The Struggle is Real

You remember watching those romantic scenes or songs in several Bollywood movies in rain? The heroine looks sensuous and the hero most desirable. The setting and mood takes you to the other world. You are happy, almost immersed in the scene...

"What the hell? Close that window. The rain has just changed the direction. Leave that one closed for now. Hurry up or that rain will make our bed wet." 

Did the reality hit you? I hate Bollywood movies for this. The colorful funky colleges, love at first sight, and the romantic rain sequences. All fake.

Come back to the real middle class flat dweller's life and here is how the rainy season looks like:

1. The rain does not fall down straight. The serious spell of rain is accompanied with wind and makes it fall in any direction but straight down. For people like us, who took pride in owning the corner flat, it's the payback time. We keep on running around to close and open the windows as per the rain's direction.
2. When we were small children, we used to enjoy the smell of the rain. Now, the rainy season does not bring that earthy smell but whatever smell it brings, it sure immerse itself into everything. The cloths, the food, the books, the bed-sheet, the cupboard, the child, parents, husband, myself - everyone and everything carries the same smell - of dampness.
3. For a mother of a 6 yo, the only part of the flat that provides some privacy and "me time" is the washroom. Take your phone or take your book or just nothing but closing the washroom door's latch brings that relief. Come rain and the wooden doors swell up. They just refuse to close. Now, I am forced to use the washroom for its original use. No more that peaceful corner cos the door does not close. 
4. The ginger tea... Wow. Is it? When the monsoon gets in the full swing, 90% of the family members start coughing. Now the ginger is not used to make tea to accompany the pakodas but to make the kaadha for the coughing members. 
5. You sure feel sleepy or you want to spend some cozy time in your bedroom. Nah ah. Your bed, the chairs and any available space that you can see has your cloths spread out. The cloths washed today takes a free trip of the entire house throughout the day and finally is ready for you to wear after 4 days. If you are in hurry to wear them, iron them up.
6. How much time you spent to decide the color and texture of your walls? Thoughtfully handpicked wall decorations... Well, the continuous rain has left a sweet love bite on your walls. You see that? That wet damp patch. 

Hollywood movies are one step ahead. Jurassic Park, Godzilla, Titanic and so on. How much water they might have wasted to shoot them? Anyway. In those Hollywood movies, their phones continue to work even when they have been getting wet. My bloody phone starts misbehaving even when I pick it up with 3 wet fingers! Their cars, phones, guns, heroines - everything works. Here, just seeing the clouds, our Tata Sky and electricity goes off. 

And the most irritating moment award goes to - when the sky goes pitch dark and it starts with a drizzle. You start feeling happy. You dash out to take the cloths stand inside to save your almost dried up cloths from getting wet again. It rains for.... full 3 minutes and then the clouds fly away and the sun smiles back at you. Almost mockingly. 

No power, coughing family members, damp flat full of wet cloths and closed windows and doors. That's what the real monsoon looks like. I am not 

even talking about the flood hit areas. 

"Rim jhim gire saawan"

"Ek ladki bheegi bhaagi si"

"Jo haal dil ka"

....

....

like, seriously?

AKHIR KYUN???

I always wondered what relatives are meant for… No, I know they are "the relatives"… but they are programmed in one specific way (that's what I wonder about)…  They have standard questions to ask as per the status of the victim. Here is my research report:

1. If A (from here on, A = victim) is in 10^th standard:

a)    "When are your board exams starting from?"

b)    "What subjects are you taking in 11^th?"

2. If A has appeared in the 10^th board exams and is trying to relax for sometime after those grueling exams (the same questions are used when A has got over the 12^th board exams):

a)    "When are your results coming",

b)    "Board results are out na, how much did you score?"

3. If A is in 12^th standard:

a)    "What are your subjects?" (Point to be noted: they must have already asked this question when A was in 11^th standard, but they tend to repeat it to get on to the next question)

b)    "What are you going to do for your graduation? B.Sc. or engineering (for Science section) / B.Com or CA preparation (for Commerce section) /B.A. (for Arts section)?"

c)    "Which college did you get into?"

4. If A is in 3^rd/final year of graduation:

a)    "What are you going to do for PG? MBA??" (This time, section does not matter)

5. If A's placement session is about to start in PG course:

a)    "Which company did you get in (??!!)?"

6. If A's placement session is in progress:

a)    "Which company did you get in (??!!)?"

7. If A's placement session has ended:

a)    "Which company did you get in (??!!)?"

