Feigning Morality

First, there came the news of fake notes crippling the Indian economy. Then, the cancerous tea made from white acrylic paint served at Hapur Junction hit the headlines of major news channels. Then, the story of adulterated Arhar Ki Daal, Mawa and Ghee found its place on the front page of leading dailies. The latest addition to this series, and the creepiest of all, is the report on fake and untested blood, made from diluted human or animal blood being sold at the hospitals.

On one side, we are debating on how, Sachh Ka Saamna, the most recent one in the realm of reality shows, is not suited to our Indian viewers as unlike the west, our moral values don’t allow us to reveal our brazen truths in front of our family and the general public. On the other side, such acts of fraud are becoming a common scene. Where does the same “Indian Morality” vanishes then? Do our values allow us to be so much selfish so as to risk the lives of millions of people for a little financial gain?The popular show might be in the gossip circuit from the day of its launch; still it is not seeing any short of participants ready to play the shallow game of truth in front of their loved ones. People from well-to-do families are willing to unfold their darkest and most embarrassing secrets for quick money. It’s not as if, families which are economically insecure are only making appearances on the show. It’s not as if, only poor people are getting involved in fake currency rackets. Most of the times, names of well educated youths from respectable families come under the scanner in relation to such rackets.

Being born on the great soil of India does not guarantee a good moral character. It’s a virtue which needs to be passed from one generation to the other and the role of parents becomes most important in this regard.

It’s all in the upbringing!

The Money Trap

Kudos to TOI’s timing. Exactly a day after I read a detailed article on Online Lottery Frauds, I saw a mail in my inbox congratulating me over my success in some Lotto, which I had never heard of. Had the article not been printed the day before, I would have been flushing with happiness and weaving dreams in my mind about how to spend the “not so small” amount. The email said:

As soon as I read the contents of this promising mail, I came to know in no time that it was a fake one. But still, in order to satiate my highly optimistic mind, I set out in the search of “Ms. Linna Martins”, the “Information Minister” of “God knows what country”, on Google. And not very surprisingly, a lot of search results showed up on the screen with a common term “fraud” in each of them. Soon the tides of joyous excitement calmed down and a feeling of resentment took over. What the heck, where do these desperate people dig out our email IDs from? Why doesn’t the cyber crime cell keep a tab of them? I was cussing the sender for arousing false hopes of monetary gains in me.

I don’t usually give in to the temptation of winning a lottery or any sort of freebie because I know that money does not come easy. A lot of offers appear these days through TV, newspapers, SMSs which claim to win you free gifts, movie tickets, cars, ipods, music systems, gold, cash etc. Some of us, perhaps, one out of a million, may, emerge as truly lucky but the truth is that most of us tend to lose huge sums playing with our fortune. I must admit that I have myself lost quite a few bucks through SMSs hoping to win a free movie ticket.

Recently, when I was flipping through the TV channels, my hands stopped at a channel which was asking the viewers to guess a celebrity, whose eyes they were flashing across the TV screen, for Rs 40,000. It was utterly ludicrous and nonsensical, since it was too easy to answer but despite this fact, a lot of people were shown calling in and answering incorrectly. Even my “not so Bollywood aware" mom could answer it in a fraction of a second. And to add to the funny part, the host of the program was urging callers to hold on the line; for “Unless you are ready to wait, you won’t win”. I am sure they must be fishing out a lot of rupees from the audiences’ pockets through their calling charges. The deceit was too obvious.

So don’t get into the trap, just remember, no one would give you a single penny free in this materialistic world unless you are extraordinarily lucky, whose chances are, again, very rare.

