programmer in the company and rose from the ranks to become the Vice President of an important division in our company. He turned the ‘New products’ division into a cash cow by rolling out successful products and that made him one of the most influential persons in our company. Although Brian was the head of our division, he was very accessible and very supportive of bold new ideas. I was sitting across the fine Mahogany table from Brian in his plush corner office.

“So you are proposing that you would work on this computer program that predicts the time and date of the death of a person, given that person’s date, time and the place of birth ?” Asked Brian in an enquiring tone.

“Yes” I said “I think it will become the next big revenue earner for our company”.

“And how do you suggest that we make money out of it?” questioned Brian incredulously. He always asks pointed questions.

“Well, as you know, we humans do not like surprises and try to plan for everything ahead of time to the extent possible. As much as we hate surprises, every living being and that includes us, is bound to be surprised by ‘Death’. While ‘Death’ in itself is not a surprise, the ‘time of the death’ is - because no person ever knows when that person is going to die. And I think if a person knows the time of his/her death, then, he or she can be better prepared for the only certain eventuality in one’s life“

“So you think people would pay money to know the day and time of their death”

“Yes, I think most people will, if not all” I replied

“What are you going to use as the basis of your computer program” asked Brian, still not very convinced about the whole thing.

“Believe it or not, the basis for my program would be ancient Indian astrological science called ‘Jyotish Sastra’ which is a branch of ancient vedic sciences, that deals with the prediction of a person’s future based on the date, time and place of a person’s birth and the alignment and position of various planets and other celestial bodies at that time” I continued “It involves very intense and complex mathematical computations involving several variables. Normally when one goes through this prediction process manually, one does some approximations to reduce the mathematical complexity at the expense of foregoing some of the accuracy of the prediction”

“Hmm… that is fascinating” said Brian, I could see him getting interested in this, and that is a very encouraging sign. He continued “ Is it possible, with this program of yours to predict not only the time of the death but how it is going to occur”

I can see that Brian is starting to already think about other more marketable features. Not for no reason, his business savvy is well regarded in the company.

I replied “May be, May be not, at this point I just want to focus on writing a program that predicts the time of death accurately”.

“The reason why I asked you that, is, because if a person knows not only when the person is going to die but also how the person is going to die then, may be that person can try to avoid the situation or circumstance causing that person’s death” Brian persisted.

This was the question that I was expecting to hear but was hoping not to hear. So I had no alternative but to digress and narrate the story of the great astrologer Varah Mihir….

Around 56B.C.E , there lived a great astrologer called Mihir. He was an astrologer in the court of King Vikramadhithya. He was a great sage and an accomplished scholar. The King had a son and Mihir cast the horoscope of the prince, using his knowledge of Jyotish Sastra. He predicted that the prince would be killed by a varaha (boar) and specified the date and time of when that was going to happen. He also mentioned to the King that no human remedies could avert the danger and save the prince from the jaws of death. Even after being told of the futility of any human remedies, King Vikramadhithya made sure that the prince was always well guarded and well taken care of.

Years passed and finally the fateful day predicted by Mihir arrived. The prince was in good health and the palace and particularly the section of the palace where the prince lived, was well guarded. On the morning of the fateful day, the king requested Mihir to verify his computations and confirm his prediction again. No one had really believed any harm could come to the Prince from a boar or any other wild animal as all access to the prince’s palace was guarded by a huge army.

The prince was asked to stay on the seventh floor, and all the staircases were fully guarded.The king was confident that his son was safe. At regular intervals a soldier was asked to give information about the prince’s well being. The King kept getting information that the prince was ‘well and doing fine’ even after the predicted time of the prince's death. Convinced by that information, the King had told Mihir that his son had avoided death. Mihir did not agree. He calmly told the king that the prince had died at the predicted time.

The king along with his entourage then went to where the prince was, to see for himself. The king went to the seventh floor of prince’s palace, where prince’s friends were keeping him company by playing games etc…. When asked about the prince they told him that the prince was playing with them all along and that only a little while ago, the prince had gone out to the adjacent open terrace.