(They are more concerned for A to get placed than A's parents or probably A him/herself)

8. If A is in job (this question will be asked irrespective of A being in job before or after PG):

a)    "When are you getting married (wink)?"

b)    "Have you already found someone in office (wink)?"

9. If A has just got married:

a)    "When are you giving us the good news (wink)??"

10. If A has 1 kid and is celebrating his/her first birthday:

a)    "When are we getting the good news next time (?????)??"

Once A has got 2 kids, the relatives' standard question bank runs out of any more questions and they apparently lose any interest in A's life. Still, some relatives do find out random questions based on the personal level of (dis)liking for A.

PS: all my dear relatives please don't take this on dil pe…. That's how relatives are programmed by God… and no one should question HIM (I have already started using the standard question bank on those A's who have reached 3^rd level of status and occasionally on those who are on 8^th level of status)

PPS: here relatives mean- people generally over 40 years of age…

PPPS: I am not in any mood to work today and so lot of research ideas are wandering in my little mind

Such Confusion...

Okay, I was kind of confused about something. Thinking about so many things all at the same time but not coming to any conclusion. I decided to plug in my iPod to give some peace to my mind but it didn’t work. So, as per my habit I opened up Google and typed the word stating my state of mind at that moment and I type “Dilemma”. I got so many results and I chose Wikipedia.

Wikipedia successfully describes the meaning of the word and I could relate to my state of mind accurately but the second section of the page left me zapped. It further put me into confusion by representing the word by some mathematical equations, which I had hated throughout my life.

Have a look at what Wikipedia says about Dilemma and find out its Use in logic section…

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Dilemma

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A dilemma (Greek: δί-λημμα "double proposition") is a problem offering at least two possibilities, neither of which is practically acceptable. One in this position has been traditionally described as "being on the horns of a dilemma", neither horn being comfortable, "between Scylla and Charybdis"; or "being between a rock and a hard place", since both objects or metaphorical choices are rough.

This is sometimes more colorfully described as "Finding oneself impaled upon the horns of a dilemma", referring to the sharp points of a bull's horns, equally uncomfortable (and dangerous).

The dilemma is sometimes used as a rhetorical device, in the form "you must accept either A, or B"; here A and B would be propositions each leading to some further conclusion. Applied incorrectly, it constitutes a false dichotomy, a fallacy.

The erroneous spelling dilemna is often seen in common usage. It appears to have been taught in many areas of the United States and all over the world, including (but not limited to) France, London, Yorkshire, Jamaica and Australia.^[1][2][3]. There is no prima facie reason for this substitution error and there is no erroneous parallel to be found with the word lemma, from which dilemma derives.

[edit] Use in logic

In formal logic, the definition of a dilemma differs markedly from everyday usage. Two options are still present, but choosing between them is immaterial because they both imply the same conclusion. Symbolically expressed thus:

Which can be translated informally as "one (or both) of A or B is known to be true, but they both imply C, so regardless of the truth values of A and B we can conclude C."

Horned dilemmas can present more than two choices. The number of choices of Horned dilemmas can be used in their alternative names, such as two-pronged (two-horned) or dilemma proper , or three-pronged (three-horned) or trilemma, and so on.

Constructive dilemmas--

1. (If X, then Y) and (If W, then Z).

2. X or W.

3. Therefore, Y or Z.

4. All are possible.

Destructive dilemmas--

1. (If X, then Y) and (If W, then Z).

2. Not Y or not Z.

3. Therefore, not X or not W.

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?????

What was that all about???

What you s(h)ow is what you get…

Yesterday I momentarily got something to ponder about. I realized it later though. My colleague wanted me to prepare test cases for one of the modules. For those who don't know what Test cases are, it's like a testing methodology. You make all sorts of scenarios to test the functionalities of a module developed. Like, if you enter this and click on this button, these are the front end and back end processes and output. But they include both positive and negative cases. As in, how actually the module would behave and how it will react to any wrong input or in case of any exception. Since I had not prepared test cases earlier, so he gave me some examples.

"If you enter some wrong value, this is the error message which should appear"; "if the user selects this and the mapping is not available, this is the warning message which should appear"; "if the transaction is not completed, the database won't store the details of the incomplete transactions" etc etc…

So, I prepared further and sent the file to him and he politely calls me and appreciates me of doing this task BUT with a word of advice and observation. I had mentioned only the cases where any wrong value is entered as input or in case of exceptions how the module would behave but I had completely missed out the cases where the module would behave with positive values and in normal flow. But he said that it was not my fault. It was because he had shown all negative examples to me so I perceived that preparing test cases mean listing all negative cases. It was like, I co-related the word testing and the negative examples and made out that for testing a module, I should look how the module would react to wrong input. Had he given me positive examples also, my perception would have been totally different.