A Tryst with Linux

I had started using Linux as my primary Operating System after being ditched by Windows several times on several crucial occasions. Initially I found it impossible to survive without Windows but soon I got acquainted with this new OS, so much so, that I could proudly say that I had erased the older one from my computer forever and for good. I was introduced to Linux in real only last semester when I had begun my final year project. Though its admirations had reached my ears even before I had its glimpse, it did not appeal much to me at the first sight. Well, everything has its own pace! Thanks to my project, I started catching up pretty fast with it. First the basics, then I progressed to li'l bit of programming. Very soon, I began spending most of my time with Linux only, as the situation required me to do so. But somewhere deep within my heart, it pinched. I used Linux not for myself but only for my project! The denial to accept the new OS had its reasons. I could not access net on Linux, something I can't live without. This caused me to switch between the two OS's which was a pain in itself, in a dual boot system. Necessities give rise to inventions. Very true! Though need for Internet access was backed by my project too. It took me some 10-20 days to figure out how to configure Linux to use the Internet. Heck of a time! Internet is something but not everything. I knew that still I was missing something and that too terribly. How can a person survive in the hostel without his/her daily dose of Bryan Adams, U2 or Pink Floyd. I could not, certainly. After all everyone needs a break from studies. I was dead sure that I would find some pre-installed players in Linux. I was right as there were certain applications, Rythmbox Player and alike. Elated, I transferred some .mp3 and .rm files from my Windows desktop to my pen drive and copied it to Linux desktop. But what I see - an error message - 'We do not have codecs to play these files'. I was shocked; not a single player worked. God only knows what format they understood. This question is still a cipher for me. Nevertheless, I did not lose hope as I knew what I wanted. With the weapon called Internet in my hands, I knew I could conquer the whole computer world if I wanted to. So the search began. It was not difficult to get my hands on a .rpm of Real Player from the Internet. But then what, I didn't know what to do with it. After checking out a huge number of Linux forums and some exhaustive search, I got my answers. Music was taken care of but what about movies, TV series and videos. Real Player couldn't handle them all. So will I have to go and knock at the Window's door again? Well, I found out the solution to this problem too. The next puzzle that shot up was “File Sharing on a LAN”. Though with li’l bit of patience, I crossed this hindrance too, I had started to feel the the absence of our very own, easy to run and work on, OS, Windows.

My short journey with Linux, was very enlightening and I experienced many of its advantages over Windows. But it would take a little more time for me to get used to it since it’s a rather complex OS unlike Windows. The situation is that I have reverted back to the good old Windows and planning to study Linux in detail later when I get time.

Thank you Microsoft, without you learning computer would have been very thorny.

P.S: If anyone is having a tough time looking up solutions to the aforementioned problems in Linux, don’t hesitate to contact me. J

Not My Mistake

I am not a very passionate reader. You may not consider reading as an activity involving a lot of passion but the book that I finished today said that everything is born out of passion. "The 3 mistakes of my life" by Chetan Bhagat. Oh don't get surprised, I know I am a bit late or should I say, too late, and probably the last one to review this book, but, hey, I already told you...reading has never been my piece of cake.

The Software Testing lecture in the class really tests your patience especially when you have nothing beneath your desk. Moreover it feels like a moron to gaze at the slides with your sleep deprived eyes when rest of the people are pursuing their much loved activity, reading novels or some other pursuing their dreams, I mean literally. Normally I carry my copy of Pune Times to the class hidden under my notebook pages to kill my boredom and sharpen my Sudoku skills. But these mind games consume a huge fraction of your brain which you intended to save by not paying attention to the professor. Thus the whole purpose gets defeated. The guilt of sitting idle during the class pushed me to find my solace in some other activity. My benchmate, Shweta, had just finished this book and the feedback was not discouraging. "Worth one time read". This comment was enough for me, as I cannot think of re-reading any book however promising it may be.

Although I have not read Mr. Bhagat's previous two works, I am pretty familiar with their plots. Thanks to the movie "Hello - a night @ the call center", I would never dare to open his second book even if given the original copy free of cost. Five point someone, the first one; the credit for my familiarity with this book goes to one of my then roommates. I remember how she loved to read it and narrate a few catching paragraphs to us. Fascinated by her enthusiasm, sometimes in her absence, I used to flip across a few pages and read them in a single breath. I lacked enough of those to complete the entire book though.