The King and his entourage rushed to the open terrace and to their shock and grief found the prince lying dead in a pool of blood. They found that his heart was pierced by the iron claw of a boar statue. When the palace was constructed, the architect had erected a flagpole and fixed a statue of a boar made of iron and mortar at the top of the palace. Just before the predicted time, the prince felt uneasy and went to the open terrace to have fresh air. Exactly at the predicted time, a strong wind broke the flagpole and the boar statue fell down on the prince and the iron claw pierced the chest of the prince killing him. The King awarded the title “Varaha” which means boar to Mihir and from that day onwards Mihir became known as Varah Mihir.

I concluded the story of Varah Mihir and asked “Do you see the futility of efforts in evading death as proved in the above story ?“

Brian appeared to agree. And he then asked “Alright Sudhir what do you think you will need from the company ?”

“I will need a lab equipped with a super computer cluster which I will use to execute and validate my programs which will have extremely complex mathematical computations. We will need lab animals with very short life expectancies, so we can track their birth and death and try to predict the time of their death. I will also need a small testing team to device and run test cases against my programs to verify the accuracy of prediction I will handle all the coding myself as I will be using my knowledge of Jyotish Sastra which I had learnt from my grand father who was a Sanskrit scholar”

“Sounds good. Let us meet again to discuss the details and come up with the budget and a project plan that I can present to the Board to get the approval” said Brian and ended our meeting.

Soon afterwards Brian got me all the approvals and the funding. I had started working on the project and time just flew by. Since our company considered this project to be a highly classified project, most employees of our company were not aware of the details of this project. I had single handedly written all the programs and only I had the access to the source code. Finally after nearly three years of back breaking hard work and extremely intense and successful testing by the testing team working for me, my program to predict the death was ready for the prime time.

The company had spent millions and was eager to see some returns on the massive investment. It had planned to offer a service of predicting ‘the time of death’ for a fee. Whoever wanted to utilize this service would give us his/her date, time and place of birth and pay the fee. We would then run those details through my program and predict that person’s time of death. The company had started making preparations for advertising this service to make the general public aware of the impending big launch of the service. The company had named this service “Predictive Planning” carefully avoiding any negative connotation arising from the actual nature of this service.
Now just ten days were left before the big launch and I worked late to complete some last minute details. Then I left for home, took a quick bite and soon slipped into a deep slumber on the bed next to my wife Amukta.
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Our company’s “Predictive Planning” service was successfully launched and there was a huge public demand worldwide for this service on the very first day – Thanks to the extensive advertising campaign in the news papers and TV channels by our company.

Our company’s Predictive Planning service became a huge success worldwide. People talked about it everywhere. There were many news items worldwide about it in the news papers, TV channels and the internet blogs. There did not seem to be any limit to the demand for this service and it started to turn into a big revenue generator for our company.

A month after the launch of our company’s Predictive Planning service, the news papers, TV channels had started reporting a sudden and big surge in crime rate worldwide. This surge in crime rate appears to have started over the last few weeks and appeared to get worse each day. I started wondering if it had anything to do with our company’s new service. Suddenly I saw the connection. The people who utilized this service fell into two categories – Ordinary people and Criminals.

Ordinary people who used our company‘s service to learn about the time of their death reacted in one of the following ways...

If it was determined that they would live a full life then they made no changes to their life style.
If it was determined that they have a few years left then they started to plan for the benefit of their family.
If it was determined that they have only few days or weeks left to live then they wanted to enjoy their life to the fullest. Unfortunately some of these people then decided to ignore the line between ‘the Good and the Bad’ and ‘the right and the wrong’. This resulted in the surge in crime rate.

Criminals who used our company‘s service to learn about the time of their death used that knowledge to commit their crimes with utter fearlessness and this further contributed to a surge in the crime rate.