Moral of the story:

Make sure of how you want the person to perceive any situation and show him the complete picture. One sided picture is incomplete and may have permanent impact which may become difficult to modify later. People rarely use their minds to probe further to get the complete image. What you show makes more prominent impact. Imagine, if I would not have sent him the first file of the test cases and would have gone ahead to prepare cases for another 6-7 modules and given all of them to him. I would have been irritated on learning the actual functionality of the test cases after so many of them and my effort in rectifying all of them later.

Ye Dilli hai mere yaar...

Okay, before I start this post, there is a special note for die-hard Delhi fans: I love Delhi J

There is this strange irony of my life. The more I used to consider Delhi-NCR as the worst place to live in, the more connected I became.

I was born in Delhi. Nearly 90% of my school life was spent in this region. When I completed my schooling, I was kind of relieved that I don't have to come back to Delhi. I was happy at Jaipur. But I landed up at Gurgaon (NCR) for MBA. I was placed and my company stationed me at places like Mumbai, Chennai and now Bangalore. And guess what??? I got married to a Delhiite.  

But there is something magnetic about this place. I may have started realizing this magnetism only after spending some time in South India. The name of the famous roads, the numerous autos which keep on exhaling unbearable polluted fumes, the street food, the roadside chit-chat sessions of young groups, housewives buying vegetables from vegetable carts in their night gowns and bargaining on top of that, India Gate, the disinterested government employees, the government buildings, historical monuments, congested streets where there is no space for parking and yet each family proudly own atleast two cars, cheaper daily-use commodities (here I am comparing with South India), jugaadu attitude, Metro, latest model of cars or bikes speeding along-with cars which may crumble down to a pile of metal anytime etc etc.

Whenever I would travel through Delhi Roads, I feel some kind of connection with the names of the roads and areas, though I may not be able to guide you to any damn road of Delhi. Barakhamba Road, ITO, CP/ Rajiv chawk (for Metro travelers), Dilshad Garden, Akbar Road, Sardar Patel Marg, Rajghat, Janpath, Rohini (this is where I spent almost 7 years), Pragati Maidan, Dwarka, Mayur Vihar (this is where I am going to spend rest of my life J), Chandni Chowk, Karol Bagh, Kamla Nagar etc etc.

I may not have been to all the historical places of Delhi but just passing by them also gives a sense of pride to be present in the capital city of India- Delhi. It is polluted, it has now got extreme weather conditions- too cold in winters and too hot in summers, it is congested, it is cunning, it is the prime aim for terrorists, it is crowded but whatever it is, people born and brought up in Delhi cannot stay away from this place for long.

Here you get the best street food of India. Here you don't shy away from buying things from street and bargaining too even if you are the wife of the Director of a company. This is the place where you can sit in any local market with friends yet have a feast with inexpensive momos and chole-kulche. The roads may be less crowded during mid-night but not deserted, where the business language is English when you start and quickly changes to Hindi or Punjabi, where people have started travelling according to the timings of Metro, where still there are numerous areas where uninterrupted power supply is still a dream but the people are complaining and not rebelling, where people have forgotten the concept of balcony (almost 95% of the families residing in apartments built not very recently have covered their balconies and converted them into rooms), where people are too concerned about their health and so religiously go on morning walk and gulp samosas and chicken tikkas in the evening…

But Delhi is rightly named as a place of people of golden hearts (dilwale). Only a true Delhiite may cherish the title song of Delhi-6 J. Though I cannot call myself as 100% pure Delhiite, but I love this place in spite of all the ironies with which the people live here.

They are monstrously HUGE and COMPLICATED…

There are few things which make me feel scary just with their sizes and complexity. Their use is indispensible these days and I am compelled to wonder about them and admire their inventors and designers.

Air planes

Every now and then we travel by flights simply to save our time. They can transport me from one place to another in a matter of few hours which otherwise would have taken days to cover by road or rail. In the cockpit, the pilots are surrounded with more than 50 dials to adjust altitude, speed, direction, to know the status of the fuel, the engines, each part of the plane and the sky. One mistake by them and atleast 150 lives can be lost. I always wonder how much precision is required at each micro second level. We have seen incidents where a small mistake has resulted in disaster. The entire design is so complicated. There was a series on plane crashes on Nat Geo- Seconds to Disaster. I remember one of the episodes in which a small tiny part of steel fell on the runway from nowhere and while taking off, it hit the fuel tank of the plane and the plane blasted within 30 seconds after take off. The investigating team could not point this out for months together. On looking closely on the take off clip only they realized this small piece flying from the runway and hitting the tank causing instant blasting.

