Dekoh Released !

http://www.dekoh.net/index.jsp

इस्को देखो और दिखाओ !

A product that my company "Pramati Technologies" has developed for the Internet Users community. It's an open source networking tool which allows you to share content on your desktop with you friends without you having to upload any data on to the internet.

It's a cool app, check it out and I will write more about it soon....

Colors of Life

Beautiful colors, these! These are colors of life.
होली के दिन दिल मिल जाते हैं, रंगों में रंग घुल जाते हैं...

Indians celebrated Holi, the festival of colors, on 4th of March. Though some of them decided to play it a day earlier, leading to a great conflict about the actual date of Holi; except for this confusion, the festival was celebrated with the same old traditional enthusiasm it used to be when we were kids.

I can still remember my childhood days, when it was almost impossible to get a good night sleep on the eve of holi, for, the anticipation of next morning wouldn't let the sleep settle on you. We used to get up early in the mornings, around six and wait for the sun to shine in its full glory because that is when all the parents would allow the kids to come out on the streets, to smother each other in the vibrant colors of गुलाल (Gulal). The best part of playing holi was to be able to hurl water filled baloons on strangers without fearing adverse repercussions. We would hide on the terraces, our young bodies restless with volatile energy to aim the next passer by on the street with the precision of a sniper, because the kid with the highest hits would be treated as superior sharp-shooter by the rest. And the best part of celebrating Holi in Jaipur (where my family lives and I too used to live as a kid, since my dad was transferred there on the job) was the sweets. गुजिया (Gujia) and घेवर (Ghevar) were my favorite and it would be safe to assume that almost every other kid loved गुजिया as much as I did, for, that was the only sweet that would completely disappear within the moments of being brought to the fore.

As we grew older the attraction of holi also grew new dimensions for us. Early teens can be quite a yielding age for an average imaginative mind. The idea of smearing one's face with all the dirty dark colors and turning up at a friend's home and making him try to identify you hidden under the layers of unyielding colors can be quite an enjoyable experience if you are thirteen and believe that all the ideas that occur to you are ingenious and unique in the entire history of mankind. One of the other things that is included on one's agenda is to grab hold of an unsuspecting nerdy friend and drown him (not literally) in a tank filled with colored broth and treat him to the nasty and unfriendly-to-the-skin colors so that it takes him ten days to get the colors off his skin and a month to get them off his clothes.

The next stage of life is the late teens, when you are more interested in playing holi with a different section of your society: the opposite sex! Almost any and every person, from opposite gender, around you can give you an adrenalin rush with a mere thought of your hands running over their skin (or vice-versa), under the guise of playing holi. If you are lucky, these could be some of the most tantalizing moments your life that will play an essential part in the process of your growing up.

Next stage of holi in one's life is that of utter disgust! The early years of youth, for that is the time when you despise every single act of insignificance as a hurdle in your way to personal glory. You are more focused on serious things in life, like becoming independent, having a lifestyle, establishing yourself as a brand, earning laurels for your efforts and pocketing appreciation from your superiors and contemporaries alike and some good career deals to push you to a far more socially respectable stature.

Living a few years completely engrossed in achieving your goals in life, you tend to realize that you are missing out on fun. This is the time when you feel the need of having some close friends or one closer-than-the-rest friend in your life to share some memorable moments and/or do some romantic things with. This is when Holi meets us in an altogether different stage of life. The idea of playing holi sounds romantic and refreshing. Rubbing gulal on your partners face with the same zeal as used to be there in your childhood days, but only with a gentler movement of your hands, feeling your partner at same time letting them feel you through the colors of holi, colors of love and colors of life.


Holi is a festival that can refresh your spirit, whether or not you believe in its religious significance or spiritual importance. Holi is a festival that rejuvenates life which might otherwise be a batch of mundane chores that we have to do whether or not we like them. And as we all know Holi marks the advent of Spring too, in the cycle of four seasons, so in a way Holi is a symbolic game of colors, designed by our ancestors, to remind us the transitional nature of life and how important it is to enjoy every moment of it.

Happy Holi to you...

To Have And To Hold

Dusk is consuming the space around,
Silence heard and not a sound,
In the trees, in the grass, and in the sky,
The last signs of life, lie.

Outlines take a stronger define,
Just the silhouettes,and the lines.
Trails of a day, oblivious movements,
Rest, Contemplation and Reassurance.

Waiting eyes, a peaceful smile,
Restless glance spans the miles.
No promises, no expectations,
Just faith and determination.

She holds the light to my arrival,
And I pray for my survival.
Just to be with her one last time,
Hold her close to me, she's mine.

A need, she doesn't deny,
Yet doesn't crave for my,
Embrace, that would mean I am there,
And says "As long as I am in her heart,
She doesn't care."

Touch of her skin I do crave,
But there isn't much you can do,
From the grave.
I wish, I was there.

In Search of Wit...

Why does one turn skeptical? The general belief has it that people who can't achieve something turn against it and console themselves by negating the need of that thing:

GB Shaw said:

"Those who can, Do; Those who can't, Teach."