This means that as more and more people knew about the 'time of their death', this surge in crime rate would only worsen. This is an unexpected consequence of a previously unavailable knowledge being available to people now. Knowledge is power and not all the people are capable of using that power responsibly. Oh God, What have I done… I started to despair and yell and scream meaninglessly and purposelessly.

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“Sudhir Wake up…. Sudhir…Sudhir…Wake up”. I heard a familiar voice calling my name.

That was my wife Amukta trying to wake me up. I woke up and suddenly felt relieved. So that was just a dream – a bad dream. Our company’s Predictive Planning service has not yet been launched. It was scheduled for a launch in 9 days. I took a quick shower and headed back to my office.

Back in my office I was still recounting my dream over and over again in my mind. I just could not think or focus on anything. Finally around 3 pm that day I came to a decision. I had logged on to the super computer cluster and erased every trace of the program that I had spent my last three years on. I had even gone to the extent of overwriting those files with different files to make them completely unrecoverable. I had then deleted every last copy of the source code from my laptop and reformatted my hard disk to prevent any recovery. Then I walked into the office of Brian Carter and told him what I did.

Brian was so shocked that he did not talk for five minutes and finally uttered “Why?”

I had told him about my dream. Then I left his office to let him deal with the biggest fire of his career. After an hour or so, I was called by Brian and a top guy from HR. They told me that they would not take legal action against me provided I did two things…

Quit the job with the company..
Quit the software field so that I would not ever be able to do what I did (deleting the programs and the source code) anywhere else.

I had no choice but to agree to that offer, as the alternative would be to face the legal action and receive a jail term. I went home and told my wife Amukta all the things that happened that day and that I became unemployed unexpectedly.

She said “May be instead of writing a program to predict ‘the time of one`s death’, if you had written a program to predict the ‘time of one`s firing from one`s job’ then you could still be having your job today”

Thus Sudhir concluded his story about the circumstances that led to the loss of his job. I did not know what to say. Neither of us talked for a while.

Then he said “Now that you know how I ended up in my current predicament of not only loosing my job but also not being able to use my software industry skills anywhere else, I am sure you are now wondering as to what kind of job I would be having in future, since I can not look for a job in the software field. Honestly I do not know the answer myself….no wait a minute… may be I know the answer…. I think I might become a fortune teller”

Great Songs - Part 1

2007-10-18T22:05:00.017-04:00

I have a compiled a list of songs that I liked over the years. Videos for most of these songs have been uploaded to youtube by different folks. God bless them. Some of these are original, some are not. These links worked when I posted them but that is no guarantee that the links will continue to work in future. I am sure you will find some of your favorites among them. This list is not in any specific order.

My Father's Eyes - Eric Clapton
There are fans of Eric Clapton that think Clapton is GOD!. This is one of the best songs from Eric Clapton. He never knew who his father was, as he was a product of a brief encounter between 16-year-old Patricia Clapton and a 24-year-old Canadian soldier stationed in England during the Second World War, Eric Clapton was raised by his grandparents in Ripley, a village outside London. In 1985, Mr. Clapton told his biographer "I never met my father, and I realized that the closest I ever came to looking into my father's eyes was when I looked into my son's eyes." But tragically his 5 year old son had died in 1991 in an accidental fall from his New York high rise apartment. It is this tragic sense of loss -- of his father and of his son .. that echoes in this song.The above youtube video is not original.

I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For - U2
Nice song from Joshua Tree album. I am sure everybody knows that feeling.

You are beautiful - James Blunt
There is a certain vulnerabilty in the voice of this singer that makes this song interesting.

Staying Alive - Bee Gees
Who does not love this evergreen song from Bee Gees!

Every little thing she does is magic - Police
A great song from Police. Just audio with an album cover.

More Than a Woman - Bee Gees
Usha loves this song. You need to see the movie to really appreciate this song

With or Without you - U2
Another nice song from Joshua Tree album. Did not find embeddable video for this song. Clicking the link takes you to youtube website.