Heavy Earth Moving equipments

These days Bangalore roads are up for complete makeover with construction of so many flyovers. Every day I see those huge earth moving machines, drillers and all. The height of the blades of these drillers only is as high as my height. They drill down the concrete road in a matter of few hours. Imagine someone commits a small mistake and the consequences of the mistake or if the machine handler is not careful with the direction of the blades. God forbid, any of these fall on anyone, that can be the last moment of that person's life. 

Space shuttles

I toss a stone and it falls down on the floor. Reason? The gravitational pull. So scientists decided to make a machine which will be released with such a speed that it beats the earth's gravitational force. A space station itself has been constructed and placed in the space. The astronauts walk in space, repair these huge complicated architectures in space. Something which I see from earth every night, moon, these machines have been there. I cannot imagine to even see a rocket (I mean an actual rocket, not a dummy one) in my life. On one of the sites, I found answer to one of my endless questions about rockets and space shuttles. Every time a rocket launch is shown on TV, two parts are shown to fall down. I always wondered, what parts are they, why do they detach themselves from the rocket and what happens to them, they might fall somewhere on earth. It might hurt someone (though this last part was a stupid question, since scientists are not such fools to let a heavy part fall on someone's head).

I found the answer on one of the sites: "Rockets normally come in parts or stages, to save fuel. Once a stage burns all its fuel, it is released to burn up in the earth's atmosphere, or, occasionally, fall in the ocean.  On the shuttle, the external solid rocket boosters are reusable, so they are dropped into the ocean with a parachute, and recovered, while the external liquid fuel tank is used for a longer time, and, when released, burns up in the atmosphere.  On some of the rockets to the moon or other planets, a stage may orbit the earth/moon/sun/etc. or, as in the Apollo program, crash into the moon"- By Amateur Astronomer- Kenneth Renshaw.

Space shuttles and space as a whole is always going to amaze me. Salute to the inventors of such huge and complicated machines.

For more amazing Q and A on space, you may try this site: http://en.allexperts.com/q/Space-Exploration-2540/

Observation 3

This is an observation that these days I not only make when I am travelling in my cab but every where. KIDS.

I don't know if the kids these days are actually so cute or we have started observing now only.

I don't know if it is the natural charm of the kids or the dresses and various accessories these days that make them look so cute.

I know they are more mischievous than us, but they "look" so dumb, stupid and yet cute in whatever they do.

Last month when my mother was here, I noticed a Toy Mall. A big showroom exclusively for kids. I decided that we would go in there (although we have no one as of now in our family for whom we can buy any of these things). And the moment we entered in the showroom, I was awestruck by the range of toys and accessories for kids. My God. There were these miniature battery operated bikes, TV (an actual TV) in various colorful shapes, thousands of toys, soft toys, gadgets.. And the best of all, which I had seen for the first time. A washing machine for kids. Another elderly lady asked me if this machine actually washes clothes. I curiously enquired about it with one of the sales girl and she confirmed that it actually is a working washing machine for kids with a capacity of 2.5 KG. That was awesome.

There we saw the typical of kids. One such boy got hold of a car and was running it on the floor in a corner, making sounds of the car with his mouth. The moment sales girl asked him to hand it back to her, he just took the car and refused to give it back to her and started running here and there away from the sales girl...

We decided to sit on a bench kept just outside the showroom. We would see that the parents were taking their children to this showroom to buy something and the children were so excited that they were hopping up and down, wearing the best of their clothes. Some of them were coming out happily for they were given what they wanted but few were coming out crying because they were not given what they wanted.

Anywhere I go these days, I can see such bubbly kids with chubby cheeks that I often wonder why we were so skinny in our times. I still remember that the younger kids of the family would mostly wear clothes of their elder siblings. But now all of them have separate wardrobes with all sorts of colorful clothes and accessories.

I am not saying that I had a bad time as a kid and that it was unfair to me that I didn't had such cool clothes, miniature TV, washing machine, beds, etc. But now when I see all these things, I wish to go back to the time when I was an infant and want to grow up again!!!

Observation 2

Here I am with my second observation on my way to and back from Office.