Not very far from reality. You give it your best shot and you fail. Either because it is a conspiracy against you (so you would like to believe) or your best was not good enough. And then comes the time to find someone to put the blame on. For, things that don't have a conscience, eventually become the poor victims of our critique. And to what objective, just to prove that they are not worth all the efforts invested in them.

The fun however is to have wit. A sense of humor, in order to detach yourself from the evaluation of a situation. You can't do it doesn't mean that no one else should ever try it either. Or that you should yourself never try it again. I tried my hand at a semi-porn fantasy somewhere in this blog and it was appreciated by a handful, though dismissed straightaway by most of my friends who believe I should invest my time in something more meaningful rather than wasting my talent in this apparently useless art of eroticism.

Alexander Pope says in his "Essay on Criticism",

In the search of wit these(poets) lose their common sense,
And then turn critics in their own defense.


Something that should be avoided as far as possible. Because the actual realization of your efforts is in analyzing why you went wrong, rather than dwelling upon self pity and effacement. You can turn on something as easily as cleaning you bowels when the pressure is great but the real test of character is in holding it back, hanging in there.


So the cowardly remarks like "There is whole world lying in front of you, forget about it." should be pro-actively discouraged and you should stick to your gun. You never know when you might fire that perfect shot. It's worth spending the whole life in trying to reach that perfect shot. No one and nothing is more important than that perfect shot of yours that is still there in your head and hasn't transcended into the physical world yet.

Roots In Kashmir

Hi All,

Please join hands with us:

Be Creative - Be Alive!

This article was published in my company magazine as an Editor's Note in the March edition. So kindly ignore the references made to Pramati (which is my company).

Opportunity is missed by most because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
Thomas Alva Edison

I must say opportunity is just a point of view. Some people are able to see it and some are not.

Welcome all of you to this second edition of Plugin. And thanks for such an overwhelming response! (That was sarcasm for all you naive ones.) It is surprising that we did not receive even a handful of entries in spite of all the promises made by you guys. And it was very disheartening. A magazine that was supposed to be published monthly had to be reduced to a bi-monthly volume.

Many thanks to the selected few who did contribute and encouraged us to bring out another edition of this magazine. In this space of last issue I shared with you an example of how important creativity is in our lives. This time I would like to take it a little further.

What defines creativity? Creativity is not like an exotic pet that only a few can afford in their lives. It is a medium of expression that everybody has an access to but very few care to venture into.

Who can be creative? Well there is usually a wrong notion stating that people who have nothing meaningful to do can devote time to creating some vague work of art. I strongly condemn this notion. I believe, people who are passionate about life only can be creative. Any form of art has the ability to let a person explore his/her inner feelings, values, emotions etc.

How to be creative? To be creative you just need to have conviction. And challenge everybody else's conviction, in your mind. Say, you could draw a scenary and paint an ocean yellow. Just because you want to see a yellow ocean. At such a situation, you tend to think how the other's will take your creation. Which kills your creativity. If you want your ocean yellow, just paint it yellow. It is as simple as that.

Why be creative? Because there is no other way to justify your existence. Just think, what do you do in your daily life, that the rest of the world doesn't do. If you could count something that nobody else does in this world, you existence is justified. If not, then NOW is the right time to start.

If you care to share, the world is waiting to listen to you.

My Book Of Questions - 3

Conflicts:

The biggest battle of all is the one we fight with our own conscience and yet we are moved the most by the trivial conflicts outside of us. Like: Whether to go for that tempting bachelor's party for the third time in the week or not? Whether to ask that calipygian colleague out for a coffee? Whether to tell your parents that you may not be able to visit them this summer since you are camping out with your gang-of-bikers?

An insurmountable challenge is to debate on a dilemma within yourself, with the full knowledge of both the sides of the argument. Whether to be honest or resort to dishonesty when under threat? Whether to stand firm and true to your principles or to compromise with a few to get around a situation? Whether to keep your word or break it if it seems an easy way out of your problems?

These battles are never ending. And the decisions we take make us what we become.

Why then do we care about the external conflicts so much?

Can't we simply focus on our internal conflicts and let the external ones settle out on their own?

Kashmir Dichotomy!

Why is it such a big problem for Indian Government to resolve the Kashmir Issue? Or for that matter, for anyone who is concerned with the cause, viz. Kashmiri pundits, Kashmir Muslims and Pakistan. The answer is the dichotomy in the approach to solve the problem.

One side of the picture, which is visible to the world, is the rightful ownership of the geographical paradise, which is Kashmir. Graced with the natural beauty, enhanced by the climatic ambiance and abundance of natural resources, makes it a great place to live and work in. Any human being in his right mind would want to inhabit such a serene and enthrallingly romantic place. And owing to its breathtaking scenery and historic heritage, it becomes a hot tourist spot as well, translating into accretion of foreign currency. Therefore, making it a lucrative job to govern the valley, for any administrative body. Anybody who rules Kashmir will no doubt be generating a huge revenue through tourism.

