Chintadhara - a thought process

My 10-day luxurious stay at home ends today, tomorrow I have go back to my daily routine in Chennai. Its not that I do not enjoy my life in Chennai, but still home is home ... sweetest! This time I came almost after a year. If you ask me how was my stay? I will use adjectives like awesome, great, mind-blowing, etc. But if you ask what all I did while I was here? Chances are I would look blankly at you. I actually do not do any constructive things while at home, I prefer becoming the laziest person on this planet. My activities include eating, dozing, watching TV, irritating mom, fighting with dad, etc. If I get time after all that then catch up with my mails and friends on chat. 10 days back when I came, I was looking forward to a long vacation. Today it seems it was too short! :(

This time I was at home on the occasion of Deepawali and Kali Pujo, after many years. And interesting fact is that I had mentioned last time I came home that I would come on Diwali next time, but had forgotten all about it. I think this what we call destiny. Here are few pics which I took with my parents at our home in NTPC-Kawas and Kali Pujo celebration at NTPC-Jhanor, about 3hrs from Kawas. If you have problems with the slideshow below please use the album link: http://saptarshide.myphotoalbum.com/slideshow.php?set_albumName=album26

I am writing this after one year and eight months of leaving NCST in Feb 2005. At that time I did not have my own blog site, but I used to regularly read the post on Raman sir's blog . It used to slowly motivate me to have one of my own and finally in the winters of 2005 I laid the foundation stone for this blog. My first post was dated Sunday, December 18, 2005. About 2 months later I started 'khichuri' along with Khuman Ngakpa , which is rather a collection than a blog. So the question is what prompted me to type this post now? The reason is recent post by Raman sir. Encouraged by him many ncstians of the present batch have started their own blog and started it with a post on their experiences in ncst till now. After reading through all those narratives, I too felt like narrating my experience. For some interesting reasons my batch is considered among the worst batches the institute have had, though I guess it was a beautiful patch of our lives. But its better if I start ...

I have believed technology to be a double-edged sword. Technology is good or bad; it’s the way we use it. My focus in this blog is on the free Google Earth service from our good old enabler Google . I remember when Google had launched the service; there was a lot of hue and cry about blocking it as it could be a possible security threat. Because it shows the satellite images of the strategic facilities and it might be used by the wrong persons. There was quite a debate then but luckily Google Earth survived it to be used by us to find our house, school, college and what not. I remember getting lot of forwards form my friends with Google Earth images. Few days back I came across one of the news which really made happy with the way Google Earth is being used. It is related to the SEZ controversy in Maharashtra. The government is trying to get lands from the farmers at cheaper rates saying that their lands are not fertile land. That’s when farmers turned to Google Earth to use its satelli...

An important aspect in starting a new initiative or joining an initiative new is to getting the full information about it. But this is the simplest thing which we always somehow miss. And it can lead to lot of troubles in the end which could have been avoided. The following piece highlights the point in funny way. Got it from one my colleagues in a forward. A new vacuum cleaner salesman knocked on the door on the first house of the street. A tall lady answered the door. Before she could speak, the enthusiastic salesman barged into the living room and opened a big black plastic bag and poured all the cow droppings onto the carpet. "Madam, if I could not clean this up with the use of this new powerful vacuum cleaner, I will EAT all this ...!" exclaimed the eager salesman. "Do you need chili sauce or ketchup with that" asked the lady. The bewildered salesman asked, "Why, madam?" "We just moved in, & there's no electricity in the house!"

'Can we ask question about something unknown to us?' This friday night I was in office winding up my last few activities for the weekend and looking forward for the long durga puja weekend. It was then one of my friends popped up on the messenger. We were having a nice chat about my job and other miscellaneous topics. In all that I asked him to tell about something about himself which I didn’t know. And he asked me to anything. And I replied back 'how can I ask about something which I don’t know?' . And this is the conversation that followed ... my friend: Hmm, logical logic.. my friend: But that's exactly why the concept of questions came into being, rit? me: no my friend: no? my friend: Enlighten me, then me: u ask question when you have doubt about something known to you but you dont understand it fully me: u can nvr ask question on a thing unknow to you O:-) my friend: Nope, not 'never'.. How does a child discover & learn things, when he's growin...