Dogs.
Before I start this post, I must say sorry to all the dog lovers. But I hate dogs. More than that, yes, I admit, I am afraid of dogs. They are so unpredictable. Have learnt since childhood that the men’s best friend is a dog, but that dog is friend with only his owner. I have been in such situations many times where the dog of my host is sniffing me from top to toe, its heavy tail wagging and hitting my legs and the dog is growling at me, while the owner very coolly tells me to relax, “kuch nahi karega”. In my mind only one thought is going round, “kuch kar diya toh kya karogey aap”. So, sorry folks, but I don’t like dogs.
So, the observation that I had made during my cab rides are the dogs- stray and pet dogs. Ever since I have landed in this city, I have read four cases in newspaper and seen one case on television, where the street dogs have injured someone very badly. Bengaluru is famous for its street dogs. While my cab enters a new lane, the lazy sleepy dogs would all of a sudden become alert and chase our cab till we reach the end of “their territory”. But once we become the frequent traveler of that street, they no more care for our cab. Another peculiar thing to notice about dogs is that they each belong to a street. If some other dog of neighboring street dares to enter into another street, the owners of that street would unite and make sure to drag the intruder out of their area, scaring him enough so that he never ever dares to re-enter.
Apart from street dogs, yes, I have also become familiar of few pet dogs. Hard to say whether the human owners are taking their dogs on walk or vice-versa. One dog that I almost daily encounter is a big black German Shephard, high enough to reach just below the waist of its owner. Another dog is the complete black version of the “Vodafone dog”.
Today I decided to count how many dogs do I encounter on my way to office. In total, I counted 93 !!! Only two pet dogs, rest all street dogs. None of them looked lean or thin. And I always thank God that I am inside my cab, safely away from the deadly paws and jaws of these dogs.

Observation 1

Hi, good "early" morning. Well, there are so many things that I observe while coming to office and going back to home, thanks to our cab. Every ride is equally same and yet different. Same, because of the same route, same traffic, same bumps, same time, same fellow passengers etc etc. Different because of finding new potholes in the road (or no road), new latest model cars and bikes on the road, traffic jams in unbelievable places and how our deft driver takes us out of that jam and so on.

There are so many observations that I make on my way. But won't burden you with all of them at once. So, would share them with you one by one.

Observation 1:

School Kids.

Some sleepy, rubbing their eyes, some full of excitement; some lean & thin, some obese; some very cute, some not so cute; some wearing carefully ironed uniform, some just got lucky to find the crumpled uniform in the cupboard. As they wait for their school buses, we also pass them everyday in our cab. They don't know me and I don't know them, but still, if any one of them is missing on some day, my mind automatically starts making wild guesses. The kid might be sick today, or today might a school holiday, or may be going on a picnic.
Now the observation, rather two observations.
The kids are either accompanied by their mothers or fathers or some are brave enough to wait for the bus alone. Mothers are always worried about something. You can make out from their faces. Have you completed your homework, have you taken your tiffin box, are you wearing right uniform and shoes, did I miss any note in your diary, are your nails trimmed, why has the bus not come as yet... The list is almost endless. Fathers are almost indifferent to the situation. They would standstill while the over enthusiastic kid is trying to tell his activities in the school. The fathers wait more impatiently for the bus to arrive than the kid, except for few of them.
The next observation. As a kid, my mother made sure that I and my brother carries our school bags and bottles by ourselves. But now, the mother or the father carries the heavy bags and the bottles and the kid is either carrying nothing or just a little handbag for may be a drawing book or extra accessories. The exceptions are the kids going to the government schools all by themselves on their foot. The excuse is that the kids are already overburdened with studies and they are too small to carry heavy bags. These “overburdened” kids have to just carry their bags from their flats to the pick up point, then they get on to the school bus, get down at the school and thats it. The other poor kids who manage to attend school somehow, carry everything by themselves and travel all the way to school on their foot. Why are the parents over-protecting their child by carrying their bags, even keeping their books and copies in the bag a night before. Let the kid handle it himself. He should know what to keep in the bag. Parents need to monitor them and help them out rather than making them focus solely on studies and get highest marks.
And yes, how did I forget this. The uniforms of the new age private schools are becoming more trendy. In my time, we had typical of white, or blue skirts in summers and steel gray in winters and white shirt. I got my first wrist watch when I came in 8th standard. But now, they are wearing the latest wrist watches. All this makes me feel how old I am. Aaaah !!!! It hurts.
Well, these are the two (or three) observations about the school kids. More to follow. CHEERS !!!