Also, it doesn't take an economist of the caliber of Amartya Sen, to figure out that any eco-friendly industry (apart from tourism) will be an ideal way to rejuvenate the sinking lifestyle of the inhabitants of Kashmir. The first and foremost example being the IT industry. There is a tremendous shortage of high-earning jobs in the valley of Kashmir, and the moment a Software Technology Park opens up in Srinagar or around it, in no time the focus of the wayward youth of Kashmir will be diverted towards the avenues of wealth generation instead of focusing on violent entanglements which are brought about by sheer idleness of mind.

The point is, if it sounds so simple, then why hasn't this solution been implemented so far? Why would the Government of India not take the needed steps towards these apparently easy way to the betterment of the state of affairs in the valley. This question now brings us to understanding the other side of the picture.

What could be the reason, that no government in last 60 years has been effective in finding a solution for the Kashmir problem? Why not take the route of industrialization, modernization of the valley if it can bring this perpetual problem to an end?

Based on the Indian political scenario, the only thing that comes to mind is that maybe the people who are ruling the country are not qualified enough or are deprived of the common sense, to look at the straightforward and amicable solutions. I would say, people who are in fact ruling a huge nation of diverse demographics, can't be so dumb as not to know what can bring this absolutely unproductive turmoil in the Valley of Kashmir to an end.

The dichotomy as I suggested in the very first paragraph of this article, is the need of the politicians to have some soft issues to arouse the nation's sympathies and achieve electoral victory. If there is a complete social harmony and no communal or extremist violence in the country, and if we focus on technological advancements and economic growth of our country, it render our politicians incapable of these petty thefts, by which they fill their Swiss banks accounts. Those in power, no matter how they got their, want to take the opportunity ensure a financial stability for their next ten generations to come. And they believe they can't achieve all that if they really work for the betterment of the country.

The politicians of our country, generally suffering from myopic vision, have consistently failed to see the long term benefits of engaging in healthy practices of managing the resources of our country, which can bring us at par with the countries like US and UK and can in turn improve their (politicians') standard of life too. Instead they have spent their lifetimes manipulating the major portion of our population, that is still illiterate, into believing that they are the only hope for the underprivileged. They have been twisting and bending the laws and constitution of our country to their own benefits such as burying their criminal past under the complicated intricacies of the law and generating new opportunities to commit more crimes. And they have consistently been acquiring wealth as if there was no tomorrow.And we, the citizens of India are to be blamed for giving such parasites the responsibility to run our country.

We need to understand that, for them Kashmir is not about the sentiments of the people who are the integral part of the history and geography of the Valley, it's not about bringing a status-quo, it's not even about providing a better platform for the citizens of this country to flourish on; it is just a matter of keeping some burning issues alive (like Gujarat, North-East, Reservations etc.) to keep their votebanks. So that they can get reelected to the same position and continue conning the certain segments of the people of our country as well as the whole world that we are abreast with the developed nations, and the credit goes to our most able leaders, when internally we all know that we are rotting because of the inadequate administration and governance.

The icing on the cake is the fact that now even some Kashmiri pundits have joined the rat race to gain political control over the Valley and are demanding a separate state, which they claim is the right solution to the problem. Kashmiri pundits, who are not even 10% of the population of the Valley claim themselves as representing the entire state and being capable of governing it independently. This is a stark indication of the politicization of a sensitive issue of reinstating harmony in a disturbed state. And as long as the unreasonable greed of these corrupted human beings is not satiated, we will never be able to achieve a good solution to this problem.

In my view, the only good solution to the problem is the end of political propaganda, which has been carried on, on the expense of innocent Kashmiris, who could never understand that they were always being used for a cause that had nothing to do with the improvement of their lives. And a more vigilant involvement on our part, in exercising our rights of choosing the right people to lead our country.

My Book Of Questions - 2

Compromise:

We have to live with so many compromises that it sometimes make me wonder how much of compromise are we really capable of? I look around and see so many imperfections, so many voids left to be filled with something meanigful and yet nothing arrives to fill in that gap of absolute absurdity. And most of the times it fills me with anger, because there is nothing I can do, or probably nothing that I want to do about it. Yet I feel that someone should do something about it. And that in turn adds to my frustration.

Why is it that so many things in our lives are left wanton?

What is it that drives us in spite of knowing that most of the things that we worry about may never really happen?

My Book of Questions -1

Relationship:

Being lonely really teaches you how to be in touch with yourself, so much so that you almost lose contact with the world outside you. You exist and that existence is so loud that you can’t hear anything else but yourself. There are merits and demerits of being aware of yourself, or in other words being self-conscious. You have to learn to accept yourself as you are because there is no way you can break up with yourself. It’s not like a relationship with a physically separated entity that you can snap out of when you don’t see any benefits of continuing it. It is a hard and naked truth that you have to live with. And there is no estrangement possible; no matter how hard you try. You are completely exposed to the weaknesses of your person and still you are not able to break up. I think that is the most difficult relationship to maintain. The one with yourself!

Why then is it so easy to breakup with another person you are in relationship with, just because he/she does not fit all your requirements?

Is it fair to expect high from a relationship? Is it fair to want things that you may not be able to compensate for?