The Himesh law of Inevitability

If you switch on FM radio and keep the same channel up for sufficiently long time, the probability of you receiving some high pitch nasal treatment (as opposed to laser treatment) closes to 1.

Don't buy fuel from Indian Oil

There is way too much fraud in most Indian Oil Petrol pumps. Have seen it in Noida, have seen it in Delhi, have seen it in Jaipur. I don't know how, all the petrol pumps where I see fraud belong to Indian Oil.

Their latest trick that I suffered in a petrol pump in Jasola Vihar, Delhi, I asked them to fill in petrol worth Rs. 500. This guy fills in only till 100, showing that he didn't hear correctly. Then when I asked him to fill in for 500, this guy resumes and fill till 400. Then he says that he had started from zero the second time when he started when it was pretty clear that he just resumed from 100.

I have found many other sufferers to this trick too.

Petrol is an essential item and that fact itself have made owners of these petrol pumps super rich already. I fail to understand why they need to use fraudulent techniques on top of that.

And that when other oil companies like HP and BP have so much improved there services and are so much more trustworthy.

A century of posting

The last post was my 100th post. That coming in 3 years of blogging with an average of 2-3 posts a month isn't too much of a record to be proud of.

However, blogging has been a great experience and I am happy that I got inspired, started and went on.

There have been certain good posts, and if I choose a few, Fanaah, Being Vulnerable and more recently, Problem with Emotions have been close to my heart.

I am satisfied for being consistently able to write, no matter how small the frequency might be.
And I hope to continue to do so in future.

Pursuit to Happiness

Watched this movie sometime back. The first thought that came to my mind while watching it was "Oh my god, and I thought I was the only guy out of luck".

I often hear and even say this statement - Why does this always happen to me?
What we forget all the time is that everyone get into trouble. Infact, everyone gets into their own unique bit of trouble. A guy getting his dental dentures treatment dicovers that he has a cyst in his lower jaw that needs to be operated while another guy gets harassed by cell phone company for non-payment of a bill that doesn't belong to him. Or one guy is the only earning guy in a 6 member family while other gets trouble getting his parents accept the girl he wants to marry.

What did they all do to deserve this?

We all have our share of problems. Cribbing about them may not help solving them. Neither would comparing your fate with others. Pursue your dreams. Take steps to resolve your problems. Or watch this movie if you need some motivation.

My First Vehicle

Zen Estilo

The problem with Emotions

Lets start this with a small mental exercise.

There is this place where there are 2 parallel railway tracks. One track is old and isn't used anymore while another one is live and in use. There are 10 children playing on the live track. At the same time, a single child is playing all alone on the dead track. At this moment, a train is approaching on the live track putting the lives on the children on the live track in grave danger. Far from this place, you see this happening on your monitoring screen. The only control you have is the ability to switch the track temporarily so that the train goes on the dead track instead of the live one. Which would mean putting life of that single child into danger.
What will you do? Make up your mind before reading any further.

A majority of us would switch the tracks to save those 10 children at the expense of that single child. It seems right from the humanitarian perspective, saving as many lives as you can. If you did the same, read on to see this from a different perspective.

Why was that single child playing all alone on the dead track. Probably because he knew that the live track is dangerous. Who was doing the right thing by playing on the safe track? The single child. Who did the wrong thing? The 10 children by putting their own lives in danger by playing on the live track. And in your judgement, who gets punished? The one who was doing the right thing.
Second point - the 10 boys knew that they are on the dangerous track so they might flee on hearing the train noise etc. However, the single child, knowing that he is on the safe track will almost certainly not move and hence is in a much bigger risk.

So what is the moral of your judgement - Follow the crowd, Don't use your own brains to understand what is right.

Sadly, similar is the state of affairs in India. Decisions are not taken on what is right or what is better for development. Instead, its based on what would make maximum people happy. And while it is most fruitful if the general happiness of the people aligns with development of country , it is not always possible to do that, particularly in a country this huge.
Short term efforts are made just before the elections to make general people happy and gather the votes, while long term planning with no immediate benefits are left out.

In democracy, heads are counted, not brains.

Haminasto Haminasto Haminasto

2006 was the year of trips to me. And in what better way could it have ended than a 7 day trip to Kashmir.

Firdaus wasn't kidding when he said that this place is the paradise on earth. Though some people took those words a bit too literally and decided to open a route to directly reach the zannat from it.
Sarcasm apart, it was good to see that military tensions are much less in these areas at this time and our trip went very smoothly.

No amount of words are sufficient to describe this trip. Hence I would let the pictures do all the talking :-)

Gulmarg - Starting off from the hotel


View from the Gondola (Ropeway)


The Mighty Skiers


It doesn't get better than this


Playing in the Snow


Srinagar - Houseboat we stayed in


Dal Lake - Char Chinar


Yusmarg - Heavy Snowfall


All we want is peace


Gulmarg - The panoramic view

You can find all the photos of the trip here.