According to me a good book is one which keeps you hooked until you finish it and this book certainly passes this definition, at least in my own case. I finished it, in 9 hrs flat. It was entertaining enough to keep me away from my laptop for a while, which I should tell you, is a rare scene. A big accomplishment for the book, I must say! Though there is nothing much remarkable about the writing style, simple text that does not require you to struggle with words, written with a hint of humor makes it a perfect read. The love story running parallel gives it a romantic flavor. Indian context makes it for us simple to relate to the story. Some portions may appear to run slow but the book soon catches up its speed. No major halts. Some parts appear too good to be true, for e.g. The easy trip to Australia. In all, the book is an overcooked khichadi of ambition, celebration, passion, friendship, love, loss, hatred, regret. The ending is a li'l weak and looses its appeal as the climax goes unrealistic and borrows from typical Bollywood flicks. The story brings smile anyways when it ends on a cheerful note. In all, I can promise that reading this book will not come out to you as your mistake.

The story revolves around three friends, Govind, Ish and Omi. Govind is an ambitious boy who dreams to make it big in the business world. He has one more passion, maths. He is too good in this subject and is well known in his locality for hitting a 100 in XII boards. For Ish, cricket is his one and only love. He loves watching matches as much as playing them himself and he has the prestigious tag of district level player attached to his identity. Omi is the son of a temple priest and he is willing to do anything but take up his dad's profession. Basically three youths whose dreams are caged by lack of resources and money in the small town called Ahmadabad. Govind, our protagonist, one day decides to step into the most coveted profession of Gujarati's, Business. He realizes that he cannot afford everything by himself, so convinces his too best friends to be partners in this venture. Sports equipment sellers in the temple premises - thus it combined the interests of all three of them. They put their sweat as well as their brains in their business. Their hard work had just started to pay off, when calamity hit upon them. Their newly leased shop turned into pile of rubbles in front of their eyes when the 26th Jan earthquake rocked the state. They incurred huge losses. But Govind's newly formed faith in God helped him overcome the greatest misery of his life…and soon they saw a sunny day. Apart from running the shop, they had taken up other jobs to add to their earnings. For example Ish used to provide cricket coaching to budding cricketers of the neighborhood. Omi used to help his uncle, a politics enthusiast in organizing rallies and publicity for elections. Govind had a part time job of a maths tutor. The story proceeds as Ish spots a future Team India player in a 10 year old called Ali. He wants him to get him the best coaching as Ali is born with a natural gift- the gift of hyper reflexes, which makes him hit a six every time he picks a bat. Ish could do anything to get the wonder boy noticed. He even digs his pocket deep to take him along with his two business partners to Australia to test the boy's luck. Everything was going fine when love for motherland comes into picture and Ali refuses to play for the Australian team in lieu of the cricket scholarship. Ish too was proud of his boy's decision. Back home, Omi's mama, whose shop Govind and Co. were using for their business, starts preparing for the forthcoming elections, their main issue being the Ramjanmabhoomi strife in Ayodhya. Mama never liked the idea of Ish tutoring Ali, reason one, he being a Muslim boy and two, he being the son of the leader of their rival party. Trouble starts brewing with Mama's 14 year old son gets killed along with fifty others when the S6 bogie of Sabarmati Express is set ablaze in Godhra. Bittoo Mama, blinded by the thirst to take revenge, sets on to slaughter every single Muslim he encounters in the neighborhood. His thirst did not quench even after his own nephew Omi, gets killed by his own hands in an attempt to save Ali, from his wrath. Ish and Govind emerge as heroes in the whole fiasco. They endangered their lives to save life of the kid and they put an end to Mama's cruelties. The climax has one more angle, the friendship of Ish and Govind gets bitter when Ish discovers that Govind in the name of providing tutions to his sister Vidya, has broken the most important protocol of friendship- Never date your best friend's sister.

Happy Ending...

Still have questions about the last scene?